Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pay Gap and Performance

The growing pay gap between executives and employees has been subject to much media publicity and political attention in recent times. We examine how the executive and employee pay components of the pay gap drives firm performance. Economic theories of matching and managerial talent suggest talented executives who can generate relatively better firm performance receive wage premiums, implying a positive relation between the pay gap and performance. Alternatively, wage premiums to skilled employee talent suggest a negative pay gap - performance relation, consistent with efficiency wage theory Sociological theories suggest that the inequity implied by larger pay gaps lowers firm performance through the adverse effects on employee morale and productivity. To test these alternative theories, we utilize pay gap data from China that provides a setting with strong national preferences towards equity but also with a scarcity of experienced managers and abundance of low cost labor. Our results strongly support economic-based theories – firm performance is largely driven by pay premiums for executive talent. Additional tests using a smaller sample of US firms with pay gap data are consistent with our primary findings. Our study is likely to be of interest to politicians, regulators and company executives responsible for understanding and evaluating pay gap and executive pay.
Highly efficient integration and expression of piggyBac-derived cassettes in the honeybee (Apis mellifera)

Significance We report the first to our knowledge genetically engineered honeybees, which are important pollinators and interesting biological models for the study of social and complex behaviors as well as caste and sexual development. This genetic manipulation tool will enable systematic studies of biological processes in an organism building complex societies. We demonstrate highly efficient integration and expression of piggyBac-derived cassettes in the honeybee that make this system applicable to colony-based screening approaches and useful for an average beekeeping facility. This cassette was stably and efficiently transmitted and expressed in progeny by two different promoters, offering the prospect for activation or inhibition of gene functions under conditions of stage- and tissue-specific promoters. Honeybees (Apis mellifera), which are important pollinators of plants, display remarkable individual behaviors that collectively contribute to the organization of a complex society. Advances in dissecting the complex processes of honeybee behavior have been limited in the recent past due to a lack of genetic manipulation tools. These tools are difficult to apply in honeybees because the unit of reproduction is the colony, and many interesting phenotypes are developmentally specified at later stages. Here, we report highly efficient integration and expression of piggyBac-derived cassettes in the honeybee. We demonstrate that 27 and 20% of queens stably transmitted two different expression cassettes to their offspring, which is a 6- to 30-fold increase in efficiency compared with those generally reported in other insect species. This high efficiency implies that an average beekeeping facility with a limited number of colonies can apply this tool. We demonstrated that the cassette stably and efficiently expressed marker genes in progeny under either an artificial or an endogenous promoter. This evidence of efficient expression encourages the use of this system to inhibit gene functions through RNAi in specific tissues and developmental stages by using various promoters. We also showed that the transgenic marker could be used to select transgenic offspring to be employed to facilitate the building of transgenic colonies via the haploid males. We present here the first to our knowledge genetic engineering tool that will efficiently allow for the systematic detection and better understanding of processes underlying the biology of honeybees.
Internet Banking Service Quality in Malaysia: An Empirical Investigation

This study is among the first research that develops an instrument to measure Internet Banking Service (IBS) quality in Malaysian context based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and nine service quality dimensions. The objective of this research is to highlight the weaknesses and strengths of IBS quality dimensions from Malaysian users’ perspectives in order to increase the adoption of IBS. Five hundred and forty seven questionnaires were distributed and collected from the Klang Valley area in Selangor state. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The study results show that Malaysian Internet Banking users’ have attitudes and intentions of using IBS (mean rating more than 3.00). Furthermore, Malaysians users realize the advantages of using IBS by giving high mean ratings for service quality dimensions to ease of use, competence, product/service portfolio, reliability, security/privacy, and relative advantage. However, other dimensions such as response and contact, efficiency, and enjoyment obtained relatively low mean ratings as indictor of users’ behavioral intentions towards IBS. Implications and suggestions for future research were given.
Things every update replication customer should know (abstract)

In the rnid-1980s. Chrts Dare’s “12 rules” for distributed database systems included replication. Repi ication makes transparent the problems of remote access de]dys and the management of data redundancy. The commercial market for distributed database features has been slowly building over the years. beginning with simple remote access gateways. Today. replication appears to dehver on the 1980s ideal, with a robust a-wrrchrcmuus infrasrntctnre. Current commercial tmhnology though. continues to fall shotl of that ideal.
Business intelligence and SMEs: Bridging the gap

According to research findings, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are facing problems such as an excessively large volume of data, lack of information and lack of knowledge. Therefore, in order to make decisions on time, the managers of SMEs use mainly their experience, which implies a high risk of failure. Business intelligence (BI) is a useful and helpful tool, which brings many advantages and benefits to businesses. However, like any technology, it is accompanied by some limitations that must be overcome in order to help businesses to develop. This paper summarizes current research findings addressing the issue of the development and application of business intelligence systems for SMEs. The issues addressed are models for the estimation of the readiness of a SME to establish BI tools, alternative BI solutions for SMEs, benefits and challenges of BI in SMEs, implementation methods for BI systems in SMEs and finally, BI systems in cloud computing platforms. Research papers dealing with these issues are analyzed and the results are presented. This paper contributes to the understanding of problems and potentials regarding the development and application of BI systems in SMEs.
Simple Signals for System Identification

Event accessible for observation can be investigated by examining timeline of certain measureable values. Usually the process is referred to as time domain analysis of signals. Such a signal can be of many different origins. It could be comprised of values of electrical current or voltage, mechanical displacement or force, value of stock or popularity of politicians, reaction of the patient to medication, and essentially anything which is observable, measurable and quantifiable with reasonable accuracy. Observer will quite intuitively search for certain patterns and periods in signal if phenomena changes along the timeline. Some of them are easily detectable, such as periodic variation of the suns activity; some might appear as random fluctuations at the first glance, such as parameters of the seismic waves in Earth's crust. Of course sources of noise and other disturbances are usually omnipresent and will make matters much more difficult to observe and explain.
Analysis of the Effect of Multiple Testing in Assessing Tobacco Product Differences

Summary During the last two decades, an increase of tobacco product reporting requirements from regulators was observed, such as Europe, Canada or USA. However, the capacity to compare and discriminate accurately two products is impacted by the number of constituents used for the comparison. Indeed, performing a large number of simultaneous independent hypothesis tests increases the probability of rejection of the null hypothesis when it should not be rejected. This leads to virtually guarantee the presence of type I errors among the findings. Correction methods have been developed to overcome this issue like the Bonferroni or Benjamini & Hochberg ones. The performance of these methods was assessed by comparing identical tobacco products with different sizes of data sets. Results showed that multiple comparisons lead to erroneous conclusions if the risk of type I error is not corrected. Unfortunately, reducing the type I error impacts the statistical power of the tests. Consequently, strategies for dealing with multiplicity of data should provide a reasonable balance between testing requirement and statistical power of differentiation. Multiple testing for product comparison is less of a problem if studies restrict to the most relevant parameters for comparison.
AnonSocialMix: anonymous p2p file sharing over social networks

Peer-to-peer (P2P) ﬁle sharing accounts for one of the major sources of the Internet traﬃc. As privacy and anonymity issues continue to grow due to constant censorship and network surveillance, more and more Internet users are getting attracted towards the facilities for anonymous communication. Extensive research has been conducted over the years towards the design and development of several anonymous P2P ﬁle sharing protocols and systems. Size of the Anonymity Set plays a crucial role in determining the degree of anonymity being provided by such networks. However, most of the existing anonymous infrastructures create a completely new network and invite users to join in. As a result, even popular systems like Freenet and GNUnet suﬀer from not enough participants. Popular Online Social Networks (OSNs) like Facebook and Twitter have an existing strong network of millions of users which can provide us with a readily exploitable abstraction of a P2P platform for implementing an anonymous communication scheme. In this thesis, we explore the possibility of allowing censorship-resistant P2P ﬁle sharing on top of Facebook , an inherently non-anonymous non-P2P architecture. We present the design of AnonSocialMix, an overlay network that uses Facebook as the underlying platform to enable its existing set of users to search and share ﬁles in a distributed, anonymous, peer-to-peer fashion. We use Dropbox as the ﬁle hosting service. Users of our proposed system no longer need to hide their identities behind a mask as the proposed cryptographic framework preserves the anonymity, privacy and conﬁdentiality of the communications and ensures an infrastructure that is strongly resistant to Eavesdropping , Traﬃc Analysis and Timing Attacks . It is further infeasible to determine the actual source of a request or a reply as the proposed communication scheme makes it impossible to distinguish between the actual creator of a message and its forwarder. We have implemented a server-based running prototype of our proposed design in the form of a Chrome extension to verify our claims. We further compare its performance with the results of a controlled lab based simulation of our system and obtain encouraging results.
E protein dosage influences brain development more than family member identity

Loss‐of‐function studies have revealed the role of many basic helix‐loop‐helix (bHLH) transcription factors at specific points during development; however, the role of E proteins in the development of the nervous system has not been experimentally addressed. E proteins have been speculated to interact selectively with class II bHLH factors to form different neurogenic complexes. In this study, using coimmunoprecipitation in a culture model of neurogenesis (P19 cells), we show that E proteins E12, HEB, and E2‐2 interact with neuroD2. Using electrophoretic mobility shift assay and P19 cell culture, we show that these heterodimers bind a neuroD2 preferred E box and induce neurogenesis equally well. We examine the mRNA levels of the three E proteins at 10 time points during brain development and show that E protein gene expression is regulated such that at certain times during development selective interaction between neuroD2 and a single E protein (HEB) is a possibility. This led us to study the brains of HEB and E2A knockout mice, which manifest no gross neuroanatomical, cellular, or behavioral deficits. These findings, together with homology in the primary peptide sequence of E proteins, suggest functional compensation among E proteins during development of the nervous system. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Average steady nonuniform flow in stratified formations

A mathematical model of average nonuniform flow in heterogeneous stratified media is developed. The averaged Darcy's law is obtained by deriving the analytical expression of the effective conductivity tensor for media with small heterogeneities. The fundamental solution of the average flow equation (mean Green function) corresponding to the flow toward a single point source of deterministic discharge is derived. The mean head distribution is calculated for a fully penetrating well, for a finite length well in an infinite domain, and for a dipole well. The concept of equivalent conductivity is defined for use in identifying the formation conductivity properties. The procedure for identifying the mean conductivity, log conductivity variance, and vertical integral scale is suggested for the case of dipole flow.
The influence of Shariah (Islamic principles) corporate governance on cross-border merger and acquisitions involving Islamic companies in the Gulf countries

The central aim of the research is to examine whether cross-border Merger and Acquisitions (M&A) involving Islamic financial companies in three Gulf countries and non-Islamic financial companies from the Western countries is influenced by Shariah Corporate Governance (CG). Cross-border M&A is a corporate level strategy to achieve organisational growth and expansion through accessing new markets and additional strategic resources (knowledge, technology and complementary skills). Islamic financial companies in the Gulf region are keen to engage with non-Islamic financial companies beyond the Islamic world to benefit from the cross-border M&A. However, for Islamic financial companies to operate at global scale and attract resources, investors, regulators, customers, and other stakeholders should trust that strong CG principles are embedded in the organisation’s core. CG theory suggests that good corporate governance enables corporations’ access to external financial resources if CG mechanisms provides a clear enforceability of stakeholders’ rights with complementary robust legal system. Existing literature suggest that both Islamic and non-Islamic financial companies operate in different institutional, political, cultural, religious, and regulatory environments; which adversely affect the extent to which these two sets of companies could mutually engage in a successful cross-border M&A. In the context of Gulf countries, for example, there is no distinction between the state and religion and there is a stringent requirement to comply with the Shariah, however, the existence of conflicting opinions on Islam has resulted in varying views with regards to what qualifies as Islamic finance that has led to a latitude of multiple interpretations of Shariah principles by Shariah scholars and Shariah Supervisory Board. Also, Islamic financial companies are more likely to be considered as social entities than a commercial enterprise, which differs from the Western view. Consistent with the above context-based literature and drawing on the stewardship, agency and stakeholder theories, this study seeks to answer the key research question ‘how Shariah corporate governance influences cross-border M&A between Islamic and nonIslamic financial companies?
The role of viral infections in exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are major causes of global morbidity and mortality worldwide. The clinical course of both asthma and COPD are punctuated by the occurrence of exacerbations, acute events characterized by increased symptoms and airflow obstruction. Exacerbations contribute most of the morbidity, mortality and excess healthcare costs associated with both asthma and COPD. COPD and asthma exacerbations are frequently associated with respiratory virus infections and this has led to an intense research focus into the mechanisms of virus-induced exacerbations over the past decade. Current therapies are effective in reducing chronic symptoms but are less effective in preventing exacerbations, particularly in COPD. Understanding the mechanisms of virus-induced exacerbation will lead to the development of new targeted therapies that can reduce the burden of virus-induced exacerbations. In this review we discuss current knowledge of virus-induced exacerbations of asthma and COPD with a particular focus on mechanisms, human studies, virus–bacteria interactions and therapeutic advances.
$\ell_1$ Regression using Lewis Weights Preconditioning and Stochastic Gradient Descent

We present preconditioned stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithms for the $\ell_1$ minimization problem $\min_{x}\|A x - b\|_1$ in the overdetermined case, where there are far more constraints than variables. Specifically, we have $A \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times d}$ for $n \gg d$. Commonly known as the Least Absolute Deviations problem, $\ell_1$ regression can be used to solve many important combinatorial problems, such as minimum cut and shortest path. SGD-based algorithms are appealing for their simplicity and practical efficiency. Our primary insight is that careful preprocessing can yield preconditioned matrices $\tilde{A}$ with strong properties (besides good condition number and low-dimension) that allow for faster convergence of gradient descent. In particular, we precondition using Lewis weights to obtain an isotropic matrix with fewer rows and strong upper bounds on all row norms. We leverage these conditions to find a good initialization, which we use along with recent smoothing reductions and accelerated stochastic gradient descent algorithms to achieve $\epsilon$ relative error in $\tilde{O}(nnz(A) + d^{2.5} \epsilon^{-2})$ time with high probability, where $nnz(A)$ is the number of non-zeros in $A$. This improves over the previous best result using gradient descent for $\ell_1$ regression. We also match the best known running times for interior point methods in several settings. Finally, we also show that if our original matrix $A$ is approximately isotropic and the row norms are approximately equal, we can give an algorithm that avoids using fast matrix multiplication and obtains a running time of $\tilde{O}(nnz(A) + s d^{1.5}\epsilon^{-2} + d^2\epsilon^{-2})$, where $s$ is the maximum number of non-zeros in a row of $A$. In this setting, we beat the best interior point methods for certain parameter regimes.
Scleritis associated with sarcoidosis

Purpose: To review scleritis cases associated with sarcoidosis and to evaluate clinical features, medical treatment, and clinical course. Methods: Two cases of diffuse anterior scleritis and a nodular scleritis case associated with systemic sarcoidosis were evaluated. Scleritis was the first manifestation of sarcoidosis in two of the patients and the diagnosis of sarcoidosis was confirmed with a conjunctival biopsy. The third patient had the diagnosis of systemic sarcoidosis when she developed scleritis. Results: Based on the clinical and histological appearance, two patients presented with bilateral diffuse anterior scleritis and the third patient with an anterior nodular scleritis. One patient already had the diagnosis of systemic sarcoidosis at presentation, while ocular findings led to the diagnosis in the other two cases. Conjunctiva or skin biopsies revealed features compatible with the diagnosis of sarcoidosis. Scleritis attacks recurred in two patients. All patients responded well to systemic corticosteroid (prednisone) therapy. Conclusions: Scleritis associated with sarcoidosis has rarely been described and it may be the presenting sign of systemic sarcoidosis.
Strategic B2B customer experience management: the importance of outcomes-based measures

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critique the adequacy of efforts to capture the complexities of customer experience in a business-to-business (B2B) context using input–output measures. The paper introduces a strategic customer experience management framework to capture the complexity of B2B service interactions and discusses the value of outcomes-based measurement. Design/methodology/approach This is a theoretical paper that reviews extant literature related to B2B customer experience and asks fresh questions regarding B2B customer experience at a more strategic network level. Findings The paper offers a reconceptualisation of B2B customer experience, proposes a strategic customer experience management framework and outlines a future research agenda. Research limitations/implications This paper is conceptual and seeks to raise questions surrounding the under-examined area of B2B customer experience. As a consequence, it has inevitable limitations resulting from the lack of empirical evidence to support the reconceptualisation. Practical implications Existing measures of customer experience are problematic when applied in a B2B (services) context. Rather than adopting input- and output-based measures, widely used in a business-to-consumer (B2C) context, a B2B context requires a more strategic approach to capturing and managing customer experience. Focussing on strategically important issues should generate opportunities for value co-creation and are more likely to involve outcomes-based measures. Social implications Improving the understanding of customer experience in a B2B context should allow organisations to design better services and consequently enhance the experiences of their employees, their customers and other connected actors. Originality/value This paper critiques the current approach to measuring customer experience in a B2B context, drawing on contemporary ideas of value-in-use, outcomes-based measures and “Big Data” to offer potential solutions to the measurement problems identified.
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF ISLAMIC BANKING SOME EVIDENCE FROM SAUDI ARABIAN BANKING SECTOR

III Acknowledgement . IV List of tables . VII List of graphs . VIII List of Abbreviations . IX Chapter1Introduction . 1 Background of the study . 1 Problem statement . 2 Objective . 3 General objective . 3 Specific objectives . 3 Theoretical framework . 4 Conceptual framework . 6 Operational framework . 8 Profitability ratios . 8 Liquidity ratios . 9 Leverage ratio/ Capital structure ratio . 10 Efficiency ratio . 11 Research Hypothesis . 12 Limitations of this paper . 12 Structure of the study . 13 Chapter2: Literature Review . 15 Literature review on Islamic banking: . 15 What is Islamic banking system? 15 History and growth of Islamic finance . 15 Core concept of Islamic banking and its principles . 18 Lending models of Islamic banking . 20 Literature review on Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) . 23 Economic background . 23 Development of Saudi Arabian banking sector . 24 Islamic banking in Saudi Arabia . 28 Literature review on banks’ profitability: . 32 Profitability of conventional banks . 32 Profitability of Islamic banking . 34 Performance of Saudi banking industry . 36 Chapter 3 -Data and Methodology . 38