Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Exploratory Framework for Analysing International Retail Learning

It is argued that international retail research has overlooked an essential component of the retail internationalization process, notably learning. This paper proposes an exploratory framework that enables the application of learning theory to the study of international retailing. The paper provides a meaningful starting point for developing an overarching framework which would represent one sort of re-conceptualization of the retail internationalization process, and arguably a new perspective for reinterpreting, re-evaluating and refining the existing literature on international retailing. Alongside this exploratory framework, we present a series of research propositions that might serve as an agenda for research into international retail learning. The paper concludes with a summary of the key themes and ways in which the area of international retail learning may be investigated.
The role of nurses in promoting a business

ABSTRACT: In struggling times, nurses may be called upon by their employers to think of ways to promote business for their practice. The aim of this article is to provide ideas and methods for nurses to implement. These include SMART and SWOT analyses and marketing strategies, such as open days, social networks and local advertisement. Through this it is hoped nurses can promote business and become practice managers and owners.
The Design of a Micro Power Management System for Applications Using Photovoltaic Cells With the Maximum Output Power Control

An inductor-less on-chip micro power management system for light energy harvesting applications is presented. We target at wide variety of applications that operate at different lighting environments ranging from strong sunlight to dim indoor lighting where the output voltage from the photovoltaic cells is low. A step-up charge pump is used to directly operate the circuit or to charge a rechargeable battery. The power management system operation is discussed and the control strategy for transferring the maximum output power from the power system is presented. Low power circuit design is proposed for the implementation of the system maximum output power control. The system was implemented using a 0.35-mum CMOS process. The chip was fabricated and measurements were conducted for different lighting conditions to demonstrate the system operation and verify the control strategy.
Proteomic methodologies and their application in colorectal cancer research

Colorectal cancer usually develops in clearly defined stages, with distinct molecular alterations characterizing each transition. This often slow process makes colorectal cancer an ideal target for early detection programs. The blossoming of global, -omics approaches in recent years has led to greatly increased expectations for novel diagnostic and prognostic tools. Despite many early disappointments and the resulting skepticism, real progress has been made with exciting new prospects for cancer research. This review summarizes currently available proteomic tools for identifying novel biomarkers and drug targets, as well as an overview of their application in research on molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis. Emphasis is given to novel sample preparation methods, protein separation and identification techniques, and advanced mass spectrometry tools for quantitative proteomic. The most important applications of these technologies in colorectal cancer research are discussed.
Ray Launching Modeling in Curved Tunnels with Rectangular or Non Rectangular Section

Several methods to model radio wave propagation in tunnels have been published in the literature and will be presented in this chapter with their advantages and drawbacks. Among them, only few works are dedicated to non rectangular cross section and curved tunnels. Hence, we focus on a new method recently developed. The structure of the chapter is as follows. Section 2 presents the context of the works and why deployments of wireless telecommunication systems are needed for transport applications. Existing techniques to model radio wave propagation in tunnel are presented in section 3 with their respective advantages and drawbacks. The fourth and fifth sections are respectively devoted to the design and the evaluation of a propagation prediction model for curved tunnel with a rectangular or a circular cross section. Finally, section 6 concludes and presents some perspectives to these works.
Sociodemographic aspects and quality of life of patients with sickle cell anemia

Background Sickle cell anemia is a chronic inherited disease, widespread in the Brazilian population due to the high degree of miscegenation in the country. Despite the high prevalence, there are few studies describing the characteristics of patients and the impact of the disease on quality of life. Objective To describe the sociodemographic profile and the impact of the disease on the quality of life of sickle cell anemia patients. Methods Over 18-year-old patients with sickle cell anemia who attended meetings held by the Associação Baiana de Portadores de Doenças Falciformes, an association for sickle cell anemia patients in Bahia, were interviewed. Sociodemographic data were collected and the generic the Medical Outcomes 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaire, which is used to assess quality of life, was applied. The analysis of the descriptive statistics was performed using the Statistics Program for the Social Sciences software. Results Thirty-two mostly female (65.6%) patients were interviewed. The mean age was 31.9 ± 12.67 years, 50.0% considered themselves black, 68.8% did not work and 87.5% had per capita income below the poverty line (up to one and a half minimum wages). The SF-36 scores were: limitation by physical aspects 26.56, functional capacity 28.9, emotional aspects 30.20, social aspects, 50.0, pain 50.31, mental health 54.62, general health status 56.09 and vitality 56.71. This shows that the disease has a huge impact on the patients' quality of life. Conclusion The disease interferes in the working capacity of individuals, who mostly have low incomes and impaired access to healthcare services and significantly impacts on their quality of life.
MILK YIELD AND COMPOSITION OF PREPARTUM BUNAJI COWS SUPPLEMENTED WITH AGROINDUSTRIAL BY-PRODUCTS IN SMALLHOLDER DAIRY PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

Twenty cows gestating Bunaji cows, balanced for their weight and parity, were submitted to four treatments: T1, range grazing, (RG); T2, RG + 100% corn bran (CB); T3, RG + 60% CB + 40% palm kernel cake (PKC), and T4, RG + 60% CB + 40% dried brewer’s grains (DBG) in an on-farm experiment in a complete randomized design. Mean milk offtake (kg/day) at 3 months, 6 months and weaning were lower (P cows on T1 than T2, T3 and T4 (0.60 vs. 0.77, 0.93 and 0.95), (0.41 vs. 0.52, 0.60 and 0.62) and (0.26 vs. 0.33, 0.41 and 0.43), respectively. Mean milk yields at 3 months, 6 months and weaning, 4% FCM and total milk yield throughout lactation were superior (P T3, T2 and T4 compared to T1 (2.91, 3.16 and 3.29 vs. 2.53 kg/day), (2.53, 2.68 and 2.68 vs. 2.29 kg/day) and (2.16, 2.28 and 2.31 vs. 1.79 kg/day), (3.22, 3.48 and 3.59 vs. 2.57 kg/day) and (532.66, 577.29 and 591.31 vs. 435.94 kg), respectively. Among the supplemented cows, the above mentioned milk parameters were lower (P higher in T4. Time to peak milk production and milk constituents were similar (P > 0.05) among the treatments. Total milk offtake and peak milk production significantly varied among the treatments; the rank order was: T1 lactation performance of cows, and quality of concentrates used as supplement should be prioritized
Logistics Innovation: A customer Value-Oriented Social Process

This paper reports on a qualitative, grounded theory research project conducted in the United States, Sweden, and The United Kingdom designed to explore logistics innovation as perceived by leaders of logistics service provider firms and logistics business functions within product focused firms. Analysis of 33 depth interviews conducted within seven organizations revealed activities that reflect multiple aspects of being innovative, including: (1) setting a stage for innovation; (2) identifying clues to shifts in what customers value; (3) negotiating, clarifying, and reflecting upon insights; and (4) managing inter-organizational learning.
Retinoid quantification by HPLC/MS(n).

UNLABELLED Retinoic acid (RA) mediates most of the biological effects of vitamin A that are essential for vertebrate survival. It acts through binding to receptors that belong to the nuclear receptor transcription factor superfamily (Mangelsdorf et al. 1994). It is also a highly potent vertebrate teratogen. To determine the function and effects of endogenous and exogenous RA, it is important to have a highly specific, sensitive, accurate, and precise analytical procedure. Current analyses of RA and other retinoids are labor intensive, of poor sensitivity, have limited specificity, or require compatibility with RA reporter cell lines (Chen et al. 1995. BIOCHEM: Pharmacol. 50: 1257-1264; Creech Kraft et al. 1994. BIOCHEM: J. 301: 111-119; Lanvers et al. 1996. J. Chromatogr. B Biomed. Appl. 685: 233-240; Maden et al. 1998. DEVELOPMENT 125: 4133-4144; Wagner et al. 1992. DEVELOPMENT 116: 55-66). This paper describes an HPLC/mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry product ion scan (HPLC/MS(n)) procedure for the analysis of retinoids that employs atmospheric pressure chemical ionization MS. The retinoids are separated by normal-phase column chromatography with a linear hexane-isopropanol-dioxane gradient. Each retinoid is detected by a unique series of MS(n) functions set at optimal collision-induced dissociation energy (30% to 32%) for all MS(n) steps. The scan events are divided into three segments, based on HPLC elution order, to maximize the mass spectrometer duty cycle. The all-trans, 9-cis, and 13-cis RA isomers are separated, if desired, by an isocratic hexane-dioxane-isopropanol mobile phase. This paper describes an HPLC/MS(n) procedure possessing high sensitivity and specificity for retinoids.
Mobile advertising in the eyes of retailers and consumers - empirical evidence from a real-life experiment

The future of mobile advertising (m-advertising) is expected to rely on mobile devices, enthusiastic advertisers and consumers. However, current m- advertising literature has studied this phenomenon quite narrowly, focusing only on one perspective at a time. This empirically grounded paper aims to give a more multidimensional view on m-advertising, which simultaneously takes into account both retailers and consumers. It presents both qualitative and quantitative data collected from a real-life experiment of m-advertising. The empirical findings of this study describe the current challenges and possibilities in m-advertising. They indicate that the technological hype round m-advertising has overshadowed the other important element of m-ads: the content.
Sampling and transportation of food materials for freeze‐fracture from the industrial environment

A simple holder is described which enables the multiple sampling of food materials for freeze‐fracturing in an industrial environment. The holder allows frozen samples to be transferred safely to the laboratory under liquid nitrogen for freeze‐fracturing and examination by transmission electron microscopy. The technique has been successfully applied to sampling food from pilot plant and production lines under factory conditions.
Highly Efficient H.264/AVC Codec Technology for High Definition Consumer Applications

This paper presents newly developed highly efficient H.264 codec technologies for high definition consumer products. An essential set of H.264 coding tools has been determined as a result of an image evaluation. In addition, a new binary arithmetic decoding algorithm was developed in order to achieve necessary performance on the minimal sufficient clock frequency. These algorithms were implemented in our new H.264/AVC high definition codec LSI targeting mobile digital appliances including an HD camcorder.
Customer relationship oriented marketing practices in SMEs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) gather customer information and act on it keeping in mind the profitability of the business operations. A customer relationship oriented marketing process is suggested. This process includes customer information gathering, customer segmentation, creating value by differentiation and managing customer profitability. Special attention is paid to whether industry, size and customer markets affect the extent to which these tasks are performed.Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected mainly through an online questionnaire from SMEs in three industries operating in North Karelia, Finland. Principal component analysis was used and, thereafter, the variables loaded on each of the factors were combined to composite measures. These composite measures were used as dependent variables in the analysis of variance exploring the differences between the SMEs.Findings – The results show great differences .
Examination of Formal and Informal Relationships Between Service Provider and Client for Ticket Sales Outsourcing in the United States

ABSTRACT With the growing trend of sport marketing outsourcing in intercollegiate sport in the United States, there has been an increased focus on sport marketing outsourcing research in the literature. Nevertheless, only a few studies have theoretically viewed and empirically examined outsourcing as a strategic form of a collaborative relationship between the service provider (sport marketing company) and client (athletic department). Given the importance of relationships for successful outsourcing, this study examines formal and informal relationships among employees of both the service provider and client. Using social network analysis and the quadratic assignment procedure, this study provides helpful insights into the dynamics of both formal and informal relationships existing among employees from two independent organizations in the context of sport marketing outsourcing in intercollegiate sport in the United States. The implications of these relationships for both theory and practice are discussed in this research.
Red meat consumption and risk of cancers of the proximal colon, distal colon and rectum: The Swedish Mammography Cohort

Although there is considerable evidence that high consumption of red meat may increase the risk of colorectal cancer, data by subsite within the colon are sparse. The objective of our study was to prospectively examine whether the association of red meat consumption with cancer risk varies by subsite within the large bowel. We analyzed data from the Swedish Mammography Cohort of 61,433 women aged 40–75 years and free from diagnosed cancer at baseline in 1987–1990. Diet was assessed at baseline using a self‐administered food‐frequency questionnaire. Over a mean follow‐up of 13.9 years, we identified 234 proximal colon cancers, 155 distal colon cancers and 230 rectal cancers. We observed a significant positive association between red meat consumption and risk of distal colon cancer (p for trend = 0.001) but not of cancers of the proximal colon (p for trend = 0.95) or rectum (p for trend = 0.32). The multivariate rate ratio for women who consumed 94 or more g/day of red meat compared to those who consumed less than 50 g/day was 2.22 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.34–3.68) for distal colon, 1.03 (95% CI 0.67–1.60) for proximal colon and 1.28 (95% CI 0.83–1.98) for rectum. Although there was no association between consumption of fish and risk of cancer at any subsite, poultry consumption was weakly inversely related to risk of total colorectal cancer (p for trend = 0.04). These findings suggest that high consumption of red meat may substantially increase the risk of distal colon cancer. Future investigations on red meat and colorectal cancer risk should consider cancer subsites separately. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Middleware for Mobile Sensing Applications in Urban Environments

Sensor networks represent an attractive tool to observe the physical world. Networks of tiny sensors can be used to detect a fire in a forest, to monitor the level of pollution in a river, or to check on the structural integrity of a bridge. Application-specific deployments of static-sensor networks have been widely investigated. Commonly, these networks involve a centralized data-collection point and no sharing of data outside the organization that owns it. Although this approach can accommodate many application scenarios, it significantly deviates from the pervasive computing vision of ubiquitous sensing where user applications seamlessly access anytime, anywhere data produced by sensors embedded in the surroundings. With the ubiquity and ever-increasing capabilities of mobile devices, urban environments can help give substance to the ubiquitous sensing vision through Urbanets, spontaneously created urban networks. Urbanets consist of mobile multi-sensor devices, such as smart phones and vehicular systems, public sensor networks deployed by municipalities, and individual sensors incorporated in buildings, roads, or daily artifacts. My thesis is that “multi-sensor mobile devices can be successfully programmed to become the underpinning elements of an open, infrastructure-less, distributed sensing platform that can bring sensor data out of their traditional closeloop networks into everyday urban applications”. Urbanets can support a variety of services ranging from emergency and surveillance to tourist guidance, shopping, and entertainment. For instance, cars can be used to provide traffic information services to alert drivers to upcoming traffic jams, and phones to provide shopping recommender services to inform users of special offers at the mall.
How Employer and Employee Satisfaction Affect Customer Satisfaction: An Application to Franchise Services

In small-service settings, how do owner satisfaction, front-line employee satisfaction, and customer satisfaction relate to one another? The authors use generalized exchange theory (GET) to examine how satisfaction levels of these three constituents are reciprocated. The authors examine a European franchise system comprising 50 outlets, 933 employees, and 20,742 customers. Their results show two important findings. First, the effect of owner-franchisee’s satisfaction on customer satisfaction is fully mediated by front-line employee satisfaction. Thus, managers of a service outlet can strongly impact the satisfaction and behavioral intentions of their customer base, even without direct contact with them. Second, the link between customer satisfaction and purchase intention is moderated by employee satisfaction at an outlet. The link between customer satisfaction and customer purchase intentions is almost twice as strong when employees are satisfied than when they are not. Thus, there is a ‘‘doublepositive effect:’’ not only does higher employee satisfaction at an outlet directly lead to higher customer satisfaction but it also indirectly strengthens the association between customer satisfaction and their repurchase intentions.
The impact of attempted suicide on the symptoms and course of mood disorders.

BACKGROUND Case-controlled studies have produced conflicting results on the relief of depression following attempted suicide. This study examined the impact of attempted suicide on the symptoms and course of mood disorders. METHOD Of 2800 inpatients reviewed retrospectively, 40 depressed patients who had attempted suicide immediately before admission and 40 depressed but nonsuicidal control patients satisfied entry criteria for the study. The overall severity of their depression had been rated by the treating psychiatrists before the attempted suicide or at admission using the DSM-III-R (or DSM-IV) severity scale. The severity of depression at 1 week after admission was evaluated by reviewing medical records. For categorical analysis, improvement was defined as a reduction of one or more categories on the DSM-III-R (or DSM-IV) severity scale. We assigned scores of 1-6 to this scale to enable quantitative comparisons. RESULTS Both categorical and dimensional analyses demonstrated that depression was significantly (p <.05) more likely to improve within 1 week of admission among suicidal unipolar patients than among nonsuicidal unipolar patients. Logistic regression analyses revealed that a unipolar course was significantly (p =.023) associated with the improvement of depression. Of the 15 patients showing postsuicidal improvement of depression, 5 (33%) relapsed within 1 month. No significant predictors of their relapses were detected. Of 7 patients with postsuicidal manic switching, 4 (57%) experienced a switch-down into depression. CONCLUSION This study suggests that unipolar depression is significantly improved after attempted suicide, but also that depressed patients showing postsuicidal improvement or manic switching are likely to undergo relapse or switch-down into depression within a short period.
Neutral- and charged-current disintegration of deuterium by solar and supernova neutrinos.

On etudie les desintegrations induites par courant de neutrinos charge et neutre du deuterium, pour les energies allant jusqu'a 160 MeV. On inclut tous les operateurs de transition et les etats finaux pertinents. Les premieres transitions interdites vers les etats P, qui sont souvent negligees, sont importantes aux energies superieures a 40 MeV; les transitions associees au courant de vecteur, sont examinees a l'aide d'un theoreme de Siegert etendus. Les corrections de recul sont incluses. Les sections efficaces du spectre moyenne sont calculees pour des neutrinos de supernova et solaires. La sensibilite augmentee resultante des detecteurs de Cherenkov d'eau lourde proposes, a une signification particuliere pour les neutrinos de tauon et de muon supernova
Instrumenting and tuning dataView—a networked application for navigating through large scientific datasets

dataView is an application that allows scientists to fly visually through large, regularly‐gridded, time‐varying 3D datasets from their desktop computers. dataView works with data that has been divided into cubes and sub‐cubes (which we call ‘tiles’ and ‘subtiles’), sampled at three levels of detail and written to a terabyte data server built on a PC cluster. dataView is a networked application. The dataView client component that runs on the scientist's computer is used only for user interaction and rendering. The selection of data subtiles for any given scene, and the geometry computation performed on those subtiles to create the virtual world, are performed by dataView components run in parallel on nodes of the PC cluster.
Enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay for Giardia‐specific IgA in mouse intestinal secretions

Summary We describe an ELISA for trophozoite‐specific IgA in the intestinal secretions of mice infected with Giardia muris. Using this method, trophozoite‐specific IgA was demonstrated in intestinal secretions of Giardia‐infected immunocompetent BALB/c mice. Such antibody was undetectable in the intestinal secretions of Giardia‐infected athymic (nude) mice. Immunocompetent BALB/c mice are able to clear G. muris infection whereas nude mice are not. The study provides evidence that the chronicity of G. muris infection in nude mice results from lack of intestinal trophozoite‐specific IgA in these animals. By means of the ELISA, trophozoite‐specific IgA was demonstrated in intestinal secretions from immunocompetent mice in the absence of protease inhibitors.