Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence Of Employee Motivation On Job Satisfaction: A Case Of Government Departments In Isiolo County, Kenya.

xii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION.1 1.1 Background of the study.1 1.2 Problem statement.3 1.3 Purpose of the study.4 1.4 Objectives.5 1.5 Research questions.6 1.6 Significance of the study.6 1.7 Delimitation of the study.6 1.8 Limitations of the study.6 1.9 Assumptions of the study.7 1.10 Definition of significant terms.7 1.11 Organization of the study.8 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW.9 2.
Dynamic R&D Competition

We study a simple, two-stage, stochastic patent race involving two firms. We examine the behavior of the participants as they gain the lead or fall behind in the race. We find that the leader engages in R&D more intensively than does the follower, and that both firms intensify their efforts if the follower does catch up with the leader. We also analyze (1) the attractiveness of licensing, whereby the leader shares his results with the follower,(2) a policy of issuing patents for intermediate research results, and (3) the effects of research joint ventures, whereby the firms coordinate their initial research efforts and share their results.
Evaluation of 99mTc-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid nuclear imaging for quantitative determination of the glomerular filtration rate of dogs.

The suitability of 99mTc-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (99mTc-DTPA) as an agent to assess glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in dogs was evaluated. Glomerular filtration rates of 12 healthy dogs were determined on the basis of creatinine and/or inulin clearance. Glomerular filtration rates also were determined in 7 dogs after induction of acute renal failure by administration of amphotericin B. The healthy dogs and the amphotericin B-treated dogs were given 99mTc-DTPA (1 to 2 mCi) IV. The percentage of the 99mTc-DTPA dose in the kidneys (percentage dose) was determined, with background activity subtracted from total activity at 15-s intervals 0 to 6 minutes after 99mTc-DTPA infusion. Linear regression analyses (LRA) were performed to determine whether the percentage dose at various time intervals after injection correlated with GFR calculated on the basis of creatinine and inulin clearance data. One to 3 minutes after 99mTc-DTPA administration appeared to be the best period for analysis of the data. The percentage dose of 99mTc-DTPA (corrected for kidney depth differences) was determined and LRA against GFR were performed. The percentage dose correlated better with inulin clearance (r = 0.94) than with endogenous creatinine clearance (r = 0.83). Only inulin clearance correlations improved with kidney depth correction. The LRA was used to derive an equation that could be used to calculate GFR on the basis of the percentage dose. The equation derived from inulin regression was: GFR (milliliter/minute/kilogram of body weight) = 0.194 (depth-corrected percentage dose)--0.37; the equation derived from the creatinine regression was: GFR (milliliter/minute/kilogram) = 0.171 (depth-corrected percentage dose)-0.15. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Discovery of a fluorinated 4‐oxo‐quinoline derivative as a potential positron emission tomography radiotracer for imaging cannabinoid receptor type 2

The cannabinoid receptor type 2 (CB2) is part of the endocannabinoid system and has gained growing attention in recent years because of its important role in neuroinflammatory/neurodegenerative diseases. Recently, we reported on a carbon‐11 labeled 4‐oxo‐quinoline derivative, designated RS‐016, as a promising radiotracer for imaging CB2 using PET. In this study, three novel fluorinated analogs of RS‐016 were designed, synthesized, and pharmacologically evaluated. The results of our efforts led to the identification of N‐(1‐adamantyl)‐1‐(2‐(2‐fluoroethoxy)ethyl)‐8‐methoxy‐4‐oxo‐1,4‐dihydroquinoline‐3‐carboxamide (RS‐126) as the most potent candidate for evaluation as a CB2 PET ligand. [18F]RS‐126 was obtained in ≥ 99% radiochemical purity with an average specific radioactivity of 98 GBq/μmol at the end of the radiosynthesis. [18F]RS‐126 showed a logD7.4 value of 1.99 and is stable in vitro in rat and human plasma over 120 min, whereas 55% intact parent compound was found in vivo in rat blood plasma at 10 min post injection. In vitro autoradiographic studies with CB2‐positive rat spleen tissue revealed high and blockable binding which was confirmed in in vivo displacement experiments with rats by dynamic PET imaging. Ex vivo biodistribution studies confirmed accumulation of [18F]RS‐126 in rat spleen with a specificity of 79% under blocking conditions. The moderate elevated CB2 levels in LPS‐treated mice brain did not permit the detection of CB2 by [18F]RS‐126 using PET imaging. In summary, [18F]RS‐126 demonstrated high specificity toward CB2 receptor in vitro and in vivo and is a promising radioligand for imaging CB2 receptor expression.
A LUNG MODEL DESCRIBING UPTAKE OF ORGANIC SOLVENTS AND ROLES OF MUCOSAL BLOOD FLOW AND METABOLISM IN THE BRONCHIOLES

A simple lung model (mucosal blood flow and metabolism model, MBM model) was developed to describe the uptake of organic solvents and investigate the role of mucosal blood flow and metabolism. The model separates the lung into four compartments, the peripheral bronchial tract (gas phase), the mucus layer lining the wall surface of the tract, the alveolar space (gas phase), and the alveolar blood. Solvent molecules are absorbed in the mucus layer during inhalation and released during exhalation. The deposited solvent diffuses radially into the mucosal tissue of the respiratory tract and transfers to the mucosal blood flow. To describe this behavior, a hypothetical mucosal blood flow throughout the mucus layer was used. The solvent in the mucosal tissue may be also metabolized, and a hypothetical metabolism in the mucus layer was used. The rate of the hypothetical mucosal blood flow was determined to be 5.2 ml/min based on the best fitting of previously obtained data for seven polar organic solvents. The MBM model predicts that as the blood? air partition coefficient (lB) increases from 0.1 to 20, the relative end-exhalation (E end) will decrease from 0.89 to 0.07, and as l B increases to 500, Eend will increase to 0.33. After l B = 500, E end is predicted to decrease again, and at l B = 10000, E end is 0.09. The model also predicts that as l B increases from 0.1 to 10, the relative uptake (U) increases from 0.08 to 0.61, and as l B increases to 150, U decreases to 0.50. After l B = 150, U increases again, and at l B = 10,000, U is 0.8. The predictions show good agreement with values observed in human experimental studies. The MBM model predicts that uptake by the mucosal blood (U Al) would be equal to uptake by the alveolar blood (U Mu) at l B of 1000 and UAl is more than 90% of total uptake at l B > 10,000. The model also shows that U is significantly increased by the mucosal metabolism at l B between 50 and 5000. Especially, U in the case of CLMu = 100 ml/min is higher by 0.3 than that in the nonmucosal metabolism.
Towards real-time scheduling of virtual machines without kernel modifications

Virtualization is a well used technique in the area of internet server systems for managing several (legacy) applications on a single physical machine. These applications do not have strict time deadlines, which also reflects how these applications are scheduled. Using virtualization in an embedded real-time systems context is of course attractive, since we want to pack as much software as possible on a, as small as possible, hardware platform. The problem is that this kind of software does not easily cope well together, in the aspect of time related properties. Hence, we need a new mechanism, i.e., a scheduler, that can satisfy the timing requirements of each application. However, scheduler implementations typically require modifications to middleware or kernel and this is not acceptable in the area embedded systems, due to stability and reliability reasons. Hence, in this paper, we propose a framework for scheduling (soft real-time) applications residing in separate operating systems (virtual machines) using hierarchical fixed-priority preemptive scheduling, without the requirement of kernel modifications.1
Contribution to agents-based negotiation and monitoring of cloud computing service level agreement

Cloud Computing environments are dynamic and open systems, where cloud providers and consumers frequently join and leave the cloud marketplaces. Due to the increasing number of cloud consumers and providers, it is becoming almost impossible to facilitate face to face meetings to negotiate and establish a Service Level Agreement (SLA); thus automated negotiation is needed to establish SLAs between service providers and consumers with no previous knowledge of each other. In this thesis, I propose, an Automated Cloud Service Level Agreement framework (ACSLA). ACSLA is made up of five stages, and the corresponding software agent components: Gathering, Filtering, Negotiation, SLA Agreement and Monitoring. In the Gathering stage all the information about the providers and what they can offer is gathered. In the Filtering stage the customer’s agent will send the request to ACSLA, which will filter all the providers in order to recommend the best matched candidates. In Negotiation stage the customer’s agent will negotiate separately with each candidate provider using different negotiation algorithms, which will be evaluated and for which recommendations and guidelines will be provided. The output of this stage is that the best outcome from the customer’s perspective will be picked up, which will be the agreed value for each parameter in the SLA. In SLA Agreement stage the provider’s agent and the customer‘s agent will be informed about the Agreement, which will be specified in measurable terms. The output of the SLA Agreement stage will be a list of metrics that can be monitored in the Monitoring stage. Customer’s agent and provider’s agent will also negotiate and agree about the penalties and actions will be taken in case the SLA has been violated and unfulfilled. There is a variety of actions that can be taken, like informing both sides, recommending solutions, self-healing and hot-swapping. ACSLA is evaluated using case studies which show its flexibility and effectiveness. ACSAL offers a novel approach to tackle many challenging issues in the current and likely future, cloud computing market. It is the first complete automated framework for cloud SLA. There are many automated negotiation algorithms and protocols, which have been developed over the years in other research areas; establishing functional solutions applicable to the cloud-computing environment is not an easy task. Rubinstein’s Alternating Offers Protocol, also known as the Rubinstein bargaining model, has been investigated for application in automated cloud SLA, and it offers a satisfactory technical solution for this challenging problem. The purpose of this research was also to apply the state of the art in negotiation automated algorithms/agents within a described Cloud Computing SLA framework, to develop new algorithms, and to evaluate and recommend the most appropriate negotiation approach based on many criteria.
Body Image Satisfaction as a Physical Activity Indicator in University Students.

OBJECTIVE We examined the association of body image satisfaction (BIS) with physical activity (PA) in university athletes and non-athletes from northern Mexico. METHODS In a non-probability cross-sectional study, 294 participants (51% male, 41% athletes; 18-35 years old) completed 2 self-administered questionnaires to evaluate BIS and PA. We categorized somatotypes (endomorphy-mesomorphy-ectomorphy) by international standardized anthropometry. Data analysis included the Mann-Whitney U test, χ2test, Kendall's Tau-b correlation, binary logistic regression analysis, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. RESULTS Self-perceived sports abilities and desirable body shape predicted 30% of sports participation in students, whereas an endomorphic shape (<5.4 units) and being male predicted 15.4% of sports participation. CONCLUSIONS BIS was a reliable indicator of sports participation among these university students.
TQM: terrific quality marvel or tragic quality malpractice?

Purpose – Total quality management has seen a tremendous rise of popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. Aims to question the effectiveness, utility and use of TQM among many people – practitioners, as well as academics.Design/methodology/approach – Discusses the lack of common interpretations of TQM based on literature study. The answer to the question whether TQM is a marvel or malpractice depends on several factors, for instance, in what kinds of organizations TQM is applied, what interpretation of TQM is made, and what input the theorists and practitioners have, i.e. their earlier environment, culture and values. Often respondents and opponents use the same word but mean different things.Findings – TQM should not be rejected as a whole if one or even, many applications fail. TQM should, however, be applied with considerable consideration of the specifics of the target organization, the purpose of the organization, and the purpose of applying TQM.Originality/value – The paper emphasizes the lack of common i.
Fighting churn with rate plan right-sizing: a customer retention strategy for the wireless telecommunications industry

Prior literature suggests that wireless customers have difficulty in predicting their usage requirements and they often subscribe to rate plans that are not financially optimized. However, the benefits of having wireless customers on optimal rate plans are relatively unknown due to limited research in this area. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap and presents a customer retention strategy for the wireless telecommunications industry. The usage and payment records of 1403 Canadian post-paid wireless customers are examined over a 3.7-year study period. Pearson's χ 2 test and hazard function graph are used to reveal how customer churn rate is influenced by rate plan suitability. The statistical analysis demonstrates that customers who are using optimal rate plans have lower churn rate than those with non-optimal ones.
A Low-Voltage Broadband Feedforward-Linearized BJT Mixer

A low-voltage, feedforward-linearized bipolar mixer realizes an input IP3 of +14.3 dBm and an input IP2 of +54.5 dBm at 2.4 GHz. Conversion (power) gain over the 1-6GHz RF input range is 12.4plusmn0. 35 dB, while the input IP3 is 13.6plusmn1. 8dBm over the same frequency range. The broadband mixer's RF input impedance varies from 60.3-j7.1 at 2.4 GHz to 57.4-j16.6 Omega at 5.8GHz. Measured SSB (50 Omega) noise figure is 18.6 dB at 2.4 GHz. No on-chip inductors are used in the design, and the 0.14 mm 2 (active area) mixer dissipates 7.2 mW from a (minimum) 1.2 V supply
Combination Therapy with Fenofibrate, a Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor α Agonist, and Simvastatin, a 3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-Coenzyme A Reductase Inhibitor, on Experimental Traumatic Brain Injury

We and others have demonstrated that fibrates [peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)α agonists] and statins (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase inhibitors) exerted neuroprotective and pleiotropic effects in experimental models of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Because the combination of statins and fibrates synergistically enhanced PPARα activation, we hypothesized that the combination of both drugs may exert more important and/or prolonged beneficial effects in TBI than each alone. In this study, we examined the combination of fenofibrate with simvastatin, administered 1 and 6 h after injury, on the consequences of TBI. First, our dose-effect study demonstrated that the most efficient dose of simvastatin (37.5 mg/kg) reduced post-traumatic neurological deficits and brain edema. Then, the effects of the combination of fenofibrate (50 mg/kg) and simvastatin (37.5 mg/kg), given p.o. at 1 and 6 h after TBI, were evaluated on the TBI consequences in the early and late phase after injury. The combination exerted more sustained neurological recovery-promoting and antiedematous effects than monotherapies, and it synergistically decreased the post-traumatic brain lesion. Furthermore, a delayed treatment given p.o. at 3 and 8 h after TBI with the combination was still efficient on neurological deficits induced by TBI, but it failed to reduce the brain edema at 48 h. The present data represent the first demonstration that the combination of fenofibrate and simvastatin exerts prolonged and synergistic neuroprotective effects than each drug alone. Thus, these results may have important therapeutic significance for the treatment of TBI.
PEM Fuel Cell Stack Model Development for Real-Time Simulation Applications

The increased integration of fuel cells with power electronics, critical loads, and control systems has prompted recent interest in accurate electrical terminal models of the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell. Advancement in computing technologies, particularly parallel computation techniques and various real-time simulation tools, has allowed the prototyping of novel apparatus to be investigated in a virtual system under a wide range of realistic conditions repeatedly, safely, and economically. This paper builds upon both advancements and provides a means of optimized model construction boosting the computation speeds for a fuel cell terminal model on a real-time simulator which can be used in a power hardware-in-the-loop application. An elaborate simulation model of the fuel cell stack system has been developed, and a significant improvement in the computation time has been achieved. The effectiveness of the proposed model developed on Opal RT's RT-LAB MATLAB/Simulink-based real-time engineering simulator is verified using the experimental results with a Ballard Nexa fuel cell stack system.
Thirty years of public housing supply and consumption: 1981–2011

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report provides data on some of the major changes in, and major issues around, the Australian public housing system over recent decades. The public housing sector has gone through major transformations in recent decades. Its original broad roles encompassing working family affordability, urban renewal, economic development, and decentralisation have narrowed in focus to serve as a housing safety net for high needs households. Changes in funding levels, ineligibility and allocations policy and asset management strategies have been major contributors to the recasting of the role of public housing, along with a paradigm shift in public policy from broad universalistic models of service delivery to highly targeted welfare models. These changes have major implications for what, where, and how much social housing is built and for the socio-economic attributes of tenants. The changes have, among other things, also put on the policy agenda issues of the potential role of public housing in accentuating employment problems for tenants, accentuating social disadvantage and the viability of the public housing system. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, notably census data and the Survey of Income and Housing (SIH) can provide rich data that can help get a better understanding of what has happened to public housing and what might be the implications of changes in this tenure. This paper uses the release of the 201 1 ABS census results and other recent ABS data sets to address the research questions of: What have been the major changes in public housing supply over the past 30 years (1981 – 2011), and how have these played out geographically? What have been the major c hanges in the attributes of tenants (income, household type, employment status, age, etc.) over the past 30 years? What does the census data tell us about the need for public and or social housing? The 30-year period has been chosen as it marks the transit ion from one model of public housing, that is a more universalistic model, to a welfare delivery model. For much of the analysis census data was customised to include a number of demographic and dwelling characteristics by tenure for each of the three census years, for Australia and for the six state capitals. The paper is about public housing only. Social housing, which sweeps up all forms of not-for-profit housing, both public and community managed, is not the focus of this study as community-managed stock in earlier census periods was so small as not to need an identifier in the Census and therefore was not separately recorded.
The contribution to excellence of ISO 9001: the case of certified organisations in Cyprus

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify ISO 9001's contribution to the five enablers of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model.Design/methodology/approach – Empirical research was conducted in Cypriot ISO 9001 certified organizations to evaluate the motives that lead them to certification, the difficulties they faced during the standards' implementation and their performance improvement in the five enablers of the EFQM excellence model. Companies were asked to evaluate their performance in 85 issues related to these Enablers both before and after certification.Findings – The results of the survey indicate the “most” and the “least” important improvements from ISO 9001 certification in the five enablers of the EFQM excellence model. The results also prove that performance improvement is statistically significant in all enablers and it is also significantly related to the companies' motives for certification.Research limitations/implications – Future research shoul.
Indirect Re-Employment Wage Discrimination

This paper looks at unemployed individuals and investigates wage differences generated by re--employment selection. It shows that discriminatory re--employment selection can result, indirectly, in discriminatory re--employment pay. A Heckman two--stage selection model is combined with an extension of Gomulka--Stern non--linear decompositions to explain how re--employment selection generates indirect discrimination. The paper uses data from pre--unification Germany in the late 1980s and finds that female human capital suffers more from unemployment and that the market is harsher to males for becoming unemployed. New policies should encourage a regime where the hiring process is more transparent and hiring decisions are monitored on a regular basis. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the Board of Trustees of the Bulletin of Economic Research 2003
Assessing Emission Allocation in Europe: An Interactive Simulation Approach

Implementation of an EU-wide emissions trading system by means of National Allocation Plans is at the core of European environmental policy agenda. Member States are faced with the problem of allocating their national emission budgets under the EU Burden Sharing Agreement between energy-intensive sectors that are eligible for international emissions trading and the remaining segments of their economies that will be subject to complementary domestic emission regulation. The country-specific segmentation of national emission budgets between trading sectors and non-trading sectors will determine the cost efficiency of the EU emissions trading system and the gains for each Member State vis-a-vis domestic abatement policies. We present an interactive simulation model where users can specify the design of National Allocation Plans for each EU Member State and then evaluate the induced economic effects. Our numerical framework is based on marginal abatement cost curves for (emissions) trading and non-trading sectors of the EU-15 economies. Illustrative simulations highlight the importance of a coordinated design of National Allocation Plans in order to avoid substantial excess costs of regulation and drastic burden shifting between nontrading and trading sectors.