Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Configurational Theory in Traditional Manufacturing Industries: A New Model of High-Performing Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

The goal of this study is to provide a model of high-performing small and medium-sized companies to address the new environmental challenges in traditional manufacturing industries. Adopting a configurational logic and following an inductive approach based on four high-performing firms, this paper provides new empirical evidence on how the steps followed by these firms are adjusted to the high-performance models prescribed by the literature. In doing so, it also offers a dynamic view of the interrelationships between the strategy and the new conditions of the environment. At a practitioner level, the paper illustrates which recipes are more appropriate to prescribe recommendations for a more robust model that reinforces competitiveness in these industries. This research suggests that competitive success in traditional manufacturing industries requires movement along five complementary and interlinked strategic-development axes: the use of cooperation agreements, the combination of local and international manufacturing, the greater control of the distribution channel, the sale of customized products, and an increasing concern for sustainability.
The sound of music on the pocket: A study of background music in retail

Influences of background music on consumer behavior have economic potential for businesses. However, the precise parameters for manipulating these effects have remained elusive. In this study, the impact of different genres of background music on consumer spending was examined in three branches each of both a Japanese-themed and a Mexican-themed restaurant chain in Singapore. Three music genre conditions (“pop,” “traditional,” “mix”) corresponding to the restaurants’ cultural theme, were played for a week in each restaurant. Data on total spending and spending per customer were collected and analyzed. While direct music genre effects were not statistically significant, results indicated certain trends where higher consumer expenditure was observed in conditions utilizing a mixture of pop and traditional music (“mix”). Specifically, spending per customer for the “mix” condition was 11.4% higher than for “pop” for the Japanese restaurant, whereas it was 6.3% higher for the “mix” condition than for “traditional” for the Mexican restaurant. The results suggest that music could be tailored to different days of the week to appeal to different customer profiles and that music can be parameterized to influence consumer behaviors.
Hollowing out the middle? Remittances, poverty, and income inequality in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the impact of remittances on poverty and inequality in Nigeria. In contrast to the existing literature, our methodology of instrumental variable quantile regression (IVQR) explicitly demonstrates the differential marginal impact of remittances for households at different levels of the conditional expenditure distribution. In tracing this heterogeneous impact, we are further able to address the effect of remittances on poverty and inequality simultaneously in one econometric model. Our results based on the Nigerian Migration Household Survey 2009 show that remittances reduce poverty by increasing household expenditures reveal a positive marginal impact of remittances at all but the highest quantiles of the conditional distribution of household expenditure, with the impact being the greatest up to the 12th quantile. While this unambiguously supports the poverty alleviation role of remittances documented in the literature, the distributional impact is more nuanced: The marginal effect of remittances follows a U-shape over most of the household expenditure distribution, which suggests that remittances may ‘hollow out’ the middle class. Specifically, households lying between the 13th to the 35th quantile gain less from receiving remittances than households on either side of this range.
CMOS Voltage-Controlled Negative Resistance Realization

In this communication, a new CMOS circuit configuration is proposed to realize a voltage-controlled negative resistance (VCNR) which has been implemented using only eight MOS transistors- all working in the saturation region. The value of the realized negative resistance is controlled by two identical and opposite external DC voltages. The workability of the proposed circuit has been confirmed by Cadence Virtuoso simulations and some sample results have been given. The proposed VCNR circuit has been shown to exhibit good linearity, has good variable negative resistance range from -1. 05kΩ and -300Ω and offers a good operational frequency range up to around 100 MHz with total power dissipation between 0.5mW- 8.73mW only.
An investigation into persistent transgene expression from plasmid vectors in the lung

Gene therapy for chronic lung diseases will require vectors capable of persistent transgene expression in the absence of inflammation but few promoters have been identified that can fulfil both of these requirements. The development of plasmids devoid of CG dinucleotides (CpGs) has resulted in markedly reduced levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Furthermore, a novel synthetic enhancer/promoter, termed hCEFI, has been shown to direct high levels of sustained transgene expression in the murine lung, following aerosol delivery of non-viral formulations. A CpG-free plasmid containing the hCEFI enhancer/promoter has been evaluated in clinical trials for cystic fibrosis lung gene therapy. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the reasons for successful persistent expression achieved with this plasmid. An understanding of these reasons is also useful for the development of new gene therapy treatments. Cell culture models did not recapitulate the transgene expression profiles obtained in vivo ; therefore, a mouse aerosol model of lung gene transfer was utilised. New variants of the hC enhancer present in the hCEFI promoter were constructed and tested in vivo . Studies demonstrated that a minimal enhancer sequence, comprising the final 93 bp of the full-length 302 bp hC enhancer, was necessary and sufficient for mediating persistent and high levels of transgene activity in the mouse lung. Support for the inclusion of multiple copies of the minimal enhancer to increase transgene activity was also obtained. Observations in a mouse model for gene transfer to the liver showed that the minimal enhancer could not mediate transgene activity at the same level as the full-length hC enhancer, indicating that the minimal enhancer does not uniformly direct transgene activity but may be specific to the target organ. An analysis of predicted transcription factor binding sites was performed to support such tissue-specific differences. Overall, these studies demonstrate that only a very small portion of an enhancer is required to direct high-level activity in the lung. This has implications for the future design of both non-viral and viral vectors for use in gene therapy applications.
High incidence of sea turtle stranding in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean

Sea turtles are globally threatened due to short- and long-term exposure to anthropogenic activities. Many life-history traits make it difficult to study these species in the wild. Stranding events provide invaluable data to infer key aspects of sea turtle ecology, such as regional occurrence, health status, mortality rates, and potential threats. In this study, we investigate spatial and temporal patterns of sea turtle occurrence and mortality in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean based on a systematic, large-scale survey programme covering 1040 km of coastline during 732 d of two consecutive years. From the 12 571 animals recovered, juvenile green turtles were the most common (90.4%), but four other species were also recorded. A significant non-linear effect of time and space in the number of stranding events was observed. The most parsimonious mixed linear model further indicated that stranding events were influenced by individual (sex, size), health (body condition, pathologies, decomposition), and oceanographic factors (chlorophyll-a, sea surface temperature, salinity, wave height). More than simply describing the spatiotemporal occurrence and aspects of sea turtles’ life history in an otherwise understudied area, this intensive field study provides evidence for relatively high mortality rates—an essential baseline information for guiding conservation efforts.
Collaboration for Improving Social Work Practice: The Promise of Feminist Participatory Action Research

Feminist research and participatory action research (PAR) share the belief that research should directly serve social justice aims and work to alleviate suffering of marginalized and oppressed people. This article presents the results of a unique feminist PAR (FPAR) approach to designing and implementing an evaluation of an intervention with women who have used violence. The site of our analysis is the steering committee that oversaw this work and the extent to which members adhered to FPAR principles. Over the two decades since feminist critiques of PAR began to emerge, new discourses of collaboration have appeared. As researchers, we must be alert to FPAR discourses that mask ongoing hierarchies. Our findings suggest that, while reflexivity and genuine commitment to collaboration are fundamental to enacting FPAR principles, social workers nevertheless face real challenges confronting structural barriers that impede anti-oppression goals. This study highlights the challenges of adhering faithfully to feminist participatory principles in real-life settings and the need for future research to examine the effectiveness of FPAR processes in achieving authentic collaboration among committee members who are chosen to represent disparate perspectives and are backed by vastly different levels of social and institutional power.
ALT Levels for Asians With Metabolic Diseases: A Meta‐analysis of 86 Studies With Individual Patient Data Validation

The current alanine aminotransferase (ALT) upper limit of normal was defined using selected healthy Caucasian blood donors. Given the global rise in obesity and different body habitus in Asians, we aimed to perform a systematic review and meta‐analysis combined with bootstrap modeling and individual patient data validation to estimate the ALT upper threshold for Asians, including the overweight and diabetics. We included studies from PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane database searches that identified individuals without known liver diseases (i.e., viral hepatitis, alcohol, and ultrasound‐detected nonalcoholic fatty liver disease). The mean ALT (U/L) was estimated using a random‐effects mixed model and upper threshold (95th‐percentile value, U/L) via a bootstrap model with 10,000 resamples. We screened 4,995 studies and identified 86 studies that reported ALT values for 526,641 individuals without excessive alcohol intake or known liver diseases, yielding a mean ALT of 19 and ALT upper threshold of 32. The ALT upper threshold was 37 in males versus 31 in females, 39 in overweight versus 28 in normal‐weight individuals, and 36 for diabetics versus 33 for nondiabetics. We validated our study level data with individual patient level data in 6,058 individuals from five study centers in Japan. Consistent with our study‐level data, we found that the ALT upper threshold in our individual patient data analysis was indeed higher in overweight versus normal‐weight individuals (39 vs. 32) and in diabetics versus nondiabetics (42 vs. 33). Conclusion: We provide validated reference ranges for ALT upper threshold derived from Asians without known liver disease, including individuals with ultrasound‐detected nonalcoholic fatty liver disease who are normal weight, overweight, nondiabetic, and diabetic, to inform practice.
Modeling the impacts of hemlock woolly adelgid infestation and presalvage harvesting on carbon stocks in northern hemlock forests

To better understand the potential impact of the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA, Adelges tsugae Annand) and presalvage activities on carbon (C) dynamics in northern stands of eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carr. ), we used the Forest Vegetation Simulator and Forest Inventory and Analysis data to model C storage and successional pathways under four scenarios: presalvage harvesting; HWA-induced mortality; presalvage harvesting plus HWA-induced mortality; and no disturbance (control). Our simulation showed that all treatments differed in total C storage in the short term, with HWA-induced mortality providing the highest total C storage due to regeneration and ingrowth of replacement species combined with retention of standing and downed deadwood. At the end of the 150-year simulation, all disturbance scenarios had significantly lower total C than the control. The cumulative net C gain was lower for the two presalvage scenarios than for the HWA scenario, indicating that allowing HWA to progress n.
The role of small leucine-rich repeat proteoglycan Asporin in early eye development

There has been a longstanding research interest in understanding the exact mechanisms underlying the correct development of the eye, with the goal of treating eye disease and blindness. While there have been enormous advances in the field of regenerative medicine, there is still some way to go before these advances can be translated into clinical applications. Very little is currently known about the regulatory mechanisms controlling the very early stages of eye development. While the genes, which regulate eye field development have been well characterised, their induction and mechanism of action, including downstream signalling targets and associated downstream signalling systems, still largely remain to be elucidated. The small leucine-rich repeat proteoglycan (SLRP) family of proteins play important roles in a number of biological events, such as proliferation, growth and differentiation. Class I SLRP Asporin (ASPN) has so far been mainly associated with research relating to cartilage homeostasis, osteoarthritis susceptibility and more recently cancer. In this study, I introduce ASPN as a new important factor in Xenopus laevis early eye development. During frog embryogenesis, ASPN is broadly expressed in the neuroectoderm of the embryo. The overexpression of ASPN causes the induction of ectopic eyes. In contrast, blocking ASPN function with morpholino-oligonucleotides inhibits eye formation, indicating that ASPN is an essential factor for eye development. Detailed molecular analyses revealed that ASPN interacts with insulin growth factor receptor (IGF1R) and is essential for activating the IGF-receptor mediated intracellular signalling pathway. Furthermore, ASPN perturbed the Wnt, BMP, and Activin signalling pathways, suggesting that ASPN thereby creates a favourable environment in which the IGF signal can dominate. ASPN is thus a novel secreted molecule critical for eye induction through the coordination of multiple signalling pathways.
Smoke Hazard Assessment Model Based on Fire Dynamics Simulator and FED Model

Smoke is the main cause of fire death. In order to minimize the potential danger of smoke hazard, a rational VR based fire training simulator should fully consider all aspects of smoke hazard. In the simulator, the visualization of data based on FDS (Fire Dynamics Simulator) and FED fire dynamic data and volume rendering is further optimized, which can be effectively and quickly applied to virtual fire protection. In addition, a comprehensive smoke hazard assessment model based on FED and FED is established to assess the IHD value of different paths, which represents the safety of different paths, and can be used for evacuation or rescue in virtual training. Taking the case of campus fire drill as an experiment, the research shows the accuracy and effectiveness of smoke assessment based on FDS and FED model. The road force with the highest safety can be selected through the comprehensive model. So the assessment model is proved to be valuable.
Thermo-Mechanical Properties of a Wood Fiber Insulation Board Using a Bio-Based Adhesive as a Binder

The goal of the present study was to develop a low-density thermal insulation board using wood fibers and a bio-based adhesive as a binder, which was prepared from a crude glycerol and citric acid mixture. The physical and mechanical properties of insulation boards manufactured using two ratios of crude glycerol and citric acid (1:0.66 and 1:1 mol/mol) and two adhesive contents (14% and 20%) were evaluated. The results show that the insulation boards with a range of density between 332 to 338 kg m−3 present thermal conductivity values between 0.064 W/m-K and 0.066 W/m-K. The effect of adhesive content was very significant for certain mechanical properties (tensile strength perpendicular to surface and compressive strength). The tensile strength (internal bond) increased between 20% and 36% with the increased adhesive content. In contrast, the compressive strength decreased between 7% and 15%. The thermo-mechanical properties obtained of insulation boards such as thermal conductivity, traverse strength, tensile strength parallel and perpendicular to surface, and compressive strength are in accordance with the requirements of the American Society for Testing and Materials C208-12 standard for different uses. The results confirm the potential of crude glycerol and citric acid mixture to be used as an adhesive in the wood fiber insulation boards’ manufacturing for sustainability purposes.
AUTOSAR Runnable Periods Optimization for DAG-Based Complex Automobile Applications

When developing an automobile control application, its scheduling parameters as well as the control algorithm itself should be carefully optimized to achieve the best control performance from given computing resources. Moreover, since the wide acceptance of the AUTOSAR standard, where finer-granular scheduling entities (called runnables) rather than the traditional real-time tasks are used, the number of scheduling parameters to be optimized is far greater than the traditional task-based control systems. Hence, due to the vast problem space, it is not feasible to reuse existing time-consuming search-based optimization methods. With this motivation, this paper presents an analytical codesign method for deciding runnable periods that minimize given control cost functions. Our solution approach, based on the Lagrange multiplier method, can find optimized runnable periods in polynomial times due to its analytical nature. Moreover, our evaluation results for synthesized applications with varying complexities show that our method performs significantly better (12% to 59% of control cost reductions) than a state-of-the-art evolutionary algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to find runnable periods that maximize a given system’s control performance.
The role of DSPF, the type III secretion chaperone of DspA/E of Erwinia amylovora, in pathogenicity in host and non-host plants

Erwinia amylovora is a Gram-negative enterobacterium that causes a devastating blight disease on rosaceous plants. In this study, the structure of DspF, a type III secretion system (T3SS) chaperone required for virulence of E. amylovora, was investigated in bacterial growth and pathogenesis in host and non-host plants, including apple, strawberry, rose, Arabidopsis and tobacco. DspF genes were mutated through homologous recombination and the result was the arrest of disease development on apple, strawberry and rose, and of the hypersensitivity response in tobacco. In addition, bacterial development of the wild type was compared with that of dspF mutants in leaves of A. thaliana Columbia-5 (Col-5), and the resistant A. thaliana Landsberg erecta (Ler-0). It was concluded that DspF is essential for the bacterium to induce hypersensitive responce (HR) disease on host plants (Rosaceous family plant) and non-host plants (Arabidopsis thaliana).
SIERE

Physics-based simulation methods for deformable objects suffer limitations due to the conflicting requirements that are placed on them. The work horse semi-implicit (SI) backward Euler method is very stable and inexpensive, but it is also a blunt instrument. It applies heavy damping, which depends on the timestep, to all solution modes and not just to high-frequency ones. As such, it makes simulations less lively, potentially missing important animation details. At the other end of the scale, exponential methods (exponential Rosenbrock Euler (ERE)) are known to deliver good approximations to all modes, but they get prohibitively expensive and less stable for very stiff material. In this article, we devise a hybrid, semi-implicit method called SIERE that allows the previous methods SI and ERE to each perform what they are good at. To do this, we employ at each timestep a partial spectral decomposition, which picks the lower, leading modes, applying ERE in the corresponding subspace. The rest is handled (i.e., effectively damped out) by SI. No solution of nonlinear algebraic equations is required throughout the algorithm. We show that the resulting method produces simulations that are visually as good as those of the exponential method at a computational price that does not increase with stiffness, while displaying stability and damping with respect to the high-frequency modes. Furthermore, the phenomenon of occasional divergence of SI is avoided.
Mapping Interactive Experience Over Time

: This paper presents a method to explore user experiences over time. The authors propose a structured procedure, using timelines and annotations to facilitate storytelling and data analysis in a user study. It captures participants’ storytelling of prolonged interactive experience. Through our research trial, we demonstrate the potentials to use the timeline’s visual representation for analytical purposes as well as creating accumulative knowledge. The novel contribution of this proposal is a complementary research method to many well-established longitudinal research approaches. The timeline annotations feature like a map on collecting information about people’s prior interactive experience with technologies. It also supports a holistic understanding of a target user group and their overall user experience with devices, functionalities, and services.
Illuminant estimation using pixels spatially close to the illuminant in the rg-chromaticity space

Abstract. Color constancy algorithms can provide us with illuminant invariant descriptions for a scene, and it is often accomplished by illuminant estimation. Most statistics-based methods estimate the illuminant color from the information provided by all pixels of an image. However, this research reveals that, for most images, the color of many pixels is quite different from the illuminant, and these pixels may severely trim the performance of statistics-based methods. Based on this fact, we propose a color constancy algorithm that finds a subset of image pixels with r, g components similar to those of the illuminant through a shallow neural network, and this subset of pixels is called illuminant close pixels (ICPs). Then the illuminant color is estimated from these pixels by some statistics-based methods. The proposed method has been evaluated and investigated on two benchmark datasets. Compared to using all pixels in an image, these statistics-based methods have been efficiently improved using ICPs.