Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Americas Conference on Information Systems ( AMCIS ) December 2002 THE EARLY MOVER EFFECT IN ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY : AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF A KOREAN E-BUSINESS COMPANY

Is there a way to avoid trading off one strategic capability for another in e-business? The conventional answer is no. But some early movers such as ebay.com and amazon.com in e-business seem to have been able to defy that: compared to their followers such as uBid.com and buy.com, they have been able to conduct strong focus, differentiation, and cost efficiency strategies. The purpose of this paper is to test the differences in strategic capabilities of e-business companies between early movers and followers. This study reviews prior research on a strategic typology based on Porters model, as well as a strategic capability based on the sand cone model. A strategic typology is classified as focus, differentiation, and cost efficiency by Porter, and strategic capabilities are assumed to be not trade offs but possessing a cumulative relationship. Results indicate that early movers have more cumulative strategic capabilities than followers do in marketing differentiation, innovative differentiation, and cost efficiency, except for focus strategy. These results are enough for practitioners and entrepreneurs to reexamine the traditional managerial approach  trade offs in e-strategy.
Investigating the Street Canyon Vegetation Effects Using the Moment Method

In this paper we investigate the effects of the vegetation inside a street canyon. Flow through and around the standalone street canyon is calculated using a CFD solver based on the Reynoldsaveraged Navier-Stokes equations. The dispersion of the pollutant is computed using the moment method that models the behaviour of the particle size distribution. Resulting pollutant concentrations for several wind conditions and for configurations without and with the trees are compared to the wind tunnel measurements. Using the deposition velocity model for the moment method, the effect of the dry deposition on the vegetation is then assessed. Three modes of the particle size distribution the ultrafine, the accumulation, and the coarse mode are studied. Results show that the the dry deposition has negligible effects on the accumulation and the ultrafine mode, but can locally reduce the mass concentration of the particles in the coarse mode by more than 10%.
STRUCTURAL DAMAGE MITIGATION IN DISCRETE STRUCTURES USING MULTIPLE ACTUATORS

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is online health monitoring system and enables instantaneous maintenance triggers when the system's health falls below predefined level of confidence due to structural damage. The inference is that Current SHM techniques could not exclude the possibilities of a structural failure to occur in real-time, Active self- healing mechanism is a solution technique. Where the four levels of SHM is pursued based on the vibration database in real-time, once damage is detected if it grows structural damage mitigation is applied through actuator technologies, which is the Vibration control in damaged structures and also called Active structural prognosis, Here damage growth mitigation using state and state derivative feedback controller is illustrated for multiple input systems. Then to illustrate its utility, structural damage growth mitigation (active structural prognosis) using time response shaping under a structural load is illustrated. It is shown that the life of the damaged structure in a dynamic environment is possible to extend using time response options resulting from a typical state/state derivative feedback controller. A discrete dynamic structure is considered to illustrate the underlying principles of active structural prognosis.
Optimal Asset-Liability Management

In this thesis, Mean-Variance Asset-Liability management is studied in a multi-period setting. An investor aims at finding an optimal investment strategy in order to maximise the mean-variance objective. The prices of assets and liabilities are formulated as geometric Brownian motions and we further extend them to exponential Levy process. By the Bellman principle, the explicit optimal solution is obtained under backward induction.
The investigation of relationship between adrenomedullin vascular growth endothelial factor in obese and calorie restricted rats

Objective: Obesity and overweight are the most frequent chronic medical problems, and the increasing prevalence of obesity is a worldwide phenomenon. According to the data of World Health Organization (WHO) obesity affects over 300 million people. This study reports the effects of adrenomedullin (AdM) in obesity, due to its functions as arranging vascular endothelial function, and adjusting adipogenesis. Material and Methods: Rats were separated into five groups randomly. Tissues were collected when the rats of obesity groups were gained 20% of their weights, and when the rats of calorie restricted groups were lost 20% of their weights. Then, AdM and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels were measured. Results: We showed that AdM application increased VEGF in all tissues of calorie restriction+AdM group, and the most spectacular effect of AdM injection was the quite elevated VEGF level of white adipose tissue (WAT) in calorie restriction+AdM group, because these individuals need passive fat depots (WAT) more than biologically active fat tissue (brown adipose tissue: BAT). Other remarkable level was in obese+AdM; AdM application lowered VEGF level by diminishing WAT depots. Contrary to this, AdM application increased VEGF levels of BAT in obese+AdM group. Conclusion: There is a synergy between AdM and VEGF. AdM regulates the vascularization of tissues (WAT or BAT) according to the individual’s requirement. Consequently, AdM may have a protective effect towards obesity, and according to metabolic situation of individual’s adipose tissue, AdM application may provide consumption of energy by increasing vasculature of BAT in obese individuals.
What lies beneath: Reframing framing effects

Decision framing concerns how individuals build internal representations of problems and how these determine the choices that they make. Research in this area has been dominated by studies of the framing effect, showing reversals in preference associated with the form in which a decision problem is presented. While there are studies that fail to reveal this effect, there is at present no theory that can explain why and when the effect occurs. The purpose of this article is to present a selective review of research and use this to argue for a new framework for considering decision framing, to interpret past studies, and to set an agenda for future research. A simple information-processing model is developed. The model provides the basis for arguing that previous research has taken too narrow a view of how decision problems are internally represented and how these representations are transformed into choice behaviour. In addition, the model is used to highlight the importance of decision content and context.
Understanding business performance: exploring the relative contribution of context, strategy and owner managers' characteristics

The objective of this paper is to examine the ways in which entrepreneurial characteristics interact with the organizational context and strategy of the enterprise to influence the performance of businesses. This builds on a growing body of literature seeking to understand the relative importance of structural and agency factors in business performance. This area has received a number of multivariate quantitative approaches, including principal components analysis of managerial behaviour. Earlier research found that entrepreneurial style, not management behaviour, was positively associated with the probability that a firm would be a high-growth type.
Off-farm Labor Market Participation in Rural Nigeria: Driving Forces and Household Access

Reducing poverty in the developing world continues to be a major public policy challenge. Whereas agriculture-led growth played an important role in reducing poverty and transforming the economies of many Asian and Latin American countries, the same has not yet occurred in Africa. This has led to growing skepticism in the international development discourse about the relevance of agriculture to poverty reduction in Africa. As a result, the promotion of off-farm rural labor participation as a pathway out of poverty has gained widespread support among development agencies and non-governmental organizations. So far, relatively little policy efforts have been made to promote the off-farm labor sector in a pro-poor way and overcome potential constraints in countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. One reason is probably the dearth of robust and up-to-date information about the driving forces of household labor diversification in specific contexts. This paper analyzes the role of off-farm labor diversification for households in rural Nigeria. The analysis builds on a survey of 220 households in Kwara State, which was conducted in 2006. Specifically, the paper examines the driving forces for off-farm labor market participation and household access to different off-farm activities. We disaggregate off-farm employment into different segments, hypothesizing that the results are not uniform across these segments of the rural labor market. We then use different econometric techniques to model the determinants of participation and income from the different income sources.
Application of Decision Tree C4.5 Algorithm in Air Quality Evaluation

Air pollution has a significant impact on human production and life, the prediction of air quality’s level is conducive to the relevant departments to take appropriate measures. This paper selects six basic pollutants PM10,PM2.5,SO2,NO2,CO and O3, which are stipulated in the “Ambient Air Quality Standard” (GB3905-2012) issued by China in 2012. Based on the data of air pollutant concentration in Wuhan in October, 2016, a prediction model of air quality grade based on C4.5 decision tree algorithm was established. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has an ideal classification prediction effect.
In-vitro propagation of Picralima nitida (Stapf) through embryo culture

Embryo abortion in wide crosses and seed dormancy has hampered the mass propagation of selected tree germplasm from the wild. An in vitro plant regeneration protocol was successfully established in Picralima nitida (Stapf), a medicinal tropical plant, by culturing excised embryo from mature seeds collected from the wild. Seeds were sterilized and dissected; embryos were raised in vitro in 11 different media compositions comprising pure Murashige and Skoog (MS) and MS media supplemented with varying concentrations of cytokinins labeled A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J and K. Media type was significant on metrical traits of sprouts (P ≤ 0.05). One hundred percent survival of explants were obtained in media J while MS basal medium (K) had the lowest survival of 40%; and mean number of leaves (1.4). Number of roots per sprout, shoot and root length responses were lowest in medium H with values of 0.13, 0.79 and 0.15 cm, respectively. Overall best growth parameters in shoot (3.38 cm) and root lengths (3.75 cm) were obtained in medium F. Mass propagation of P. nitida can be accomplished in MS media supplemented with 0.05 mg/L kinetin and 0.01 mg/L naphthalene acetic acid (NAA). Keyword : Excised embryo, In vitro culture, sprouts, metrical traits, Picralima nitida African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(22), pp. 3447-3454
Corporate Social Responsibility Activities: Appropriability and Impact on Social Performance

To explore strategic aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR), this paper examines the impact of CSR activities on corporate social performance (CSP). Drawing from and synthezing two literatures, the well-known instrumental/strategic stakeholder theory and research on CSR strategic value criteria (Burke and Logsden, 1996), we conceptualize appropriability as a variable intermediating between a firm’s CSR activities and its CSP. We suggest that two considerations shape appropriability in the context of corporate social performance: 1) the extent to which social actions go beyond legal requirements and dominant social norms (voluntarism and proactivity) and, 2) the coherence of stakeholder groups’ interest aggregation and articulation. We hypothesize a clear positive connection between investment in corporate social activities and CSP where appropriability is high. Our second conceptual contribution is to categorize CSR activities as performance-oriented and learning/information acquisition-oriented. Where appropriability is low, we expect activities will be learning/information acquisitionoriented and the association between corporate social activity and CSP negative. In preliminary statistical tests we find empirical support for the value of developing the appropriability concept in research on corporate social activity and corporate social performance and further exploring the differences between performance-oriented and learning-oriented corporate social activities.
PCPS – an R-package for exploring phylogenetic eigenvectors across metacommunities

PCPS is an R package for exploring phylogenetic eigenvectors across metacommunities. It offers a set of functions for analyzing principal coordinates of phylogenetic structure (PCPS), allowing analysis of phylogenetic signal in ecological traits of species at the metacommunity level, and the association between each PCPS and environmental, spatial and historical factors. The package is a flexible solution for exploring the distribution of major phylogenetic lineages across ecological or biogeographic gradients. The package is freely available on the CRAN official web server for R.
Glycemic Disturbances on Admission as a Predictor of Inpatient Mortality

C l i n M e d International Library Citation: Saenz-Abad D, Gimeno-Orna JA, Lahoza-Perez MC, Rivero-Sanz E, JordanDomingo M, et al. (2015) Glycemic Disturbances on Admission as a Predictor of Inpatient Mortality. Int J Crit Care Emerg Med 1:007 Received: September 12, 2015: Accepted: October 28, 2015: Published: October 30, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Saenz-Abad D. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Saenz-Abad et al. Int J Crit Care Emerg Med 2015, 1:2
Impact of a Detailed Urban Parameterization on Modeling the Urban Heat Island in Beijing Using TEB-RAMS

The Town Energy Budget (TEB) model coupled with the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) is applied to simulate the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon in the metropolitan area of Beijing. This new model with complex and detailed surface conditions, called TEB-RAMS, is from Colorado State University (CSU) and the ASTER division of Mission Research Corporation. The spatial-temporal distributions of daily mean 2 m air temperature are simulated by TEB-RAMS during the period from 0000 UTC 01 to 0000 UTC 02 July 2003 over the area of 116°E~116.8°E, 39.6°N~40.2°N in Beijing. The TEB-RAMS was run with four levels of two-way nested grids, and the finest grid is at 1 km grid increment. An Anthropogenic Heat (AH) source is introduced into TEB-RAMS. A comparison between the Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Feedback model (LEAF) and the detailed TEB parameterization scheme is presented. The daily variations and spatial distribution of the 2 m air temperature agree well with the observations of the Beijing area. The daily mean 2 m air temperature simulated by TEB-RAMS with the AH source is 0.6 K higher than that without specifying TEB and AH over the metropolitan area of Beijing. The presence of urban underlying surfaces plays an important role in the UHI formation. The geometric morphology of an urban area characterized by road, roof, and wall also seems to have notable effects on the UHI intensity. Furthermore, the land-use dataset from USGS is replaced in the model by a new land-use map for the year 2010 which is produced by the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The simulated regional mean 2 m air temperature is 0.68 K higher from 01 to 02 July 2003 with the new land cover map.
Multiple observation types reduce uncertainty in Australia's terrestrial carbon and water cycles

Abstract. Information about the carbon cycle potentially constrains the water cycle, and vice versa. This paper explores the utility of multiple observation sets to constrain a land surface model of Australian terrestrial carbon and water cycles, and the resulting mean carbon pools and fluxes, as well as their temporal and spatial variability. Observations include streamflow from 416 gauged catchments, measurements of evapotranspiration (ET) and net ecosystem production (NEP) from 12 eddy-flux sites, litterfall data, and data on carbon pools. By projecting residuals between observations and corresponding predictions onto uncertainty in model predictions at the continental scale, we find that eddy flux measurements provide a significantly tighter constraint on continental net primary production (NPP) than the other data types. Nonetheless, simultaneous constraint by multiple data types is important for mitigating bias from any single type. Four significant results emerging from the multiply-constrained model are that, for the 1990–2011 period: (i) on the Australian continent, a predominantly semi-arid region, over half the water loss through ET (0.64 ± 0.05) occurs through soil evaporation and bypasses plants entirely; (ii) mean Australian NPP is quantified at 2.2 ± 0.4 (1σ) Pg C yr−1; (iii) annually cyclic ("grassy") vegetation and persistent ("woody") vegetation account for 0.67 ± 0.14 and 0.33 ± 0.14, respectively, of NPP across Australia; (iv) the average interannual variability of Australia's NEP (±0.18 Pg C yr−1, 1σ) is larger than Australia's total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2011 (0.149 Pg C equivalent yr–1), and is dominated by variability in desert and savanna regions.
A Study on Adaptive Fault Detection Algorithm for Distributed Storage System

In order to establish an efficient and reliable fault detection mechanism for the distributed storage system, a mixed status piggyback adaptive fault detection algorithm was presented. In addition, DFDF, a fault detection framework for the distributed storage system was also put forward and it was able to provide load balancing and high reliability by administrating the operational mode of mutual backup and concurrent working for nodes. According to detection delay calculation based on load predictions and the adaptive adjustment of timeout parameters, a fault detection adaptive algorithm known as MSP-AFD was proposed. Experiments proved that detection performance of MSP-AFD algorithm was superior to the traditional NFD-E algorithm in various load conditions so that both performance of fault detection and selfadaptability was improved. Keywords—Fault Detection; Distributed Storage System; Load Prediction; Timeout Allowance; Timeout Time Limit; Detection Period
of Birmingham Evaluation of a low-cost optical particle counter (Alphasense OPC-N2) for ambient air monitoring

A fast-growing area of research is the development of low-cost sensors for measuring air pollutants. The affordability and size of low-cost particle sensors makes them an attractive option for use in experiments requiring a number of instruments such as high-density spatial mapping. However, for these low-cost sensors to be useful for these types of studies their accuracy and precision need to be quantiﬁed. We evaluated the Alphasense OPC-N2, a promising low-cost miniature optical particle counter, for monitoring ambient airborne particles at typical urban background sites in the UK. The precision of the OPC-N2 was assessed by co-locating 14 instruments at a site to investigate the variation in measured concentrations. Comparison to two different reference optical particle counters as well as a TEOM-FDMS enabled the accuracy of the OPC-N2 to be evaluated. Comparison of the OPC-N2 to the reference optical instruments shows some limitations for measuring mass concentrations of PM 1 , PM 2 . 5 and PM 10 . The OPC-N2 demonstrated a signiﬁcant positive artefact in measured particle mass during times of high ambient RH (> 85 %) and a calibration factor was developed based upon κ -Köhler theory, using average bulk particle aerosol hygroscopicity. Application of this RH correction factor resulted in the OPC-N2 measurements being within 33 % of the TEOM-FDMS, comparable to the agreement between a reference optical particle counter and the TEOM-FDMS (20 %). Inter-unit precision for the 14 OPC-N2 sensors of ± for 10 mass concentrations was the OPC-N2
Community structure of the ichthyofauna associated with seagrass beds ( Halodule wrightii) in Formoso River estuary - Pernambuco, Brazil

Seagrass beds are used by juvenile fishes in different ways, generally as nursery sites, shelter from predators, reducing competition and increasing availability of food resources, thus establishing a relationship of connectivity with other ecosystems. In the present study, the community structure of the ichthyofauna associated with seagrass beds on the Formoso River (Pernambuco - Brazil) was evaluated during the winter of 2008. Twenty-seven manual trawls (15 daytime and 12 nighttime) were performed, and a total of 358 fishes belonging to 18 families, 21 genus and 25 species were collected. The Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) by trawling average was 13.5 and 4.95 individuals per species per trawl. The most abundant families were Scaridae (n = 111), Tetraodontidae (n = 63), Lutjanidae (n = 56), Mullidae (n = 39) and Engraulidae (n = 19). Ecological indices for dial changes were always higher for the night period, confirming that such areas are used more frequently during this period. The need for measures to conserve these areas is emphasized, by its importance and vulnerability to human impacts.
SINGLE-PHASE LAMINAR & TURBULENT HEAT TRANSFER IN SMOOTH & ROUGH MICROTUBES

In the attempt to characterize the exact behaviour and the possible deviations from classical theory of microscale thermal fluid dynamics, an experimental campaign was carried out studying laminar and turbulent heat transfer in uniformly heated smooth glass and rough stainless steel microtubes from 0.5 mm down to 0.12 mm. Heat transfer in turbulent regime proved to be coherent ‐ within the range of experimental accuracy ‐ with the classic Gnielinski correlation for the Nusselt number. For the laminar case, an anomalous drop in Nusselt number for decreasing Reynolds number was observed in the smooth glass tubes. As the stainless steel tubes manifested relatively normal diabatic behaviour in this regime (apart from the evident influence of the thermal development region that increases heat transfer above the thermally fully developed value), the explanation of this unexpected diminution of the Nusselt number must be sought in the dispersion of heat, put in externally through the thin film deposited on the glass tube outer surface, to peripheral attachments to the test section. This distorts the measured energy balance of the experiment, especially as the convective force of the fluid diminishes, resulting in lower Nusselt numbers at lower Reynolds numbers.