Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Tale of Two Datasets: Business Survival in Administrative versus Survey Data

Entrepreneurs, particularly those who start and operate new businesses, are thought to be key drivers of economic innovation and growth. A large and growing literature examines small business survival and the factors associated with business growth. Researchers use a variety of datasets including administrative records and survey data, but little is known about the implications of each data source for reported estimates and the broader understanding of small business outcomes. We address two fundamental data differences and assess the implications for understanding the existing literature. First, we examine business survival using exits from a matched administrative and survey dataset. This analysis suggests that results differ meaningfully across data sources and analysis method suggesting caution in data selection and project design. Second, we use additional information available in the survey data to assess whether results differ when one considers actual business closure, not just exit from the data for any reason. We find that owner characteristics such as age and education are more strongly related to exits from survey data, but not exits from tax data or measures of firm closure available in the survey data. These results might suggest a closer relationship between owner characteristics and survey attrition and not necessarily firm longevity.
Becoming a Hybrid Organization: When Traditional Nonprofits Found New Ventures

New ventures are increasingly being founded in a novel context: within the boundaries of traditional nonprofit organizations. This phenomenon represents a type of social entrepreneurship. Despite the emerging prevalence of this activity, it has received very little academic attention. This study examines the topic through an exploratory, partially-inductive study based on 33 interviews with managers and other participants in the nonprofit sector. Findings generate propositions regarding nonprofits’ key motivations for creating new ventures and the characteristics of both nonprofit organizations and the managers of their business ventures that can influence venture success. These findings have implications for theory in social entrepreneurship and the market orientation of nonprofits, and they produce concrete insights for practicing nonprofit entrepreneurs and managers.
Coordinating Gene Therapies of Cystic Fibrosis Airway Disease with Anti-Inflammatory and Antimicrobial Cationic Glucocorticoids

Certain sterol-based cationic lipids demonstrate both anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial characteristics in addition to their abilities to facilitate gene transfer. These characteristics are particularly suited for enhancing potential gene therapies of cystic fibrosis (CF) airway disease, a condition characterized by chronic infections and concomitant inflammation. Unfortunately, however, animal models of CF do not show the airway disease typically seen in humans, so in vivo efficacies of potential therapies are difficult to assess. In this work, three mouse models were established to evaluate adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene transfer in an infected airway environment. Bordetella bronchiseptica RB50 was used in a chronic, non-lethal respiratory infection model with C57BL/6 mice. Administration of an AAV vector on day 2 of this infection resulted in an approximate three-fold reduction of reporter gene expression, compared to that observed in uninfected controls. Postponement of AAV administration to day 14 resulted in an even greater (eight-fold) reduction in gene expression. Separately, Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 was used to infect surfactant protein D or surfactant protein A knockout mice to establish acute infections. Reporter gene expression was approximately ~2.5-fold lower in these infected mice than in uninfected mice, when AAV was administered on day 2 of infection. Interestingly, when AAV administration was postponed to day 9 of infection in the surfactant protein D knockout model, partial regain in expression was observed. In this case, infection resulted in only a two-fold (vs ~2.5-fold) reduction in gene expression. To reverse these negative effects on gene transfer, six new sterolbased cationic lipids were synthesized and characterized. Of the six lipids tested, two, budesonide spermine and disubstituted budesonide spermine, showed particularly promising in vitro activities and were used to establish proof-of-concept efficacy in an acute infection model. PAO1-infected mice received lipids on day 1 of infection and AAV 24 hours later on day 2. When reporter gene expression was measured one week later, only a ~1.5-1.9-fold reduction in gene expression, compared to the ~2.7-fold reduction seen with untreated controls. Results demonstrate that treatment with dual functioning anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial cationic glucocorticoids can be coordinated with CF gene therapies to restore loss of transduction efficiency caused by active infection. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering First Advisor Scott L. Diamond
Estimation of Weibull Shape-Parameters for Two Independent Competing Risks

This paper presents a technique to estimate Weibull shape parameters of life distribution of two components in a series system. The data consist of lifetime of the system only, that is, it is not known which component caused the system failure. The relations among cumulative hazard functions of the system at virtual observation limit are used for estimation. This technique is useful for 1) analysing this common kind of life-test data, and 2) estimating parameters of the smallest extreme value distribution. A numerical example including the experimental data on electron tubes is discussed briefly.
Phosphorylation of JAK2 at Serine 523: a Negative Regulator of JAK2 That Is Stimulated by GrowthHormone and Epidermal Growth Factor

ABSTRACT The tyrosine kinase JAK2 is a key signaling protein for at least 20 receptors in the cytokine/hematopoietin receptor superfamily and is a component of signaling for multiple receptor tyrosine kinases and several G-protein-coupled receptors. In this study, phosphopeptide affinity enrichment and mass spectrometry identified serine 523 (Ser523) in JAK2 as a site of phosphorylation. A phosphoserine 523 antibody revealed that Ser523 is rapidly but transiently phosphorylated in response to growth hormone (GH). MEK1 inhibitor UO126 suppresses GH-dependent phosphorylation of Ser523, suggesting that extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs) 1 and/or 2 or another kinase downstream of MEK1 phosphorylate Ser523 in response to GH. Other ERK activators, phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate and epidermal growth factor, also stimulate phosphorylation of Ser523. When Ser523 in JAK2 was mutated, JAK2 kinase activity as well as GH-dependent tyrosyl phosphorylation of JAK2 and Stat5 was enhanced, suggesting that phosphorylation of Ser523 inhibits JAK2 kinase activity. We hypothesize that phosphorylation of Ser523 in JAK2 by ERKs 1 and/or 2 or other as-yet-unidentified kinases acts in a negative feedback manner to dampen activation of JAK2 in response to GH and provides a mechanism by which prior exposure to environmental factors that regulate Ser523 phosphorylation might modulate the cell's response to GH.
Audit Effort and the Unit Audit Price of Industry Specialist Auditors: Evidence from Korea

Higher audit fees associated with auditor industry specialization, as documented in previous studies, could be a reflection as to whether industry specialist auditors (ISA) either charge a higher unit price for their effort and/or provide a higher quantity of audit services. We ask (1) whether auditor industry specialization leads to higher audit effort as measured by audit hours and if so, (2) how the extended audit effort of ISA is related to audit fee premiums associated with auditor industry specialization. Exploiting a field setting in Korea where audit effort information is required to be disclosed in the firms’ annual reports, we find that industry specialization leads to significantly higher audit effort relative to non-ISA. When the audit effort and audit fees are analyzed together as audit fees per hour, i.e., unit audit price, industry specialization reveals no association or even a negative association with the unit audit price, indicating that higher total audit fees associated with ISA, which prior studies view as an ISA audit fee premium, could be attributable primarily to audit quantity differences in the audit effort between ISA and non-ISA, but not to a higher unit audit price.
THE DIFFERENTIATION AND KERATINIZATION OF EPITHELIUM IN VITRO

The organization, or, according to Drew, differentiation, of epithelial cells grown in vitro is not due to a specific influence of the associated connective tissue. It occurs in all old pure cultures of epithelium, when the tissue fragment becomes thick and suffers from lack of oxygen and nourishment. Under the same circumstances, keratinization occurs in cultures of epithelium.
17 Isolated and Confined Environments

Characteristics of space analogue environments with regard to human performance concern the crew adaptation in a socio-psychological context and in a temporal dynamics. Isolation, confinement and time are major features on Earth to reproduce an extra-terrestrial environment for manned mission simulations. In the current space missions (low Earth orbit, LEO) and in the perspective of interplanetary missions (near-Earth asteroid, Moon, Mars), men and women will have to adapt to social constraints (crew size, multinationality, mixed-gender) and spatial restrictions (volume, multi-chambers, life-support) on short-term, medium-term and long-term durations. The crewmembers also will have to perform intra-vehicular activities (IVA) and extra-vehicular activities (EVA). For training, preventing and optimizing such tasks, simulations of living and working together in isolated and confined environments, and simulations of operating with a space suit on geological surfaces are the new requirements. During the two decades (1991–2011), space simulators (confinement) and analogue settings (isolation) were adequately developed on Earth with the ultimate goal of walking on Mars. Time periods extended up to 500 days. Space analogue environments are located worldwide (Canada, United States, Russia, Europe, Antarctica and Arctic). Mission durations in space analogue environments cover days, weeks and years. Isolation and confinement facilities implemented for such simulations are listed in Table 17.1. Over a 7-day duration, the Canadian Astronaut Program Space Unit Life Simulation (CAPSULS) was an Earth-based initiative that simulated a typical space shuttle or space station mission [1]. CAPSULS provided the Canadian astronaut participants with space mission training. The facility was a solid
Change Management: A Golf Club’s Struggle With Assimilation of Members Who “Don’t Conform”

Membership to private social and recreational clubs is taking root in Kenya, especially with the growing consumerism of an emerging middle class. Further, the number of women who are taking up club membership – either for leisure, sports or social interactions – is on the upward trend. Most membership clubs, especially golf clubs, have been primarily male-dominated, private, and with locked-in members. This research seeks to find out the effect of assimilating members who have hitherto not been able to access the services of these closed-in groups. The research employed an ethnographic approach in which the researchers interacted closely with other club members for a one-year period. During this time, the researchers observed the interactions among club members, held interviews with some of them, and examined archival data held at the club. Content analysis was used to analyze the large amount of data. Findings indicate that there are many benefits accruing to the club as a result of admitting new “different” members. These benefits include, but are not limited to, increased funding, more patronage, and expanded quality of league players. However, with the coming of this new category of members, problems arose in areas such as club norms, facilities, social change and the pain of sudden change for the established members. The researchers provide several recommendations that can hasten and ease the assimilation of members with diverse characteristics and preferences.
Determination of Lung Area in EIT Images

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT), as a noninvasive, radiation-free imaging technique, has the potential for bedside monitoring of regional lung function. Evaluation of EIT imaging requires the identification of the lung area in the images. By Hahn and Frerichs et al. a functional EIT based method (fEIT) was proposed to identify the lung area in EIT images for patients with healthy lungs. However, a method for patients with serious lung disease is missing. The aim of this study was to develop an improved method for lung area estimation in EIT images (LAE), which is also suitable for patients with serious pulmonary diseases. In LAE the lung area as determined by fEIT is mirrored and the cardiac related area is subtracted. 49 mechanically ventilated patients were investigated, including 39 patients waiting for thoracic surgery (test group) and 10 patients for orthopedic surgery without pulmonary disease (control group). The sizes of the lung area determined with fEIT are in control group S C,fEIT =361plusmn35.1 (meanplusmnSD) and in test group S T,fEIT =299plusmn60.8 (p<0.01). The sizes estimated with the LAE method in control group S C,LAE = 353plusmn27.2 and in test group S T,LAE =353plusmn61.1 (p=0.41). It is assumed that the fraction of the lung in the thorax for different people should be more or less in the same range, in spite of the state of the lung. The result demonstrates that the novel LAE method can better access the lung region in EIT images, from which the analysis of regional lung ventilation will benefit.
Assistive guidance system for the visually impaired 1

1 Rohit Takhar, Tushar Sharma, Udit Arora, Sohit Verma 2 1 Division of Computer Engineering, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110078, 3 India 4 5 Corresponding Author: 6 Udit Arora 7 Email address: udita1.co@nsit.net. in 8 9 ABSTRACT 10 In recent years, with the improvement in imaging technology, the quality of small 11 cameras has improved significantly. Coupled with the introduction of credit-card sized single12 board computers such as Raspberry Pi, it is now possible to integrate a small camera with a 13 wearable computer. This paper aims to develop a low-cost product, using a webcam and 14 Raspberry Pi, for visually-impaired people, which can assist them in detecting and recognizing 15 pedestrian crosswalks and staircases. There are two steps involved in detection and recognition 16 of the obstacles, i.e., pedestrian crosswalks and staircases. In detection algorithm, we extract 17 Haar features from the video frames and push these features to our Haar classifier. In 18 classification algorithm, we first convert the RGB image to HSV and apply histogram 19 equalization to make the pixel intensity uniform, followed by image segmentation and contour 20 detection. These detected contours are passed through a pre-processor which extracts the regions 21 of interest (ROI). We applied different statistical methods on these ROI to differentiate between 22 staircases and pedestrian crosswalks. The detection and recognition results on our datasets 23 demonstrate the effectiveness of our system. 24 25
Predicting Nurses' Intention to Quit With a Support Vector Machine: A New Approach to Set up an Early Warning Mechanism in Human Resource Management

This project developed a Support Vector Machine for predicting nurses' intention to quit, using working motivation, job satisfaction, and stress levels as predictors. This study was conducted in three hospitals located in southern Taiwan. The target population was all nurses (389 valid cases). For cross-validation, we randomly split cases into four groups of approximately equal sizes, and performed four training runs. After the training, the average percentage of misclassification on the training data was 0.86, while that on the testing data was 10.8, resulting in predictions with 89.2% accuracy. This Support Vector Machine can predict nurses' intention to quit, without asking these nurses whether they have an intention to quit.
Development and challenges of using web-based GIS for health applications

Web-based GIS is increasingly used in health applications. It has the potential to provide critical information in a timely manner, support health care policy development, and educate decision makers and the general public. This paper describes the trends and recent development of health applications using a Web-based GIS. Recent progress on the database storage and geospatial Web Services has advanced the use of Web-based GIS for health applications, with various proprietary software, open source software, and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) available. Current challenges in applying Web-based GIS for health, such as data heterogeneity, data privacy and confidentiality, powerful processing abilities, and appropriate data representation to users are also discussed. The continuous development of Web-based GIS for health applications will further enhance disease surveillance, health care planning, and public health participation.
Cost models for freight transport and logistics – base year 2012

One major component in the National Freight Transport Model is the cost models for the different modes of transport. This report is a documentation of the level of each of the different cost component that is included. The base year is 2012. The cost components include forwarding costs, terminal costs and also different logistics cost components. The report also includes a documentation of additional cost models for ship categories, not included in the National freight transport model.
Compact Single-/Dual-Band Planar Crossovers Based on Strong Coupled Lines

Three compact planar crossovers based on strong coupled lines loaded with open stubs are proposed in this paper. Two conventional coupled lines loaded with different electrical wavelength open stubs are used to realize the single/dual passband. The center frequencies of the three planar crossovers can be adjusted over a wide frequency band by changing the even-/odd-mode characteristic impedance of the coupled lines and the characteristic impedance of the open stubs. Three compact planar crossovers located at 1.78, 1.88, and 1.02/2.98 GHz are designed and fabricated for verification. The theoretical and measured results are in good agreement and show good in-band performances.
Study of the effect of the midgut bacterial flora of Culex quinquefasciatus on the susceptibility of mosquitoes to Japanese encephalitis virus.

Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes were collected from the field and microbial flora was isolated from their midgut. Isolates belonging to 13 different genera were obtained. Four most abundant isolates viz. Pseudomonas sp. , Acinetobacterjunii, Staphylococcus epidermis and Aeromonas culicicola were used to study their effect on the susceptibility of mosquitoes to Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV). Incorporation of individual isolates in the mosquito bloodmeal resulted in an increased susceptibility of mosquitoes to the virus. However, only the effects of Pseudomonas sp. and Acinetobacterjunii could be statistically evaluated but they were found insignificant.
PerformancePrediction Challenge

A major challenge for machine learning algorithms in real world applications is to predict their performance. We have approached this question by organizing a challenge in performance prediction for WCCI 2006. The class of problems addressed are classification problems encountered in pattern recognition (classification of images, speech recognition), medical diagnosis, marketing (customer categorization), text categorization (filtering of spam). Over 100 participants have been trying to build the best possible classifier from training data and guess their generalization error on a large unlabeled test set. The challenge scores indicate that cross-validation yields good results both for model selection and performance prediction. Alternative model selection strategies were also sometimes employed with success. The challenge web site keeps open for post-challenge submissions: http://www.modelselect. inf.ethz. ch/.
On-Line Contingency Selection Algorithm for Voltage Security Analysis

Presented in this paper is a new concept in formulating a performance index for contingency selection concerning voltage security anlaysis. The performance index is defined as a second order vector norm in the voltage space. Two types of voltage limits, alarm limit, and security limit, are introduced. Each axis of the voltage space is normalized by the difference between these two limits. Contingency cases in which the performance indices are greater than 1.0 are selected as severe cases and can be ranked in order or severity. This type of normalization results in a clear definition of security. Rapid contingency simulation is performed using essentially noniterative linearized models. Test results indicated reasonable contingency selection and ranking for both a sample test sytsem and an actual power system.
Modeling anesthesia and pavilion surgical units in a Chilean hospital with Specification and Description Language

This paper addresses the problem of formally modeling processes related to the operation of surgical pavilions and an anesthesia unit in a Chilean hospital. To perform this modeling, we used Specification and Description Language (SDL), which resulted in a graphic layout consisting of one system, 11 blocks, 52 processes, 135 channels of communication, and 137 information signals. The model includes as system environment to the emergency units, clinical services, and support units. The model was created to document and understand the tacit knowledge of the personnel working in the anesthesia and pavilion surgical units. The aim of the proposed methodology was to design a model that can represent the system in a modular and standard way and that will also assist with hospital management and facilitate simulation.
Dermoscopy and entomology (entomodermoscopy)

Although dermoscopy has been primarily designed for aiding the in vivo diagnosis of skin tumors, recent advances indicate it is also useful in the diagnosis of common skin infections and infestations. As such, dermoscopy connects the research fields of dermatology and entomology into one field of “entomodermoscopy”. In this article we give an overview on the current applications of entomodermoscopy.
Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: Evidence from the Oil Price Collapse of 2014-15

This paper analyses how board classification, board independence, and inside ownership affects US oil-company performance using the oil price collapse of the autumn and winter of 2014 as a natural experiment. Firms with classified boards suffered during the collapse. An important source of value destruction is that classified boards aggravated the impact of corporate risk taking on performance. On the contrary, the greater the ownership level of insiders, the better the firm sustained the crisis. The performance-ownership relationship seems to be non-monotonic. In particular, inside ownership mediates the impact of leverage on performance. As for board independence, it seems to be of no relevance to firm performance.