Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of competence exploration and competence exploitation on strategic entrepreneurship

Strategic entrepreneurship captures firms’ efforts to simultaneously excel at opportunity seeking and advantage seeking. But little research exists into mechanisms that might facilitate strategic entrepreneurship. Drawing on the twin concepts of competence exploration and competence exploitation, we study their effects on strategic entrepreneurship. Theoretically, the entrepreneurial components of strategic entrepreneurship (an entrepreneurial mindset and creating innovation) should benefit from competence exploration while its strategic components (managing resources strategically and executing competitive advantages) should benefit from competence exploitation, but not vice-versa. Our findings, however, suggest that this theoretical dichotomy does not hold up in practice.
State and Ore Hardness Estimation in Semiautogenous Grinding

Abstract Semiautogenous milling is difficult to control both because of its non-linear behavior and the effects of overloading due to increases in the ore charge or variations in ore characteristics. Advanced control strategies and operational change detection methods are thus in need of strengthening using techniques such as state estimation. Non-linear state estimation is a complex task for which various solutions have been proposed, such as the extended Kalman filter, the particle filter and the moving horizon estimator. In this study we present firstly a quantitative comparison of these solutions using a dynamic model validated with mill data. The results indicate that in addition to its lower computational requirements, the extended Kalman filter delivers the best performance in robustness and estimation error. Next, we propose a method for estimation of changes in the hardness of the ore feed that we test by simulation. Finally, we show that this method also works with real data.
Simple comparison of different PWM strategies for a three-level H-bridge flying capacitor converter

The paper presents a comparison of phase-shifted and modified level-shifted carrier-based PWM strategies for a three-level H-bridge flying capacitor converter. While the optimal voltage quality of the nearest level switching may be obtained using both of them, natural voltage balancing dynamics is different. Using elementary circuit theory and switched system time domain analysis, it is possible to obtain simple analytical averaged voltage balancing dynamics solutions. Modified level-shifted carrier-based PWM is shown to provide much faster voltage balancing dynamics, especially, for small DC PWM voltage commands and AC PWM modulation indices. The explanation of this fact is obtained by analysis of zero voltage state sequences for different modulation strategies. Relatively fast voltage balancing dynamics rate provided by modified level-shifted carrier-based PWM for zero voltage command makes it possible to implement simple flying capacitors self-precharge procedure at power-up.
Unusual substitutions in HIV‐1 Vif from children infected perinatally without progression to AIDS for more than 8 years without therapy

The HIV‐1 vif gene encodes for an accessory protein that is central for virus replication due mainly to its capacity to counteract the antiviral action of host APOBEC3 restriction factors. In order to evaluate whether HIV‐1 vif alterations account for a delayed progression to AIDS in children infected perinatally, the vif genes from a group of 11 patients who exhibited an extremely slow disease progression (slow progressors) were studied by direct sequencing. In addition, the vif genes from a group of 93 children with typical disease progression (typical progressors) were analyzed for comparison. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that sequences from slow progressors did not have a common origin, discarding a shared ancestor of reduced virulence. There were no differences in the diversity between the vif genes from slow and typical progressors. No gross defects showing a clear distinction among sequences from both groups of children were found. However, in the deduced Vif proteins, changes V13I, V55T, and L81M were observed only in sequences from slow progressors. By analyzing sequences stored in databases, these mutations were determined as unusual substitutions occurring at highly conserved Vif sites across different HIV‐1 clades, but were observed with an increased frequency in sequences from elite controllers. These mutations were in the Vif regions reported as relevant for protein activity. These findings suggest that the Vif sequences from slow progressors carry unusual substitutions, which may alter the protein function and may contribute to viral attenuation. J. Med. Virol. 84:1844–1852, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Efficacy of oral 9‐(2‐phosphonylmethoxyethyl)‐2,6‐diaminopurine (PMEDAP) in the treatment of retrovirus and cytomegalovirus infections in mice

9-(2-Phosphonylmethoxyethyl)-2,6-diaminopurine (PMEDAP) is a broad-spectrum antiviral agent with potent activity against DNA viruses and retroviruses. We now demonstrate that PMEDAP is highly efficacious when given orally to mice infected with either Moloney murine sarcoma virus (MSV), Friend leukemia virus (FLV), or murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV). PMEDAP markedly delayed MSV-induced tumor initiation when administered orally at 50, 100, or 250 mg/kg/day during 5 subsequent days. At the highest dose (250 mg/kg/day), PMEDAP completely prevented tumor formation in the MSV-infected animals. PMEDAP also caused 84-96% inhibition of FLV-induced splenomegaly when given orally to FLV-infected mice at 50-250 mg/kg/day. These PMEDAP treatment regimens were also markedly effective in increasing the survival rate of MCMV-infected mice. Intraperitoneal PMEDAP achieved a comparable antiviral activity at 2- to 5-fold lower doses than oral PMEDAP. However, the therapeutic index (ratio of the toxic dose to the antivirally effective dose) of oral PMEDAP was substantially higher than that of intraperitoneal PMEDAP. Oral PMEDAP at doses of 100, 250, or 500 mg/kg resulted in plasma PMEDAP levels of 0.5-2.5 micrograms/ml, which were sustained for 3 or 6 hours after administration and may account for the high antiviral efficacy achieved.
Three-way decisions based on covering rough set

The covering rough set model is viewed as a generalization of the rough set model. The covering rough set is built on a universe of discourse. A similar idea can be applied into three-way decisions theory to obtain covering-based three-way decisions which is the main object of this study. This paper firstly provides a summary of study on the three-way decisions based on covering rough set by applying the approach of decision-theoretic rough set. Then, the Bayesian decision procedure theory is implemented to covering decision systems.
The Development and Validation Self-Efficacy Scale

Following from Bandura's (1977a) self-efficacy theory, an Eating SelfEfficacy Scale (ESES) was developed and its psychometric properties established. Factor analysis of the 25-item scale yielded two reliable factorsone concerned with eating when experiencing negative affect (NA) and the other with eating during socially acceptable circumstances (SAC). The ESES demonstrated good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity. A clinical study using this measure found that increases in ESES scores were significantly related to weight losses among weight loss program participants. A laboratory study using a mood induction procedure found that NA subscale scores predicted food consumption irrespective of whether negative affect was induced. This finding may indicate that people have difficulty accurately discriminating the specific circumstances under which their eating difficulties occur and/or that eating difficulties tend to be global in nature. The significant correlation of the two ESES subscales (r = .39, p < . 001) supports these possibilities. The clinical and research utility of the ESES and the implications of the findings are discussed.
Author Identification for E-mail Forensic

E-mail communication has become the need of the hour, with the advent of Internet. However, it is being abused for various illegitimate purposes, such as, spamming, drug trafficking, cyber bullying, phishing, racial vilification, child pornography, and sexual harassment, etc. Several cyber crimes such as identity theft, plagiarism, internet fraud stipulate that the true identity of the e-mail‟s author be revealed, so that the culprits can be punished in the court of law, by gathering credible evidence against them. Forensic analysis can play a crucial role here, by letting the forensic investigator to gather evidence by examining suspected e-mail accounts. In this context, automated authorship identification can assist the forensic investigator in cyber crime investigation. In this paper we discuss how existing state-ofthe-art techniques have been employed for author identification of e-mails and we propose our model for identifying most plausible author of e-mails.
Fusion of monitoring data from cable-stayed bridge

This contribution illustrates an application of Bayesian logic to monitoring data analysis and structural condition state inference. The case study is a cable-stayed bridge 260 m long spanning the Adige River ten kilometers north of the town of Trento, Italy. It is a statically indeterminate structure, consisting of a steel-concrete composite deck, supported by 12 stay cables. Structural redundancy, possible relaxation losses and an as-built condition differing from design, suggest that longterm load redistribution between cables can be expected. To monitor load redistribution, the owner decided to install a monitoring system that combines built-on-site elasto-magnetic and fiber-optic sensors. In this article, we discuss a rational way to improve the accuracy of the load variation, estimated using the elasto-magnetic sensors, taking advantage of the fiber-optic sensors information. More specifically, we use a multi-sensor Bayesian data fusion approach, which combines the information from the two sensing systems with the prior knowledge including design information and outcomes of laboratory calibration. Using the data acquired to date, we demonstrate that combining the two measurements allows a more accurate estimate of the cable load, to better than 50 kN.
Comparison of modified Broström and Evans procedures in simulated lateral ankle injury.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to compare the modified Broström and Evans procedures for simulated lateral ankle instability in cadaveric lower extremities. METHODS Six normal cadaveric ankles were loaded with inversion and internal rotation stress through the range of ankle flexion, and three-dimensional motion of the calcaneus and talus relative to the tibia were measured. An ankle stability testing device and a magnetic tracking system were used. Testing was performed in the intact condition, unstable condition after sectioning both the anterior talofibular (ATFL) and calcaneofibular ligaments (CFL), after the Gould modification of the Broström procedure, and after the Evans procedure. RESULTS With inversion loading, both operations resulted in a significantly more stable ankle-hindfoot complex (calcaneal-tibial) than the unstable condition, but there was restricted motion after the Evans operation from neutral to plantarflexion. Tibiotalar inversion motion approximated normal after both operations, but subtalar motion was markedly restricted in the Evans procedure throughout the range of ankle flexion. With internal rotation loading, the Broström operation stabilized the ankle-hindfoot joint complex in plantarflexion. The Evans operation improved internal rotation stability, but restricted motion in all positions. Both operations improved tibiotalar internal rotation stability, but not to normal. The subtalar internal rotation was the same as the intact condition after the Broström operation, but markedly restricted after the Evans operation through the range of ankle flexion. CONCLUSIONS Both operations improved ankle-hindfoot stability, but neither was successful in restoring it to normal as determined with the ankle stability testing device. The Evans procedure improved stability at the expense of creating abnormal subtalar function. The Broström operation improved stability without excessively restricting subtalar movement, but was not effective in addressing the internal rotation laxity.
Narcolepsy: Differential Diagnosis or Etiology in Some Cases of Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia?

Abstract Does narcolepsy, a neurological disease, need to be considered when diagnosing major mental illness? Clinicians have reported cases of narcolepsy with prominent hypnagogic hallucinations that were mistakenly diagnosed as schizophrenia. In some bipolar disorder patients with narcolepsy, the HH resulted in their receiving a more severe diagnosis (ie, bipolar disorder with psychotic features or schizoaffective disorder). The role of narcolepsy in psychiatric patients has remained obscure and problematic, and it may be more prevalent than commonly believed. Classical narcolepsy patients display the clinical “tetrad”—cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, daytime sleep attacks, and sleep paralysis. Over 85% also display the human leukocyte antigen marker DQB10602 (subset of DQ6). Since 1998, discoveries in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology have greatly advanced the understanding of narcolepsy, which involves a nearly total loss of the recently discovered orexin/hypocretin (hypocretin) neurons of the hypothalamus, likely by an autoimmune mechanism. Hypocretin neurons normally supply excitatory signals to brainstem nuclei producing norepinephrine, serotonin, histamine, and dopamine, with resultant suppression of sleep. They also project to basal forebrain areas and cortex. A literature review regarding the differential diagnosis of narcolepsy, affective disorder, and schizophrenia is presented. Furthermore, it is now possible to rule out classical narcolepsy in difficult psychiatric cases. Surprisingly, psychotic patients with narcolepsy will likely require stimulants to fully recover. Many conventional antipsychotic drugs would worsen their symptoms and make them appear to become a “chronic psychotic,” while in fact they can now be properly diagnosed and treated.
Hyers-Ulam stability of nonlinear impulsive Volterra integro-delay dynamic system on time scales

This paper proves the Hyers-Ulam stability and Hyers-Ulam-Rassias stability of nonlinear impulsive Volterra integro-delay dynamic system on time scales via a fixed point approach. The uniqueness and existence of the solution of nonlinear impulsive Volterra integro-delay dynamic system is proved with the help of Picard operator. The main tools for proving our results are abstract Grönwall lemma and Banach contraction principle. We also make some assumptions along with Lipschitz condition which make our results appropriate for the approach we are using. c ©2017 All rights reserved.
A Markov Chain Model for Animal Estrous Cycling Data

Summary Estrous cycling data contain sequences of characters (e.g., DPEMD). Each sequence represents an animal's estrous cycle, with each character indicating the daily estrous cycle stage. Changes in the estrous cycle pattern, which is determined by estrous stage lengths, can provide information on adverse events. Stage lengths are not directly observable. However interval censored lengths for all but the first and the last stages in a sequence can be extracted from the data. We propose a Markov chain model to approximate the estrous cycling process. The transition probabilities from one stage to another can be derived by conditioning on stage lengths. Assuming Weibull distribution for stage lengths, with the second Weibull parameter depending upon treatment effects and animal‐specific random effects, regression models on censored stage lengths are fitted. A Bayesian approach is used for inference on dose effects. The analysis is implemented with MCMC method in WinBUGS. An estrous cycling data set from a National Toxicology Program study is analyzed as an example.
Prolonged presynaptic posttetanic cyclic GMP signaling in Drosophila motoneurons

Ca2+ can stimulate cyclic nucleotide synthesis, but it is not known whether this signaling occurs in nerve terminals in response to activity. Here, in vivo imaging of Drosophila motoneuron terminals shows that activity rapidly induces a long-lasting signal from a transgenically expressed optical indicator based on the epac1 (exchange protein directly activated by cAMP 1) cAMP-binding domain. The epac1-cAMP sensor (camps) response in synaptic boutons depends on extracellular Ca2+ and ryanodine receptor-mediated Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release from the endoplasmic reticulum. However, mutations that inhibit rutabaga Ca2+-stimulated adenylyl cyclase and dunce cAMP-specific phosphodiesterase (PDE) have no effect. Instead, the activity-dependent presynaptic epac1-camps signal reflects elevation of cGMP in response to nitric oxide-activated guanylyl cyclase. Posttetanic presynaptic cGMP is long-lived because of limited PDE activity. Thus, nerve terminal biochemical signaling induced by brief bouts of activity temporally summates on a time scale orders of magnitude longer than fast transmission.
Concrete plant operations optimization using combined simulation and genetic algorithms

This work presents a new approach for concrete plant operations optimization by combining a ready mixed concrete (RMC) production simulation tool (called HKCONSIM) with a genetic algorithm (GA) based optimization procedure. A revamped HKCONSIM computer system can be used to automate the simulation model construction, conduct simulation experiments on certain scenarios of site orders and resource provisions, and optimize the system performance measures under a stochastic simulation environment. HKCONSIM is suitable for assisting a RMC plant in its resource provision planning and concrete production scheduling in order to meet given demands at a number of sites for concrete over a working day, determine the least costly, most productive amount of truckmixer resources to improve the supply service level and the utilization level of the truckmixer resources available. To simulate and optimize the RMC production operations with HKCONSIM does not require familiarity by the user with any software-specific terminology and modeling schematics; simulation model construction can be easily achieved by specifying the attributes for each pour and site and providing the plant and truck-mixer resources available on self-explanatory on-screen forms. This work also presents two case studies for optimizing concrete plant daily operations based on Hong Kong's real operations data. Conclusions are given on the research and recommendations for future work made.
Does Trading Remove or Bring Frictions?

We explore in this paper how trading noise, when considered as a market friction, reacts to trading activity. Transactions cost is a good explanation for intraday trading behavior in the market according to our data. Particularly, we show that in general trading brings friction to market. However, trading friction at market open is the lowest during the day, as trading causes less friction then relatively. This is due to the behavioral difference among investors. When market opens, individual trading removes, while institutional trading brings, market friction. Situation in the rest of the day is just the opposite, where individual, instead of institutional, trading brings friction. The uneven behavior of trading noise across investors and time of day makes it a specific, rather than general, transactions cost, as opposed to Stoll (2000). Intraday trading activity suppresses both order width and depth, as proxies for trading intensity, therefore creates more noise or friction in the market. Width and depth contribute to trading noise in a polarized way, so that individual trading hurts friction in small cap stocks at open, but benefits it at close. Institutional trading brings extremely strong friction to large cap stocks, but less so at market close. So trading noise as a specific, rather than general, transactions cost is prominent only to certain investors, at certain time and for certain stocks in the market. Our findings lend itself to the justification of the new financial transactions tax proposed by the European Union.
Automatic shadow segmentation in aerial color images

A robust and efficient technique to segment shaded areas in aerial color images is presented here. This technique is based on the physical phenomenon of atmospheric dispersion of the sunlight most well known as the Rayleigh scattering effect. This technique does not depend on special algorithms to classify or to form clusters of objects appearing in complex aerial images. In fact, the mathematical model, derived from the physical model is very simple but it produces consistent results and can be applied to color images obtained by airborne and orbital sensors (e.g., Landsat TM and IKONOS).
Designing a modular and scalable firmware for infrared LED scene projectors

Abstract : Infrared scene projectors (IRSPs) are acritical laboratory tool for setup, test and calibration ofinfrared imaging systems. InfraRed Light EmittingDiodes (IRLEDs) are a new emitter technology forbuilding IRSP systems with higher resolution andfaster frame rates. This paper describes a scalablefirmware architecture that meets the performancerequirements of emerging IRLED IRSP systems. Ourfirmware enables the ability to add hardware modulesto the TCSA system (Two-Color SLEDs Array) toincrease performance or add functionality as neededby the customer.
Patient Socioeconomic Status Is an Independent Predictor of Operative Mortality

Objective:To evaluate the impact of patient socioeconomic status (SES) on operative mortality within the context of associated factors. Summary of Background Data:Outcomes disparities among surgical patients are a significant concern. Previous studies have suggested that the correlation between SES and outcomes is attributable to other patient- or hospital-level explanatory factors such as race or hospital wealth. These studies have typically focused on a single explanation for the existence of these inequalities. Methods:Analyzing more than 1 million records of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, we used multimodel inference to evaluate the effects of socioeconomic predictors on surgical mortality. Results:Using univariate and multivariate logistic regression, we find that patient's SES is a strong predictor of operative mortality. Multivariate regressions incorporated many additional hospital- and patient-level covariates. A single-level increase in patient SES results in a mean decrease in operative mortality risk of 7.1%. Conclusions:SES at the level of the individual patient has a statistically significant effect on operative mortality. Mortality is greatest among patients in the lowest socioeconomic strata. The effect of patient SES on mortality is not mitigated by other explanatory hospital- or patient-level factors.
Ethnic identity, academic achievement, and self-esteem among Mexican-American university students

This study examines the relationship between ethnic identity, academic achievement, and self-esteem among a sample of Mexican-American students at a predominantly European-American university. Mexican-American students reported a significantly stronger sense of ethnic identity relative to European-American students on a stand ardized measure of ethnic identity (Phinney, 1992). High scores on the ethnic identity measure were significantly correlated to a measure of self-esteem for both Mexican-American students and European-American students, but did not predict academic achievement for either group as measured by overall grade point average when sex and age were controlled for. Results and implications for the meaning of ethnic identity in a multi-cultural society are discussed as well as directions for future research.