Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unpacking brand management superiority: Examining the interplay of brand management capability, brand orientation and formalisation

Purpose A strong brand is one that consumers know and perceive as differentiated from competing brands. Building brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness is critical to ensuring brand strength and sustained competitiveness. To this end, the roles of brand management capability and brand orientation are highlighted. However, given the significance of consistency in branding, firms’ brand management capability and brand orientation alone may not be sufficient, and a mechanism that facilitates branding consistency is required. In the integrating marketing control theory with the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities (DC) theory, this study aims to examine how a firm’s brand orientation, when supported by formalisation, contributes to building brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness through the intervening role of brand management capability. Design/methodology/approach In testing the hypotheses proposed in this study, survey data were drawn from a sample of firms operating in the consumer goods sector and examined through hierarchical regression analysis. Findings This study finds that firms are more likely to build brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness in the market when their brand orientation is supported by formalisation, because this combination (brand orientation and formalisation) facilitates branding consistency and brand management capability development. Originality/value In weaving together the theoretical perspectives of marketing control, RBV and DC, this study extends current knowledge by showing that brand management capability and brand orientation alone are insufficient for building brands with high levels of awareness and uniqueness. Instead, maximising their performance effects requires the support of formalisation.
Human immunodeficiency virus‐associated progressive multifocal leucoencephalopathy: epidemiology and predictive factors for prolonged survival

We performed a retrospective review of cases of human immunodeficiency virus‐associated progressive multifocal leucoencephalopathy in four hospitals (three in Australia and one in Hong Kong) between 1987 and 2003 in order to describe the local experience with this disease and to evaluate parameters impacting upon survival. Eighty‐seven cases were identified and demographic details, baseline parameters and treatment methods and response were described. Survival was substantially increased in the post‐highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) era with a median survival increase from 14 to 64 weeks. On multivariate analysis, variables associated with prolonged survival included a CD4 count of >100 cells/μl at diagnosis and the use of HAART post‐diagnosis, with no significant additional advantage from the use of neuroactive antiretrovirals.
Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of the Aquaporin Gene Family and Transcriptional Responses to Boron Deficiency in Brassica napus

Aquaporins (AQPs) are an abundant protein family and play important roles to facilitate small neutral molecule transport across membranes. Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) is an important oil crop in China and elsewhere in the world, and is very sensitive to low boron (B) stress. Several AQP family genes have been reported to be involved in B transport across plasma membranes in plants. In this study, a total of 121 full-length AQPs were identified and characterized in B. napus (AC genome), and could be classified into four sub-families, including 43 PIPs (plasma membrane intrinsic proteins), 35 TIPs (tonoplast intrinsic proteins), 32 NIPs (NOD26-like intrinsic proteins), and 11 SIPs (small basic intrinsic proteins). The gene characteristics of BnaAQPs were similar to those of BraAQPs (A genome) and BolAQPs (C genome) including the composition of each sub-family, gene structure, and substrate selectivity filters. The BnaNIP was the most complex AQP sub-family, reflecting the composition of substrate selectivity filter structures which affect the permeation of solution molecules. In this study, the seedlings of both B-efficient (QY10) and B-inefficient (W10) cultivars were treated with two boron (B) levels: deficient (0.25 μM B) and sufficient (25 μM B). The transcription of AQP genes in root (R), juvenile leaf (JL), and old leaf (OL) tissues of both cultivars was investigated under B deficient and sufficient conditions. Transcription of most BnaPIPs and BnaTIPs was significantly increased compared with other BnaAQPs in all the three tissues, especially in the roots, of both B-efficient and B-inefficient cultivars under both B conditions. With B deprivation, the expression of the majority of the BnaPIPs and BnaTIPs was down-regulated in the roots. However, the BnaNIPs were up-regulated. In addition, the BnaCnn_random. PIP1;4b, BnaPIP2;4s, BnaC04.TIP4;1a, BnaAnn_random. TIP1;1b, and BnaNIP5;1s (except for BnaA07.NIP5;1c and BnaC06.NIP5;1c) exhibited obvious differences at low B between B-efficient and B-inefficient cultivars. These results will help us to understand boron homeostasis in B. napus.
An Optimal Feedback Control Framework for Grasping Objects with Position Uncertainty

As we move, the relative location between our hands and objects changes in uncertain ways due to noisy motor commands and imprecise and ambiguous sensory information. The impressive capabilities humans display for interacting and manipulating objects with position uncertainty suggest that our brain maintains representations of location uncertainty and builds compensation for uncertainty into its motor control strategies. Our previous work demonstrated that specific control strategies are used to compensate for location uncertainty. However, it is an open question whether compensation for position uncertainty in grasping is consistent with the stochastic optimal feedback control, mainly due to the difficulty of modeling natural tasks within this framework. In this study, we develop a stochastic optimal feedback control model to evaluate the optimality of human grasping strategies. We investigate the properties of the model through a series of simulation experiments and show that it explains key aspects of previously observed compensation strategies. It also provides a basis for individual differences in terms of differential control costs—the controller compensates only to the extent that performance benefits in terms of making stable grasps outweigh the additional control costs of compensation. These results suggest that stochastic optimal feedback control can be used to understand uncertainty compensation in complex natural tasks like grasping.
Human Capital Investment, Government Policy, and Productivity: Do Government Policies Promote Productivity?

Productivity is an important determinant of national wealth and standards of living. Scholars of comparative political economy have shown that different welfare production regimes pursue distinct human capital formation policies to promote productivity. Human capital investment policies have also been prominent on the European Union’s policy agenda. But do those government policies actually promote the productivity of the economy? This paper analyzes whether such policies improve productivity in industrial democracies, after briefly presenting a human capital investment explanation for why they should help productivity. It finds that family support and education policies promote productivity growth. While such policies with redistributive effects are productivity-enhancing, however, direct redistribution itself (when simply and only measured as poverty reduction through taxes and transfers) lowers productivity growth, once other human capital formation policies are controlled for. There is also little evidence of pro-productivity effects of active labor market policy. The analysis, thus, finds reason for governments to pursue human capital policies to promote productivity and ultimately standards of living, but they should do so selectively by choosing appropriate policy tools.
Mutual information-based RBM neural networks

(Deep) neural networks are increasingly being used for various computer vision and pattern recognition tasks due to their strong ability to learn highly discriminative features. However, quantitative analysis of their classification ability and design philosophies are still nebulous. In this work, we use information theory to analyze the concatenated restricted Boltzmann machines (RBMs) and propose a mutual information-based RBM neural networks (MI-RBM). We develop a novel pretraining algorithm to maximize the mutual information between RBMs. Extensive experimental results on various classification tasks show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Evaluation of Customer Loyalty to Different Format Retailers

The article notes that at present for different retailers an important strategic objective is to create loyal customers. Under these conditions, the urgency to identify and assess the factors affecting the formation of customer loyalty increases. The purpose of this study is to estimate factors affecting customer loyalty with an average level of income in the context of different formats of retail trade of food specialization in the cities with a population of 1 million people. In the study a methodical approach to customer loyalty and factors it forming is developed. The basic factors of customer loyalty in the context of the marketing mix 7P are discovered (product, price, place, promotion, personnel, physical evidence, and process). A quantitative assessment of the factors of customer loyalty on the basis of the calculation of the index of satisfaction in the context of retail formats (hypermarket, supermarket, and shop near home) is given. The study may be of interest to market operators of retail services in the development of programs to improve customer loyalty to different retailers.
Working Memory in Children With Neurocognitive Effects From Sickle Cell Disease: Contributions of the Central Executive and Processing Speed

ABSTRACT Children with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at risk for working memory deficits due to multiple disease processes. We assessed working memory abilities and related functions in 32 school-age children with SCD and 85 matched comparison children using Baddeley’s working memory model as a framework. Children with SCD performed worse than controls for working memory, central executive function, and processing/rehearsal speed. Central executive function was found to mediate the relationship between SCD status and working memory, but processing speed did not. Cognitive remediation strategies that focus on central executive processes may be important for remediating working memory deficits in SCD.
A Simple Adaptive Beamformer for Ultrawideband Wireless Systems

This paper introduces a simple beamformer for ultrawideband (UWB) wireless networks. The architecture consists of a two-element antenna array, a phase shifter and a signal combiner. The performance of the proposed beamformer is analyzed in terms of radiation pattern characteristics over the FCC's defined operating band for UWB communications devices. It is shown that this simple architecture can provide useful interference rejection and range extension capabilities for high data-rate UWB wireless networks. In particular, it is shown that the radiation pattern characteristics of the proposed sub-optimal beamformer remain beneficial over the allocated UWB band, even given its low complexity and implementation cost
Approaches for the Integrated Analysis of Structure, Function and Connectivity of the Human Brain

Understanding the organization of the human brain is the fundamental prerequisite for appreciating the neural dysfunctions underlying neurological or psychiatric disorders. One major challenge in this context is the presence of multiple organizational aspects, in particular the regional differentiation in structure and function on one hand and the integration by inter-regional connectivity on the other. We here review these fundamental distinctions and introduce current methods for mapping regional specialization. The main focus of this review is to provide an overview over the different concepts and methods for assessing connections and interactions in the brain, in particular anatomical, functional and effective connectivity. In this context, we focus less on technical details and more on the comparative description of strengths and weaknesses of different aspects of connectivity as well as different methods for examining a particular aspect. This overview closes by raising several open questions on the conceptual and empirical relationship between different approaches towards understanding brain structure, function and connectivity.
Apply Support Vector Machine for CRM Problem

Data mining in the CRM aiming at learning available knowledge from the customer relationship by machine learning or statistical method to instruct the strategic behavior so that obtain the most profit. In recent years, Support vector machine (SVMs) has been proposed as a power tool in machine leaning and data mining. This paper applies the SVMs to resolve the practical CRM problem in a company. The final results report the good general performance of SVMs for CRM problem.
Caring for women in their post reproductive life: current recommendations on hormone replacement therapy.

Introduction The post reproductive life denotes the period in a woman’s life after she reaches menopause and is a period that brings about many physical as well as psychological changes. Menopause is a diagnosis usually made in retrospect by the absence of menstruation for more than one year. However, ovarian function is known to diminish by late 30s, resulting in complete failure by the early 50s in most women [1]. This period of change in ovarian function is called the menopausal transition. A woman may experience many symptoms during this transition and in the postmenopausal age that ensues. The main symptoms of menopause include vasomotor symptoms, problems related to changes in urogenital epithelium and those due to impaired cognitive functions. The sexual function of women is also affected due to these effects as well as other changes. As the average life expectancy of a woman in Sri Lanka is 79 years and the mean age of menopause is around 51 years nearly one third of a woman’s life will be post menapausal [2].
A readily cache update algorithm for dynamic source routing

NOTE FROM ACM: It has been determined that the author of this article plagiarized the contents from a previously published paper. Therefore ACM has shut off access to this paper. The plagiarized paper, Distributed cache updating for the dynamic source routing protocol by Xin Yu, may be found here For further information, contact the ACM Director of Publications.
The Value Relevance Of Book Value and Earnings – Empirical Analasis On Croatian Corporations From Zagreb Stock Exchange

Abstract The aim of this research is analyzing relationship between accounting information and share prices on Croatian capital market, using value relevance approach. The research was conducted on a sample of corporations from Zagreb Stock Exchange, which consisted of 72 corporations in 2007. and 63 corporations in 2006. The research results show that accounting earnings and book values, observed jointly and individually, are significantly and positively related to share prices. The common explanatory power amounts 71,5% in 2007. , and 70,4% in 2006. , which indicates that earnings and book values jointly explain about 70% share prices in selected period. The research results indicate that accounting information on Croatian capital market are value relevant, and results are comparable to research results from developed and transition countries.
A study on applications of the structural equation modeling to the analysis of how the influential factors affect the Chinese citizens' scientific literacy and a comparative investigation

This paper is based on data of China Civic Scientific literacy Survey in 2010, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to extract factors of Engagement (public engagement of SP environment) and Information (the information sources of S&T). ; using the structural equation modeling (SEM) to build the model of civic scientific literacy and its influential factors. It examines a quantitative description of how these influential factors affect the Chinese citizens' scientific literacy by using the structural equation model to test the reliability and validity and makes a comparative research with the work done by American researchers. It summarizes different social context in US and China result in different influential factors which affect civic scientific literacy. It has made an attentive effort to improve the level of Chinese citizens scientific literacy and Chinese public understanding of science.
A High-Low Search Algorithm for a Newsboy Problem with Delayed Information Feedback

This paper outlines a new approach to the problem of demand uncertainty. It deals with setting optimal supply levels when demand is unknown. The novel feature of this approach is that information is obtained by observing sales. This information is used to determine future supply levels. Thus, supply levels are chosen with a view to current profit and future information. The technical apparatus is based on an extension of the theory of high-low search. We derive an algorithm to determine a sequence of supply quantities which minimizes total costs of over-and undersupply in the most adverse demand conditions. We calculate the value of perfect information, indicating how much a rational risk averse decision maker would be willing to pay to know demand exactly.
Subcellular distribution of digoxin-H3 in isolated guinea-pig and rat hearts.

Guinea-pig and rat hearts were perfused via the aorta at constant flow with 10-7 M digoxin-H3 for periods up to 64 min. The temperature was 28°C. The hearts were then perfused for 8 min with nonradioactive medium and the whole tissue and the subcellular fraction digoxin contents were measured. The arteriovenous digoxin difference in this system was zero after 2 to 4 min of perfusion. The heart tissue digoxin content, however, continued to rise throughout the 64 min of perfusion, particularly during the period from 4 to 32 min. The concentration of digoxin also rose in the nuclear, mitochondrial and microsomal fractions with time, the fastest rise and the greatest eventual concentrations being found in the microsomal fractions. Incubation of heart homogenates with digoxin failed to show similar accumulation by the particulate fractions. Rat and guinea-pig hearts were found to differ substantially when perfused with digoxin under the same conditions. Rat hearts demonstrated a reduced total digoxin uptake, higher ratios of supernate to pellet digoxin content and markedly lower digoxin concentration in all the particulate fractions. Preliminary studies of the nature of the digoxin binding to the microsomal fraction from guinea-pig hearts indicated that disruption of hydrogen bonding forces or of the tertiary structure of the microsomal protein was necessary before the digoxin was freely extractable. No binding to macromolecular structures could be demonstrated for the digoxin that was contained in the supernatant fraction of heart tissue. It was concluded that the microsomal fraction of heart tissue, which accumulates digoxin over a time course comparable to that required for the development of inotropic responses, may contain the cardiac digitalis receptors.
Social Networking Sites: Threat to Security

Popularity of social networking sites has dramatically increased in recent years. Social networking sites like Facebook, Google Plus, and LinkedIn allow millions of individuals to create online profiles and share personal information with vast networks of friends and, often, unknown numbers of strangers. In this paper, patterns of information revelation in online social networks and their security implications have been studied. These security implications are named as social security attacks in this paper. We survey online behavior of more than 50 University students. The amount and type of information they disclose has been evaluated. We also perform an extensive analysis on disclosed information from different perspectives of the users. At the end, we demonstrate how this information may lead to security breaches. This will help to create security awareness about the usage of social networking sites among the users.
Punishing Parents for the Sins of their Child: Extending EU Competition Liability in Groups and to Subcontractors

The current state of EU law is that parent company liability for its subsidiaries’ competition infringements rests on the degree of control that the parent can exercise over the subsidiary. A related antitrust problem when a sub-contractor engages in anticompetitive activity which benefits the contractor. Again, EU jurisprudence looks at the control which the contractor can exercise. This current state of law is unsatisfactory. There are at least three convincing grounds to use negligence in supervision of the subsidiary’s (or sub-contractor’s) conduct as an alternative basis for liability. First, Regulation 1/2003 frames liability for competition infringements in terms of an undertaking’s intentional activities or its negligence. Second, as the legal systems of principle of domestic systems to use negligence to found criminal liability, the extension of liability for negligent oversight of a subsidiary’s affairs is not inconsistent with the general principles of European law. Third, there is a substantial argument for the extension based on efficiency reasons. We construct such an argument in the article. This argument parallels arguments for vicarious corporate liability. We conclude that the extension of EU parental and contractor liability in competition matters to include liability for negligent oversight of subsidiaries provides for more effective regime for the prevention of antitrust violations. JEL CLASSIFICATION: K21, K43, L23, L40, L43
The Options Approach to Hardware Design Decision: Switching from Object-Oriented to Aspect-Oriented Concepts

Traditional hardware design is not flexible. Specification changes often require redesigning from scratch. The objected-oriented (OO) concept, which consists of encapsulation, inheritance and reusability mechanisms, is applied to solve the problem. However, the OO concept still confronts code maintenance problem, as the same function may be redundant in several objects. The Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) concept is introduced to hardware design to handle the challenges from the OO concept. To decide whether to switch the hardware design technology from OO to AOP concepts, one has to consider many uncertainties related technology change. The Net Present Value (NPV) is the traditional valuation approach to investment decision, but it does not handle uncertainties directly. The real options approach, which supports the valuation of project investment under uncertainty, is proposed to value the expected payoff of the technology shift from OO to AOP concepts. This paper illustrates how to apply the real options approach to hardware design decision. Insights from applying the real options framework are presented as guidelines in considering the hardware design technology switch.