Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of Satisfaction with Holidays and Hospitality in Rural Tourism in Spain

An analysis of travelers’ satisfaction with a holiday trip to Spain’s Andalusia region found a distinct difference in the information sources used by first-time visitors and repeat visitors. In addition to determining the travelers’ satisfaction with the trip itself, this study also assessed the travelers’ satisfaction with the travel-related information they received before taking their trip. The framework for the study was a rural tourist trip, a little studied area. Repeat visitors relied primarily on their own experience in terms of expectations for their trips, and any external information sources they consulted had no effect on their satisfaction with the trip. Of the several external sources consulted by the first-time visitors, only mass-media advertising was associated with favorable satisfaction results for the first-timers. Other sources, including word of mouth, the internet, and noncommercial media placements (such as news stories), were associated with negative effects on satisfaction, perhaps because these sources created unrealistic expectations. Destination promotions attracted both new and returning visitors, but again the two groups had different views on which types of promotion were most effective. First-time travelers responded primarily to price discounts in some form, whereas repeat travelers were more inclined toward such nonprice promotions as gifts and prize drawings. For hospitality and tourism officials, the findings focus on the need to ensure that information sources are accurate and create appropriate expectations for first-time travelers. This may require more activity in social media, since internet sources apparently created incorrect expectations or simply offered the first-time travelers so much information that they felt overloaded.
Organizational Routines as a Unit of Analysis

Organizational routines can be conceptualized as generative systems with internal structures and dynamics. In this paper, we propose three different ways that organizational routines can be approached as a unit of analysis. One option is to treat the entire routine as an undifferentiated 'black box'. A second option is to study particular parts of the routine in isolation (e.g. routines as patterns of action). A third option is to study the relationships between these parts and the processes by which the parts change. For some questions, routines can be taken as a unit of analysis without considering their internal structure, but there are many research questions for which it is useful to consider the parts of routines either separately or as they interact. We discuss the importance of understanding the internal structure and dynamics of organizational routines for exploring core organizational phenomena such as stability, change, flexibility, learning and transfer. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
Wifi-based passive bistatic radar by using moving target indicator and least square adaptive filtering

Passive Radar is an emerging area of research that exploits existing illuminators of opportunity to detect targets. A number of researches have been investigating the use of digital transmissions (e.g. DAB, DVB-T, Wifi, WiMAX) as illuminator of opportunity, as well as analogue transmissions (e.g. FM radio or UHF television broadcast). In this paper we investigate a Wifi Based Passive Bistatic Radar architecture where it is used a computationally feasible approach based on a Least Square adaptive filter, a Moving Target Indicator filter and the suppression of Doppler and range sidelobes by using tapering windows. The LS approach is showed to perform the same performances of a FIR LMS adaptive filter. These encouraging performances obtained in a simulation environment and in a preliminary experiment, demonstrate the practicability of the described signal processing unit and the possibility to be used in a low cost passive radar system based on software-defined radio embedded systems.
Pecuniary Incentives to Work in the United States during World War II

It is argued that changes in workers' budget sets cannot explain the dramatic increases in civilian work in the United States during World War II. Although money wages grew during the period, wartime after‐tax real wages were lower than either before or after the war. Evidence from the 1940s also appears to be inconsistent with other pecuniary explanations such as wealth effects of government policies, intertemporal substitution induced by asset prices, unfulfilled expectations, and changes in the nonmarket price of time. Although untested and relatively undeveloped, nonpecuniary models of behavior are tempting explanations for wartime work.
Factors in New York Stock Exchange security returns, 1931–1979*

In Figure 1 the ”zero” factor is . 94% per month. This is the return on a “typical” security with zero yield. The “yield factor” is . 02% per month. This indicates that, ”in general,” higher yield securities outperformed lower yield securities during the month, with (for example) the typical 4% yield stock outperforming the typical 3% yield stock by . 02%. For the security plotted at point i, eIt was . 01%: The stock‘s excess return was higher (by .01%) than the 1.08% ”typical” for securities with its yield (b,,J of 7%. In effect, Figure 1 and equation 1 attribute each security’s excess return in each period to three elements:
Japan's New Electoral System: Has Anything Changed?

When the old order of successive Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) governments and highly predictable elections fell apart at the end of 1992, an unlikely coalition of opposition parties filled the void. Its components ranged from three new splinter conservative parties, virtually indistinguishable in lineage and policy from the LDP, to their erstwhile arch enemy, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), with substantial numerical support from the centrist (or, perhaps more accurately, amorphous) Komeito, and the moderate Democratic Socialist Party (DSP). Apart from political opportunism-the chance to advance their own political fortunes while jumping on the now-minority LDP-the glue that held this non-too-solid structure together was commitment to political reform. The new coalition that came into being following the July 1993 general election was pledged to respond to electorate demand to stem the seemingly endless tide of major scandal. This was what had catalyzed the successive mass LDP defections in the first instance, but despite the atmospherics, fanned by the media and the hopes of the "man-inthe street," logic, if nothing else, preordained the new coalition's failure. For a few shining Camelot hours, high hopes were placed in Hosokawa Morihiro, the young, charismatic, idealistic leader chosen as the new prime minister. Commentators in Japan and abroad waxed eloquent about a turning point in Japanese politics, the outset of what would rapidly develop into a two-party system, and prospects for across-the-board deregulation and administrative reform. None of this transpired, but before Hosokawa, hoisted on the petard of his own idealism, hastily resigned when confronted by a minor scandal, he was able to chalk up one major piece of legislation: a new lower house electoral system, the first such major reform since right after
The relationship between body mass index and mental health. A population-based study of the effects of the definition of mental health.

BACKGROUND The association between atypical body weight and mental health remains poorly understood. We examined the relationship between body mass index and mental health in a population-based study of adults that included the full range of body weights, three disorder types, and three levels of mental illness severity. METHODS Data came from the 2003 Alberta Mental Health Survey (n=5383), which included a validated, standard instrument for measurement of DSM-IV mental disorders as well as several indicators of psychiatric symptoms. Associations were examined using crosstabulation and chi squared statistics, and logistic regression adjusting for sociodemographic variables. RESULTS Findings differed by type and severity of mental illness and by sex and age. For instance, anxiety disorders were elevated among underweight men compared to normal weight men and to women. Substance use disorders were elevated among obese men at younger compared to older ages. Mood disorders were elevated among obese women compared to normal weight women, and subclinical anxiety/depression was reduced among obese men compared to normal weight men and to women. CONCLUSIONS These analyses highlight the importance of considering type of mental illness, level of severity, sex and age when examining the relationship between BMI and mental health. The diversity of patterns observed, detectable at the population level, warrant further examination and monitoring.
A real-time respiratory motion monitoring system using KINECT: proof of concept.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of a low-cost respiratory motion monitoring system based on the Microsoft KINECT sensor. METHODS The authors increased KINECT's inherent depth resolution from 1 cm to 1 mm via a motion magnification system. Using the KINECT software development kit, the authors programmed the KINECT to capture depth images and determine the average depth over a thoracic region of interest, viewed almost parallel to the subject's surface. KINECT respiratory traces (average depth vs time at a rate of 30 Hz) were acquired from four volunteers and compared with those simultaneously acquired using a commercially available strain gauge respiratory gating system. RESULTS The correlation coefficient (CC) between KINECT and strain gauge traces varied from 0.958 to 0.978, with a mean CC of 0.969. This strong correlation was also demonstrated by the joint probability distribution and visual inspection. CONCLUSIONS It is feasible to use the KINECT for respiratory motion tracking. Traces are similar to those of a clinically used strain gauge system. The KINECT-based system provides a new and economical way to monitor respiratory motion.
Competition, Innovation and Productivity Growth: A Review of Theory and Evidence

This paper reviews recent studies on the links between competition, innovation and productivity growth in the long run. From a long-run perspective, one can see that gains from competition-enhancing regulatory reform are likely to exceed static gains observed in the short run since firms will continue to innovate in ways they would not have under regulation. By taking a dynamic perspective on competition and efficiency, one can also understand better the new modes of competition observed in “dynamically competitive” industries. This paper also attempts to cover some of relatively new research areas including: i) measuring welfare gains from product innovation; ii) competition and efficiency in e-commerce, education, and health care; and iii) interactions between product- and factor-market competition . La concurrence, l'innovation et la croissance de la productivite : Un examen de la theorie et des travaux empiriques Ce papier passe en revue les resultats des etudes recentes sur les liens entre concurrence, innovation and croissance de la productivite a long terme. D’un point de vue de long terme, on peut observer que les gains d’une reforme de regulation qui augmente le degre de concurrence sont susceptible d’etre plus grands que les gains statiques observes a court terme puisque les firmes continueront a innover d’une maniere differente qu’en etat reglemente. En prenant une perspective dynamique quant a la concurrence et a l’innovation, on peut egalement mieux comprendre les nouveaux modes de concurrence observes dans des industries « dynamiquement competitives ». Ce papier vise egalement a couvrir une partie des champs de recherche relativement nouveaux y compris : i) les mesures des gains de bien-etre de l’innovation des produits ; ii) la concurrence et l’efficacite dans le commerce electronique, l’education et le secteur de sante ; et iii) les interactions entre la concurrence sur le marche des produits et le marche des facteurs d’input .
Consumption Externalities in a Commercial Fishery: The Queensland Beam Trawl Fishery

Demand and contingent valuation models are used to analyze survey data obtained from a sample of recreational boat and shore fishers in southern Queensland. The value of the recreational fishery to the average fisher in the sample and the value of marginal increases in catches of target species are estimated. These estimates are used to calculate the value of Pigovian taxes representing the marginal cost of catch and congestion externalities imposed by the beam trawl fishery on the recreational fishery. The results suggest that the cost of these externalities does not justify the closure of the beam trawl fishery. Copyright 2000 by The Economic Society of Australia.
Adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire model

Brette, Romain and Wulfram Gerstner. Adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire model as an effective description of neuronal activity. J Neurophysiol 94: 3637–3642, 2005. First published July 13, 2005; doi:10.1152/jn.00686. 2005. We introduce a two-dimensional integrate-and-fire model that combines an exponential spike mechanism with an adaptation equation, based on recent theoretical findings. We describe a systematic method to estimate its parameters with simple electrophysiological protocols (current-clamp injection of pulses and ramps) and apply it to a detailed conductance-based model of a regular spiking neuron. Our simple model predicts correctly the timing of 96% of the spikes ( 2 ms) of the detailed model in response to injection of noisy synaptic conductances. The model is especially reliable in high-conductance states, typical of cortical activity in vivo, in which intrinsic conductances were found to have a reduced role in shaping spike trains. These results are promising because this simple model has enough expressive power to reproduce qualitatively several electrophysiological classes described in vitro.
Technological culture and its interpretation: Research results in Poland

Implementation of the same technologies or ideas in production management can lead to different results, even if they are introduced in enterprises functioning in strongly comparable business environments. The anticipated reasons for this phenomenon are varieties in technological culture. Such conjecture was an inspiration to undertake a study in this matter. In this article, a comprehensive analysis of a literature review on culture is presented. It delivers a background of deeper insight into researchers' views of technological culture and its role in implementation of innovations in enterprises. The focus of this article is how employees perceive technological culture and how it can affect implementation of innovations. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Evaluation of Contextualization and Diversification Approaches in Aggregated Search

The combination of different knowledge bases in the field of information retrieval is called federated or aggregated search. It has several benefits over single source retrieval but poses some challenges as well. This work focuses on the challenge of result aggregation; especially in a setting where the final result list should include some level of diversity and serendipity. Both concepts have been shown to have an impact on how user perceive an information retrieval system. In particular, we want to assess if conventional procedures for result list aggregation can be utilised to introduce diversity and serendipity. Furthermore, we study whether blocking or interleaving for result aggregation yields better results. In a cross vertical aggregated search the so-called verticals could be news, multimedia content or text. Block ranking is one approach to combine such heterogeneous result. It relies on the idea that these verticals are combined into a single result list as blocks of several adjacent items. An alternative approach for this is interleaving. Here the verticals are blended into one result list on an item by item basis, i.e. adjacent items in the result list may come from different verticals. To generate the diverse and serendipitous results we relied on a query reformulation technique which we showed to be beneficial to produce diversified results in previous work. To conduct this evaluation we created a dedicated dataset. This dataset served as a basis for three different evaluation settings on a crowdsourcing platform, with over 300 participants. Our results show that query based diversification can be adapted to generate serendipitous results in a similar manner. Further, we discovered that both methods, interleaving and block ranking, appear to be beneficial to introduce diversity and serendipity. Though it seems that queries either benefit from one approach, or the other one, but not from both.
America's Response to a Deep Recession

The current recession has deeply affected the way Americans view their personal financial situation. In their annual analysis of opinion surveys of Americans, Robert Blendon and John Benson find that nine out of ten Americans have a negative view of the economy and that the economy is hurting the middle class as well as the poor. But one issue that stands out is that not only have they lost jobs, but an unusually high proportion say they or their relatives have had a cut in wages or hours worked. Thus, the unemployment data understate the severity of the recession.
How Does Decentralized Governance Work? Evidence from China

Decentralized governance is often viewed as an effective way to improve public services and government accountability. Many also document the negative dimensions of fiscal decentralization, especially in transition economies; thus, the combination of decentralization and centralized control has gained currency in some countries in recent years. Based on first-hand data and other documentary sources, and using civil service remuneration as an example, this paper attempts to explore how decentralized governance works in China and what hinders decentralization from performing better. The findings show that Chinese centralized control over expenditure in public sector remuneration primarily serves to enhance ministry control. Local bureaucrats, meanwhile, exploit better remuneration to boost their personal interests. This paper argues that political commitment rather than central transfer is greatly needed for utilizing the benefits of decentralized governance.
The hypothesis of avoiding losses and decreases in earnings via extraordinary items

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the hypothesis of avoiding losses and decreases in earnings through extraordinary items. First, we examine whether there is a discontinuity at zero (i.e., a «kink») in the distribution of profits and increases of profits in two levels: ordinary income and income before tax. Second, we examine the effect of extraordinary items in the financial information. Particularly we test: a) if the recognition and distribution of the extraordinary items in the reported earnings is due an opportunistic practice from the management or b) otherwise, the asymmetric effects of special items for profit and loss firms contribute substantially to a discontinuity at zero in the distribution of earnings (due to the bias induced by the accounting principle of conservatism) (Beaver et al, 2007). The sample used is composed by Spanish listed firms that disclosed financial information during the period 1992–2000. Earnings distribution shows a discontinuity at zero in earnings before tax distributions and more accused than in the ordinary income. In this context, the empirical evidence achieved in Spain support the hypothesis that the firms systematically use the extraordinary items to improve the operating income and so get a more favourable figure in the earnings before taxes. This results can be used to reflection about the new structure of the income statement propose in the new accounting normative in Spain (PGC, 2007) where the category of extraordinary items is not allowed.
Metered-dose inhalers with spacers vs nebulizers for pediatric asthma.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether the administration of beta-agonists by metered-dose inhaler (MDI) with a spacer device is as effective as the administration of beta-agonists by nebulizer for the treatment of acute asthma exacerbations in children. DESIGN Randomized trial with two arms. SETTING Urban pediatric emergency department (ED) in Bronx, NY. PATIENTS Convenience sample of 152 children 2 years and older with a history of at least two episodes of wheezing presenting to the ED with an acute asthma exacerbation. INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomly assigned to receive standard doses of a beta-agonist (albuterol) by an MDI with spacer or by a nebulizer. Dosing intervals and the use of other medications were determined by the treating physician. MEASUREMENTS/MAIN RESULTS Baseline characteristics and asthma history were recorded. Asthma severity score, peak expiratory flow rate in children 5 years or older, and oxygen saturation were determined at presentation and before admission or discharge. The groups did not differ in age, sex, ethnicity, age of onset of asthma, or asthma severity score at presentation. There were no significant differences between the groups in outcomes, including mean changes in respiratory rate, asthma severity score, and peak expiratory flow rate, oxygen saturation, number of treatments given, administration of steroids in the ED, and admission rate. Patients given MDIs with spacers required shorter treatment times in the ED (66 minutes vs 103 minutes, P < .001). Fewer patients in the spacer group had episodes of vomiting in the ED (9% vs 20%, P < .04), and patients in the nebulizer group had a significantly greater mean percent increase in heart rate from baseline to final disposition (15% vs 5%, P < .001). CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that MDIs with spacers may be an effective alternative to nebulizers for the treatment of children with acute asthma exacerbations in the ED.
Genomic insights into the non-histamine production and proteolytic and lipolytic activities of Tetragenococcus halophilus KUD23

Tetragenococcus halophilus KUD23, a non-histamine producer, was isolated from a traditional Korean high-salt fermented soybean paste, doenjang. The strain was safe in terms of antibiotic susceptibility, hemolytic activity and biofilm formation. It could grow on De Man-Rogosa-Sharpe agar containing 21% (w/v) NaCl, exhibited acid production at 15% NaCl, and had strain-specific proteolytic and lipolytic activities under salt stress. Complete genome analysis of T. halophilus KUD23 and comparative genomic analysis shed light on the genetic background behind these phenotypic characteristics, including non-production of histamine and proteolytic and lipolytic activities.
Cross-national transfer of business practices: Micro-strategies of contextualization

This paper examines how individuals transfer business practices across societies that are construed as dissimilar to one another. We investigate empirically how the American business practice of socially responsible investment (SRI) was transferred to France and Quebec. Our analysis identifies five micro-strategies that individuals employed to contextualize SRI to their own society. These microstrategies are filtering, rerouting, stowing, defusing, and coupling. We propose that these micro-strategies provide the missing link in explaining why some transfers succeed while others fail. Key-words Contextualization – Transfer – Translation – Institutional Theory – Socially Responsible Investment