Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relationship between Sustainability– Oriented Innovation Practices and Organizational Performance: Empirical Evidence from Slovenian Organizations

Abstract Background and Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse the effects of sustainability-oriented innovation practices on the overall organizational performance. Further, this paper also aims to advance understanding of the measurement of corporate sustainability practices with the focus on innovation dimensions. Design/Methodology/Approach - The study uses data obtained from a survey of 116 organizations encompassing both the manufacturing and service industries in Slovenia. Descriptive statistics were used in order to determine the level of sustainability-oriented innovation practices deployment. Exploratory factor analysis was applied to extract the underlying factors and to provide a basis for assessing their reliability and validity. In addition, regression analysis was used to quantify the effect of sustainability practices on the organizational performance. Results - Data analysis result showed that sustainability-oriented innovation practices are significantly associated with organizational performance. Therefore, empirical evidence from this research confirmed the premise that building innovation competencies and integrating innovation activities in organization’s processes lead to performance benefits. This contributes to the debate about the potential for organizations to be sustainable and competitive. Conclusion - The presented research on corporate sustainability provides important theoretical and practical insights on which the deployment of sustainability-oriented innovation practices are conducive to fostering a broader set of performance benefits. As such, managers should increase organizations’ capacity for innovation which can be beneficial in terms of performance implications and achieving sustainability goals
Information Transmission in Hierarchies

We analyze a game in which players with unique information are arranged in a hierarchy. In the lowest layer each player can decide in each of several rounds either to pass the information to his successor or to hold. While passing generates an immediate payoff according to the value of information, the player can also get an additional reward if he is the last player to pass. Facing this problem while discounting over time determines the player's behavior. Once a successor has collected all information from his workers he starts to play the same game with his successor. We state conditions for different Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibria and analyse the time it takes each hierarchy to centralize the information. This allows us to compare different structures and state which structure centralizes fastest depending on the information distribution and other parameters. We show that the time the centralization takes is mostly affected by the least informed players.
Reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament

Background. The purpose of the anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction is achieving as efficient stabilization of the knee joint as possible in order to enable patients to return to the same activities they used to be engaged in prior to their injury. In case of athletes with the ACL injury, the result of the reconstruction and rehabilitation is principally more important as it is connected with the expectation of the quickest recovery of full fitness possible, and next to practicing sport. Material and methods. The objective of this study is the evaluation (42 person = 18 women and 24 men) of the impact of the anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction onto different sports, at the average age of 25 (20 to 35 years of age). All patients suffered the anterior cruciate ligament injury and underwent its surgical reconstruction. For the benefit of the study, a survey was applied aiming at the evaluation of the impact of the anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction on the return to practicing sports and a subjective evaluation of the general fitness of athletes 1 year after the reconstruction. The survey consisted of open questions, as well as the Tampa scale of kinesiophobia (TSK) and Marx’s scale (Marx activity rating scale). Results. The results showed that among 42 athletes after the anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, only 52% returned to practising the same sport they used to do prior to the injury. The remaining 48%, for various reasons, decided to change the types of their physical activities for less straining or gave up practicing sports completely. 22 persons returned to the same sport after 8.2 months after the ACL reconstruction on the average, usually at a lower level than prior to the injury. The most common reason for giving up sports was a fear of the injury reoccurrence. This decision was also influenced by such factors as a fear of pain, disability, fitness deficiency or personal matters. Conclusions. The reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament allows to recover full physical fitness, and next to practicing sports. Nevertheless, after the rehabilitation programme has been completed and the full functional stability of the knee joint is achieved, not all athletes return to sports. A full return to practicing sports takes place after ca. 6-12 months after the reconstruction, depending also on a particular sport. Persons who came back to practicing sports had lesser fears of commencing physical activities than persons who gave up sports. The mental trauma connected with the contusion influences the decision on coming back to sports. Also, the multitude of injuries has a negative impact upon the return to sports.
High-efficiency non-fullerene organic solar cells enabled by a difluorobenzothiadiazole-based donor polymer combined with a properly matched small molecule acceptor

Here we report high-performance small molecule acceptor (SMA)-based organic solar cells (OSCs) enabled by the combination of a difluorobenzothiadiazole donor polymer named PffBT4T-2DT and a SMA named SF-PDI2. It is found that SF-PDI2 matches particularly well with PffBT4T-2DT and non-fullerene OSCs with an impressive VOC of 0.98 V, and a high power conversion efficiency of 6.3% is achieved. Our study shows that PffBT4T-2DT is a promising donor material for SMA-based OSCs, and the selection of a matching SMA is also important to achieve the best OSC performance.
High-affinity binding site for ethylene-inducing xylanase elicitor on Nicotiana tabacum membranes

Summary Challenge of Nicotiana tabacum cv Xanthi with the ethylene-inducing xylanase (EIX) from Trichoderma viride causes rapid induction of plant defense responses leading to hypersensitive necrosis. This phenomenon is cultivar-specific; no response is detected when N. tabacum cv Hicks is similarly treated. The responsiveness is determined in tobacco and tomato by a single dominant gene. EIX was labeled with fluorescein-isothiocyanate and incubated with cell suspension cultures, protoplasts or microsomal membranes. Binding of EIX to the microsomal membranes was found to be specific and saturable, with a dissociation constant of 6.2 nM. Using confocal laser microscopy, the EIX binding site was localized to the plasma membrane. Binding of EIX to its high-affinity site occurred in responsive species. These results demonstrate the existence of a high-affinity binding site for EIX on the plasma membrane of responsive cultivars. Chemical cross-linking of EIX to microsomal membranes from responding plants revealed a 66 kDa protein complex. This protein may function as the receptor that mediates the hypersensitive response induced by EIX binding.
Impacts of deforestation‐induced warming on the metabolism, growth and trophic interactions of an afrotropical stream fish

In ectotherms, anthropogenic warming often increases energy requirements for metabolism, which can either impair growth (when resources are limiting) or lead to higher predator feeding rates and possibly stronger top–down trophic interactions. However, the relative importance of these effects in nature remains unclear because: (1) thermal adaptation or acclimation could lower metabolic costs; (2) greater prey production at warmer temperatures could compensate for higher predator feeding rates; and/or (3) temperature effects on trophic interactions via altered biological rates could be small relative to other, temperature‐unrelated human impacts on food webs. Here, we examined effects of deforestation‐associated warming on the minnow Enteromius neumayeri, occurring in both forested (cool) and deforested (warm) streams located inside or nearby an afrotropical rainforest. Combining approaches from physiological and community ecology, we quantified impacts of anthropogenic warming on the metabolism, growth and trophic interactions of this tropical ectotherm. We then compared these effects with impacts of land use unrelated to temperature. In a long‐term laboratory acclimation experiment quantifying the temperature dependence of growth and metabolism in E. neumayeri, warming increased metabolic rates and decreased growth (at a limited ration). We found no evidence of local (thermal) adaptation, with warming affecting farm and forest populations similarly. Then, using mark–recapture methods to quantify impacts of warming on performance in situ, we found similar growth rates in fish from deforested and forested streams despite their distinct thermal environments. This suggests higher prey consumption at deforested sites to compensate for greater metabolic costs, which could strengthen fish–invertebrate interactions. Finally, we developed a bioenergetics model to estimate fish–invertebrate interaction strength and quantify temperature‐related and unrelated impacts of land use on this interaction. We found that although warming increased fish consumption, it apparently increased invertebrate production even more and thus had a net‐weakening effect on estimated interaction strength. Most importantly, variation in both fish and invertebrate density not directly related to temperature had a much stronger influence on estimated interaction strength than temperature effects on predator consumption and prey growth. We conclude that ectotherms can sometimes offset the metabolic costs of warming with a small increase in consumption that hardly effects food web interactions compared to non‐metabolic impacts of anthropogenic disturbances. Future research should assess whether this is a common feature of heavily impacted ecosystems facing multiple stressors. A plain language summary is available for this article.
Visualising individual profiles and grouping conditions in collaborative learning activities

Collaborative learning has been shown to be conducive to better and deeper learning for particular tasks, but is dependent on a number of factors, including how students are grouped together. We are interested in finding out whether data captured from students working individually and/or collaboratively can reveal useful information about the impact of the grouping conditions on learning. We explore whether these findings can be detected early on (possibly, before students start working in groups). If such information can be reliably captured, then it could be used to drive group formation dynamically and at a large scale. This paper presents our initial visual exploration with two case studies: one from a first-year programming course (N = 372) where students alternately worked individually and in pairs; and another (N = 60) from a concept-mapping environment where students first worked individually and then in groups.
Floquet spectrum and driven conductance in Dirac materials: Effects of Landau-Zener-Stückelberg-Majorana interferometry

Using the Landau-Zener-St\"uckelberg-Majorana-type (LZSM) semiclassical approach, we study both graphene and a thin film of a Weyl semimetal subjected to a strong ac electromagnetic field. The spectrum of quasienergies in the Weyl semimetal turns out to be similar to that of a graphene sheet. It has been predicted qualitatively that the transport properties of strongly irradiated graphene oscillate as a function of the radiation intensity [S. V. Syzranov et al., Phys. Rev. B 88, 241112 (2013)]. Here we obtain rigorous quantitative results for a driven linear conductance of graphene and a thin film of a Weyl semimetal. The exact quantitative structure of oscillations exhibits two contributions. The first one is a manifestation of the Ramsauer-Townsend effect, while the second contribution is a consequence of the LZSM interference defining the spectrum of quasienergies.
Biohydrogen Production by Antarctic Psychrotolerant Klebsiella sp. ABZ11

Abstract Lower temperature biohydrogen production has always been attractive, due to the lower energy requirements. However, the slow metabolic rate of psychrotolerant biohydrogen-producing bacteria is a common problem that affects their biohydrogen yield. This study reports on the improved substrate synthesis and biohydrogen productivity by the psychrotolerant Klebsiella sp. strain ABZ11, isolated from Antarctic seawater sample. The isolate was screened for biohydrogen production at 30°C, under facultative anaerobic condition. The isolate is able to ferment glucose, fructose and sucrose with biohydrogen production rate and yield of 0.8 mol/l/h and 3.8 mol/g, respectively at 10 g/l glucose concentration. It also showed 74% carbohydrate uptake and 95% oxygen uptake ability, and a wide growth temperature range with optimum at 37°C. Klebsiella sp. ABZ11 has a short biohydrogen production lag phase, fast substrate uptake and is able to tolerate the presence of oxygen in the culture medium. Thus, the isolate has a potential to be used for lower temperature biohydrogen production process.
The Spatial Scale of Social Learning Affects Cultural Diversity

Sewall Wright's (1943) concept of isolation by distance is as germane to cultural transmission as genetic transmission. Yet there has been little research on how the spatial scale of social learning—the geographic extent of cultural transmission—affects cultural diversity. Here, we employ agent-based simulation to study how the spatial scale of unbiased social learning affects selectively neutral cultural diversity over a range of population sizes and densities. We show that highly localized unbiased cultural transmission may be easily confused with a form of biased cultural transmission, especially in low-density populations. Our results have important implications for how archaeologists infer mechanisms of cultural transmission from diversity estimates that depart from the expectations of neutral theory.
A Preliminary Study of Using Kinect-based Physical Rehabilitation System to Perform Tai Chi Exercises with FLS Evaluation

In this study, a physical rehabilitation system based on Kinect sensor is proposed to assist patients with movement disorders to perform the “Tai Chi” exercises at home. With the aid of skeletal tracking of Kinect sensor, each movement of the patient while performing Tai Chi exercises is well recognized and validated. More specifically, patient’s movements are compared with the prerecorded movements form a coach, and further evaluated by using fuzzy logic system (FLS). The experiment was carried out according to an ABAB sequence, i.e., A represents the baseline and B represents intervention phases. Experimental results also show that the participants significantly increased their motivation for physical rehabilitation, thus improving exercise performance during the intervention phases.
Virtualizing Balancing Power: An Energy-Aware Load Dispatcher for Cloud Computing

Balancing mechanisms assure grid stability. Especially well-suited for balancing purposes are large-scale storage facilities (SFs). However, the potential for these is in major parts set by geographic realities. On a transnational level, offering that potential to regions in need of balancing power (BP) does not often appear to be economically viable an issue that is frequently related to the construction of power lines. Thus, in this article, we illustrate an early version of a design artifact giving remote balancing mechanisms access to a local BP market without deploying power lines: utilization of data centers (DCs) is typically very low (30-40%) representing a cheap source of demand flexibility. We thus let one DC participate in an existing BP market while tying a second to a remote balancing mechanism. By doing so, the design artifact enables both load and BP to flow seamlessly between distinct power markets contributing to grid stability and efficient utilization of balancing mechanisms. Within this extended summary, we perform a preliminary evaluation of the design artifact based on real-world data.
PresentationTitle:Developing the Social Work Profession Beyond theUnited States:The Georgian Experience. Silver School of Social Work. New York University. 2014. December

Dr. Shorena Sadzaglishvili holds a MSW from Columbia University and Doctorate in Psychology from Dr. Uznadze Institute of Psychology of Georgian National Academy of Sciences, Tbilisi, Georgia. Her experience includes educational, social and health program development, implementation, supervision, monitoring and evaluation as well as teaching and curriculum development. She is the founder of the first MSW Program in Georgia in 2007 and the co-founder of the Georgian Association of Social Workers (GASW) in 2004. Currently she is directing both the MSW and PhD program at Ilia State University. Dr. Sadzaglishvili is a senior clinical social work/ research consultant at GASW, and author of numerous scientific articles and books in Social Work and Education. She has developed a number of manuals/guidelines in the fields of clinical social work, family and children, program design and evaluation, social work research, and social work practice teaching.
Biochemical properties of an extracellular β-D-fructofuranosidase II produced by Aspergillus phoenicis under Solid-Sate Fermentation using soy bran as substrate

The filamentous fungus A. phoenicis produced high levels of β-D-fructofuranosidase (FFase) when grown for 72 hrs under Solid-State Fermentation (SSF), using soy bran moistened with tap water (1:0.5 w/v) as substrate/carbon source. Two isoforms (I and II) were obtained, and FFase II was purified 18-fold to apparent homogeneity with 14% recovery. The native molecular mass of the glycoprotein (12% of carbohydrate content) was 158.5 kDa with two subunits of 85 kDa estimated by SDS-PAGE. Optima of temperature and pH were 55oC and 4.5. The enzyme was stable for more than 1 hr at 50oC and was also stable in a pH range from 7.0 to 8.0. FFase II retained 80% of activity after storage at 4oC by 200 hrs. Dichroism analysis showed the presence of random and β-sheet structure. A. phoenicis FFase II was activated by Mn 2+ , Mg 2+ and Co 2+ , and inhibited by Cu 2+ , Hg 2+ and EDTA. The enzyme hydrolyzed sucrose, inulin and raffinose. K d and V max values were 18 mM and 189 U/mg protein using sucrose as substrate.
FLEXIBLE AND FREE-STANDING POLYMERIC MEMBRANES WITH MULTI-DIMENSIONAL PORES FOR A MICROFLUIDIC APPLICATION

We present a simple yet robust method for fabri c tion of polymeric multiscale stencils having multi-dimensional pores. The key idea of our approa ch is to use a hierarchical structure as a stamp fo r the fabrication of multi-dimensional pores in flexible and free-sta nding polymeric membranes. The polymeric membranes pr ented here are highly flexible yet sufficiently robust so that they can be firmly free-standing and bend wel l ithout structural collapse. As a unique application of the polymeric multiscale stencils, we demonstrate a un iform synthesis of lipid vesicle in various sizes by simply integra ting the polymeric membrane in a microfluidic chann el.
Phenotypic integration of behavioural and physiological traits is related to variation in growth among stocks of Chinook salmon

The selection for a single organismal trait like growth in breeding programs of farmed aquaculture species can counterintuitively lead to lowered harvestable biomass. We outbred a domesticated aquaculture stock of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha (Walbaum in Artedi, 1792)) with seven wild stocks from British Columbia, Canada. We then examined how functionally related traits underlying energy management – diel variation in cortisol and foraging, social, and movement behaviours — predicted stock-level variation in growth during the freshwater life history stage, which is a performance metric under aquaculture selection. Outbreeding generated significant variation in diel cortisol secretion and behaviours across stocks, and these traits co-varied, suggesting tight integration despite hybridization. The coupling of nighttime cortisol exposure with the daytime behavioural phenotype was the strongest predictor of stock-level variation in body mass. Our results suggest that selection for an integrated phenotype rather than on a single mechanistic trait alone can generate the greatest effect on aquaculture fish growth under outbreeding practices. Furthermore, selecting for these traits at the stock level may increase efficiency of farming methods designed to consistently maximize fish performance on a large scale.
A Bayesian Approach to Modelling Bivariate Time-Varying Cointegration and Cointegrating Rank

A bivariate model that allows for both a time-varying cointegrating matrix and time-varying cointegrating rank is presented. The model addresses the issue that, in real data, the validity of a constant cointegrating relationship may be questionable. The model nests the sub-models implied by alternative cointegrating matrix ranks and allows for transitions between stationarity and non-stationarity, and cointegrating and non-cointegrating relationships in accordance with the observed behaviour of the data. A Bayesian test of cointegration is also developed. The model is used to assess the validity of the Fisher effect and is also applied to equity market data.
Using platforms of opportunity to determine the occurrence and group characteristics of orca (Orcinus orca) in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand

We present the first fine-scale data relating to the occurrence and group characteristics for killer whales (Orcinus orca) in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, as observed from a platform of opportunity (PoP). Group size and composition were examined in relation to water depth and sea surface temperature (SST). From 2000 to 2010, 119 orca encounters were recorded, involving 1 to 18 animals. The encounter rate varied seasonally, being highest in austral spring and lowest in summer. Water depth in which whales were observed was significantly affected by group composition. Sixty-seven percent of groups contained immature animals. Group size was highly skewed towards smaller groups comprising two animals. While this study illustrates that PoPs can be used to indicate the occurrence and group characteristics of highly mobile social species, biases clearly exist. Through identifying such inaccuracies, we present recommendations on how future data should be collected to minimise error and improve datasets for scientific use.
A Simple Framework for Indoor Monocular SLAM

Vision-based simultaneous localization and map building using a single camera, while compelling in theory, have not until recently been considered extensive in the practical realm of the real world. In this paper, we propose a simple framework for the monocular SLAM of an indoor mobile robot using natural line features. Our focus in this paper is on presenting a novel approach for modeling the landmark before integration in monocular SLAM. We also discuss data association improvement in a particle filter approach by using the feature management scheme. In addition, we take constraints between features in the environment into account for reducing estimated errors and thereby improve performance. Our experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed SLAM algorithm in real-time.