Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Developing a Business Improvement Strategy based on self-assessments using the EFQM Model Developing a Business Improvement Strategy based on self- assessments using the EFQM Model

The use of the EFQM model and other business excellence models (BEM’s) has been recognized as a way of improving business processes among organizations. The information gathered through self-assessments using these models show the performance of organizations against several model criteria. There is evidence that organisations find it difficult to integrate the information from self-assessments to current business improvement programs or projects. Additionally, it has been claimed that the final reports derived from the deployment of selfassessments are rarely followed up. Thus, despite good efforts and some knowledge gained through the use of BEM’s there is a lack of methods, models, and techniques that effectively integrate the self-assessments with current business improvement strategies. In this context, the effective deployments of BEM’s and follow up activities and plans can contribute to support and develop business improvement strategies. Under this perspective, this paper proposes an appropriate method than can help to integrate self-assessments outcomes based on the EFQM model into a business improvement strategy. Based on emerging issues derived from an empirical study with twelve European Organizations that have used the EFQM model for more than five years, the paper identifies some of the best practices to integrate self-assessment outcomes with business improvement strategies. It then proposes a framework that can help to accomplish this integration and to mitigate the problems mentioned earlier. The conclusion of this work emphasizes the necessity to standardize this process, and to integrate it with current knowledge management projects to store and retrieve the information for future business improvements projects.
Training hydrologists to be ecohydrologists and play a leading role in environmental problem solving

Ecohydrology is a relatively new and rapidly growing subject area in the hydrology curriculum. It is a trans-disciplinary science derived from the larger earth sys- tems science movement and examining mutual interactions of the hydrological cycle and ecosystems. It is also an applied science focused on problem solving and providing sound guidance to catchment-scale integrated land and water re- sources management. The principle spheres of ecohydrol- ogy include (i) climate-soil-vegetation-groundwater interac- tions at the land surface with special implications for land use, food production and climate change; (ii) riparian runoff, flooding, and flow regime dynamics in river corridors with special implications for water supply, water quality, and in- land fisheries; and (iii) fluvial and groundwater inputs to lakes/reservoirs, estuaries, and coastal zones with special im- plications for water quality and fisheries. We propose an ed- ucational vision focused on the development of professional and personal competencies to impart a depth of scientific knowledge in the theory and practice of ecohydrology and a breadth of cross-cutting knowledge and skills to enable ecohydrologists to effectively collaborate with associated scientists and communicate results to resource managers, policy-makers, and other stakeholders. In-depth knowledge in hydrology, ecology, and biogeochemistry is emphasized, as well as technical skills in data collection, modeling, and statistical analysis. Cross-cutting knowledge is framed in the context of integrated water resources management. Personal competencies to be fostered in educational programs include creative thinking, cooperation, communication, and leader- ship. We consider a life-long learning context but highlight the importance of master's level training in the professional formation of ecohydrologists.
The Impact of Two-Way Formative Feedback and Web-Enabled Resources on Student Resource Use and Performance in Materials Courses

Stephen Krause is professor in the Materials Science Program in the Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University. He teaches in the areas of introductory materials engineering, polymers and composites, and capstone design. His research interests include evaluating conceptual knowledge, misconceptions and technologies to promote conceptual change. He has co-developed a Materials Concept Inventory and a Chemistry Concept Inventory for assessing conceptual knowledge and change for introductory materials science and chemistry classes. He is currently conducting research on NSF projects in two areas. One is studying how strategies of engagement and feedback with support from internet tools and resources affect conceptual change and associated impact on students’ attitude, achievement, and persistence. The other is on the factors that promote persistence and success in retention of undergraduate students in engineering. He was a coauthor for best paper award in the Journal of Engineering Education in 2013.
SES-09 _ I GROUP DECISIONS AND COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOUR II CHAIR

An agent-based simulation was developed as a tool for exploring the effect of government interventions on the adoption of a heating system. This paper describes the conceptual framework of adoption-decision making based on models from different theories; meta-theory (social psychology/consumer behavior), utility theory (behavioral economics), Theory of Planned Behavior (psychology), and Diffusion of Innovation (technology management). A mail survey of 270 Norwegian households in 2008 was designed specifically for acquiring data to feed the simulation. Simulation result of the influence of the social network structure on diffusion rate is presented. The result suggested that the small-world network is the most representative network structure, in comparison to spatial proximity and random network, within the context of household’s heating system adoption and diffusion.
Avoiding Humiliation - From Intercultural Communication to Global Interhuman Communication

Intercultural communication has the potential to fertilize transformative learning due to its power to unsettle us. This article suggests that we may go beyond being unsettled ourselves and let the very field of intercultural communication be unsettled. This article puts forward the proposal to inscribe intercultural communication into global interhuman communication. We suggest founding a new field, the field of “Global Interhuman Communication. ” Intercultural communication is a field that has a particular responsibility to discuss how this process can be guided fruitfully. This article proposes that a new paradigm of interhuman communication could embrace communication, globally and locally, as a kind of flexible navigation done by individuals with mixed identities following fluid negotiable guidelines, instead of placing individuals into fixed group identities with rigid rules. Currently, cycles of humiliation strain the social fabric of communities around the world, and culture is deeply involved. Culture can be a result of humiliation, and culture can humiliate. More so, the very fact that millions of people on our globe live in abject squalor, while a minority indulges in luxury, humiliates everybody’s humanity. The world’s ecological and social problems belong to the entire planet – they are not confined to one or several cultural realms and therefore cannot be solved with traditional cultural scripts. This is a historically new situation. No history lesson can be of help, and traditional cultural solutions are not necessarily suitable. Humankind needs to build a new inclusive and diverse global culture that selectively employs all the useful and functional aspects of our commonalities and our differences. This is because both our commonalities and our differences entail benign and malign aspects. In this article, it is recommended to use human rights as sifting tool to decide which commonalities and differences are to be regarded as benign – deserving to be included into a future global culture – and which are not. It is not possible to be neutral. Intercultural communicators cannot avoid asking questions such as: Who receives our support, power elites who manipulate people to be loyal underlings in supposedly “pure” cultures? Or do we support the
Tax compliance and income redistribution: a political competition model

This paper analyzes the political economy of income redistribution when voters are concerned about tax compliance. We consider a two stagemodel where there is a two party competition over the tax rate in the first stage and voters decide about their level of tax compliance in the second stage. We model political competition a la Wittman with the ideology of parties endogenously determined at equilibrium. We calibrate the model for an average of EU-27 countries. Numerical simulations provide the tax rates proposed by the two parties and the level of tax compliance. We find that a decrease in confidence in tax morale, and an increase in parties’ uncertainty about the preferences of the median voter increase the probability that the party offering the lowest income tax will win and decrease tax compliance.
A ONE-DIMENSIONAL SIMULATION OF THE STRATOCUMULUS-CAPPED

A marine stratocumulus model has been developed which has four major sub-models: (1) a one-dimensional version of the CSU cumulus model, (2) a partially-diagnostic higher-order turbulence model, (3) an atmospheric radiation model for both short-wave and long-wave radiation, and (4) a partial condensation scheme and cloud fractional parameterization. A set of numerical experiments have been performed to study the interactions among the turbulence, the long-wave radiation, the short-wave radiation, and the sub-grid condensation processes. The results indicate that surface sensible eddy heat flux and not radiative cooling is the major control on the rate of cloud-top entrainment. Cloud-top radiation cooling occurs principally within the upper part of the mixed layer. However, for the stratocumulus with numerous towers penetrated into the capping inversion, most of the long-wave radiation occurs within the capping inversion. It is found that cloud-top radiation cooling is balanced by turbulence transport of sensible heat from cloud-base levels.
GALAXY STRUCTURE AS A DRIVER OF THE STAR FORMATION SEQUENCE SLOPE AND SCATTER

It is well established that (1) star-forming galaxies follow a relation between their star formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass ( M ⋆ ? > ), the “star formation sequence,” and (2) the SFRs of galaxies correlate with their structure, where star-forming galaxies are less concentrated than quiescent galaxies at fixed mass. Here, we consider whether the scatter and slope of the star formation sequence is correlated with systematic variations in the Sérsic indices, n, of galaxies across the SFR– M ⋆ ? > plane. We use a mass-complete sample of 23,848 galaxies at 0.5 < z < 2.5 selected from the 3D-HST photometric catalogs. Galaxy light profiles parameterized by n are based on Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Assembly Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey near-infrared imaging. We use a single SFR indicator empirically calibrated from stacks of Spitzer/MIPS 24 μm imaging, adding the unobscured and obscured star formation. We find that the scatter of the star formation sequence is related in part to galaxy structure; the scatter due to variations in n at fixed mass for star-forming galaxies ranges from 0.14 ± 0.02 dex at z ∼ 2 to 0.30 ± 0.04 dex at z < 1. While the slope of the log SFR – log M ⋆ ? > relation is of order unity for disk-like galaxies, galaxies with n > 2 (implying more dominant bulges) have significantly lower SFR / M ⋆ ? > than the main ridgeline of the star formation sequence. These results suggest that bulges in massive z ∼ 2 galaxies are actively building up, where the stars in the central concentration are relatively young. At z < 1, the presence of older bulges within star-forming galaxies lowers global SFR / M ⋆ ? > , decreasing the slope and contributing significantly to the scatter of the star formation sequence.
CY P 1 A 1 genetic polymorphisms in Ecuador , South America

A total of 108 individuals from the Ecuadorian population from rural and urban places were analyzed for two CYP1A1 gene polymorphisms. The frequency of the val allele at codon 462 was 0.50, while the frequency of the Msp I restriction site, m2 allele at the T6235C position was 0.70. These polymorphisms in Ecuador have higher frequencies if we compare with others around the world, with the exception of some South American population in Brazil and Chile.
Customers Based on their Lifetime Value and RFM Model by Data Mining Techniques

Nowadays, marketing managers are more concerned with identifying and understanding customer behavior in the online space. Since the customers in online space are not visible, it is much essential to have more information about them to provide better services. Customer segmentation is one way to improve the customer problems in an online space. Identifying characteristics of customers and optimal resource allocation to them according to their value to the company is one of the major concerns in the field of customer relationship management and determining factors in E-business success. The purpose of this study is clustering customers online of a mobile sales website based on their lifetime value and RFM model. At the proposed framework in this study after determining the values of RFM model include recently, frequency and monetary of purchase and weighting them using Shannon entropy, a self-organizing map is applied to the segmentation of customers. The customers are categorized into four main segments and characteristics of customers online in each of the segments are identified. Mobile sales website customers are identified by segmenting customers in terms of the pyramid of customer lifetime value. Finally, suggestions are proposed to improve customer relationship management system.
Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Radial Forces Acting on Centrifugal Pump Impeller

The paper presents the results of measurements and predictions of radial thrust in centrifugal pump with speciﬁc speed n s = 26. In the pump tested, a volute with rectangular cross-section was used. The tests were carried out for several rotational speeds, including speeds above and below the nominal one. Commercial code ANSYS Fluent was used for the calculations. Apart from the predictions of the radial force, the calculations of axial thrust were also conducted, and correlation between thrust and the radial force was found. In the range of the measured rotational speeds, similarity of radial forces was checked.
5. PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF AMORPHOUS AND CRYSTALLINE Fe2O3 NANOPHASES

Iron oxide nanoparticles have attracted the attention of several researchers because of their technological utilizations such as magnetic storage media, catalysis, biomedicine, biotechnology, biosensors, etc due to their large surface area, robustness and availability [1-3]. The ferric oxide (Fe2O3) has four crystal structures, viz. γ-Fe2O3, ε-Fe2O3, β-Fe2O3 and α-Fe2O3 [2]. γ-Fe2O3 has a spinel structure showing ferrimagnetism below 928 K. ε-Fe2O3 has an orthorhombic structure showing ferrimagnetism below 495 K. β-Fe2O3 has a bixbyite structure showing antiferromagnetism below 119 K. α-Fe2O3 has a corundum structure showing weak ferromagnetism below 950 K. The γand α-Fe2O3 phases have been well-studied and extensively used whereas the εand β-Fe2O3 are considered to be rare phases. Machala et al [1] have indicated that the amorphous phase of γ-Fe2O3 is more useful. Sakurai et al [2] have reported the synthesis of all the four nanophases but no strictly amorphous nature for the γ-Fe2O3 phase. Phu et al [3] have reported the preparation of amorphous γ-Fe2O3 and crystalline α-Fe2O3 nanophases but, they could not obtain εand βnano phases in the pure form. This indicates the necessity of further investigations in this direction.
Draft Spatio-temporal heterogeneity of larch budmoth outbreaks in the French Alps over the last 500 years

Complete List of Authors: Saulnier, Mélanie; Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie marine et continentale , Aix-Marseille Université, UMR CNRS IRD Avignon Université Roques, Alain; INRA Zoologie Forestiere Guibal, Frédéric; Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité, Europôle Méditerranéen de l’Arbois Rozenberg, Philippe; Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA),, UR0588 Amélioration, Génétique et Physiologie Forestières Saracco, Ginette; Centre de Recherche et d’Enseignement des Géosciences de l’Environnement , CNRS-UMR 7330, AMU Corona, Christophe; GEOLAB CNRS / Université Blaise Pascal / Université de Limoges UMR 6042 , Edouard, Jean-Louis; Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, CCJ UMR
Modification of the standard method for determination of non-exchangeable NH 4 -N in soil

It is well accepted that non-exchangeable NH 4 -N plays an important role in the N dynamics of arable soils. However the widely-used Silva/Bremner method for determining this N fraction is very time consuming and the use of the hazardous hydrofluoric acid (HF) is indispensable. In the modification the use of HF is avoided and the quantity of analysed samples per unit of time could be increased by a factor of 2.5. After pretreating soil samples with KOBr to destroy soil organic matter soil samples are dried and the content of non-exchangeable NH 4 -N is measured using a CNS analyzer. The results of the analysis of 3 out of 4 different soils show no significant differences between both methods.
Designers as Determinant for Aesthetic Innovations

The innovation literature states that scientists are core ingredients in creating technological innovations. This paper investigates whether the hiring of a designer generates aesthetic innovations by a firm. Further we investigate what the level of design knowledge of the receiving firm means for the firms? absorptive capacity, in terms of turning the hiring of the designer into aesthetic innovations. We explore a unique dataset containing information on firms, their hiring of designers and aesthetic innovations measured by design applications (design patents). Our findings show that hiring a designer does increase firms? likelihood of producing aesthetic innovations. Secondly, firms with prior experience of aesthetic innovations are more likely to apply for design registrations. Thirdly, there is a positive moderating effect of firms with prior experience of generating aesthetic innovations on the effect of hiring a designer on aesthetic innovation outcome.
TiO 2 – Au – KI film sensor for the electrocatalytic oxidation of ydrogen peroxide

A glassy carbon and indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes have been modified with the nano TiO2–Au–KI film by the adsorption of TiO2 nanoparticles on the electrodes followed with the electrochemical depositions of nano Au and KI film. Further the nano TiO2–Au–KI film modified ITO was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques. From the microscopic results, the adsorbed nano TiO2 particles size were found in the range of 70–100 nm. Here the electrochemical depositions of nano Au were formed as a flower shape were in the size range of 230 nm to 1 m. Next the m . co ano TiO2 lower shaped nano Au I film 2O2 oxidation electrochemical behavior of nano TiO2–Au–KI film has been examined in different pH solutions. The nano TiO2–Au–KI film modified glassy carbon electrode (GCE) showed good electrocatalytic activity towards the oxidation of H2O2 in phosphate buffer solutions (pH 7.0). The linear range of detection for H2O2 oxidation using nano TiO2–Au–KI film was found as 1 × 10−5 to 1 × 10−4 M and 1 × 10−9 to 1 × 10−7 M in CV and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) techniques. The practical applications of nano TiO2–Au–KI film was evaluated by analyzing the real samples such as antiseptic and contact lens cleaner solutions containing
Workers’ Effort: A Comparison between Capitalist and Cooperative Firms

The purpose of this paper is to compare the efficiency of capitalistic and cooperative firms by focusing on the workers’ effort in production activity, when this effort is only known to workers, thus causing information asymmetries between workers and managers of both types of firms. Therefore, our model uses a principal-agents framework with workers’ hidden actions. The agency relations are not centered on the optimal design of incentive mechanisms but on the efficient (albeit incomplete) managerial monitoring of workers’ private effort. Moreover there is a trade-off between this monitoring activity and another managerial activity, i.e. the organization of production processes. We show that, taking into account the information asymmetries that characterize our model, the cooperative firm requires less monitoring than the capitalist firm to achieve the same efficient level of workers’ effort. This allows the manager of the former firm to devote more working time to organizational activity than the manager of the latter firm. In this respect, the governance of the cooperative firm dominates that of the capitalist firm. However, both types of firms need capital to operate and face different financial constraints in terms of the capital’s purchasing cost. These financial constraints affect the cooperative firm more severely than the capitalistic firm. Our conclusion is that these two types of firms have specific strengths and weaknesses, which make it difficult to reach general analytical results in terms of their relative efficiency. Additionally, the financial constraints characterizing the cooperative firm hinder maximization of its long-term growth rate; on the other hand, this kind of firm can better exploit the virtuous circle between increases in the employment level and increases in the growth rate.
CommunicatiOn Skills : Higher Education : High Schools : * LeadershipStyles : * Measurement Techniques

Two studies investigated the reliability and validity of a selfreport instrument designed to measure the political opinion construct. The instrument, the Measure of Political Opinion Leadeiship (MOPOL, was tested against six criteria: (1) overall internal reliability, (2) reliability across varied populations, (3) face validity, (4) discriminant of factorial validity, (5) convergent Validity, and (6) predictive or criterion-related validity. In the first study, the 28-item instrument was administered to 245 college stu4ents, who also completed.a measure of generalized political leadership. In the second study, it was administered to two, samples, 475 high school students and 184 college students. The results. indicated that politichl opinion leadership can be reliably and validly measured, even amonghigh school students. The findings also. showed that the MOPOL had face, discriminant; convergent, and predictive validity. (FL