Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SUSTAINABLE GLOBAL SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT: THE ROLE OF DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES IN ACHIEVING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Organizations face increased pressure from stakeholders to incorporate a plethora of corporate responsibility (CR) and sustainability aspects in their business practices. Legal and extra-legal demands are dynamically changing; almost no organizational function is unaffected. Owing to the outsourcing wave of the last decade, in particular purchasing and supply management (PSM) plays an ever more important role in assuring sustainable production of the firm's products offered in the marketplace. The supply base of many Western firms has become increasingly global and spend volumes have shifted towards emerging countries. In order to avoid the risk of reputational damage to the buying company, the PSM department must ensure that their international suppliers comply with their corporate codes of conduct and that environmental and social misconduct at supplier premises does not occur. In this paper, “sustainability” refers to the pursuit of the tripartite of economic, environmental, and social performance. We contribute to prior research in the fields of sustainability and CR by extending insights of the dynamic capabilities view to analyze how the PSM function integrates sustainability aspects in its global supplier management processes. Based on four case studies in the chemical industry, we propose that profound sustainable global supplier management (SGSM) capabilities are a source of competitive advantage. These capabilities are path dependent and particularly valuable when organizations are receptive to external stakeholder pressure. Early movers in the field of SGSM reap competitive benefits to a notable extent as a result of resource accumulation and learning processes over time.
Applicability Study of Classical and Contemporary Models for Effective Complex Permittivity of Metal Powders

Abstract Microwave thermal processing of metal powders has recently been a topic of a substantial interest; however, experimental data on the physical properties of mixtures involving metal particles are often unavailable. In this paper, we perform a systematic analysis of classical and contemporary models of complex permittivity of mixtures and discuss the use of these models for determining effective permittivity of dielectric matrices with metal inclusions. Results from various mixture and core-shell mixture models are compared to experimental data for a titanium/stearic acid mixture and a boron nitride/graphite mixture (both obtained through the original measurements), and for a tungsten/Teflon mixture (from literature). We find that for certain experiments, the average error in determining the effective complex permittivity using Lichtenecker’s, Maxwell Garnett’s, Bruggeman’s, Buchelnikov’s, and Ignatenko’s models is about 10%. This suggests that, for multiphysics computer models describing the processing of metal powder in the full temperature range, input data on effective complex permittivity obtained from direct measurement has, up to now, no substitute.
Holistic Package Design and Consumer Brand Impressions

This article develops empirically based guidelines to assist managers in selecting or modifying package designs for achieving desired consumer responses. Seven studies identify the key types of package designs, including the factors that differentiate those package designs, and determine how these holistic designs are related to consumer brand impressions. The selection of package designs can be simplified with the use of five holistic types: massive, contrasting, natural, delicate, and nondescript designs. Sincere brands should have natural package designs, exciting brands should have contrasting designs, competent brands should have delicate designs, sophisticated brands should have natural or delicate designs, and rugged brands should have contrasting or massive designs. The authors discuss the potential trade-offs among the impressions created by holistic design types and illustrate their findings with numerous real packages.
Usefulness of Executive Development Programs to Corporate Executives

India has been in centre stage of developing economies and commends high respect in knowledge based industries India has opened it economy to international competition and Indian products now compete with best products of the world. Indian promoters have realized that human resource is basic for future success. Dynamic managements have started training their executives to best practices with view to improve system efficiencies. Executive Development Programs are backbone of such training and skill improvement. Small and Medium enterprises have also adopted Executive Development Programs to suit their requirement. We decided that an attempt should be made to examine how effective and useful these Executive Development Programs are, for participants in three time frames, one before enrollment, second on completion and third –one month after completion of program. Sample of 30 was selected comprising of 25 male executives and 5 female executives. All participants were at least 18 years of age with at least 3 years of experience. Executives were employed in different activities largely falling in production, marketing administration and BPO services Executives belonged to Vapi, Navsari, Vadodara and Ahmedabad. It was observed that executive perception on usefulness of Executive Development Program do show non-significant relationship with change in their perception of usefulness before enrollment, immediately after completion and one month after end of the program.
A minimum classification error approach to pronunciation variation modeling of non-native proper names

In automatic recognition of non-native proper names, it is critical to be able to handle a variety of different pronunciations. Traditionally, this has been solved by including alternative pronunciation variants in the recognition lexicon at the risk of introducing unwanted confusion between different name entries. In this paper we propose a pronunciation variant selection criterion that aims to avoid this risk by basing its decisions on scores which are calculated according to the minimum classification error (MCE) framework. By comparing the error rate before and after a lexicon change, the selection criterion chooses only the candidates that actually decrease the error rate. Selecting pronunciation candidates in this manner substantially reduces both the error rate and the required number of variants per name compared to a probability-based baseline selection method.
A pilot clinical study on robotic assisted rehabilitation in VR with an arm exoskeleton device

The development of new robotic devices for rehabilitation can lead to new and more efficient therapeutic procedures. Moreover, the use of VR-based scenarios in which patients perform rehabilitation exercises dramatically increases the patients¿ motivation and thus the final therapy outcome. In this paper preliminary results of a pilot study carried out with an exoskeleton for the robotic assisted rehabilitation of the upper limb are presented. The paper briefly describes the main kinematic and mechanical features of the exoskeleton system, showing its peculiar characteristics which make it useful for rehabilitation purposes. The implementation of three different robotic schemes of therapy in virtual reality with this exoskeleton, based on an impedance control architecture, are presented and discussed in detail. Finally, qualitative and quantitative results obtained in a 6 week pilot study with three chronic stroke patients are reported.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRAINING AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This paper reviews theory and empirical findings on the relationship between training and firm performance. We describe the various important theoretical approaches and proposed a framework for analyzing training and firm performance issues. Data from previous studies is used to assess the effects of training on firm performance. The research results show that training has a positive and significant impact on firm performance. Finally, we identify the limitations of these previous studies and directions for future research on this topic.
Exploring Domain Auction and Priority Checking Analysis

3 Abstract: The domain name auction facilitates the buying and selling of currently registered domain names, enabling individuals to purchase a previously registered domain that suits their needs from an owner wishing to sell.Domain auction sites allow users to search multiple domain names that are listed for sale by owner and to place bids on the names they want to purchase. As in any auction, the highest bidder wins. The more desirable a domain name, the higher the winning bid and auction sites often provide links to escrow agents to facilitate the safe transfer of funds and domain properties between the auctioning parties.
The access to finance of small and medium sized enterprises in the euro area

This report presents the main features of the results of the fifth round of the survey “Access to finance of small and medium-sized enterprises in the euro area”, conducted between 22 August and 7 October 2011 on behalf of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission. The total sample size for the euro area was 8,316 firms, of which 7,690 (i.e. 92%) had fewer than 250 employees. The report provides evidence on the financial situation, financing needs and access to external financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the euro area, compared with large firms, during the preceding six months, i.e. the period from April to September 2011. In addition, it provides an overview of developments in access to finance across euro area countries, as well as information on euro area SMEs’ growth expectations and the obstacles they believe may hinder their growth.
Generational Pension Plan Designs

We propose a generational plan for the occupational pension provision in which people from the same generation are pooled in a generational fund. Each fund can set its own policies independently. This plan provides the benefits of differentiation missing in the prevailing collective plan and the benefits of centralized management and risk sharing which are missing in the individual plan. We compare the generational plan and the collective plan by imposing the same investment and contribution rates, find that the generational plan provides a higher welfare to the new entrants. This better performanceis driven by the fact that the generational plan precludes any a-priori transfers while allowing for risk sharing via time diversification of long-term investment.
Multiple genes coding for octopine-degrading enzymes in Agrobacterium

Most biotype 2 strains of Agrobacterium tumefaciens and A. radiobacter which utilize nopaline also degrade octopine. In all such strains studied, the ability to degrade octopine did not appear to be transferred to plasmidless recipient cells under conditions of plasmid transfer in which the ability to utilize nopaline was transferred. An octopine-degrading mutant was isolated in a strain cured of its plasmid, suggesting that genes of octopine degradation may have a chromosomal location in some strains. In strains in which octopine utilization is coded by plasmid genes, octopine degradation was always inducible, whereas in strains which degrade both octopine and nopaline, octopine utilization was constitutive although nopaline degradation was inducible. When plasmids coding for octopine-utilizing ability were transformed into a strain containing either a nopaline- or null-type plasmid, transformants able to degrade octopine were either not observed or were unstable upon purification. All of these data suggest that plasmids associated with virulence are incompatible with one another, and therefore imply that the major groups of plasmids associated with virulence have a common origin.
GaN HEMT based single-phase inverter control with consideration of nonlinear load

GaN HEMT devices provide significant advantages over silicon MOSFET with lower gate charge, faster switching speed and smaller reverse recovery charge. It is hopeful to use this device to get high efficiency and high power density compatibly. A GaN HEMT device based full-bridge single-phase inverter with switching frequency 260kHz is proposed to evaluate the advantages of GaN power transistors in this paper. Synchronous reference frame proportional-integral (SRFPI) based outer voltage control and inner inductor current control in stationary reference frame are used in inverter control system, voltage feedforward decoupling is introduced to simplify control system design and degrade negative effect of voltage dynamics to inductor current. Load current feedforward and repetitive control are used to prevent voltage distortion caused by nonlinear load. Simulation and experiments validate the proposed control method.
View-invariant Human Action Recognition Using RGB-D Spatio-temporal Matrix

We propose a novel approach to recognize action under view changes online with RGBD camera. Perspective effects and camera motions have been considered as difficult problems in recognizing action that when two video sequences record a specific action from various camera views, the resulting appearances of actions would be entirely different. Consequently, if we simply apply feature extraction methods to the raw video, we will end up getting totally different features. Recent studies explored the stability of self-similarities for action sequence over time, an idea that put into practice in view-invariant action recognition. Instead of doing the extraction of spatio-temporal feature for every frame and using these feature vectors directly, our study uses the Euclidean distance between spatio-temporal feature vectors that are represented in a Spatio-Temporal Matrix (STM). To recognize the action, we describe the local tendency of the STM using pyramid-structural bag-of-words (BoW-Pyramid) and train a SVM as our classifier.
A model of consumer response to advertising music

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a model of consumer response to music in broadcast commercials outlining four variables (listening situation, musical stimulus, listener characteristics, and advertising processing strategy) that affect a consumer's attitude toward the advertising music (Aam). Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of an integrative review of the relevant literatures from the psychology of music, marketing, and advertising.Findings – Aam can be positively but also negatively influenced by many factors. Only some of these variables are employed in any typical study on consumer response to music, which may account for some conflicting findings.Practical implications – The paper discusses factors for effectively using commercial music to affect Aam, with special focus on advertising processing strategy. Advertisers are urged to exercise extreme caution in using music and to always pretest its use considering factors identified in this paper. The paper suggests .
Estimated ultraviolet doses to psoriasis patients during climate therapy

Background/purpose: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting about 2–3% of the population. Sun exposure has a positive effect on most lesions, but ultraviolet (UV) radiation also constitutes a carcinogenic potential. Climate therapy is frequently used to treat patients, with the consequence that they may receive high doses of UV. This paper explores UV doses to patients treated in Gran Canaria.
Application of Kalman Filter to estimate position of a mobile node in Indoor environments

Estimating the position of mobile agents in indoor environments is a challenging problem especially when the estimates must be obtained using commercial, low cost devices. The work in this thesis presents experimental results that demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, that integrates the signal strength data with sensed values of acceleration and angular velocity. A well-known framework called the Kalman Filter is used. To cope with the noise in the measured values, different versions of the Kalman Filter had to be used such as the Extended Kalman Filter and the Unscented Kalman Filter. This framework allowed us to systematically fuse the data from multiple sources to improve the accuracy of the position estimates. Our results demonstrate that positional accuracy of 0.8m within an 30m x 10m area is achieved. In the future, this work can be extended to further reduce the error in the location estimates by inclusion of encoders.
A Study on Road Users' Overall Perceptions of Highway Maintenance Service Quality and the Variables that Define the Highway Maintenance Service Quality Domain

The concept of involving the public in the development of transportation solutions was built in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, the legislation that authorized the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Better plans, transparent process, and public support are some of the benefits that road managers can obtain by educating and involving the general public. During the last two decades the volume of research performed related to the topic of customer-driven highway maintenance suggests an increasing level of interest in the field. Most research concentrates on gathering information from road users to assess the performance level of highways. However, public opinion can also be collected for measuring the quality of the service delivered by maintenance units. Assessing product and service delivery performance is important for determining the overall performance of highway maintenance programs. The present study examines the relationship between road users' overall perceptions of the quality of highway maintenance services and the variables that define the highway maintenance service quality domain. The results of the study indicate that two service dimensions, Safety and Reliability, explain about half of the variance in overall perceptions of highway maintenance service quality. The procedures developed for the study provide an initial step for further improvement of the highway maintenance service quality measurement.
Performance of a Compressed Spectrum Differential Frequency Hopping System over Rayleigh Fading Channels

Differential frequency hopping (DFH) has been used in military communication system, because it provides both good resistance to jamming and high-speed data transmission. However, taking into account the coding gain is limited within a finite transmission bandwidth, especially multiple bits per hop, a compressed spectrum DFH (CS-DFH) system is proposed in this paper. We develop an upper bound on the bit error rate (BER) of CS-DFH system in Rayleigh fading channels, and its tightness is proved by simulations. Numerical and simulation results demonstrate that CS-DFH improves performance by improving the coding redundancy, compared with the existing DFH techniques, for the same bits per hop (BPH) and bandwidth.
Technology management of IT in construction: a driver or an enabler?

The 1970s and 1980s have witnessed the development of many technological advances in the construction industry. At the same time, IT has been perceived as a driver for many of the construction business and operational processes. The 1990s have seen a technological shift in the construction sector from IT driven solutions to IT enabling ones. The industry, however, has become frustrated with the failing of IT as many companies have invested in the wrong technologies without addressing business needs. This is now being rectified by developing IT systems that support business processes taking into account process, people and cultural needs. This paper describes how IT systems are being developed within a major EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) funded research project in order to help the construction industry develop feasible technological IT solutions. This is achieved by considering the co‐maturation of processes and IT within the context of process improvement.
Genotyping male-specific RNA coliphages by hybridization with oligonucleotide probes

F-specific (F+) RNA coliphages are prevalent in sewage and other fecal wastes of humans and animals. There are four antigenically distinct serogroups of F+ RNA coliphages, and those predominating in humans (groups II and III) differ from those predominating in animals (groups I and IV). Hence, it may be possible to distinguish between human and animal wastes by serotyping F+ RNA coliphage isolates. Because serotyping is laborious and requires scarce antiserum reagents, we investigated genotyping using synthetic oligonucleotide probes as an alternative approach to distinguishing the four groups of F+ RNA coliphages. Oligoprobes I, II, III, IV, A, and B were selected to detect group I, II, III, IV, I plus II, and III plus IV phages, respectively. Methods for phage transfer from zones of lysis on a host cell lawn to candidate membrane filters and fixation of genomic nucleic acid on the membranes were optimized. The oligoprobes, which were end labeled with digoxigenin, were applied in DNA-RNA hybridization, and hybrids were observed by colorimetric, immunoenzymatic detection. Of 203 isolates of F+ RNA coliphages from environmental samples of water, wastes, and shellfish, 99.5 and 96.6% could be classified into each group by serotyping and genotyping, respectively. Probes A and B correctly identified 100% of the isolates. On the basis of these results, this method for genotyping F+ RNA coliphages appears to be practical and reliable for typing isolates in field samples.
Percutaneous trans-jugular vein closure of atrial septal defect with steerable introducer under echocardiographic guidance.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to discuss a novel surgical approach of percutaneous trans-jugular vein closure of atrial septal defect (ASD) with steerable introducer under echocardiographic guidance. METHODS From January 2015 to June 2015, ten ASD patients underwent percutaneous trans-jugular vein ASD closure, the occluder placement could be perpendicular to the plane of ASD using the steerable introducer. RESULTS All cases succeeded. The average procedure time was 27.4±5.6 minutes; and the average intracardiac operation time was 6.7±5.2 minutes. No patient showed the residual shunt after the procedure. There was no clinical death, no arrhythmia, no hemolysis, no infection, no jugular vein damage or occlusion during patients' hospitalization. The post-operation follow up after one month of the operation showed that there was no residual shunt, no falling off or detachment of occluders or other complications. CONCLUSIONS It is a new surgical method with easy operation, mild damage and wider indication. Compared with the traditional percutaneous and transthoracic closure of ASD, it has obvious advantages.