Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices and Sustainability Performance in the Food Industry

Sustainable development has recently been identified as a challenge for many countries and has become a vital issue for food-related industries. This study of sustainable supply chain management practices and sustainability performance in the food industry was conducted at food companies in Iran. Data were gathered from 120 companies by means of a questionnaire; confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the questionnaire's validity. Hypotheses were tested by path analysis. The results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) indicate that sustainable supply chain management practices impact on the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainability. Based on these findings, there is a need to improve sustainable supplier management practices, sustainable operations management practices and sustainable customer management practices in order to advance sustainability performance in the supply chain. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE AR-SA
An improved real-time adaptive Kalman filter with recursive noise covariance updating rules

Kalman filter (KF) is used extensively for state estimation. Among its requirements are the process and observation noise covariances which are unknown or partially known in real life applications. Biased initializations of the covariances result in performance degradation of KF or divergence. Therefore, an extensive research is carried on to improve its performance however, relying on a moving window, heavy computations, and the availability of the exact model are the fundamental problems in most of the proposed techniques. In this paper, we are using the idea of the recursive estimation of KF to propose two recursive updating rules for the process and observation covariances respectively designed based on the covariance matching principles. Each rule is a tuned scaled version of the previous covariance in addition to a tuned correction term derived based on the most recent available data. The proposed adaptive Kalman filter AKF avoided the aforementioned problems and proved itself to have an improved performance over the conventional KF. The results show that the AKF estimates are more accurate, have less noise and more stable against biased covariance initializations.
Board Process, Capital Structure Decisions and Company Performance

Previous studies have focused on board structure and company performance. Several numbers of studies have reported less evidence or no consensus on the relationship between the two. Therefore, attention has shifted to board process in order to provide better insight on the quality of the board. With regards to capital structure, the decision is an integral part of strategies implementation and related to company performance. The paper aims to examine three conceptual models on company performance; board process, capital structure decisions and mediation. The study finds insufficient consensus on the association between board process and capital structure decisions. This study incorporate four essential board process attributes namely, performance of independent directors, board’s risks oversight, Chief Executive Officer (CEO)’s performance evaluation and accessibility of information. In addition, the conceptual models on the relationship between board process, capital structure and company performance provide an alternative approach unlike the traditional models in corporate governance and finance literatures. Key words: Board process; Risk oversight; Performance evaluation; Independent directors; Capital structure; Company performance
Determining diurnal and seasonal changes in melatonin andtryptophan contents of eggplant (Solanum melongena L.)

The objective of this study was to simultaneously determine changes in tryptophan and melatonin contents of eggplant seedlings at two different growth stages during a 24-h period. Variations in tryptophan and melatonin levels in different organs (roots, leaves, fruits, and seeds) and the distribution and accumulation of these molecules in these organs during various growth stages were also investigated. In eggplant seedlings, melatonin showed a strong peak at the beginning of the dark period, while tryptophan levels were at the lowest. Melatonin was also high in the middle of the light period and an inverse relationship was observed between melatonin and tryptophan levels. These results indicated that melatonin fluctuations in eggplant seedlings are likely the result of the combined effects of endogenous and environmental factors. Melatonin was found in high quantities in seedlings and mature seeds, and its concentration in leaves and roots decreased dramatically as the growth stages progressed. On the other hand, tryptophan content in leaves and roots increased markedly as the growth season progressed, and the highest tryptophan levels were detected in roots of older plants, flowers, and fruits at mature seed stage. Significant seasonal variations in melatonin levels suggest that melatonin may play a key role in eggplant developmental processes.
Nonlocal Sediment Transport on Steep Lateral Moraines, Eastern Sierra Nevada, California, USA

Recent work has highlighted the significance of long‐distance particle motions in hillslope sediment transport. Such motions imply that the flux at a given hillslope position is appropriately described as a weighted function of surrounding conditions that influence motions reaching the given position. Although the idea of nonlocal sediment transport is well grounded in theory, limited field evidence has been provided. We test local and nonlocal formulations of the flux and compare their ability to reproduce land surface profiles of steep moraines in California. We show that nonlocal and nonlinear models better reproduce evolved land surface profiles, notably the amount of lowering and concavity near the moraine crest and the lengthening and straightening of the depositional apron. The analysis provides the first estimates of key parameters that set sediment entrainment rates and travel distances in nonlocal formulations and highlights the importance of correctly specifying the entrainment rate when modeling land surface evolution. Moraine evolution associated with nonlocal and nonlinear transport formulations, when described in terms of the evolution of the Fourier transform of the moraine surface, displays a distinct behavior involving growth of certain wave numbers, in contrast to the decay of all wave numbers associated with linear transport. Nonlinear and nonlocal formulations share key mathematical elements yielding a nonlinear relation between the flux and the land surface slope.
MACROSCALE FLOQUET-WAVE MATCHED BASIS FUNCTIONS FOR LARGE PRINTED ARRAYS

In the solution of a typical array problem, one finds large-scale (i.e. slow) spatial variations, as well as small-scale (fast) variations. For large and finite periodic arrays, the periodicity induces and very-large (macro)scales that are weakly dependent on the radiating elements themselves, and strongly dependent by the array periodicity and by the shape of the rim. To incorporate this large scale variation phenomena, appropriate macro-function should be incorporated in a Method of Moment architecture. The physical interpretation of these macro-function in terms of Floquet wave matched diffracted field is discussed here, together with their insertion inside a Method of Moments scheme.
Linguistic Claims Formulated in Terms of Centering: A Re-examination using Parametric CB-tracking Techniques

Using techniques for automatically tracking the CB in annotated corpora, we test a variety of claims about discourse formulated in terms of the notions of CB or topic: that THIS-NPs are best used to refer to entities not in topic; that there is a correlation between the use of pronouns or full NPs in subject position in an utterance and the type of transition (continue, shift, retain) performed by that utterance; that certain transitions correlate more with segment boundaries; and that long-distance pronominalizations are only licensed when referring to an entity acting as topic.
Experimental demonstration of metamaterials application for mitigating scan blindness in phased array antennas

This paper presents two metamaterial-inspired solutions to mitigate the scan blindness effects in a phased array antenna. In the first solution, portions of a bed of nails are introduced in the radome to prevent the excitation of surface waves. In the second solution, a superstrate metasurface is designed to synthesize a permittivity tensor optimized to achieve a wide angle impedance matching. In both approaches, the numerical simulations are successfully compared with measurements of a phased array antenna prototype with 100 elements. The wire medium-based solution reveals an effective way for reducing the blind-spot in a wide bandwidth, while the metaradome has been found less suitable for the same purpose.
From vulnerability to resilience: the adaptation continuum

White, Burton and Kates in establishing and developing the natural hazard paradigm have essentially established the base for addressing the problem of the twenty-first century, namely climate change. Accelerated climate change and increasing variability caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the single largest threats to the attainment of international goals of sustainable development and disaster risk reduction. Until recently, the main thrust in tackling this problem was the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. More recently, attention has focused on adaptation techniques to address climate change challenges faced by all countries, especially, poorer nations, as climate driven change and its adverse consequences are inevitable. Responding to that change means that adaptation must no longer be thought of as an add-on or ancillary to existing development programmes. It must be an integral part of our everyday decision-making; a part of a continuum. This paper, conceptually, explores adaptation from a poverty perspective and argues that the thrust of adaptation must be to build resilient communities. The reason for this is straightforward. We argue that the first line of response to adverse conditions is the affected. Building resilience must start at this point. The key message is that resilience building to enhance community capacity to withstand and respond to adverse events must be a normative condition of development.
Cartel Formation With Endogenous Capacity and Demand Uncertainty

This article provides a framework for the analysis of cartel formation. It models the strategic interaction among firms who invest into production capacity, sell a near-homogeneous good, and are subject to unexpected demand shocks with persistence. The firms either compete or collude in prices. The model shows that a reduction of demand may promote collusion despite lowering collusive profits. This is the case when capacities are durable and a perceptible decline in demand creates excess capacities that make competition more intense. One finds unstable cartels especially for low discount rates as these lead the firms to choose asymmetric capacities.
Effect of Nigella Sativa L. seeds on ovaries function in adult Rats treated with Lead Acetate

Background: There is an increasing interest toward medicinal plants and their active ingredients in the last years. Aims of the Study: This study aimed to show the effect of Nagela sativa L. seeds on the functions of ovaries in adult rats treated with lead acetate. Materials and Methods : Thirty adult female rats were randomly divided into three groups and treated orally as following for 8 weeks . Rats in the first group were received one ml of distilled water as control group . Rats in the second group were received lead acetate ( 10 mg / kg ) as test 1 group. While rats in the third group received 100 mg/kg seeds of Nigella sativa with 10 mg /kg lead acetate as test group-2. Fasting blood specimens were collected to poll serum 2,4,and 8 weeks for the measurement of LH, FSH And estrogen hormone. Results: The results revealed significant (P<0.05) increase in ovarian weight to body weight ratio, FSH, numbers and diameters of graffian follicles in two treated groups (T1andT2)compared with control group. Exposure of animals to lead acetate (T1) reflects a significant (P<0.05) increase in LH hormones with a significant decrease in estrogen compared with control group. Treatment of animals with Nigella Sativa pulse lead acetate caused significant (P<0.05) decrease in serum LH hormone compared with T1 group but the concentration of estrogen was significantly (P<0.05) increase. Ovaries histological studies of (T1 group) indicated an increase in diameters of graffian follicles and vaculation of granulosa cells, while the ovary of the animals in (T2 group) showed decrease in number and diameter of graffian follicles in comparison with normal structure of these follicles. On conclusion it seems likely that dosage of rats with (10 mg/kg B.W) of lead acetate caused a significant redaction on ovarian function and the treatment of animals with (100 mg/kg B.W) of Nigella sativa caused a significant enhancement of its reproductive function.
The Effects of Glosses on Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition in Reading

The study has been intended to find out the question of how the three different types of glossing, i.e. glossing in both Chinese and English, glossing in Chinese, glossing in English, exert effects on the incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. Two testing sections are involved in this study, including the immediate retention testing section and the delayed retention testing section. Based on this finding, implications for the field of foreign language teaching and suggestions have been put forward.
Immunohistochemical Study of Estrogen, Progesterone Receptor and Her- 2neu Oncogene with Her-2neu Biomarker Estimation by ELISA Technique in Primary Breast Cancer before Chemical Therapy

Breast cancer is one of the comments malignant tumors worldwide especially in Iraq; it is a leading cause of death in Iraqi women. Determination of estrogen and progesterone receptors status is helpful in selecting the patients most likely to receive benefit from endocrine therapy, and provide prognostic information on recurrence and survival since their expression is related to the degree of the tumor differentiation. From November 2012 to March 2013, 150 breast cancer patients at Al-Amal Hospital in Baghdad were attended to start treatment of disease for the first time. All patients included in this study did not receive chemotherapy. Patients were asked to bring their paraffin embedded tissue blocks to participate in estrogen, progesterone and Her-2/nue receptors estimation. Blood samples were also collected from the patients to estimate positive Her-2nue cases in serum. Age distribution in women with breast cancer showed that 44%of cases at age group (40 – 49) years. 23% of the patients had a positive family history (first and second degree). Histological types of breast carcinoma showed that 82%, 14% and 4% were ductal, lobular and mixed carcinoma respectively. The Makee classification showed that Grade I, II, and III were detected in 10%, 64% and 26% respectively. TNM staging revealed that 16% of the patients were recorded in stage I, 44% in stage II, 32% in stage III and 8% in stage IV. It was demonstrated that 72% and 70% of breast carcinomas were positive for ER and PR respectively; both markers correlated with age, family history, type, histological grade and stage of the disease. Her-2/neu showed 28% expression in Iraqi breast cancer cases. HER2/neu over-expression (>15 ng/ml) was observed in 36 out of 150 patients (24%) Her-2/neu serum level at ELISA diagnosis and in 42 out of 150 (28%) at immunohistochemistry method (IHC). There were significant (P <0.001) association between tissue HER-2/neu and serum HER-2 levels. Detection Her-2/neu in serum by ELISA technique could be used as a method for detection with high rate reached to 78% after mastectomy, also it considered as an excellent method for follow up.
MODELING BURSTS IN THE ARRIVAL PROCESS TO AN EMERGENCY CALL CENTER

In emergency call centers (for police, firemen, ambulances) a single event can sometimes trigger many incoming calls in a short period of time. Several people may call to report the same fire or the same accident, for example. Such a sudden burst of incoming traffic can have a significant impact on the responsiveness of the call center for other events in the same period of time. We examine data from the SOS Alarm center in Sweden. We also build a stochastic model for the bursts. We show how to estimate the model parameters for each burst by maximum likelihood, how to model the multivariate distribution of those parameters using copulas, and how to simulate the burst process from this model. In our model, certain events trigger an arrival process of calls with a random time-varying rate over a finite period of time of random length.
Some Studies on Hydrogen-Oxygen Diffusion Flame

The opposed-jet diffusion flame has been considered with four step reaction kinetics for hydrogenoxygen system. The studies have revealed that the flame broadening reduces and maximum temperature increases as pressure increases. The relative importance of different reaction steps have been brought out in different regions (unstable, near extinction and equilibrium). The present studies have also led to the deduction of the oveall reaction rate constants of an equivalent single step reaction using matching of a certain overall set of parameters for four step reaction scheme and equivalent single step reaction.
Synthesis of Au/C Catalysts by Ultrasonic-Assisted Technique for Vinyl Chloride Monomer Production

In the present work, the ultrasonic-assisted technique is applied to synthesize Au/C catalysts for vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) production via acetylene hydrochlorination. The catalytic performance of the obtained catalysts is compared with that of the catalyst prepared by a conventional incipient wetness impregnation technique. It was found that all the prepared catalysts show high VCM selectivity (>99.5%). The use of the ultrasonic-assisted technique can significantly improve the catalytic activity and stability of the synthesized Au/C catalysts. An ultrasonic driven time of 6 hours is found to be a promising catalyst for commercial application regarding the catalyst stability. In addition, the effect of operating parameters is investigated. Suitable operating temperature and HCl/C2H2 feed ratio are 180oC and 1.1, respectively.
Influence of Mesologic Parameters On The Phytoplankton Distribution along of Transects Localized Between Cape Cantin And Dakhla

The marine phytoplankton was studied in january and july 2002 in four transects: 32°30’N, 29°N, 24°30’N and 24°N. Water samples were collected at four depths (surface, 10m, 30m and 50m). The total microalgal density shows that the southern area is more productive than the northern. The maximum of density is recorded at -30m depth in winter and -10m in summer in all transects. The analysis of the spatiotemporal variation of the physicochemical parameters shows an activity of upwelling during summer in whole transects, while in winter no marked gradient of physicochemical parameters was detected, except in Dakhla (24°N), where a cold filament was observed. Generally, the upwelling activity, the presence of filaments and the morphology of the coast determine largely the spatiotemporal variability of phytoplankton in the studied areas.
Heroes Today - But What about Tomorrow? Gazelles and Their Long-term Performance

Young high-growth firms, or gazelles, have been investigated predominantly with respect to their outstanding short-term performance. The paper at hand adopts a different approach by analyzing the long-term performance of such firms to shed light on the sustainability of these job-creating machines. Using the Danish Integrated Database for Labour Market Research, we find that former gazelles are not able to sustain their headstart in terms of performance in the long run. We demonstrate that gazelles are often outperformed by initially slower growing competitors, as high initial growth negatively affects a firm’s long-term survival. We also find that high-growth start-ups ultimately achieve lower employment growth and higher employee turnover. We explain these counterintuitive findings by arguing that an initial period of rapid employment growth impedes the emergence of a stable and efficient routine structure within the newly founded venture if expansion is undertaken too hastily. In turn, this impediment decreases these firms’ long-term performance, as the initial set of structures and routines or the lack thereof has a long-lasting effect on the organization’s development.
Recent trends in research on energetic materials at Cambridge

Recent work in our laboratory has established a time-temperature superposition law for a PBX. This was achieved by performing uniaxial compression testing over a wide range of strain rates and temperatures along with Differential Thermal Mechanical Analysis (DMTA). The classic WLF (Williams, Landel, Ferry) transform was found not to fit the shift factor needed to align the data whereas a simple log-linear fit did. The thermal properties (diffusivity, conductivity, heat capacity) of a PBX have been measured three different ways and found to agree (within experimental error) with the classic equation relating these three parameters. This gives us confidence that, for example, hot-spot ignition mechanisms of this class of energetic materials can be accurately modelled using their measured thermal properties. A modular instrumented testing facility has been designed and built to simulate and control the conditions experienced by novel heavy-metal-free (green) primers contained within ammunition. Physical data obtained from the facility, when compared with data from live fire tests, will give a greater understanding of which characteristics are important to functionality. As explosives are granular materials, the techniques developed for studying such materials are being applied to determine the effect of particle size distribution and shape on sensitivity.
Efficiency Optimization for Disassembly Tools via Using NN-GA Approach

Disassembly issues have been widely attracted in today’s sustainable development context. One of them is the selection of disassembly tools and their efficiency comparison. To deal with such issue, taking the bolt as a removal object, this work designs their removal experiments for different removal tools considering some factors influencing its removal process. Moreover, based on the obtained experimental data, the removal efficiency for different removal tools is optimized by a hybrid algorithm integrating neural networks (NN) and genetic algorithm (GA). Their efficiency comparison is discussed. Some numerical examples are given to illustrate the proposed idea and the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
ASYMMETRIES, BREAKS, AND LONG-RANGE DEPENDENCE: AN ESTIMATION FRAMEWORK FOR DAILY REALIZED VOLATILITY

We study the simultaneous occurrence of long memory and nonlinear effects, such as structural breaks and thresholds, in autoregressive moving average (ARMA) time series models and apply our modeling framework to series of daily realized volatility. Asymptotic theory for the quasi-maximum likelihood estimator is developed and a sequence of model specification tests is described. Our framework allows for general nonlinear functions, including smoothly changing intercepts. The theoretical results in the paper can be applied to any series with long memory and nonlinearity. We apply the methodology to realized volatility of individual stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average during the period 1995 to 2005. We find strong evidence of nonlinear effects and explore different specifications of the model framework. A forecasting exercise demonstrates that allowing for nonlinearities in long memory models yields significant performance gains.