Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Management Innovation: Management as Fertile Ground for Innovation

Innovation is considered to be the primary driving force of progress and prosperity. Consequently, much effort is put in developing new technological knowledge, new process technologies and new products. However, evidence from both SMEs and large firms shows that successful innovation is not just the result of technological innovation, but is also heavily dependent on what has been called ‘management innovation’. Management innovation consists of changing a firm's organizational form, practices and processes in a way that is new to the firm and/or industry, and results in leveraging the firm's technological knowledge base and its performance in terms of innovation, productivity and competitiveness. Recent research shows that management innovation explains a substantial degree of the variance of innovation performance of firms. More active stimulation of management innovation and its leverage of technological innovation will be crucial to improve the competitiveness of firms. However, only solid research can increase our understanding of what matters in various kinds of management innovations. Just as technological change requires systematic R&D, the development and diffusion of management innovations require systematic research on the crucial determinants of success. In this paper we will define management innovation, discuss the multidirectional causalities between technological and management innovation, and develop a framework that identifies common areas of research in terms of antecedents, process dimensions of management innovation, outcomes and contextual factors. Moreover, we will position the papers of this special issue in this framework and develop an agenda for future research into management innovation. We conclude this introductory paper by specifying the most important research priorities for further advancing the emerging field of management innovation.
Measuring Customer Relationship Management Performance

Abstract The concept of CRM has evolved into an inherent component of the sales processes of most medium-sized and large companies. However, despite the high costs involved, the quality of its implementation has hitherto been neglected. To provide the conceptual qualitative CRM control that is lacking, we have developed a measuring instrument that allows the evaluation of the activities in the three core CRM domains, namely interaction, insight and offer. We pilot-tested the tool in an automotive industry setting and the results reflect the CRM status quo achieved by twelve national and foreign brands.
The Search for Gravitational Waves from Spinning Neutron Stars

This paper gives an introductory overview of the search for continuous gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars. We review the current theoretical understanding of possible emission mechanisms and the expected strength of signals received on Earth. Given the substantial uncertainties involved in neutron star physics, these searches — if sufficiently sensitive — can provide important new information and constraints about neutron star physics even in the absence of detection. We describe the challenging problem of trying to detect such extremely weak signals and introduce some of the basic data analysis concepts and methods used. We conclude by summarizing the current status of the sensitivities and upper limits achieved so far. These results suggest that the search for spinning neutron stars using LIGO-I is about to enter a regime of “astrophysical relevance”. Developments in the near future will make a detection of this type of source increasingly plausible.
Trade-Offs of Flowering and Maturity Synchronisation for Pineapple Quality

In the pineapple sector of Benin, poor fruit quality prevents pineapple producers to enter the European market. We investigated effects of common cultural practices, flowering and maturity synchronisation, (1) to quantify the trade-offs of flowering and maturity synchronisation for pineapple quality and the proportion of fruits exportable to European markets, and (2) to determine the effect of harvesting practice on quality attributes. Four on-farm experiments were conducted during three years using cultivars Sugarloaf and Smooth Cayenne. A split-split plot design was used in each experiment, with flowering induction practice as main factor (artificial or natural flowering induction), maturity induction practice as split factor (artificial or natural maturity induction) and harvesting practice as the split-split factor (farmers’ harvest practice or individual fruit harvesting at optimum maturity). Artificial flowering induction gave fruits with lower infructescence weight, higher ratio crown: infructescence length, and a lower proportion of fruits exportable to European markets than natural flowering induction. The costs of the improvements by natural flowering induction were huge: the longer durations from planting to flowering induction and harvesting, the higher number of harvestings of the fruits increasing the labour cost and the lower proportion of plants producing fruits compared with crops from artificially flowering-induced plants. Artificial maturity induction decreased the total soluble solids concentration in the fruits compared with natural maturity induction thus decreasing the proportion of fruits exportable to European markets, at a benefit of only a slightly shorter time from flowering induction to harvesting. Harvesting individual fruits at optimum maturity gave fruits with higher total soluble solids in naturally maturity induced fruits compared with the farmers’ harvest practice. Given the huge costs of natural flowering induction, options to use artificial flowering induction effectively for obtaining high fruit quality are discussed.
Molecular domains of myelinated axons in the peripheral nervous system

Myelinated axons are organized into a series of specialized domains with distinct molecular compositions and functions. These domains, which include the node of Ranvier, the flanking paranodal junctions, the juxtaparanodes, and the internode, form as the result of interactions with myelinating Schwann cells. This domain organization is essential for action potential propagation by saltatory conduction and for the overall function and integrity of the axon. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Difficult Airway Society guidelines for management of the unanticipated difficult intubation

Problems with tracheal intubation are infrequent but are the most common cause of anaesthetic death or brain damage. The clinical situation is not always managed well. The Difficult Airway Society (DAS) has developed guidelines for management of the unanticipated difficult tracheal intubation in the non‐obstetric adult patient without upper airway obstruction. These guidelines have been developed by consensus and are based on evidence and experience. We have produced flow‐charts for three scenarios: routine induction; rapid sequence induction; and failed intubation, increasing hypoxaemia and difficult ventilation in the paralysed, anaesthetised patient. The flow‐charts are simple, clear and definitive. They can be fully implemented only when the necessary equipment and training are available. The guidelines received overwhelming support from the membership of the DAS.
Hierarchical overlapped growing neural gas networks with applications to video shot detection and motion characterization

This paper describes a hierarchical overlapped architecture (HOGNG) based upon the growing neural gas (GNG) network. The proposed architecture combines the unsupervised and supervised learning schemes in GNG. This novel network model was used to perform automatic video shot detection and motion characterization. Experimental results are presented to show the good classification accuracy of the proposed algorithm on real MPEG video sequences.
G‐protein‐coupled receptor domain overexpression in Halobacterium salinarum: Long‐range transmembrane interactions in heptahelical membrane proteins

The aminergic α2b‐adrenergic receptor (α2b‐AR) third intracellular loop (α2b‐AR 3i) mediates receptor subcellular compartmentalization and signal transduction processes via ligand‐dependent interaction with Gi‐ and Go‐ proteins. To understand the structural origins of these processes we engineered several lengths of α2b‐AR 3i into the third intracellular loop of the proton pump bacteriorhodopsin (bR) and produced the fusion proteins in quantities suitable for physical studies. The fusion proteins were expressed in the Archaeon Halobacterium salinarum and purified. A highly expressed fusion protein was crystallized from bicelles and diffracted to low resolution on an in‐house diffractometer. The bR‐α2b‐AR 3i203–292 protein possessed a photocycle slightly perturbed from that of the wild‐type bR. The first half of the fusion protein photocycle, correlated with proton release, is accelerated by a factor of 3, whereas the second half, correlated with proton uptake, is slightly slower than wild‐type bR. In addition, there is a large decrease in the pKa, (from 9.6 to 8.3) of the terminal proton release group in the unphotolyzed state of bR‐α2b‐AR 3i as deduced from the pH‐dependence of the M‐formation. Perturbation of a cytoplasmic loop has thus resulted in the perturbation of proton release at the extracellular surface. The current work indicates that long‐range and highly coupled intramolecular interactions exist that are capable of “transducing” structural perturbations (e.g., signals) across the cellular membrane. This gene fusion approach may have general applicability for physical studies of G‐protein‐coupled receptor domains in the context of the bR structural scaffold. Proteins 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Making “stricterness” more relevant

Adapting a strictness analyser to have it take into account explicit strictness annotations can be a tricky business. Straightforward extensions of analyses based on relevance typing are likely to either be unsafe or fail to pick the fruits of increases in strictness that are introduced through annotations. We propose a more involved adaptation of relevance typing, that can be used to derive strictness analyses that are both safe and effective in the presence of explicit strictness annotations. The resulting type system provides a firm foundation for implementations of type-based strictness analysers in compilers for lazy programming languages such as Haskell and Clean.
Limited Liability of Professional Firms after Enron

Some commentators suggest that mandatory personal liability of professionals for liabilities of their firms is appropriate in light of professionals' role in Enron and other recent frauds. This liability can, indeed, help ensure that professional firms deliver on their obligations to monitor their members and clients. However, such liability is ineffective and costly. Holding professionals vicariously liable for their colleagues' defaults is unlikely significantly to increase firm monitoring. At the same time, imposing this risk on professional firm members is likely perversely to affect both professionals' incentives and the structure of their firms. Professional firms accordingly are better constrained by the market for professional services, which demands that professional firms develop significant reputations to, in effect, bond their promises to monitor. Moreover, professional services firms someday may be able to rely more on conventional financial capital to bond its monitoring promises. These alternatives to vicarious liability are constrained by legal restrictions on the size and shape of professional firms, particularly including restrictions on non-competition agreements and on ownership by non-professionals. Although these restrictions strengthen the case for vicarious liability of professional firm owners, the better approach is to deregulate professional firm structure.
Automatic two way synchronization between server and multiple clients for HVAC system

The authors study different two way synchronization methods between a server and distributed clients. Client-server architectures are used to control multiple instances from center. Hard-coded embedded controllers are replaced by embedded controllers based on general purpose operation systems. Authors aims to find the best synchronization method to exhange data between a HVAC system and a server. The synchronization is tested using different methods: online file storage, database, ftp, mail and web-service. The system based on online file storage was implemented in a city in Holland to control a HVAC system. The embedded controller receives data from the server to perform better control and increase economical efficiency of the HVAC system. All synchronization methods discussed in the paper can be implemented in other domains.
Rates of Time Preference for Saving Lives

An important characteristic of many environmental programs is that their benefits extend far into the future. The primary purpose of cleanups at hazardous-waste disposal sites, for example, is often to prevent the contamination of groundwater that could pose risks to future residents at these sites. Such cleanups typically involve considerable capital and other costs, which are incurred at the front end of the project, and yield a stream of health benefits, often in the form of cancer cases avoided, that may not be recognized for many years. This would not pose unusual problems for program evaluation if everyone were comfortable with the assignment of dollar values to these reductions in future risk (see Cropper and Portney, 1990). However, regulatory agencies are sometimes reluctant to make such monetary valuations, preferring instead to evaluate programs on a cost-per-life-saved (CPLS) basis (Office of Management and Budget, 1991). This raises an interesting question. Should lives saved in the future be discounted for the purpose of calculating CPLS, or should they be counted the same as those saved tomorrow? To shed light on this, over the last year we have asked members of the public hypothetical questions that enable us to infer the rate at which they implicitly discount future lives saved (John K. Horowitz and Richard T. Carson [1990] asked similar questions of students). In the remainder of this paper, we summarize the results of this research, details of which can be found elsewhere (Cropper et al., 1991, 1992).
Traditional games in South America

Students interested in play and games across the Latin American realm prior t o the appearance of so-called modern sports-those diffused from Europe and North America after about 1830-have tended t o focus on several interrelated questions: What types of games were played among preColumbian peoples and in what contexts? To what extent did the European conquest destroy the physical culture of indigenous communities? What new forms of play, games, and recreation were implanted in the Americas by Europeans and Africans and to what degree did the cultures of the various groups interact t o produce a new "traditional" games culture? What was the nature of those traditional play and games that were visible down to the early nineteenth century and did any of them resemble modern sports? How much of that pre-modern play-game-sport complex survived beyond the introduction of North Atlantic sports, where, and with what modifications? And, what sources are available for pursuing answers to these questions?
Detection of LTE Protocol Based on Format Fuzz

Through the analysis of LTE protocol and its security threat, this paper profoundly researches the security mechanism of RLC layer protocol in LTE protocol and the security detection technology of LTE protocol. In this paper, we use the improved fuzzing test technology to detect the potential security vulnerabilities in LTE protocol. In order to improve the efficiency, this paper improves the random Fuzzing test technology, proposes a new data mutation algorithm based on protocol format. By comparing the number of test cases, this paper verified the validity of the algorithm on the theory. According to the algorithm, we designed the fuzzing test framework, and detected LTE protocol based on N3-3 simulation platform. Through detection we have found a security defect in the RLC layer protocol, and it is verified that the security defect detection method of LTE protocol based on format fuzzing test is effective.
The Return to College: Selection and Dropout Risk

This paper studies the effect of graduating from college on lifetime earnings. We develop a quantitative model of college choice with uncertain graduation. Departing from much of the literature, we model in detail how students progress through college. This allows us to parameterize the model using transcript data. College transcripts reveal substantial and persistent heterogeneity in students’ credit accumulation rates that are strongly related to graduation outcomes. From this data, the model infers a large ability gap between college graduates and high school graduates that accounts for 54% of the college lifetime earnings premium.
Neuroendocrine reactivity, internalizing behavior problems, and control-related cognitions in clinic-referred children and adolescents.

Literature on neuroendocrine-behavior relations suggests that cortisol reactivity to social challenge may be associated with children's internalizing problem behavior. To explore this possibility, and the role of control-related beliefs, we studied 102 7-17-year-old clinic-referred children. Measures of problem behavior, depression and anxiety, and control-related beliefs were collected, and Ss' saliva was sampled before and after a parent-child conflict task. Neuroendocrine activation (i.e., cortisol increase) in response to the interaction task was associated with Ss' (a) social withdrawal, social anxiety, and social problems; (b) socially inhibited behavior during the task; and (c) low levels of perceived social contingency and high levels of external attributions for personal successes and failures. Our findings are among the first to link children's behavioral response to social challenge, neuroendocrine activation, cognitions, and psychopathology.
Analysis of web application security mechanism and Attack Detection using Vulnerability injection technique

The internet is growing rapidly and interconnected different wired and wireless networks with each other. By using a client server architecture computing devices which are located at different geographical locations all around the world connect to the World Wide Web. Client can access information from the web server through the web browser. Web server fetches data from the database server. Malicious minds all over the world break down the security of the data driven web applications and illegally access some private data, manipulate data or perform different malicious activities which may lead to great damage or financial loss. SQL injection attack and Denial-of-service (DOS) attack are two most important security threads found in the web applications. SQL injection is a one of the web application security vulnerability in which SQL statements are altered by attackers which is executed by the web application and submitted to the database server. DOS attack is an attack which makes network resources unavailable to its intended users. In this paper, we propose a method for evaluation of the current security mechanism by injecting vulnerabilities in the web application and exploit them using Distributed Vulnerability and Attack Detection Tool (DVADT).
Fungal-bacterial biofilms differ from bacterial monocultures in seed germination and indole acetic acid production

Beneficial microorganisms used as biofertilizers enhance seed germination and vigour through breaking seed dormancy and hormonal effects. However, their higher production of hormones like indole acetic acid (IAA) result low seed germination. Therefore, they need a regulation of the IAA production for increased plant growth. Such control exists in developed fungal-bacterial biofilms (FBBs), fungal surfaceattached bacterial communities. Therefore, present study compares two FBBs and their seven bacterial monoculture counterparts for IAA production and seed germination with maize as the test plant. Results showed that two biofilms increased seed germination and vigour significantly compared to the monocultures whereas, relatively low IAA concentrations, which were comparable with lower limit of the monocultures. IAA production of monocultures was related negatively to seedling vigour, confirming that relatively low IAA concentrations are more favorable for seed germination. Thus, results suggested a regulatory mechanism for optimizing IAA concentration, and/or factors other than IAA for plant growth benefits in the case of biofilms. In conclusion, it is clear that the FBBs differ from bacterial monocultures in regulating improved seed germination and plant growth. Consequently, FBBs warrant formulating biofertilizers in the biofilm mode for futuristic agriculture.
Dual-channel speech separation by sub-segmental directional statistics

In this letter, we present a novel speech separation scheme using two microphones. We divide the inter-phase information into sub-segments and statistic these directional segments. Then we construct the objective function by convolving the statistics information with a low pass filter. By the decreasing gradient algorithm and ideal binary mask, we obtain the separated speeches. The method is valid for phase wrap-around aliasing problem which has the restriction that the microphones are closely spaced. Furthermore, the method can be applied to an underdetermined case where there are fewer microphones than sources. Our objective quality evaluation experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Automatic recognition of Martian craters based on MOLA-derived digital topography

The recognition of impact craters can provide information on impact craters' history and Martian evolution processes as well as for Martian rover landing site. Most previous studies about machine detection of impact craters on Mars are based on imagery data, however, it has large uncertainty in image processing. In this study, we present a novel approach for automatic recognition of impact craters based on the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA)-derived digital topography data. Topographic curvature, which delineates impact crater on Digital Elevation Model (DEM), can be deduced from topography data. The thresholding map of curvature is transformed into a binary map, from which we can detect impact craters by combination of segmentation and flooding algorithms. More impact craters on Mars with confirmation algorithm can be effectively distinguished truly, which are added the existing catalog of manually identified Martian craters. It will be more useful for the study on impact craters' history and Martian evolution processes as well as Martian rover landing navigation.
D0-Branes As Confined Quarks

The possibility of using the quantum mechanics of D0-branes for the bound-states of quarks and QCD strings is investigated. Issues such as the inter D0-branes potential, the whiteness of the D0-branes bound-states and the large-N limit of D0-branes effective theory are studied. A possible role of the non-commutativity of relative distances of D0-branes in a study of ordinary QCD is discussed.