Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Customization Decisions Regarding Performance Management Systems of Multinational Companies

Performance management (PM) is an important human resource (HR) process for the global organization. There is yet no theoretical framework for identifying the factors that affect customization decisions to standardize or localize PM systems of multinational companies (MNCs). Our purpose is to ascertain the extent of customization of PM systems in MNCs and identify factors that influence customization decisions. We hypothesized that customization of a PM system is a function of global integration, cultural distance and the upstream/downstream nature of PM activities moderated by contextual enterprise variables. A survey was conducted among senior HR practitioners working for the 100 largest companies (by number of employees) in Bulgaria and Romania. Results from a response sample of 97 Bulgarian and Romanian companies indicate that MNCs are already aware of the need for cultural localization of their PM systems and that global integration strategy and specific cultural dimensions — power distance and masculinity — matter more in customization decisions than does overall cultural distance. Les décisions de customisation eu égard aux systèmes de gestion de la performance des sociétés multinationales : une vue empirique d'entreprises d'Europe de l'Est (Lisbeth Claus et Michael L. Hand) La gestion de la performance (GP) est un processus important de RH dans l'organisation mondiale. Il n'y a à ce jour pas encore de cadre théorique permettant d'identifier les facteurs qui affectent les décisions de customisation visant à standardiser ou à localiser les systèmes de GP des entreprises multinationales. Notre objectif est de vérifier l'étendue de la customisation des systèmes de GP au sein des entreprises multinationales et d'identifier les facteurs qui influencent les décisions de customisation. Nous sommes partis de l'hypothèse que la customisation des systèmes de GP est une fonction de l'intégration mondiale, de la distance culturelle et de la nature — en amont et en aval — des activités de GP modérées par des variables d'entreprise contextuelles. Une enquête a été menée auprès de cadres supérieurs de RH des 100 plus grosses sociétés (par nombre d'employés) de Bulgarie et de Roumanie. Les résultats d'un échantillon de réponses obtenues auprès de 97 entreprises bulgares et roumaines suggèrent que les multinationales sont déjà sensibles au besoin de localisation culturelle de leurs systèmes de GP et que les stratégies d'intégration mondiale et les dimensions culturelles spécifiques — distance de pouvoir et masculinité — ont plus d'importance dans le cas des décisions de customisation que la distance culturelle totale.
Pharmacological topics in present-day birth control and contraception

The aim of the paper is to highlight topics pertinent to present-day birth control and contraception. On the background of new developments in the pharmacology of birth control and family planning, the paper discusses their relevance for improving the most efficacious methods of contraception, i.e., Long Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) and Emergency Contraception (EC). In doing so, it focuses on mechanisms of action and adverse events, and suggests measures to be implemented in the clinical practice according to bioethical principles.
Anti-thrombotic medications for the neurointerventionist: aspirin and clopidogrel

The majority of neurological complications encountered during neuroendovascular procedures are a result of thromboembolic phenomena. This has become increasingly evident as techniques have evolved to incorporate an ever-growing volume of temporary and permanently implanted adjunctive devices. By optimizing our anti-thrombotic management strategies we can potentially improve procedural safety. The appropriate selection of anti-thrombotic regimens for neurointerventional procedures poses a unique set of challenges when compared with endovascular interventions in other vascular territories. Neurological procedures frequently target lesions that have hemorrhaged or have a lethal hemorrhagic potential—thus requiring that the operator maintain a tenuous balance between bleeding and thrombosis. Neurological end-organs are unforgiving, even of small emboli, further magnifying the implications of inadequate therapy. The spectrum of disease processes encountered within the context of routine clinical practice is very heterogeneous and each lesion requires a specific anti-thrombotic strategy. The diseases treated (eg, aneurysms, AVM, acute ischemic stroke, chronic atherosclerotic stenosis) are relatively uncommon in comparison with coronary or peripheral atherosclerotic disease. The field of neurointervention itself is still relatively new and continues to evolve rapidly, with innovation frequently outpacing clinical evidence. Predictably, within this environment, there are no large, controlled trials to guide anti-thrombotic management in most cases. For these reasons, medical decision making is based largely upon an understanding of the pharmacology of the agents used and an extrapolation of the literature from other fields. In this review we discuss aspirin and clopidogrel, the two anti-platelet agents commonly used in conjunction with endovascular stents and stent-like devices. We will discuss their pharmacology and applications in neuroendovascular therapeutics with a focus on practical solutions to dilemmas that are encountered during the course of daily clinical practice.
Potential insight for drug discovery from high-fidelity receptor-mediated transduction mechanisms in insects

Introduction: There is a pervasive and growing concern about the small number of new pharmaceutical agents. There are many proposed explanations for this trend that do not involve the drug-discovery process per se, but the discovery process itself has also come under scrutiny. If the current paradigms are indeed not working, where are novel ideas to come from? Perhaps it is time to look to novel sources. Areas covered: The receptor-signaling and second-messenger transduction processes present in insects are quite similar to those in mammals (involving G proteins, ion channels, etc.). However, a review of these systems reveals an unprecedented degree of high potency and receptor selectivity to an extent greater than that modeled in most current drug-discovery approaches. Expert opinion: A better understanding of insect receptor pharmacology could stimulate novel theoretical and practical ideas in mammalian pharmacology (drug discovery) and, conversely, the application of pharmacology and medicinal chemistry principles could stimulate novel advances in entomology (safer and more targeted control of pest species).
Sex Differences in Educational Aspirations and Expectations1

Previous studies of sex differences in adolescents’ goals for educational attainment have focused on either educational aspirations or expectations and found that socioeconomic background has a greater effect on the educational goals of girls than boys, and that academic ability has a greater effect on the educational goals of boys than girls. Almost all of these studies are based on students who attended high school between 1955 and 1960. This paper examines more recent evidence on sex differences in both educational aspirations and expectations, obtained from a random sample of eleventh grade students in Pennsylvania. The findings indicate that: (1) boys both aspire to and expect higher levels of educational attainment than girls; (2) the discrepancy between educational aspirations and expectations is greater for girls than boys at higher levels of aspiration; and (3) both socioeconomic background and academic ability, as measured by an achievement test, have a greater effect on educational ambition for boys than girls.
Cyber-Campaigning in Denmark: Application and Effects of Candidate Campaigning

ABSTRACT We set out to analyze the application and effect of cyber-campaigning among candidates at the 2011 Danish general election campaign in order to provide hard evidence on whether new technologies are electorally decisive, or whether traditional offline campaigning still makes sense. First, both Web sites and Facebook sites are popular among candidates, but other features such as blogs, feeds, newsletters, video uploads, SMS, and Twitter are used by less than half the candidates. Second, only age and possibly education seem to matter when explaining the uptake of cyber-campaigning. The prominent candidates are not significantly more likely to use cyber-campaigning tools and activities. Third, the analysis of the effect of cyber-campaigning shows that the online score has an effect on the interparty competition for personal votes, but it does not have a significant effect when controlling for other relevant variables. The online rank of candidates within party and constituency is more important for intraparty competition; in fact, it has a significant effect: it matters to be more online than fellow candidates. In sum, the effect of cyber-campaigning is limited, but it matters more to the contest among same-party candidates than among parties in an open list, multimember constituency electoral system like the Danish have.
Analog layout synthesis with knowledge mining

To reduce layout design time, analog layout designers prefer referring to legacy designs and layouts rather than starting from scratch, or thoroughly applying placement and routing tools because legacy layouts contain pretty much design expertise. Therefore, this paper presents the first knowledge-based layout synthesis methodology to generate new layouts by integrating existent design expertise contained in the quality-approved legacy layouts as much as possible. Experimental results show that the proposed methodology with knowledge mining can achieve high layout reusage rate and hence the designers' layout preference can be successfully reserved.
Enhancement in CMOS chip performance through microfluidic cooling

High on-chip temperature can degrade chip performance, and increase high leakage power which contributes to a significant part of the total chip power consumption. Microfluidic cooling is believed to have better cooling ability than air cooling. However, very few experimental demonstrations of CMOS chips with integrated microfluidic cooling exist. This paper presents experimental results of a working CMOS chip capable of generating controllable heat and on-chip temperature sensing under air cooling and microfluidic cooling. Under natural air cooling, the leakage current increases exponentially by 1.9 X as the temperature increases from 26.3 °C to 57.6 °C. 18.8 °C temperature drop and 66.2% leakage current saving is achieved by microfluidic cooling compared to natural air cooling at heatflux 34.5 W/cm2. In addition, the time to reach a steady state in response to a sudden application of microfluidic cooling is only 48.5% of that of forced air cooling. Lastly, increasing the flow rate of microfluidic cooling does not decrease the temperature and leakage current much.
title : Three Essays in Volatility and Skewness Indices

This paper is the first to use a state-preference pricing approach with BlackScholes analytic second derivatives to develop a forward-looking volatility index (FIX), as a forecast of the next 30-day market risk-neutral volatility. Using S&P 500 index (SPX) option prices from 1996 to 2010, we find that FIX is 99% correlated with the current CBOE volatility index (VIX) and it is a better estimator for the shortterm realized volatility of SPX returns than VIX. Our result is robust to different measures of realized market volatilities. We argue that VIX is not a model-free measure and due to the potential noise issues from the thinly traded deep out-ofthe-money (OTM) options, VIX may over-estimate the future volatility. This is supported by our results. Moreover, unlike VIX which is affected by the availability of strike prices and may be manipulated by trading deep OTM put options, we show that FIX is more difficult for manipulation and less data dependent. We also show that FIX provides a better volatility forecast than other alternative measures, such as the squared root of GARCH (1, 1) variance. Our results reinforce previous findings in the literature that at-the-money Black-Scholes implied volatility is an efficient and more superior forecast of subsequent realized volatility. ∗3/52 York Street, Indooroopilly, QLD, Australia, 4068. E-mail: z.liu@business.uq. edu.au. I would like to thank Professor Tom Smith for his ongoing encouragement, support and inspiration throughout the preparation of this paper. All errors and omission are mine.
B-Lynch suture: a case series.

OBJECTIVE To report an 8-year institutional experience in the use of the B-Lynch Suture for the management of postpartum hemorrhage (PPH). STUDY DESIGN Cases with B-Lynch suture utilization for severe postpartum hemorrhage were identified, from March 1997 to March 2005, at White Memorial Medical Center. Case charts were reviewed, and postoperative follow-up after hospital discharge was conducted by telephone interview and outpatient clinic chart review. Historical characteristics and outcome of these patients are described. RESULTS B-Lynch suture was performed on 22 patients, between March 1997 and March 2005, to control intractable PPH at cesarean section that did not respond to uterotonic agents. In 12 instances, the B-Lynch suture was the only intervention, whereas in 10 it was combined with vessel ligation. The procedure resulted in control of bleeding with uterine preservation in 77% of the cases. In those cases where the etiology of PPH was uterine atony, the B-Lynch suture was successful in 85% of the cases. Hysterectomy was avoided in 17/22 cases. CONCLUSION The B-Lynch suture is an alternative surgical procedure for uterine preservation that may be used to control postpartum hemorrhage from uterine atony.
Neuropeptide Y in hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus: a center coordinating energy metabolism.

Intracerebroventricular injection of neuropeptide Y (NPY) has two effects on energy metabolism in addition to increased feeding: decreased brown fat thermogenesis and increased white fat lipoprotein lipase (LPL) enzymatic activity. We hypothesized that the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus is the controlling neural site for these responses. We further hypothesized that NPY stimulation at PVN would reduce gene expression for the critical brown fat thermogenic protein, uncoupling protein (UCP), and increase gene expression for the key white fat storage enzyme, LPL. In the first experiment, three groups of rats received injections every 6 h for 24 h (5 injections total) into the PVN:1) NPY (1 micrograms/1 microliters injection) and ad libitum food; 2) NPY (1 micrograms/1 microliters injection) and food restricted to control intake; 3) saline injection (1 microliter) and ad libitum food. Both NPY-treated groups showed significant reductions (P < 0.05) in brown fat UCP mRNA levels and marked stimulation of LPL mRNA levels relative to controls. In the second experiment, four groups of seven rats had NPY injected into the PVN:0 (vehicle control); 0.1 microgram; 0.5 microgram; and 1 microgram. Injections were made every 6 h for 24 h. There was a dose-related reduction in UCP mRNA produced by the NPY treatment. NPY treatment increased LPL mRNA, but a smooth dosing effect was not evident. The observation that NPY in the PVN can coordinate more than one component of energy metabolism is significant when considered with many reports of responsiveness of NPY activity in the arcuate nucleus-PVN neural circuit to perturbations of energy balance such as fasting and feeding, diabetes, and genetic obesity. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
1 Multi-camera Video Surveillance for Real-time Analysis and Reconstruction of Soccer Games

Soccer analysis and reconstruction is one of the most interesting challenges for wide-area video surveillance applications. Techniques and system implementation for tracking the ball and players with multiple stationary cameras are discussed. With video data captured from a football stadium, the real-world, real-time positions of the ball and players can be generated. The whole system contains a two-stage workflow, i.e. single view and multi-view processing. The first stage includes categorizing of players and filtering of the ball after change detection against an adaptive background and imageplane tracking. Occlusion reasoning and tracking-back is applied for robust ball filtering. In the multi-view stage, multiple observations from overlapped single views are fused to refine players’ positions and to estimate 3-D ball positions using geometric constraints. Experimental results on real data from long sequences are demonstrated.
Race and Criminal Violence: A Demographically Disaggregated Analysis of Urban Homicide

The most prominent explanation for the disproportionate involvement by blacks in criminal violence is the subculture of violence theory (Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1967; Curtis, 1975). Recently, several studies have attempted to test the subculture of violence thesis by examining the direct effect of racial composition on the aggregate homicide rate in multivariate analysis. However, the aggregate homicide rate fails to distinguish the effects of racial composition from environmental context, thereby confounding the interpretation of community and individual-level influences. These studies thus have been unable to test key sociological propositions derived from subcultural theory. In this article, we address the race and crime issue by examining the structural sources of variation in age-, race-, and sex-specific rates of homicide offending in major U. S. cities.
Non-Threshold based Event Detection for 3D Environment Monitoring in Sensor Networks

Event detection is a crucial task for wireless sensor network applications, especially environment monitoring. Existing approaches for event detection are mainly based on some predefined threshold values, and thus are often inaccurate and incapable of capturing complex events. For example, in coal mine monitoring scenarios, gas leakage or water osmosis can hardly be described by the overrun of specified attribute thresholds, but some complex pattern in the full-scale view of the environmental data. To address this issue, we propose a non-threshold based approach for the real 3D sensor monitoring environment. We employ energy-efficient methods to collect a time series of data maps from the sensor network and detect complex events through matching the gathered data to spatio-temporal data patterns. Finally, we conduct trace driven simulations to prove the efficacy and efficiency of this approach on detecting events of complex phenomena from real-life records.
Formes de mise au travail hybridation et dynamique territoriale

To overtake the approaches based on the resolution of a productive problem, this text analyses territorial dynamics through labour. The notion of hybridisation, which enhances the entanglement of the labour forms and statutes, characterises the current phase of capitalism. Mobility and flexibility are the key-words. The recent evolution of the Italian industrial districts, analysed through such a perspective, is taken in order to stress the spatial consequences of the diversity of labour statutes. This task being uneasy, it appears that an approach in terms of solidarity economics would highlight the issue of territorial dynamics. Classification JEL : J29, J60, R30.
Antimicrobial susceptibility of Escherichia coli isolates from dairy farms using organic versus conventional production methods.

OBJECTIVE To compare antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Escherichia coli isolates cultured from fecal samples from cows and calves on dairy farms that used organic (ie, no or severely limited antimicrobial use) versus conventional production methods. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SAMPLE POPULATION Fecal samples from 10 cows and 10 calves on each of 30 organic dairy farms and 30 neighboring conventional dairy farms in Wisconsin. PROCEDURE E. coli isolates obtained from the fecal samples were tested for susceptibility to 17 antimicrobials by means of a microbroth dilution test. Prevalence of antimicrobial resistance was compared between organic and conventional dairy farms. RESULTS E. coli was isolated from 1,121 (94%) fecal samples. Farm type (organic vs conventional) and animal age (cow vs calf) were significantly associated with odds that E. coli isolates would be resistant to various antimicrobials. After controlling for age, logistic regression analyses indicated that isolates from conventional dairy farms had significantly higher rates of resistance to ampicillin, streptomycin, kanamycin, gentamicin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, and sulfamethoxazole than did isolates from organic dairy farms. However, no significant differences were detected for the 10 other antimicrobials that were tested. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results indicated that compared with isolates from conventional dairy farms, E. coli isolates from organic dairy herds have significantly lower prevalences of resistance to 7 antimicrobials; however, prevalence of resistance was not significantly different for 10 other antimicrobials. Resistance was more common for isolates from calves than for isolates from adult dairy cows.
Sézary syndrome presenting with ‘leonine facies’

A 71‐year‐old man presented with erythroderma and multiple nodular skin lesions over the face, scalp, upper limbs and trunk. The facial skin was thickened, producing the rare ‘leonine facies’ appearance. Investigations revealed the presence of atypical lymphoid cells in the peripheral blood, bone marrow and skin. The atypical lymphoid cells in the peripheral blood and bone marrow were positive for helper T‐cell antigens (CD4, CD2, CD5 and CD7) on immunophenotyping by flow cytometry. The histopathology of skin showed dermal infiltration by atypical small lymphocytes with epidermotropism. These cells were positive for helper T‐lymphocyte antigens on immunohistochemistry. A diagnosis of Sézary syndrome was made based on clinical, peripheral blood and immunophenotypical findings.
A Detailed Analysis of the LLVM's Register Allocators

The goal of a register allocation is to allocate a unbounded amount of program values to a finite amount of machine registers, which is an issue that impacts the performance of the final code. Thus, a good register allocator has the goal of minimizing the amount of program values that should be represented in memory. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the register allocators provides by LLVM framework, namely: fast, basic, greedy, and PBQP. The analysis was conducted to evaluate runtime, compile time and the amount of spills. Furthermore, hardware performance counters were analyzed in order to describe in more detail the behavior of the register allocators. The results demonstrated that greedy register allocator it the best one for minimizing the runtime and the amount of spills, otherwise the basic and fast are the best choice for compile time.