Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Project procurement systems in the attainment of sustainable construction

The construction industry makes a vital contribution to the social and economic development of every country, but, at the same time, its building sector has major impacts on the environment. Construction is a major consumer of non-renewable resources (energy in particular), a substantial source of waste, a polluter of air and water and an important contributor to land dereliction. This paper focuses specifically on the growing lack of focus on construction sustainability in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) public building sector. It indicates some salient issues on sustainable construction and the need for appropriate procurement systems, using the Botswana public building sector as a case study. It addresses two propositions. First that lack of appropriate focus on sustainable construction is primarily due to an inappropriate project organizational structure. Second that a default traditional construction procurement system (TCPS) provides a poor relationship management system incapable of dealing with sustainability parameters. Information is obtained through questionnaires on the dominant procurement system used. The primary conclusion is that the building procurement system apparently in use in the SADC public building sector differs significantly from that recommended in the theory, resulting in insignificant focus on construction sustainability. Salient steps are proposed with a proviso that the SADC public building sector should establish appropriate methods of selecting building procurement systems and formulate appropriate project organizational structures that will embrace an environmental management system. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
The Information Content of Security Analyses: Evidence from Standard & Poor's Common Stock Quality Ranking Changes

This paper examines stock price reactions to changes in Standard & Poor’s common stock rankings. Using internal memoranda obtained directly from Standard & Poor’s, an event study methodology, and a sample of 191 upgrades and 582 downgrades, we find that the majority of stock price reactions occur prior to memorandum dates. A Wall Street Journal Index search reveals that Standard & Poor’s makes 97% of its ranking changes following earnings announcements. However, we find stock price reactions subsequent to ranking changes for four of six portfolios of upgrades and three of six portfolios of downgrades. These findings are not strong enough to suggest the existence of a ‘Standard & Poor’s Anomaly. ’ Rather, we find further evidence in support of the post-earnings-announcement drift hypothesis.
The Strategic Board: the changing role of directors in developing and maintaining corporate capability

Faced with major shifts in public opinion and societal change on an international scale, together with the strategic requirements of newly emergent forms of business structure, new technologies, globalisation and new forms of competition, modern companies are facing a crisis in their boardrooms. Traditional forms of governance architecture are being challenged and boards are under pressure to develop a broader mindset and new skills to deal with the uncertainty of higher-level issues such as direction-giving and implementation of strategy. The paper proposes a framework developed from research which examines the selection, evaluation and performance of boards of directors in New Zealand. From this research a need for strategic vision and leadership has clearly emerged as a key requirement in director capability, but in practice there is an acknowledged variation among individual directors in terms of their competence in this regard. Implications for further research suggest the need to explore the strategic role of the modern board in value creation, the extent to which directors perceive a link between strategy and corporate governance and their level of participation in this process.
Transparency in government operations

Transparency in government operations is widely regarded as an important precondition for macroeconomic fiscal sustainability, good governance, and overall fiscal rectitude. Notably, the Interim Committee, at its April and September 1996 meetings, stressed the need for greater fiscal transparency. Prompted by these concerns, this paper represents a first attempt to address many of the aspects of transparency in government operations. It provides an overview of major issues in fiscal transparency and examines the IMF's role in promoting transparency in government operations.
Impulsive stabilization of periodic solutions of recurrent neural networks with discrete and distributed delays

This paper is concerned with impulsive stabilization of periodic solutions of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with discrete and distributed delays. By considering two different types of bounded discrete-delays, two stability criteria are formulated respectively for the case where the information on the discrete-delay derivative is unknown and the case where the discrete-delay derivative be strictly less than one. It is shown that the first stability criterion is an essential improvement over the existing one in the literature. When the discrete-delay is constant, the second stability criterion is proved to be less conservative than the first stability criterion. Moreover, impulsive control law design for delayed RNNs is facilitated by adjustable parameters in the stability criteria. The usefulness of the theoretical findings is demonstrated by a numerical example.
Multicentre, cluster-randomized clinical trial of algorithms for critical-care enteral and parenteral therapy (ACCEPT).

BACKGROUND The provision of nutritional support for patients in intensive care units (ICUs) varies widely both within and between institutions. We tested the hypothesis that evidence-based algorithms to improve nutritional support in the ICU would improve patient outcomes. METHODS A cluster-randomized controlled trial was performed in the ICUs of 11 community and 3 teaching hospitals between October 1997 and September 1998. Hospital ICUs were stratified by hospital type and randomized to the intervention or control arm. Patients at least 16 years of age with an expected ICU stay of at least 48 hours were enrolled in the study (n = 499). Evidence-based recommendations were introduced in the 7 intervention hospitals by means of in-service education sessions, reminders (local dietitian, posters) and academic detailing that stressed early institution of nutritional support, preferably enteral. RESULTS Two hospitals crossed over and were excluded from the primary analysis. Compared with the patients in the control hospitals (n = 214), the patients in the intervention hospitals (n = 248) received significantly more days of enteral nutrition (6.7 v. 5.4 per 10 patient-days; p = 0.042), had a significantly shorter mean stay in hospital (25 v. 35 days; p = 0.003) and showed a trend toward reduced mortality (27% v. 37%; p = 0.058). The mean stay in the ICU did not differ between the control and intervention groups (10.9 v. 11.8 days; p = 0.7). INTERPRETATION Implementation of evidence-based recommendations improved the provision of nutritional support and was associated with improved clinical outcomes.
Extreme Wage Inequality: Pay at the Very Top

We provide new evidence on the growth in pay at the very top of the wage distribution in the United Kingdom. Sectoral decompositions show that workers in the financial sector have accounted for the majority of the gains at the top over the last decade. New results are also presented on the pay of CEOs in the United Kingdom. We show how improved measurement of pay points to a stronger pay-performance link than previously estimated. This link is stronger, and more symmetric, for those firms in which institutional investors play a larger role.
Health as a resource for everyday life: advancing the conceptualization

This paper examines the conceptualization of health as a resource and the implications that such a definition has for public health programs and policies. First introduced in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, health is commonly defined by practitioners, policy makers, and scholars as a resource for everyday life. However, despite frequent references to health as a resource, little attention has been paid to the meaning of this one-line phrase. Thus, we draw on a multidisciplinary body of literature to examine key features of health that characterize it as a resource, as well as its similarities, differences, and associations with other resources. We argue that, as a resource, health is appropriately conceptualized as a type of capital that can be invested in by individuals and societal institutions to achieve positive health returns. Similar to human capital, health is embodied in individuals, and, as such, it is not a tradable resource like money. Health cannot be exchanged or sold for goods and services and it cannot be obtained directly in exchange for goods and services. Instead, as a type of capital, health is a stock of biopsychosocial resources that people can draw on to participate in society. Although health shares some characteristics with human capital, we contend that health is not a component of human capital, as some scholars indicate. Lastly, we maintain that there are important program and policy implications, both positive and negative, of adopting an economic definition of health. 1 This paper is an expanded version of a presentation made at the Canadian Public Health Association's 97th Annual Conference, Vancouver, B.C., May 2006.
Verbal Short-term Memory and Vocabulary Learning in Polyglots

Polyglot and non-polyglot Italian subjects were given tests assessing verbal (phonological) and visuo-spatial short-term and long-term memory, general intelligence, and vocabulary knowledge in their native language. Polyglots had a superior level of performance in verbal short-term memory tasks (auditory digit span and nonword repetition) and in a paired-associate learning test, which assessed the subjects’ ability to acquire new (Russian) words. By contrast, the two groups had comparable performance levels in tasks assessing general intelligence, visuo-spatial short-term memory and learning, and paired-associate learning of Italian words. These findings, which are in line with neuropsychological and developmental evidence, as well as with data from normal subjects, suggest a close relationship between the capacity of phonological memory and the acquisition of foreign languages.
Digital rights management for visual content in mobile applications

With the emergence of wide bandwidth wireless networks, mobile Internet is set to provide a significant channel of multimedia content distribution. In the absence of proper digital rights management (DRM) systems, there is a real risk for content owners and producers to lose important revenues due to their intellectual property rights. To avoid market fragmentation and ensure interoperability, the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) has set to define open DRM specification in their standardization process. In this paper, we review the specified methods of DRM within OMA. We present a scheme that utilizes watermarking as complementary solution for DRM on mobile devices, and we discuss how it could enhance the security of copyrighted media distribution. We focus the attention on the application of DRM methods for visual content in mobile devices.
Immunological Characterization of a Protective Antigen of Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae: Identification of the Region Responsible for Protective Immunity

ABSTRACT The gene encoding a protective protein antigen of the gram-positive bacterium Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, an important veterinary pathogen responsible for erysipelas in swine and a variety of diseases in animals, was cloned and sequenced. The gene encodes a polypeptide of 597 amino acids plus a putative signal sequence of 29 amino acids, resulting in a mature protein with a molecular mass of 69,017 Da. Sequence analysis of the gene product revealed a C-terminal region composed of nine tandem repeats of 20 amino acids and a total sequence that is nearly identical to that of the 64-kDa cell surface protein (SpaA) of the bacterium. Because of this similarity, the protein was designated SpaA.1. In this study, we examined whether the SpaA.1 protein could induce protective antibodies and whether we could identify the region involved in protective immunity. Both the mature SpaA.1 protein and its C-terminal repeat region, but not the N-terminal segment, were expressed in Escherichia coli and purified as a histidine-tagged fusion recombinant protein. Rabbit antiserum raised against the mature SpaA.1 protein passively protected mice from lethal challenge with a virulent homologous strain, Fujisawa-SmR, suggesting that protection is mediated by humoral antibodies. To determine which domain of the SpaA.1 protein is responsible for the observed protection, mice were actively immunized with either the mature SpaA.1 protein or the C-terminal repeat region and then challenged with Fujisawa-SmR. The result showed that mice immunized with the mature SpaA.1 protein, but not the C-terminal repeat region, were protected, suggesting that the protection-eliciting epitope(s) is located within the N-terminal two-thirds of the SpaA.1 molecule. This was confirmed by passive immunization experiments in which the protective activity of rabbit antiserum, raised against mature SpaA.1 protein, was not abolished by absorption with the purified recombinant C-terminal repeat region. In addition, antibodies specific for the C-terminal repeat region were unable to protect mice from lethal challenge. These results show that the N-terminal two-thirds of the SpaA.1 molecule may constitute a good vaccine candidate against erysipelas.
Perspectives on EU governance: an empirical assessment of the political attitudes of EU agency professionals

European Union (EU)-level agencies have emerged as important actors on the EU's policy-making scene. To date, we know relatively little about the personnel working in EU agencies: what attitudes do EU agency staff members hold on issue-dimensions relevant for the EU integration process? How do they perceive of their role in EU policy-making? Moreover, we know little about the cohesiveness of attitudes of agency staff within and between different EU agencies. The aim of this contribution is conceptually and empirically descriptive. It draws on original data from an online survey of professionals working in EU agencies to gain insights into the attitudes held by EU agency staff on three substantive attitudinal dimensions: conceptions relating to legitimate and accountable EU governance, conceptions about the preferred level of centralization of political authority in the EU, as well as views on economic governance in the EU. While the conceptual focus of this paper is on attitudes and not on behaviour, the attitudes held by EU agency staff and their relative homo- or heterogeneity is likely to affect perceptions and evaluations of the political environment and interpretations of the challenges agency staff members face in their substantive area of work. The findings of the survey will enable us to draw broader conclusions about the type and quality of accountability relationships as well as of the EU's democratic legitimacy. Moreover, the data will permit to inform arguments about the actor quality of EU agencies, which are often conceived as efficient institutional solutions to overcome credibility problems.
Technology advances in the Intel Paragon system

The Paragonfamily of systemsis the product realization of the Intel/Darpa Touchstoneproject The Paragonis a scalable high performanceparallel supercomputerwith peak performance ranging from five to 300 Gigatlops, and is the architectural basis for building Teraflopsystemsin themid 1990s. While theadvancesin commodity processo~andmemoriesare evolutionary,themaretwo revolutionary technologicaladvancesof the system,namely the operating systemand the messagepassing system. The operatingsystemis baaedon theMach 3.0micmkemel and providesthefoundationfor bothlow latency,highperformanceroessageserviceandthe rich functionality of OSF Unix on eachnode. The stmctureof theOSis layeredwith theserveron topof themath abstraction,which provides thread,po~ messageandmemory abstractions. This layer provides a model of multiple threadswithin a common addressspace. A layer below the Mach level is the NORMA layer that provides the interfaceto the distributed memory network. This layer provides a virtual memory management acrossthedistributedmemory. Low messagelatency is obtainedby providing a userAPI that dmtly accessesthe network, avoiding the overheadof any systemcall or processswap. This is further supportedby the nodearchitectureasdescribedbelow. The messagesysteminvolves theOS andnodearchitectureand the internodehigh performancenetwork. The network is basedon the Mesh Routing Chip (MRC) which is two dimensional router with five input and five output ports. l%e ports are X+, X. , Y+, Yand P (for processor). All ports run at 200 MB/s and as long asthereis no port contention,messagespassingthrough therouter canbesimultaneouslytransmitted.The routersuppofi awormhole routed, cimuit switched network. This allows pipelining of messagesso-that the bandwidth on long messagescan be maintained betweenfar dwtancenodes. Latency is kept low by theuseof themicm kernel andtheuseof a messagecopnxessor on the node. This processoris dedicatedto messagepassingand not only provides direct performancebenefit through avoidanceof context switch or cacheturbulence,but also by allowing for the hidding of the remaining latency fmm the user processor. The sending user processorwill eXpeIiCUICe lc3SS than 1 microsecond of overhead, while the messagecoprocessorwill absorbapproximately 10microseconds.Thereceivesideis similar. In summary,the messagepassingsystemprovides high bandwidth,low latency messageswithin a prograrrmtingmodel of full connectivity; implementedon a two dimensionalmesh.
The genetic basis of resistance to HIV infection and disease progression

Susceptibility to HIV infection and the modulation of disease progression are strictly dependent on inter-individual variability, much of which is secondary to host genetic heterogeneity. The study of host factors that control these phenomena relies not only on candidate gene approaches but also on unbiased genome-wide genetic and functional analyses. Additional new insights stem from the study of mechanisms that control the expression of host and viral genes, such as miRNA. The genetic host factors that have been suggested to be associated either with resistance to HIV-1 infection or with absent/delayed progression to AIDS are nevertheless unable to fully justify the phenomenon of differential susceptibility to HIV. Multidisciplinary approaches are needed to further analyze individuals who deviate from the expected response to HIV exposure/infection. Results of these analyses will facilitate the identification of novel targets that could be exploited in the setting up of innovative therapeutic or vaccine approaches.
Quality of graphical markers for the needs of eyewear devices

In this paper we propose to cast the problem of identification of people, objects or places into an application for smart glasses that decodes information from graphical markers. We focus on analyzing different factors that can have influence on the processes of the automatic recognition of information from a code. The research we present aims at reviewing recognition performances in function of: size of a marker, distance from/to a marker, position of a marker and hardware used to decode information. Additionally, we describe a colorful graphical marker which was created for comparative analysis with existing monochrome codes. We also analyze accuracy of the detection of markers colors under different illumination conditions and different scanning distances. Moreover, considering possible usages of graphical markers, we present a prototype application, which can potentially provide faster access to patients' information. We believe that it may be very useful, because health care have to deal with a lot of various assets that could be identify or classify by using eyewear devices. Our first conclusions are the facts that following factors may have influence on monochrome code recognition (i) distance from the camera, (ii) rotation and slope of code, (iii) quality and size of the code. Distance from the camera should be adapted to the device that is used to scan the code. Under preliminary studies with colorful codes, tested light conditions and distances did not affect the classification of colors.
High order sliding mode observer for inter-turn short-circuit fault detection in induction machine

This paper explores the design of high order sliding mode observer for induction machine fault detection. Inter-turn short-circuits is one of the most common fault occurring in induction machine. Healthy machine behavior and effects of such fault on the induction machine behavior are evaluated. This motivates the necessity of early fault detection. A high order sliding mode observer is developed and confirmed for different operating conditions. Detection method is based on calculating the difference between the actual behavior of induction machine and the expected behavior given by high order sliding mode observer. That produces a set of residuals sensitive to fault. Numerous simulations results are given to illustrate the effectiveness and performance of the proposed approach.
Benchmarking University Activities: An Italian Case Study

This paper is a study of the use of benchmarking as a management accounting device aimed at facilitating and influencing decisions within an Italian university, which is undergoing significant change. The transformation of this organization originates from a new legislative rationale of the Italian government where all universities have gained an increased autonomy in managing and allocating resources, and the university studied here has installed a new management team. Action research was used to benchmark resources across university departments, identifying critical areas, and informing budgeting and planning, drawing on activity based approaches. The paper discusses the behavioural resistance faced in introducing cost measurement systems in this organization, which have been used to receiving a continuous flow of resources from central government.