Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unravelling processes of alliance capability development: longitudinal processual insights from an emerging country multinational enterprise

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore and unbundle the complex processes underpinning development of alliance capabilities, particularly in the context of emerging country multinational enterprises. More specifically, this paper focuses on how firms internalize and translate knowledge generated from experiences gained by participating in international collaborations.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopt an exploratory case study approach to undertake in-depth processual analysis of alliance capability development in an Indian biopharmaceutical company. The authors focused their analysis on the initial four international alliances the company formed and identified key elements pertaining to alliance capabilities that the company internalized and those that it could not, as this was key in understanding alliance capability.FindingsThe research shows that based on experiences from previous alliances, the Indian organization was able to overhaul its negotiation and governance designing processes and practices as well as made robust changes to its internal communication and coordination practices. Interestingly, the company organization, however, did not make any significant changes to its processes and practices regarding partner selection.Practical implicationsThe results from our study can be used by managers to develop processes and practices when it comes to developing alliance capabilities.Originality/valueThe paper is novel, as it addresses two specific gaps in the nascent alliance capability literature. First, it provides insights on how different constituent elements/aspects of alliance capability actually develop and integrate within the organizational system over time, and in the process, the paper identifies that some aspects are better internalized as compared to other aspects. Second, by focusing the attention on an Indian biopharmaceutical company, the authors attempt to address a gap in alliance capability development research, which has been neglected in emerging country multinational entities.
Detection of Alzheimer’s disease with segmentation approach using K-Means Clustering and Watershed Method of MRI image

Alzheimer’s disease is a common form of neurodegenerative disorders characterized by defective brain cells, such as neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaque that is progressive. One of the physical characteristics of someone suffering from Alzheimer’s disease is shrinking of the hippocampus area of the brain. The hippocampus is the smallest part of the brain that serves to save memory. The detection of Alzheimer’s disease can be done using a Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) which is a technique of noninovasive for an analysis of the structure of the brain in the Alzheimer’s patient. In this research, K-Means Clustering and Watershed method are used to segment the hippocampus area which is one part of the brain that was attacked by Alzheimer’s disease. The analysis used to detect Alzheimer’s is comparing the value of the threshold with the number of white pixels in the images. The data used in this research are Open Access Series of Image Studies (OASIS) database by using the image of coronal slices. Based on the our experiment result, both K-Means Clustering and Watershed method can segment the hippocampus area to detect Alzheimer’s disease.
The FRAIL-FIT 30 Study – Factors influencing 30-day mortality in frail patients admitted to ICU: A retrospective observational cohort study

Background Frailty is a multi-dimensional syndrome of reduced reserve, resulting from overlapping physiological decrements across multiple systems. The contributing factors, temporality and magnitude of frailty’s effect on mortality after ICU admission are unclear. This study assessed frailty’s impact on mortality and life sustaining therapy (LST) use, following ICU admission. Methods This single-centre retrospective observational cohort study analysed data collected prospectively in Glasgow Royal Infirmary ICU. Of 684 eligible patients, 171 were frail and 513 were non-frail. Frailty was quantified using the Rockwood Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS). All patients were followed up 1-year after ICU admission. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality at 30-days post-ICU admission. Key secondary outcomes included mortality at 1-year and LST use. Results Frail patients were significantly less likely to survive 30-days post-ICU admission (61.4% vs 81.1%, p < 0.001). This continued to 1-year (48.5% vs 68.2%, p < 0.001). Frailty significantly increased mortality hazards in covariate-adjusted analyses at 30-days (HR 1.56; 95%CI 1.14–2.15; p = 0.006), and 1-year (HR 1.35; 95%CI 1.03–1.76; p = 0.028). Single-point CFS increases were associated with a 30-day mortality hazard of 1.23 (95%CI 1.13–1.34; p < 0.001) in unadjusted analyses, and 1.11 (95%CI 1.01–1.22; p = 0.026) after covariate adjustment. Frail patients received significantly more days of LST (median[IQR]: 5[3,11] vs 4[2,9], p = 0.008). Conclusion Frailty was significantly associated with greater mortality at all time points studied, but most notably in the first 30-days post-ICU admission. This was despite greater LST use. The accrual effect of frailty increased adverse outcomes. Point-by-point use of frailty scoring could allow for more informed decision making in ICU.
Dynamic Point Cloud Inpainting via Spatial-Temporal Graph Learning

The maturity of depth sensors and laser scanning techniques has enabled the convenient acquisition of 3D dynamic point clouds—one natural representation of 3D objects/scenes in motion, leading to a wide range of applications such as immersive tele-presence, autonomous driving, augmented and virtual reality. Nevertheless, dynamic point clouds usually exhibit holes of missing data, thus inpainting is crucial to the subsequent rendering or downstream understanding tasks. Dynamic point cloud inpainting has been largely overlooked so far, which is also quite challenging due to the irregular sampling patterns both in the spatial domain and temporal domain. To this end, we propose an efficient dynamic point cloud inpainting method based on a learnable spatial-temporal graph representation, exploiting both the second-order inter-frame coherence and the intra-frame self-similarity. The key is the second-order inter-frame coherence that enforces the consistent flow in 3D motion over time, for which we search the temporal correspondence in consecutive frames for the same underlying surface by the point-to-plane distance and represent the correlation between them via temporal edge weights in the graph. Based on the second-order inter-frame coherence and intra-frame self-similarity, we formulate dynamic point cloud inpainting as a joint optimization problem of the desired point cloud and underlying spatial-temporal graph, which is regularized by consistency in the temporal edge weights and smoothness in the spatial domain. We analyze and reformulate the optimization, leading to an efficient alternating minimization algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed approach outperforms several competing methods significantly, both on synthetic holes and real holes.
Advances in the synthesis of bio-based aromatic polyesters: novel copolymers derived from vanillic acid and ε-caprolactone

A new and sustainable pathway for the synthesis of polyesters and copolyesters derived from vanillic acid is suggested. The poor reactivity of the fenolic –OH group of vanillic acid has been overcome by etherification reactions with biobased ethylene carbonate: the full procedure towards poly(ethylene vanillate) (PEV) avoids solvents and purification steps and uses only bio-based reagents. The PEV thus obtained is an example of bio-based PET mimics, characterized by high thermal transitions and a notable level of crystallinity. However, probably due to its low molecular weight, the material is brittle. In order to solve such problems and to exploit the aromatic structure of PEV to enhance the properties of aliphatic polyesters, new copolymers based on PEV and poly-e-caprolactone were prepared. The new materials are characterized by an EV crystalline phase and tunable thermal properties according to the composition.
Optimal Reactive Power Dispatch With Discrete Controllers Using a Branch-and-Bound Algorithm: A Semidefinite Relaxation Approach

In this paper, a methodology to solve the optimal reactive power dispatch (ORPD) in electric power systems (EPS), considering discrete controllers, is proposed. Discrete controllers, such as the tap position of on-load tap changing (OLTC) transformers and switchable reactive shunt compensation, are optimized by the proposed method. A semidefinite relaxation (SDR) of the ORPD problem and a branch-and-bound (B&B) algorithm have been fully deployed. A new formulation is presented for the OLTC transformers to obtain a connected structure of the semidefinite programming (SDP) matrices. The customized B&B algorithm deals with the discrete nature of the binary control variables. Moreover, in order to enhance the convexification, valid inequalities called lifted nonlinear cuts (NLC) are implemented in the SDR. Additionally, a chordal decomposition technique is used to improve the computational performance. Finally, the B&B algorithm is used to solve the mixed-integer semidefinite programming problem. Several benchmarks have been used to show the accuracy and scalability of the proposed method, and convergence analysis shows that near-global optimal solutions are generated with small relaxation gaps.
Formation Control of Multiagent System Based on Higher Order Partial Differential Equations

We propose a method of controlling the formation in a multiagent system using partial differential equations (PDEs). In this method, the behavior of the entire multiagent system is modeled by second-order or higher order PDEs. We also propose a boundary controller that exponentially stabilizes the PDE model. By discretizing the PDE model under the proposed controller, the follower agents’ control laws can be derived. Moreover, the boundary controller corresponds to the leader agents’ control laws. The use of higher order PDEs leads to the generation of various formations that cannot be generated by using lower order PDEs. Finally, we conduct numerical simulations and experiments to validate the proposed method.
Reaction Mechanisms and Kinetics of the O2 Addition Pathways to the Main Thiophene-OH Adduct: A Theoretical Study

Density functional theory, along with the ΩB97XD and UM06-2x exchange-correlation functional, has been used to study the reaction mechanisms and kinetics of the atmospheric oxidation of the main (kinetically dominant) thiophene-OH adduct [C4H4S-OH]• (R1) by molecular oxygen in its triplet electronic ground state. Kinetic rate constants and branching ratios under atmospheric pressure and in the fall-off regime have been calculated by means of transition state theory (TST), variational transition state theory (VTST) and statistical Rice–Ramsperger–Kassel–Marcus (RRKM) theory. In line with the computed energy profiles, the dominant process under both the thermodynamic and kinetic control of the reaction is O2 addition at the C5 position in syn mode. The computed branching ratios indicate that the regioselectivity of the reaction decreases with increasing temperature and decreasing pressure.
Impact of Dairy Wastewater Irrigation and Manure Application on Soil Structural and Water-Holding Properties

HighlightsQuantitative evaluation was performed of dairy waste on soil water-holding capacity.Considering the soil variability on a farm is significant for management practices.Soil aggregate structure plays a pivotal role in studying the impact of waste reuse.Abstract. The livestock sector contributes about 40% of global agricultural output and uses over 30% of total feed-crop land. The sector’s continuing growth has led to increased technology and larger-scale, commercialized agriculture, and it correlates to growth in by-products and waste, which can compromise the environment and human health. Although organic manure is an excellent soil fertilizer whose nutrient content increases crop yield, untreated and/or overapplied manure pollutes local water resources and can alter soil aggregate structure, potentially affecting soil health and available water. Proper livestock waste management is essential for sustainable food production. Waste reuse strategies exist, with goals such as minimizing freshwater consumption, improving food production, and contributing to energy production, However, each strategy has tradeoffs in environmental, energy, or monetary costs. This study provides a quantitative approach to evaluating waste impact on soil health and helps to better manage irrigation practices and water supply gaps in arid and semi-arid areas by better understanding how management practices affect physical soil health. The TypoSoil apparatus was used to measure and analyze the hydrostructural parameters (water-holding capacity and soil structure) of fine sandy loam (A horizon) and sandy clay (B horizon). Soils from the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Dairy (Stephenville, Texas) were collected and compared with control (untouched) soils. Waste (manure, bedding materials, wash water) was separated into liquid (passed through a natural lagoon treatment process) and solid components (applied as fertilizer). Approximately half the wastewater was reused as wash water, the remainder for irrigation. Although the soil varied substantially between sample locations, a statistically significant difference existed between the control and manure/wastewater applications in both the A and B horizons. Both applications improved plant-available water (AW) in the A horizon (40% and 30%, respectively) but deteriorated AW in the B horizon (25% and 30%). Thus, dairy farm waste is a viable source for agricultural use. Keywords: Available water capacity, Pedostructure, Soil health, Soil shrinkage curve, Soil water characteristic curve.
Reusable Enzymatic Strip for Detection of Arsenic

Arsenic is considered as one of the highly hazardous elements in the environment and a serious carcinogen for the human health. More attention has taken towards the arsenic due to its presence in ground water in India, China, Bangladesh, Inner Mongolia and several other regions of the world. It’s been a challenge to remove arsenic due to the lack of its efficient detection approach in the complicated environmental matrix. The proposed method describes an enzymatic method for arsenic determination using arsenite oxidase, which catalyzes the oxidation of arsenite to arsenate. Hence, a colorimetric PVC strip with immobilized arsenite oxidase has been developed to detect the arsenic concentration and also having potential for the field-testing. The influence of the optimal conditions i.e. pH, temperature, storage stability, and reusability of free and immobilized enzyme were evaluated and compared. The results have shown that the stabilities were significantly enhanced compared with free counterpart. Residual activity of the immobilized enzyme was 43% of the initial activity after being recycled 10 times. We approve that this novel low cost immobilized carrier presents a new approach in large scale applications and expected to act as a model for establishment of indigenous arsenic sensor in miniature form.
Streaming of Global Navigation Satellite System Data from the Global System of Navigation

The Big Data phenomenon has driven a revolution in data and has provided competitive advantages in business and science domains through data analysis. By Big Data, we mean the large volumes of information generated at high speeds from various information sources, including social networks, sensors for multiple devices, and satellites. One of the main problems in real applications is the extraction of accurate information from large volumes of unstructured data in the streaming process. Here, we extract information from data obtained from the GLONASS satellite navigation system. The knowledge acquired in the discovery of geolocation of an object has been essential to the satellite systems. However, many of these findings have suffered changes as error vocalizations and many data. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) combines several existing navigation and geospatial positioning systems, including the Global Positioning System, GLONASS, and Galileo. We focus on GLONASS because it has a constellation with 31 satellites. Our research’s difficulties are: (a) to handle the amount of data that GLONASS produces efficiently and (b) to accelerate data pipeline with parallelization and dynamic access to data because these have only structured one part. This work’s main contribution is the Streaming of GNSS Data from the GLONASS Satellite Navigation System for GNSS data processing and dynamic management of meta-data. We achieve a three-fold improvement in performance when the program is running with 8 and 10 threads. Keywords—GLONASS; streaming; extraction; satellites data; observation files; metadata
Religiosity, Literacy, Income and Accessibility to Awareness in Professional Zakah Payment

The aim of this research is to determine the influence of religiosity, level of literacy, income, and accessibility to the consciousness of paying profession zakâh. This research uses quantitative methods and applies multiple regression analysis. We use purposive random sampling with 124 samples which represent Moslems from 14 districts in Indonesia. Based on multiple regression analysis, it can be seen that religiosity, literacy, income, and accessibility have significant effects to the consciousness of paying profession zakâh. Therefore, this study encourages zakah institutions to improve its accessibility including location and payment to increase the consciousness of paying zakâh on profession.
CONTACT ECG RECORDING USING COPPER AND E-TEXTILE BASED FLEXIBLE DRY ELECTRODES

We present experiments of contact electrocardiograms (ECG) recording using copper and e-textile-based flexible dry electrodes. In this work, dry electrodes with different shapes, sizes, and materials were designed and fabricated. In cardiac monitoring using these flexible dry electrodes, three different conditions were considered, which are sitting, standing, and walking. To evaluate the performances of the fabricated dry electrodes, average-to-variation ratios (AVR) of the recorded ECG signals measured using the flexible dry electrodes were calculated and compared with those measured using the commercially-available wet electrodes in all three conditions. The AVR results demonstrate that the dry electrodes have a similar performance to the commercially-available wet electrodes in the sitting and standing conditions and a better performance in the walking condition. These results suggest that it is possible to weave dry e-textile-based electrodes in normal clothing and use them for continuous monitoring of ECG signals in different conditions.
Exploring Plural Values of Ecosystem Services: Local Peoples’ Perceptions and Implications for Protected Area Management in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil

The remnants of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil are significant for biodiversity and provide benefits for people (climate regulation, water supply, health and welfare, among others). However, nature’s importance for different people may vary, for social, environmental, and economic reasons. In this paper, we explore such differences among people living in communities surrounding the Cunhambebe State Park (PEC), a large area of Atlantic Forest. We assess their perceptions regarding the plural values of ecosystem services derived from the PEC and explore ways in which this could affect the management of this protected area. Our assumption is that analyzing the perceptions of people who live in the communities surrounding can be a key tool for the formulation of proposals to improve management models and address socio-environmental conflicts. Based on interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, our results show a direct link between culture and environment since relational values and cultural ecosystem services are closely related to local people’s valuation of the PEC. Therefore, we support management strategies which are based on local values for land and forest use in a sustainable way. Our findings may contribute to decision making by PEC managers, governments, local stakeholders, and researchers.
Social emotional model for coping with learning among adolescent secondary school students

Social emotions are frequently experienced in every individual in the daily life including adolescents’ secondary school students. The mult-social emotional changes such as aggressive and happiness among adolescents influences students coping with learning at school. The purpose of this study was to develop social emotional model for coping with learning among adolescent secondary school students. Specifically the study attempted to answer the extent social emotional model is effective in improving students coping with learning. The study adapted collaborative action research design in which a total of 244 adolescent secondary school students responded to questionnaires and focus group discussion. The effectiveness of the developed social emotional model for student coping with learning was reported by students through the questionnaires. It was found that the aspects incorporated in the model improved practices in learning outcomes to both teachers and students in coping with learning. It was found that, Teachers used guidance and counseling, action oriented activities such as role play, encouraging play and exploration as the strategies to foster active engagement among adolescent secondary school students towards learning adjustment. Furthermore, the study revealed positive significant because the data in the model summary shows that the value of r=. 351 indicates that one item for adolescent secondary school students coping with learning increased for about 35.1% with 77.5% standard error of the estimated predictor value. Although this study was conducted in Tanzania employing moderate sample size from which the data was gathered with the help of collaboration action research design. The findings provide guidelines for further replicate research on social emotion behaviours and academic performance in education elsewhere.
Electrochemical properties of Cs-substituted CaWO4 and BaWO4 oxide ion conductors

High-temperature electrochemical properties of Cs-substituted CaWO4 and BaWO4 have been investigated. When cesium ions are partly substituted for calcium site of Scheelite-type structured CaWO4 to form oxide ion vacancies as Ca11xCsxWO41x/2, oxide ion conduction appears at elevated temperatures. This defect structure for the oxide ion conduction is in contrast to the PbWO4-based oxide ion conductor with oxide ion interstitials, Pb11xLaxWO4+x/2. The measured electric conductivity of Ca11xCsxWO41x/2 (x = 0.15) is high as 1012 Scm11 at 750°C with the oxide ion transport number relatively close to unity. Essentially the similar results are obtained for the barium analogous system Ba11xCsxWO41x/2, although the conductivity is still lower than CaWO4-based system. ©2016 The Ceramic Society of Japan. All rights reserved.