Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antigenotoxic Effect Against Ultraviolet Radiation‐induced DNA Damage of the Essential Oils from Lippia Species

The antigenotoxicity against ultraviolet radiation (UV)‐induced DNA damage of essential oils (EO) from Lippia species was studied using SOS Chromotest. Based on the minimum concentration that significantly inhibits genotoxicity, the genoprotective potential of EO from highest to lowest was Lippia graveolens, thymol‐RC ≈ Lippia origanoides, carvacrol‐RC ≈ L. origanoides, thymol‐RC > Lippia alba, citral‐RC ≈ Lippia citriodora, citral‐RC ≈ Lippia micromera, thymol‐RC > L. alba, myrcenone‐RC. EO from L. alba, carvone/limonene‐RC, L. origanoides, α‐phellandrene‐RC and L. dulcis, trans‐β‐caryophyllene‐RC did not reduce the UV genotoxicity at any of the doses tested. A gas chromatography with flame ionization detection analysis (GC‐FID) was conducted to evaluate the solubility of the major EO constituents under our experimental conditions. GC‐FID analysis showed that, at least partially, major EO constituents were water‐soluble and therefore, they were related with the antigenotoxicity detected for EO. Constituents such as p‐cymene, geraniol, carvacrol, thymol, citral and 1,8‐cineole showed antigenotoxicity. The antioxidant activity of EO constituents was also determined using the oxygen radical antioxidant capacity (ORAC) assay. The results showed that the antigenotoxicity of the EO constituents was unconnected with their antioxidant activity. The antigenotoxicity to different constituent binary mixtures suggests that synergistic effects can occur in some of the studied EO.
Is Project Organising Temporary

It had become axiomatic in research on project orga nising that projects are temporary organisations. Yet there are a number of challenges to this axiom: research on matrix organisation, the embeddedness of projects in proje ct ecologies, and projectification all emphasise the relationship of the project to perman ent organisations. Similarly, research on project-based firms and owner organisations challen ge this axiom. This paper develops a model of project organising which combines the thre e domains of project, project-based firm, and owner organisation and emphasises the importanc e of sophisticated programme partners at the interface of all three. The model draws our attention to two important areas for future research. The first is the interfaces between the t hr e domains of project organising: assurance, resourcing and governance. The first two of these are particularly underresearched. The second is project organising as tem porary configurations of permanent organisations coming together in coalitions to deli ver particular outputs. In particular, more research would be beneficial on how such coalitions move through the project life-cycle.
The Determinants of Loyalty in Hotels

The hotel industry is a large industry contributing substantially to global economies and providing employment for many million people worldwide. Given the size and economic significance of the industry, it is important to understand the aspects of business performance that persuade customers to become repeat purchasers, and to exhibit behavioral loyalty. Despite the significance of the industry, there has been little research to investigate the antecedents of, and influences on, behavioral loyalty. The major global hotel corporations place considerable emphasis on the brand for marketing but there has been little research found that has investigated the role of the brand in determining behavioral loyalty in hotels. This article provides an evaluation of the linkages between service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction and behavioral loyalty. The impact of brand trust and brand attitude is added to the model and provides new understanding on the interactions between the constructs within a service sector context. Findings indicate that service quality, mediated by customer satisfaction is the largest determinant, but that brand trust, mediated by brand attitude, is a significant moderator of behavioral loyalty.
Performance Evaluation of Mutual Funds in Pakistan

This paper presents an overview of the Pakistani mutual fund industry and also evaluates mutual fund performance using a survivorship bias controlled sample of funds. By the end of financial year 2004, 112 billion rupees were invested in mutual funds. The main purpose of this study is to examine the risk and return characteristics of Pakistan equity mutual funds and balanced funds. Risk-adjusted performance is evaluated using three evaluation techniques, i.e., Sharpe Ratio, Treynor Ratio, and Jensen differential measure. The overall results suggest that mutual funds in Pakistan are able to add value as indicated by their positive after-cost alphas. Our results are similar to the results of studies carried out on European mutual funds performance. However, our results deviate from most United States studies wherein it is investigated and stated that mutual funds under-perform the market by the amount of expenses they charge.
The Extent of Awareness of the Importance of Accounting Knowledge Management in the Jordanian Industrial Shareholding Companies

This study intended to highlight the importance of accounting knowledge management at Jordanian industrial shareholding companies, and to measure the degree of awareness of this importance. It also aims to find out the obstacles restricting such use. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed by hand to the financial managers, the heads of accounting departments and the accountants of the industrial shareholding companies listed in Amman Financial Market in 2003. An analysis of the responses revealed that industrial companies' financial managers were aware of the importance of using accounting knowledge management, and that there are many obstacles restricting its usage.
Comparison of BACTEC PLUS Blood Culture Media to BacT/Alert FA Blood Culture Media for Detection of Bacterial Pathogens in Samples Containing Therapeutic Levels of Antibiotics

ABSTRACT Blood culture bottles with antimicrobial removal systems are recommended for patients who develop fever while on antibiotics. This study compared the ability of Becton Dickinson (Sparks, MD) BACTEC PLUS bottles and bioMerieux (Durham, NC) BacT/Alert FA bottles to effectively remove vancomycin, cefoxitin, ceftriaxone, cefepime, piperacillin-tazobactam, ampicillin, oxacillin, gentamicin, and a combination of gentamicin/penicillin, thus allowing bacterial pathogens to grow. Each bottle was spiked with 10 ml of human blood, antibiotic, and strains of organisms susceptible to the antibiotic evaluated. The organisms used were type strains and clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus (methicillin susceptible and resistant), Streptococcus pneumoniae, a viridans streptococcus, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Streptococcus agalactiae, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Testing was completed in triplicate, using 10 to 100 CFU/ml of organisms with various concentrations of each antibiotic. Two rounds of testing were completed per antibiotic/organism combination. Bottles were mixed and loaded onto their respective instruments as per the manufacturer's instructions. Antimicrobial removal was evaluated on the basis of time to detection of organism growth, for up to 5 days of incubation. Overall, the BacT/Alert FA system recovered 25.1% of strains from test bottles and 96.9% of strains from growth control bottles (no antibiotic added), and the BACTEC PLUS system recovered 95.1% of strains from test bottles and 100% of strains from growth control bottles. Both systems performed well in the detection of Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the presence of gentamicin. In the presence of ceftriaxone, neither system was able to recover Streptococcus pneumoniae. The ability to remove vancomycin and cefoxitin was also determined by measuring antibiotic levels remaining in bottles after 1 h of incubation. The results demonstrated remaining levels of 72 to 90% of vancomycin and 71 to 72% of cefoxitin in the BacT/Alert system. For the BACTEC system, remaining levels were 0 to 30% of vancomycin and 0% of cefoxitin. Under these simulated conditions, the BACTEC PLUS system was superior to the BacT/Alert FA system in recovering gram-positive and gram-negative bacterial pathogens in the presence of β-lactam antibiotics, gentamicin/penicillin, and vancomycin.
Activity of antileishmanial agents against amastigotes in human monocyte-derived macrophages and in mouse peritoneal macrophages.

Leishmania multiplying within either human monocyte-derived macrophages (HM) or mouse peritoneal exudate cells (PEC) have recently been shown to be susceptible to pentavalent antimony (Sb) by several investigators. The Sb susceptibilities of 5 cutaneous strains of Leishmania were compared in the 2 model systems, with infection of the macrophages initiated with either amastigotes or promastigotes. The susceptibility to Sb of amastigote-induced infections was statistically the same as the susceptibility of promastigote-induced infections for 4 strains in the PEC model, and for 3 of 4 strains in the HM model. Promastigote-induced infections with the 5th strain were non-viable in both macrophage types. The susceptibility of Leishmania to Sb within PEC was the same statistically as that of organisms within HM for amastigote-induced infections for 4 of 5 strains and for promastigote-induced infections by 3 of 4 strains. These data suggested that the susceptibilities of organisms to Sb within PEC and HM were generally comparable and that either amastigotes or viable promastigotes could be used to initiate the infection. The several technical advantages of the PEC model may make it more useful than the HM model for testing susceptibility to Sb. The modest susceptibility of some strains in both models to the peak serum amounts of antimony which may be achieved by presently recommended treatment regimes may partially explain the high current failure rate in simple cutaneous disease. The susceptibility of one strain within peritoneal cells to primaquine and WR 6026 (8-aminoquinolines), ketoconazole (an imidazole) and formycin B (an inosine analogue) was similar to that previously reported in human macrophages. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Thyrotropin Levels, Insulin Resistance, and Metabolic Syndrome: A Cross-Sectional Analysis in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil).

BACKGROUND Previous studies have described an association with thyrotropin (TSH) levels, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome. We performed a cross-sectional analysis to investigate the relationship between TSH levels, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome using baseline data from the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil). METHODS Diabetics and individuals using medications that interfere in thyroid function were excluded, leaving 10,935 participants (54.3% women) for current analyses. Homeostasis Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) values above the 75th percentile was considered as indicative of presence of insulin resistance. Logistic regression models were built using HOMA-IR and metabolic syndrome as the dependent variable, and quintiles of TSH as the independent variable (first quintile as reference). Odds ratios (OR) were presented with multivariate adjustment for socioeconomic/cardiovascular risk factors for insulin resistance, and adjustment only for socioeconomic factors and smoking for metabolic syndrome. RESULTS Age, body mass index, waist measurement, fasting glucose and fasting and post load insulin and HOMA-IR increased according to TSH quintiles. Subjects in the fifth TSH quintile presented an OR of association with insulin resistance of 1.86 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.26-2.75], regardless of gender. For the metabolic syndrome, subjects in the fifth quintile presented an OR of 1.21 (95% CI 1.01-1.45) and remained positive only for men (OR 1.37; 95% CI 1.07-1.76). Restricting the analysis to quintiles of TSH in the normal range did not change the results. CONCLUSIONS In this cross-sectional evaluation, high TSH quintiles were associated to insulin resistance/metabolic syndrome.
Ready or Not, Here I Come

We have been trying to explore embodied cognition by putting computational cognitive models on physical robots. We believe that there are three primary advantages to doing so: 1. Algorithms written for traditional real-time robotic systems tend to use efficient mathematical representations such as matrices, which may not be natural for people to use. People seem to use a combination of spatial and propositional knowledge (Shepard & Metzler, 1971;Taylor & Tversky, 1992). Using common representations also eliminates complex processes of translation and decreases confusion due to loss of information. 2. Second, if a human is going to collaborate in shared space with a robot, the robot should not exhibit unnatural or “alien” behaviors. Therefore, we propose that some robot behaviors should be modeled on human performance of a task. 3. Third, we believe that in some areas of robotics, the use of computational cognitive models, rather than traditional control algorithms, is simply a better programming technique for the task. For a domain, we have chosen hide and seek, because it forces us to work in a complex, dynamic environment, it allows us to explore embodied cognition issues (i.e., when is someone hiding? ), and allows us to explore methods of combining both cognitive and robotic/AI methods into a single system. Hide and seek also encapsulates many interesting real-world tasks including urban search and rescue, homeland defense (finding nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons), and military actions such as finding hidden troops. In our previous work (Trafton, et al., 2004), we have described a case study of a young child learning how to play hide and seek. We built an ACT-R (Anderson and Lebiere, 1998) model of the sequence of learning that the child went through, put that model on the robot, and showed that the robot is able to learn where the appropriate places to hide are, and play hide and seek. We were able
The Relative Effects of Relationship Quality and Exchange Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty

ABSTRACT This paper addresses two key questions on how supplier firms can better manage industrial buyers to create higher loyalty. The first involves whether to focus on relationship quality or exchange satisfaction. This dual route model towards enhancing loyalty in essence is concerned with comparing the relative strengths of the effect from relationship quality to loyalty and from exchange satisfaction to loyalty. The second point of interest pertains to whether the effects from relationship quality and exchange satisfaction to loyalty are moderated by environmental conditions such as switching barriers and viable alternatives. Using data on business customers' ratings of a major information technology provider, we find that the effect of exchange satisfaction on loyalty is significantly greater than the effect of relationship quality on loyalty. We also find that the impact of exchange satisfaction on loyalty is less sensitive and more stable across different levels of switching barriers and viable alternatives. Conversely, the effect of relationship quality on loyalty is more pronounced to such moderating variables in that the effect of relationship quality on loyalty was greater when switching barriers were low and many viable alternatives existed. Implications for marketing theory and practice are discussed.
Midscale Food Value Chains: An Introduction

This introductory discussion positions midscale food value chains as business models for a "third tier" in the U. S. food system, distinct from direct marketing to local consumers and global marketing of agricultural commodities. Responding to a growing demand for food that is differentiated from conventional products, midscale food value chains are developing strategic business alliances among small and medium sized farms or ranches and other agri-food enterprises. These supply chain alliances: (a) handle significant volumes of high-quality, differentiated food products; (b) operate effectively at regional, multistate levels; and (c) distribute profits equitably among the strategic partners. Value chain business models place emphasis on both the values associated with the food and the values associated with the business relationships within the food supply chain. Farmers and ranchers are treated as strategic partners, not as interchangeable input suppliers. Midscale food value chains employ two distinct, multifarm marketing strategies: direct-to-wholesale and direct-to-consumer. Both marketing strategies are based on organizational structures that achieve the necessary volumes of high-quality, differentiated food by aggregating product from multiple farms or ranches. The introduction concludes with a discussion of the challenges associated with developing successful midscale food value chains and of needed research and public policies to support the growth of this third tier.
A hug from a robot encourages prosocial behavior

This paper presents the effects of being hugged by a robot to encourage prosocial behaviors. In human-human interaction, touches including hugs are essential for communication with others. Touches also show interesting effects, including the “Midas touch,” which encourages prosocial behaviors from the people who have been touched. Previous research demonstrated that people who touched a robot experienced positive impressions of it without clarifying whether being hugged by a robot causes the Midas touch effect, i.e., positively influences engagement in prosocial behaviors. We developed a huge, teddy-bear-like robot that can give reciprocal hugs to people and experimentally investigated its effects on their behaviors. In the experiment, a robot first asked participants to give a hug and then asked them to make charitable donations in two conditions: with or without a reciprocated hug. Our experiment results with 38 participants showed that those who were hugged by a robot donated more money than those who only hugged the robot, i.e., without a reciprocated hug.
Mark Twain’s Cat: Investment Experience, Categorical Thinking and Stock Selection

This paper examines the effect of prior investment experience in specific industries on subsequent investment decisions. Using households’ trading records from a large discount broker between 1991 and 1996, I find that prior success in a given industry increases the likelihood of subsequent purchases in the same industry. The effect is stronger for more recent experiences and for less sophisticated or diversified investors, and it is not wealth enhancing. The results suggest investors categorize industries at a highly resolved level, finer than the Fama–French ten-industry classification. Similar effects are also apparent for size- and value-based categories but at smaller magnitudes.
Statistical exponential families: A digest with flash cards

This document describes concisely the ubiquitous class of exponential family distributions met in statistics. The first part recalls definitions and summarizes main properties and duality with Bregman divergences (all proofs are skipped). The second part lists decompositions and related formula of common exponential family distributions. We recall the Fisher-Rao-Riemannian geometries and the dual affine connection information geometries of statistical manifolds. It is intended to maintain and update this document and catalog by adding new distribution items.
Impact of corporate social responsibility on brand extension success via organizational trust: moderating role of the CSR communication

This study investigated the moderated mediation mechanism through which corporate social responsibility affects brand extension success. This study posits that organizational trust mediates the relationship between corporate social responsibility and brand extension success. We further hypothesized that the CSR communication would moderate this process; high CSR communication would strengthen the effect of CSR on brand extension success. The findings showed that CSR positively affects brand extension success via organizational trust. Data were obtained from 316 consumers who have knowledge of the CSR actions of various organizations operating in Pakistan and brand extension. We have selected those organizations for our data collection which are doing CSR in Pakistan. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for both research and practice.
Extent of Internet-based Technology Use in New Product Development Projects in Canada and the United States

Internet-based technologies (IBT) have become very popular tools in new product development. However, there is lack of research on how extensively different technologies are used and what they are used for. The objective of this study is to investigate the current state of adoption of Internet-based technologies by Canadian and American manufacturing companies and also to investigate the differences in their applications and use in projects with different levels of product innovativeness, team proximity, and suppliers’ involvement in the team. The research uses data collected from 278 NPD projects conducted by Canadian and American manufacturing companies.
The Association between Viability Related Factors and Control Package Choices in the Context of Foreign Subsidiaries

This paper examines the implications of factors relevant to the ongoing viability of wholly owned foreign subsidiary operations on the management control choices exercised by multinational corporation headquarters. We focus on two areas important for wholly owned foreign subsidiary viability, first strategic factors, relating to both corporate and competitive positions, and second integration factors, relating to both foreign subsidiary integration within and outside a multinational corporation. The motivation for this study is based on the continued importance of wholly owned foreign subsidiaries and the associated challenged when controlling these entities. To develop a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of the implications of viability related factors, we apply a control package approach, building on the findings of prior literature. Our evidence is based on a cross sectional survey questionnaire we develop and administer for which we received 159 useable responses. Based on transaction cost economics theory, we hypothesise that viability related factors effect control package choices and in particular effect the greater use of all control packages to a greater extent in situations that are less problematic (low uncertainty, asset specificity and ex-post information asymmetry). Our findings indicate that activity sharing corporate strategies, low cost strategies and higher corporate embeddedness do affect the greater use control packages in many cases, consistent with expectations. However differentiation based competitive strategies and external embeddedness appear to have far more distinct and narrow implications on control package choices. A number of alternative regression modelling approaches are run, however the main continuous variable based regression model results, presented in this paper, appear be explain control packages choices to the greatest extent.
A New Algorithm for Generating All the Maximal Independent Sets

The problem of generating all the maximal independent sets (or maximal cliques) of a given graph is fundamental in graph theory and is also one of the most important in terms of the application of graph theory. In this paper, we present a new efficient algorithm for generating all the maximal independent sets, for which processing time and memory space are bounded by $O(nm\mu)$ and $O(n+m)$, respectively, where n, m, and $\mu$ are the numbers of vertices, edges, and maximal independent sets of a graph.