Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contrasting perspectives in a hospital merger: The case of the SUS eye clinic

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding for if, and how, different views on efficiency and effectiveness characterized the organisation of the eye clinic in the SUS hospital merger. What presumptions operative efficiencies affected hospital management’s merger decision? What were the expected benefits and what kind of organisational structure would help to achieve these? Finally, did different views on efficiencies affect how groups of individuals believe that the transformation should be carried out? In order to satisfy this purpose, we formulated three constituent objectives for research: (1) How do doctors and managers believe efficiency is and/or should be measured? (2) What do they think is efficient in an organisational change process, such as the SUS hospital merger? (3) What do they believe is efficient in a doctor’s daily work? Methodology: This is a qualitative study where we have adopted an abductive study approach, with an interpretivist/constructivist positioning. Thus we have not tried to identify the absolute truth. Instead we have tried to identify, evaluate and describe the different individuals’ views and perspectives on various aspects. Theoretical perspectives: The theoretical perspectives cover professions and professional bureaucracies, the definitions of effectiveness, efficiency and related concepts, optimal hospital size, quality of care, organizational change and management and merger theory. Empirical foundation: We conducted interviews with six managers from different levels of the vertical hierarchy of the SUS hospital, and eight clinical doctors with different backgrounds and current responsibilities, all working at the Eye clinic. We created and followed a semi-structured interview guide that we used to interview both managers and doctors. During the interviews we focused on open-ended questions that would bring the interviewees to freely express their views on the subject. Conclusions: In response to our research objectives we can conclude that; there is little agreement as to how measurements in healthcare in general, and the SUS hospital in particular, should be defined; there are different views on how to manage organisational change between managers and doctors, where management prefer a top-down approach while doctors believe that they should have more say in how the change is carried out; doctor’s stress the need for customized IT-support, stricter job specialisation, clear patient processes and the possibility to form informal networks and knowledge clusters. It appears that management has a narrow view of what doctor’s feel is necessary for improving efficiency in their daily work since many of these efficiencies have been impaired as a result of the top-down managed merger. In sum, it seems that our initial impression, that different views on efficiencies may cause problems in change processes, still poses a viable correlation between these aspects.
is New Zealand's economy vulnerable to world oil market shocks?

We assess New Zealandâ€™s vulnerability to oil shocks by estimating its price and income elasticities of demand for imported oil and by testing. For Granger causality between oil imports, their price and GDP. Based on data for the period 1987Q2â€“2012Q4, we find the short-run price and income elasticities to be statistically insignificant. However, the long-run price and income elasticity estimates are significant and equal to âˆ’0.34 and 1.61, respectively. We also find that oil imports, and to some extent oil prices, Granger-cause real GDP, indicating that the New Zealand economy is vulnerable to shocks in the world oil market.
The Mediating Effect of Financial Inclusion on the Relationship between Branchless Banking Strategy and Performance of Commercial Banks in an Emerging market Context: The Case of Kenya

Since 1990 to date, a lot of banking innovation has taken place in order to improve commercial banks financial performance. Branchless banking which involves the use of agency banking and electronic banking channels in the distribution of banking products and services is one such innovation. This study investigated the role of financial inclusion on the relationship between branchless banking strategy and financial performance of commercial banks in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to analyze the effect of agency banking and electronic banking channels on the financial performance of commercial banks in Kenya. The study also aimed at determining the mediating effect of financial inclusion on the relationship between branchless banking and financial performance of commercial banks in Kenya. The study adopted a correlational research design. A survey of all the 42 licensed commercial banks in Kenya was done. Both primary and secondary data on branchless banking and financial performance of banks was obtained from the commercial banks and Central Bank of Kenya banking annual supervision reports respectively. Return on Assets (ROA) was used as the main indicator of commercial banks financial performance. The amount of investment in agency and electronic banking was used as indicators for agency and electronic banking. Data analysis was done using SPSS and STATA statistical software. Study findings indicated that when used in isolation; both agency and electronic banking had a significant negative effect on the financial performance of commercial banks. However when agency and electronic banking channels were used together as a multichannel strategy, the effect on bank’s financial performance was found to be positive and significant at the 95 percent significance level. Study findings also indicate that the strength of the relationship between branchless banking strategy and financial performance of commercial banks in Kenya depends on the level of financial inclusion. The study recommends that for positive returns, commercial banks should invest in both agency and electronic banking as a multichannel strategy since these channels are complimentary to each other and calls on the government to come up with policies to foster financial inclusion within the banking industry in order for the industry to achieve maximum returns from branchless banking strategies.
Mothers' Involvement: Children's Perception of Maternal Childrearing Practices

The purpose of this study is to identify maternal childrearing practices (achievement values, monitoring, and discussion) among employed and unemploved Malaysian mothers. Generally, these mothers have similar levels of childrearing practices. They instill high achievement values, conduct consistent monitoring on their children, and carry out regular discussions with them. They only differ in terms of monitoring. Discussion, implications, recommendations, and suggestions for future study are included.
Study of the Deformation/Interaction Model: How Interactions Increase the Reaction Barrier

The interactions (including weak interactions) between dienophiles and dienes play an important role in the Diels-Alder reaction. To elucidate the influence of these interactions on the reactivity, a popular DFT functional and a variational DFT functional corrected with dispersion terms are used to investigate different substituent groups incorporated on the dienophiles and dienes. The bond order is used to track the trajectory of the cycloaddition reaction. The deformation/interaction model is used to obtain the interaction energy from the reactant complex to the inflection point until reaching the saddle point. The interaction energy initially increases with a decrease in the interatomic distance, reaching a maximum value, but then decreases when the dienophiles and dienes come closer. Reduced density gradient and chemical energy component analysis are used to analyse the interaction. Traditional transition state theory and variational transition state theory are used to obtain the reaction rates. The influence of tunneling on the reaction rate is also discussed.
AlN photonic crystal nanocavities realized by epitaxial conformal growth on nanopatterned silicon substrate

An original method to fabricate III-nitride photonic crystal membranes without etching of III-N materials is reported. A photonic crystal pattern is first realized in a silicon substrate. GaN quantum dots embedded in a thin AlN layer are then grown by conformal epitaxy using ammonia-based molecular beam epitaxy on the top of the patterned silicon substrate and a free-standing membrane is achieved by selective etching of the silicon substrate through the holes of the photonic crystal. Room temperature microphotoluminescence measurements show a quality factor as high as 1800 at 425 nm on a modified L3 cavity. Possibility to achieve lasing with this system is discussed.
A Robust Image Super-solution Algorithm Using Deep Convolution Networks

The aim of single image super-resolution (SISR) is to find a non-linear mapping from the low to high resolution training image samples and reconstruct a high-resolution (HR) image from a low-resolution (LR) image using the prior knowledge. As a powerful tool in solving high-level computer vision problems, deep learning can also be used to solve the low-level vision problem, such as SISR. By exploring the architecture of convolutional neural network (CNN)，we put forward a robust SISR algorithm based on CNN. Comparison to the state-of-art SISR methods, the proposed SISR algorithm obtains the best SR performance.
Phenolic contents, antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of Papaver rhoeas L. extracts from Southeast Serbia

Total phenolic and flavonoid contents of different extracts of Papaver rhoeas L. were examined. High contents of total phenolic compounds (9.73 -19.91 mg GAE/g of fresh petals) and total flavonoids (7.904 - 11.45 mg QE/g of fresh petals) were determined. Red pigment present in the flowers of P. rhoeas L. originates from anthocyanins, which may act as natural antioxidants. Anthocyanins content in the investigated extracts is very unified and ranged from 4.72 to 5.193 mg of cyanidin-3-O-glukoside/g of fresh petals. The antioxidant activity of different extracts was tested using the spectrophotometric method by means of the ability of extracts to scavenge stable 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH). All tested extracts exhibited strong scavenging activity against DPPH radicals, that is higher then 80%. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents may be related to the percentages of the scavenging activity of DPPH assay (estimated correlation coefficient are R2 = 0.965 and R2 = 0.752, respectively). The ethanol extract of P. rhoeas L. showed antimicrobial activity against the yeast Candida albicans, and all tested bacteria except Bacillus subtilis. This paper suggests that the investigated extracts of plant P. rhoes L. could be potentially applied as an antioxidant and antimicrobial agents. Key words: Papaver rhoeas L. , phenolic content, anthocyanins content, flavonoid content, antioxidant activity, antibacterial activity.
Intelligibility Based Automatic Volume Control for Public Address Systems

To convey messages to the public, public address systems (PA) are installed in buildings and at venues. These messages generally contain important information for the listener. This information has to come across well, i.e. the message should be intelligible. Because the environment, and mainly the background noise, can change over time, it is important for a public address system to adapt accordingly, so that the intelligibility of the messages is maintained. To maintain the intelligibility automatic volume control algorithms are used. In current solutions these algorithms adapt the volume to maintain the signal to noise ratio at a constant level. Such approaches require acquiring information about the noise from a sensing microphone. The difficulty in this is that the sensing microphone not only captures the noise, but also the signal coming from the PA itself, including its echoes and reverberations. To avoid the signal separation problem, the proposed solution directly analyses the intelligibility of the message using the signal from the sensing microphone. For this an objective intelligibility method was used, that analyses correlations between the original clean message and the distorted message, from the microphone. Using the found intelligibility, the volume is controlled to maintain intelligibility. However, because maximum intelligibility occurs at the maximum volume of the PA system, before the signal starts deforming, maintaining intelligibility alone is not enough. Loud PA systems are perceived to be annoying especially if the background noise is low. That is why the proposed solution limits the loudness of the PA system in combination with maintaining the intelligibility.
Structural Patterns in Asante Kente: An Indigenous Instructional Resource for Design Education in Textiles

Asante Kente is a richly coloured, intricately patterned indigenous hand woven fabric that is typically produced at Bonwire and Adanwomase in Ashanti Region, Ghana. Kente is woven in long narrow strips with brightly coloured silk or cotton yarns on Nsadua Kofi , the traditional narrow loom, which is a box-like wooden structure in which the weaver sits to weave. The strips are sewn together lengthways to purposely create definite patterns in the constructed cloth. Asante Kente motifs and cloth designs have names with philosophical meanings and colour symbolism that serve as a medium of communication to the indigenes. The cloth designs consist of dots, lines, shapes, textures and colours that are carefully crafted to form geometric shapes and intricate patterns that exhibit balance, rhythm, variety, proportion and repetition. Unlike Asante Kente cloth designs that evolve on the loom, weaving in the higher education textiles curriculum requires expression of the structure of design concepts as drafts on point paper. To demystify drafting, which many textiles students perceive as “difficult to learn” led to adoption of the quasi-experimental approach to interpret selected Kente motifs to demonstrate the process of drafting to 148 Year One Industrial Art students of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana. Using the draft as instructional resource, the students were guided to translate drafts they had made into woven Kente stole on the broadloom. The focus of this work was to bridge the gap between indigenous hand weaving and weaving as it is taught in the formal educational system. The structural patterns of Asante Kente designs provided the needed instructional resource and aesthetic experience to ensure successful learning of drafting in textiles design education. The importance of the study is to help preserve this natural cultural heritage of Kente weaving in the youth who are given formal education and again to set the pace for further research to be conducted into the use of motifs, symbols and designs in indigenous cloth as vast resource in design education in textiles. Keywords : Asante Kente Design, Structural Pattern, Instructional Resource, Drafting, and Textiles Design Education
Plants, gall midges, and fungi: a three‐component system

Larvae of gall midges (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) induce the activation of plant cells, partial cell lysis, and differentiation of nutritive tissue. Specialized nutritive tissue is essential for larval development and plays a key role in gall organization. Midges of the tribes Lasiopterini and Asphondyliini, however, do not induce nutritive tissues as part of the formation of their galls. Instead, these ‘ambrosia galls’ contain fungal mycelia that line the interior surface of the chambers. The fungi not only provide Lasiopterini with nutrition, they also penetrate the stems, induce the lysis of the middle lamella of host cells, and open a channel to the vascular bundles. Larvae of Lasioptera arundinis (Schiner) (Lasiopterini) follow the fungus and feed on its mycelium along with adjoining stem cells of Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. (Poaceae). Eggs together with fungal conidia are deposited by the imago on the host. Asphondyliini use a needle‐like ovipositor to introduce fungal conidia and eggs into the organs they attack. Larvae of Schizomyia galiorum Kieffer (Asphondyliini) are unable to initiate the gall or to develop in the flowers of Galium mollugo L. (Rubiaceae) without their fungal associate. In this article, I provide an overview of oviposition behaviour in the Asphondyliini, as well as descriptions of the ovipositor and the female post‐abdominal segments. Gall formation by Lasiopterini and Asphondyliini and the role of associated fungi are discussed, as is the role of the fungus as an inquiline or an organizer of gall tissues and a nutritive device.
The void galaxy survey: photometry, structure and identity of void galaxies

We analyse photometry from deep B-band images of 59 void galaxies in the Void Galaxy Survey (VGS), together with their near-infrared 3.6 μm and 4.5 μm Spitzer photometry. The VGS galaxies constitute a sample of void galaxies that were selected by a geometric-topological procedure from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 data release, and which populate the deep interior of voids. Our void galaxies span a range of absolute B-magnitude from MB = -15.5 to -20, while at the 3.6 μm band their magnitudes range from M3.6 = -18 to -24. Their B-[3.6] colour and structural parameters indicate these are star-forming galaxies. A good reflection of the old stellar population, the near-infrared band photometry also provide a robust estimate of the stellar mass, which for the VGS galaxies we confirm to be smaller than 3 × 1010 M⊙. In terms of the structural parameters and morphology, our findings align with other studies in that our VGS galaxy sample consists mostly of small late-type galaxies. Most of them are similar to Sd-Sm galaxies, although a few are irregularly shaped galaxies. The sample even includes two early-type galaxies, one of which is an AGN. Their Sersic indices are nearly all smaller than n = 2 in both bands and they also have small half-light radii. In all, we conclude that the principal impact of the void environment on the galaxies populating them mostly concerns their low stellar mass and small size.
Visualization of microcrack anisotropy in granite affected by a fault zone, using confocal laser scanning microscope

Brittle deformation in granite can generate a fracture system with different patterns. Detailed fracture analyses at both macroscopic and microscopic scales, together with physical property data from a drill-core, are used to classify the effects of reverse fault deformation in four domains: (1) undeformed granite, (2) fractured granite with cataclastic seams, (3) fractured granite from the damage zone, and (4) foliated cataclasite from the core of the fault. Intact samples from two orthogonal directions, horizontal (H) and vertical (V), from the four domains indicate a developing fracture anisotropy toward the fault, which is highly developed in the damage zone. As a specific illustration of this phenomenon, resin impregnation, using a confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) technique is applied to visualize the fracture anisotropy developed in the Toki Granite, Japan. As a result, microcrack networks have been observed to develop in H sections and elongate open cracks in V sections, suggesting that flow pathways can be determined by deformation.
The how and why of plant-related fatalities in the Australian construction industry

Purpose – Drawing on the findings of coronial investigations, this research aimed to investigate the circumstances and causes of fatal incidents involving plant in the Australian construction industry. The analysis sought to provide greater insight into how and why fatal incidents occur and to inform recommendations for the prevention of fatal incidents involving plant.Design/methodology/approach – Fatal incidents involving plant were identified from the National Coronial Information System. In each case, the decedent was a construction worker and the incident occurred at a construction worksite. A systemic incident causation model developed by Loughborough University informed the identification of originating influences, shaping factors and immediate circumstances in each incident.Findings – Most of the incidents involved excavators, trucks and cranes, and different classifications of plant were associated with different types of incident. The most common incident types involved people being run over by .
Interaction between subsurface ocean waters and calving of the Jakobshavn Isbræ during the late Holocene

A marine sediment core from Vaigat in Disko Bugt, West Greenland, has been analysed in terms of lithology, dinoflagellate cysts and foraminifera in order to evaluate the influence of oceanographic variability on West Greenland glacier stability. The data show that during the past 5200 years the Atlantic foraminiferal abundance in the subsurface waters of the West Greenland Current (WGC) episodically increased, indicating periods of increases in the inflow of subsurface warm Atlantic water at 2000—1500 cal. yr BP and 1300 cal. yr BP as well as periods of less pronounced increased bottom-water temperatures around 4700—4000 cal. yr BP, 3100—2800, 2600, 1000—800, 500—400, and at 200 cal. yr. The sedimentological and dinoflagellate cyst data indicate that these episodes with enhanced advection of Irminger Sea-derived waters are accompanied by increased iceberg rafting, which we link to increased iceberg calving in relation to destabilization of the Jakobshavn Isbrae. The long-term trend in the data documents the end of a late-Holocene Thermal Maximum between 5200 and 4300 cal. yr BP and a final onset of the Neoglaciation at 3500 cal. yr BP. Increased responses of the iceberg rafting after 3500 cal. yr BP, reflects a westward/seaward advance of the glacier margin in relation to onset of Neoglaciation and a development of the glacier into a floating tongue after 2000 cal. yr BP. A comparison of our record with a record from the eastern North Atlantic indicates that a NAO-like anomaly pattern between subsurface waters in West Greenland and atmospheric temperature in the Eastern North Atlantic may have been operating during most of the late Holocene. However, during the past 1000 years the NAO signal may have weakened as some other mode of climate variability overprints the anti-phase climate signal in this region.
Discourse functions of pitch range in spontaneous and read speech

L'etude compare les fonctions de l'intonation et le niveau de l'accent de hauteur dans le discours lu et le discours spontane. L'analyse montre que la place des accents, les limites des syntagmes et les pauses different dans ces deux types de discours
A NOVEL APPROACH FOR CONFIGURING THE STIMULATOR OF A BCI FRAMEWORK USING XML

In a working BCI framework, all aspects must be considered as an integral part that contributes to the successful operation of a BCI system. This also includes the development of robust but flexible stimulator, especially the one that closely related to the feedback of a BCI system. This paper describes a novel approach in providing flexible visual stimulator using XML which has been applied for a BCI (brain-computer interface) framework. Using XML file format for configuring the visual stimulator of a BCI system, we can develop BCI applications which can accommodate many experiment strategies in BCI research. The BCI framework and its configuration platform is developed using C++ programming language which incorporate Qt’s most powerful XML parser named QXmlStream. The implementation and experiment shows that the XML configuration file can be well executed within the proposed BCI framework. Beside its capability in presenting flexible flickering frequencies and text formatting for SSVEP-based BCI, the configuration platform also provides 3 shapes, 16 colors, and 5 distinct feedback bars. It is not necessary to increase the number of shapes nor colors since those parameters are less important for the BCI stimulator. The proposed method can then be extended to enhance the usability of currently existed BCI framework such as BF++ Toys and BCI 2000.