Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Taxonomy of Founders Based on Values: The Root of Family Business Heterogeneity

The new economy offers a large range of opportunities to family businesses if they are able to promote values that allow constantly innovative behavior and business evolution. Although family firms are commonly associated with a traditional way of doing business, this paper shows the heterogeneity among first-generation family firms by building a taxonomy of four groups of founders based on values. The results show the relevance of identifying founders' value systems to understand the founders' influence on family business behavior. This value profile can be a valuable tool for family business owner-managers and advisors in identifying and promoting values that add value to firms without compromising next-generation family firm development.
Regulation Fair Disclosure, Analyst Following and Analyst Forecast Dispersion

This paper presents preliminary evidence of the effect of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD) on the quantity and quality of firm‐specific information released to the market by comparing analyst forecast data from pre‐FD to post‐FD time periods. By prohibiting selective disclosure of material information to privileged individuals, the Securities and Exchange Commission intends to provide a level playing field to all investors. However, opponents argue that FD has a negative impact by decreasing the quantity and quality of publicly available information. Consistent with this argument, we document a decrease in analyst following and an increase in forecast dispersion following the passage of FD.
On-chip electrometer using MEMS parallel-plate pull-in sensing

Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) have been proposed as DC electrical metrology references. The design reported here is the first to enhance the qualities of a MEMS DC reference with potential tuning and sensing via an isolated and monolithically integrated MEMS technology and thereby, convert a stable parallel-plate voltage reference to a simple, sensitive, low-burden voltage sensor. This on-chip system reliably measures unknown potentials ranging from −60 to 60V with sampling times less than 10 ms. In the initial design, the system is used to measure atto-amp leakage current though 10 PΩ, suspended, MEMS isolation.
Sequential Monte Carlo Simulation Assessment of the Quality of Supply in Distribution Networks

Quality of supply is one of the key priorities in electricity distribution network regulation. The UK electricity regulator, OFGEM, financially rewards and penalizes DNOs with respect to the overall quality of supply they deliver. This is being achieved by focusing on the average quality of supply performance system indices CI and CML. However, focusing on system performance does not necessarily improve the quality of supply of individual customers. Therefore, DNOs are subjected to Guaranteed Standards (GS) of performance, which set supply levels that must be met in each individual case. Failure to do so results in penalty payments. This paper addresses two GS of performance, namely the multiple interruptions and the supply restoration during normal weather standards. It also introduces a framework based on sequential Monte Carlo simulation (SMCS), which quantifies the likelihood of these GS exceeding their specified thresholds, applied to a very large real distribution network
Functional recovery following peripheral nerve injury in the transgenic Thy1‐GFP rat

Transgenic mice have been previously used to assess nerve regeneration following peripheral nerve injury. However, mouse models are limited by their small caliber nerves, short nerve lengths, and their inability to fully participate during behavioral assessments. The transgenic Thy1 GFP rat is a novel transgenic rat model designed to assess regeneration following peripheral nerve injury. However, return of functional and behavioral recovery following nerve injury has not yet been evaluated in these rats. In this study, we ask whether differences in anatomy, recovery of locomotion, myological, and histomorphological measures exist between transgenic Thy1 GFP rats when compared to wild type (WT) Sprague Dawley rats following unilateral sciatic nerve injury. We found that both motor and sensory neuronal architecture, overground and skilled locomotion, muscle force, motor unit number estimation (MUNE) and wet muscle weights, and histomorphometric assessments are similar between both genetic phenotypes. Overall, these data support the use of the transgenic Thy1‐GFP rat in experiments assessing functional and behavioral recovery following nerve injury and repair.
Challenges facing community-based cultural tourism development at Lekhubu Island, Botswana: a comparative analysis

Community-based tourism is thought to carry the promise to increase, promote and provide improved livelihoods for rural communities. It is believed to empower local communities and enable them to harness the potential of resources found within the vicinity of their areas for survival. Therefore, it fosters a sense of ownership of the resources in question with the potential to promote their sustainable use and conservation by the communities. This paper examines Lekhubu Island project in the Boteti sub-district of Botswana to examine some of the challenges that may prevent some culture and heritage-based community projects from achieving the envisaged goals. Invitation to participate in the focus group discussions was extended to any member of the community aged 16 or above. While all eligible community members were invited, they were allocated different time slots for specific meetings. Among the challenges identified at Lekhubu are poor accessibility, limited income generation and heavy dependence on external donor funding, inadequate marketing, lack of capacity among Gaing'O Community Trust Board and Staff, as well as unsatisfactory involvement and limited capacity among Technical Advisory Committee members. Comparisons are made between Lekhubu situation and that of other CBT projects in the northern and central regions of Botswana.
Building Web 2.0 enterprises: A study of small and medium enterprises in the United States

Web 2.0 is one of the most rapidly growing web applications; to understand such technologies and related management practices adopted by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the USA, this study reviews major Web 2.0 technologies, presents a conceptual model of Web 2.0 applications, and analyzes SME Web 2.0 usage. In the conceptual model, Web 2.0 applications were organized around three major application categories: social networking, information sharing, and collaboration. User space was classified into three interaction spaces: business-to-employee-to-employee space, business-to-employee-to-consumer space, and business-to-employee-to-business space. To analyze the Web 2.0 practices of one hundred US SMEs, data were collected from the websites of the 50 ‘best SMEs’ to work for in America in 2009 and from the websites of a further 50 SMEs randomly chosen from manta.com, an online source of SMEs. For statistical analyses, t-tests were conducted. While most of the 50 ‘best SMEs’ adopted Web 2.0 to some degree, the analysis shows that the other SMEs need to increase their efforts to improve their performances, to connect with consumers and to remain competitive.
Interpreting the U.S. Human Trafficking Debate Through the Lens of Symbolic Politics

By enacting the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, U.S. policymakers acknowledged trafficking in persons as criminal behavior, punishable under federal law. The legislation was developed through the congressional policy-making process, usually studied from the perspective of who gets what, when, and how. To expand our understanding of criminal justice policymaking, this article analyzes the act from an alternative perspective—symbolic politics. It examines how the act performs symbolic functions identified in the criminal justice literature—reassuring the law abiding/threatening the lawbreaker, communicating a moral message, providing a model for the states, and educating about a problem.
A Two‐Component System of Human Serum Agglutinating Gelatine‐Coated Erythrocytes

In normal and pathologic human sera a heat‐labile Anti‐Gelatine Factor could be demonstrated, which agglutinates red cells coated with parent gelatine. In several properties it differs from the collagen antibody observed in rheumatoid arthritis sera and from the experimentally induced rabbit antibody against parent gelatine.
A High-SNR Projection-Based Atom Selection OMP Processor for Compressive Sensing

Compressive sensing (CS) has recently become a critical technique to reduce the high computational cost of signal processing systems. One of the main signal processing modules of CS systems is the signal reconstruction processor. Orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) is one of the main signal reconstruction algorithms because of its low complexity and high regularity compared with the greedy $l1$ algorithm. However, the main problem of an OMP-based signal reconstruction processor is its low reconstruction performance. Therefore, this paper proposed an enhanced projection-based atom selection orthogonal matching pursuit (POMP) algorithm to solve this problem. The original POMP algorithm has more favorable signal-to-reconstruction-noise ratio (SRNR) performance than the OMP algorithm, but the computational complexity of the POMP is too high to be realized in hardware. The proposed algorithm greatly reduces the computational complexity of the original POMP algorithm without any SRNR performance loss by using multiple index candidates and matrix-inversion-bypass method. The proposed reconstruction processor architecture was designed and implemented using the TSMC 90-nm 1P9M CMOS technology. The postlayout results showed that the proposed processor exhibited a lower normalized processing latency and achieved a higher SRNR of 34.9 dB compared with the processors in previous studies.
Land Allocation in HYV Adoption Models: An Investigation of Alternative Explanations

Microeconomic theory provides four competing explanations for partial land allocation to new and traditional seed varieties in HYV adoption decisions: input fixity, portfolio selection, safety-first behavior, and learning. Testing a general model that contains each as a special case suggests that they are jointly most likely to explain land allocation in the HYV adoption decisions of Malawian smallholders. Yet when each explanation is tested to the exclusion of the others (as is usually the case in the literature), competing hypotheses are individually significant. Results suggest that employing approaches based on single explanations may lead to inappropriately narrow conclusions.
The Monetary Exchange Rate Model: Long-run, Short-run, and Forecasting Performance

This paper examines the monetary model of exchange rate determination for the US dollar exchange rates against the currencies of Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom. In this paper, we utilize the cointegration technique for testing long-run relationship, and vector error correction model for short-run dynamics and out-ofsample forecasting. The existence of cointegration supports the long-run relationship among nominal exchange rate and a number of fundamental variables. The out-ofsample forecasting indicates that the nominal exchange rate forecasts from the VEC monetary model can be superior to random-walk based forecasts in a projection period of less than one year. This conclusion implies that the monetary model of exchange rate determination is a reliable tool for policy makers to evaluate their currency and the monetary authority should expect a much shortened response time to the monetary policy impulse in the surging trend of international economic integration.
FPGA Soft-Core Based Step Motor Driving

Step motor is an important device in industry. It can driver the factory automatic line working. The drive of the step motor has been researched by microcomputer, programmable logic controller (PLC) device and digital signal processor (DSP). In this paper, a step motor driver research based on FPGA is mentioned. FPGA has the flexibility Logical unit, high integration and wide application characters. This paper used System-on-a-Programmable-Chip (SOPC) as the major device. SOPC device is programmed by NIOS II software. The step motor driver works as the software design. Quartus II using the symbol which was generated by SOPC system finishes the FPGA hardware description, and designs the interface of the FPGA device. Through the input and output interface, it can easy finishes the interconnection of FPGA device, LCD, UART and step motor. The experiment is carried out based on the experiment board and the bench of step motor. This research provides a theoretical basis for multi-axis CNC system.
Glycosylation of endothelial lipase at asparagine-116 reduces activity and the hydrolysis of native lipoproteins in vitro and in vivo Published, JLR Papers in Press, February 24, 2007.

We previously identified that four of five putative N-linked glycosylation sites of human endothelial lipase (EL) are utilized and suggested that the substitution of asparagine-116 (Asn-116) with alanine (Ala) (N116A) increased the hydrolytic activity of EL. The current study demonstrates that mutagenesis of either Asn-116 to threonine (Thr) or Thr-118 to Ala also disrupted the glycosylation of EL and enhanced catalytic activity toward synthetic substrates by 3-fold versus wild-type EL. Furthermore, we assessed the hydrolysis of native lipoprotein lipids by EL-N116A. EL-N116A exhibited a 5-fold increase in LDL hydrolysis and a 1.8-fold increase in HDL2 hydrolysis. Consistent with these observations, adenovirus-mediated expression of EL-N116A in mice significantly reduced the levels of both LDL and HDL cholesterol beyond the reductions observed by the expression of wild-type EL alone. Finally, we introduced Asn-116 of EL into the analogous positions within LPL and HL, resulting in N-linked glycosylation at this site. Glycosylation at this site suppressed the LPL hydrolysis of synthetic substrates, LDL, HDL2, and HDL3 but had little effect on HL activity. These data suggest that N-linked glycosylation at Asn-116 reduces the ability of EL to hydrolyze lipids in LDL and HDL2.
Exploring the Way Servant Leaders Foster Employee Development: A Qualitative Study of Servant Leaders in Non-Profit Organizations

i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iii DEDICATION. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS . v LIST OF TABLES . ix LIST OF APPENDIXES . x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION . 1 Statement of Research Purpose . 3 Research Questions . 3 Significance of the Study . 4 Limitations of the Study. 5 Researcher Profile . 6 Structure of the Thesis . 8 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW . 9 Perspectives on the Definition of Servant Leadershi p . 9 Traits, Behaviours, and Characteristics of Servant Leaders . 11 Stewardship . 13 Commitment to the Growth of People . 14 Servant Leaders as Credible Leaders . 16 Building Community . 17 Conceptualization and Foresight. 17 Servant Leaders as Coaches and Mentors . 18
TEACHER ATTRITION AMONG WOMEN IN SECONDARY AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION

Although women have enjoyed majority status as teachers in most disciplines, they are underrepresented in secondary agricultural education (AGED). To better understand female underrepresentation within agricultural education, this study used Grissmer and Kirby’s (1987) theory of teacher attrition to investigate the career-related experiences of female preservice students in the agriculture education department at Oklahoma State University and AGED teachers within Oklahoma using a mixed-method case study design. It was found that, although the women were well prepared to teach and had contextually rich experiences in AGED, only a fraction of the women who entered the preservice program successfully gained employment as AGED teachers. Reasons for attrition included a lack of commitment to teaching AGED, being place-bound, and gender bias from school administrators. To reduce attrition, women desiring to teach AGED and those already in the field need support from university faculty, state staff, and school administrators in regard to challenges they face in nontraditional careers to increase specific human capital and a commitment to the profession.
Classification of human liposarcoma and lipoma using ex vivo proton NMR spectroscopy

Prognostication in patients with liposarcoma is a complex and controversial subject based on recognition of lipoblasts, adipocyte nuclear atypia, and qualitative estimations of cellularity and cell size. We show here that for 30 patients with liposarcoma and 5 patients with lipoma, spectral differences on high‐resolution, magic angle spinning proton nuclear magnetic resonance (hr‐MAS 1H‐NMR) spectroscopy relate to known biochemical changes and correlate with adipocyte tissue differentiation, histologic cell type, and cellularity. The NMR‐visible level of triglyceride is shown to correlate with liposarcoma differentiation, since the triglyceride level in well‐differentiated liposarcoma is 33‐fold higher on average than for myxoid/round cell liposarcoma, which in turn is 6‐fold higher than the dedifferentiated and/or pleomorphic subtypes. The NMR‐visible phosphatidylcholine level serves as an estimate of total tissue cell membrane phospholipid mass and was found to correlate with liposarcoma subtype. Pleomorphic liposarcoma, the most aggressive and metastatic subtype, was found to have a threefold increase in NMR‐visible phosphatidylcholine level compared with dedifferentiated liposarcoma. The level of NMR‐visible phosphatidylcholine was twofold greater in well‐differentiated liposarcoma compared with lipoma and was threefold larger for the hypercellular myxoid/round cell subtype compared with the pure myxoid histology. Thus, NMR‐derived parameters of tissue lipid may be used for objective distinction of liposarcoma histologic subtype/grade and lipoma from liposarcoma. These biochemical parameters may ultimately improve prognostication in patients with liposarcoma. Magn Reson Med 41:257–267, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Training primary school teachers through research in mathematics' didactics

In order to become school teachers, since the last reforms in teacher education in France, the student teachers have to obtain a master’s degree, including a research report in a field linked to education, or to the disciplines taught in school. In this study, we analyse the content and methods of an initial course in research in mathematics education, building some tools to assess how such a course can influence the beginner teachers’ practices in class during the first years after their training.
Towards sparse rule base generation for fuzzy rule interpolation

Fuzzy inference systems have been successfully applied to many real-world applications. Traditional fuzzy inference systems are only applicable to problems with dense rule bases by which the entire input domain is fully covered, whilst fuzzy rule interpolation (FRI) is also able to work with sparse rule bases that may not cover certain observations. Thanks to its ability to work with fewer rules, fuzzy rule interpolation approaches have also been utilised to reduce system complexity by removing those rules which can be approximated by their neighbouring ones for complex fuzzy models. A number of important fuzzy rule base generation approaches have been proposed in the literature, but the majority of these only target dense rule bases for traditional fuzzy inference systems. This paper proposes a novel sparse fuzzy rule base generation method to support FRI. The approach first identifies important rules that cannot be accurately approximated by their neighbouring ones to initialise the rule base. Then the raw rule base is optimised by fine-tuning the membership functions of the fuzzy sets. Experimentation is conducted to demonstrate the working principles of the proposed system, with results comparable to those of traditional methods.
Frequency response of synthetic vocal fold models with linear and nonlinear material properties.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to create synthetic vocal fold models with nonlinear stress-strain properties and to investigate the effect of linear versus nonlinear material properties on fundamental frequency (F0) during anterior-posterior stretching. METHOD Three materially linear and 3 materially nonlinear models were created and stretched up to 10 mm in 1-mm increments. Phonation onset pressure (Pon) and F0 at Pon were recorded for each length. Measurements were repeated as the models were relaxed in 1-mm increments back to their resting lengths, and tensile tests were conducted to determine the stress-strain responses of linear versus nonlinear models. RESULTS Nonlinear models demonstrated a more substantial frequency response than did linear models and a more predictable pattern of F0 increase with respect to increasing length (although range was inconsistent across models). Pon generally increased with increasing vocal fold length for nonlinear models, whereas for linear models, Pon decreased with increasing length. CONCLUSION Nonlinear synthetic models appear to more accurately represent the human vocal folds than do linear models, especially with respect to F0 response.
The Persistence of Long Work Hours

Previous research hypothesizes that long working hours are related to consumerism, the ideal worker norm, high levels of human capital, and a high cost-of-job-loss. The authors test these hypotheses using panel data on working hours for an Australian sample of full-time employed workers. Analyses include a static cross-sectional model and a persistence model for long hours over time. The results suggest that long hours (50 or more hours in a usual week) are often persistent, and provide strongest support for the consumerism hypothesis, with some support for the ideal worker norm and human capital hypotheses, and no support for the cost-of-job-loss hypothesis. Other results are consistent with a backward-bending supply of long hours, and with multiple job holders and the self-employed working long hours.
International comparison of market risks across shipping-related industries

This paper compares the behaviour of shipping and shipping-related company stock returns to reveal whether systematic risk differs from the average in the market and across sub-sectors of the maritime industry. Following an extensive collection of information through a postal questionnaire survey, 108 publicly listed shipping and shipping-related companies, across stock exchanges of the world, are classified by sector according to their core business activity. The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is employed for the period 1996–1999 to model stock returns and measure sector g s (systematic risk). Stock returns over the period are mostly negative. The systematic risks of the Drilling and Offshore sectors are significantly higher than those of all other sectors, but are not different from each other. There is no significant difference between the systematic risks of the Bulk, Tanker, Container and Ferry sectors. The systematic risk of the Cruise sector lies somewhere between these two groups. There is no difference in the systematic risk of companies that diversified within shipping or shipping-related industries when compared to companies that diversified in other areas. Over all companies in the sample, g is lower than the market average, and so are the g s of the Ferry, Tanker, Bulk, Container and Yard sectors. Only the g of the Drilling sector is statistically higher than one, while the Cruise, Diversified and Offshore sectors are statistically one.