Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brazilian Micro-enterprises＇ An Exploratory Study on Marketing Strategies

 This article aims to present the main marketing concepts applied by Brazilian micro-enterprises within a brief contextualization of a marketing plan. The methodology involved qualitative research development applied at the Trianon Fair, traditional event on Sundays on the sidewalks of the AvenidaPaulista in the city of São Paulo. Another research was carried out involving non-probabilistic sample with micro-businesses from various segments in the city that were chosen for their accessibility. From the results, product characteristics were elaborated, pricing, and distribution, that compose the application analyses of the marketing tools for micro-businesses and theoretical evolution have stemmed from the bibliographical research as well as field research and observational studies by the authors of the article. The goal is not to exhaust the topic nor to construct a Marketing Plan, but rather to contribute to the discussion, learning, and use of a marketing mix in the segment of micro-enterprises in a more assertive manner. It was concluded that there is no doubt as to the importance of micro-enterprises for any country. His contribution lies mainly in optical innovation and creativity because these companies can test new models of work, management, products, and services. It should be noted that micro-enterprises are greatly responsible for job generation in our country, denoting their prominent social and ecological perspective. More than a transient way of earning money, the reality of micro-enterprises should be considered as a social and economic phenomenon capable of generating regional and, consequently, global
Environmental policy negotiations, transboundary pollution and lobby groups in small open economies

This paper analyzes the consequences of lobby group activity for policy outcomes in economies with transboundary pollution and international environmental policies. In our framework, international environmental policies are characterized as pollution taxes determined in a negotiation between two countries. We find, among other things, that the presence of local lobbying tends to reduce the level of pollution taxes. We also find that an increase in the environmental concern (i.e. stronger preferences for a clean environment) may reduce the pollution tax in both countries. It is also possible that increased environmental concern in one country reduces the pollution tax in the other country.
Idiopathic hypercalciuria in children with urinary tract infection.

INTRODUCTION Idiopathic hypercalciuria (IH) predisposes to urinary tract infections (UTIs); however, there is scarce local information regarding such association. Our objectives were to estimate IH prevalence in children with UTI and to assess whether there were differences in relation to the presence or absence of vesicoureteral reflux (VUR). Additionally, the association between IH and salt intake was studied. POPULATION AND METHODS Calciuria was determined in patients younger than 18 years old on whom UTI had been studied (ultrasound and voiding cystourethrogram), and who had no secondary causes of hypercalciuria. IH was defined as a calcium to creatinine ratio of >0.8, 0.6, 0.5 and 0.2 in children aged 0 to 6 months old, 7 to12 months old, 12 to 24 months old and older than 2 years old, respectively; and a high sodium intake with a urinary sodium to potassium ratio of >2.5. RESULTS IH prevalence among 136 patients (87 girls, median age: 3 years old) was 20%. Patients with VUR (n= 54) and without VUR (n= 82) had similar characteristics in terms of sex, weight, height, age at diagnosis and age at the time of the study, and clinical features (hematuria, nephrolithiasis, colicky pain, and recurrent UTI), family history of kidney stone formation, and IH prevalence (26% versus 16%, p= 0.24). A high sodium intake was more frequently observed in children with hypercalciuria than in those with normal urine calcium levels (76% versus 46%, p= 0.007). CONCLUSIONS IH prevalence in children with UTI was high (20%), with no differences observed between patients with and without VUR. As a recommendation, the presence of IH should be detected in children with UTI, regardless of VUR presence or absence.
LL5β Directs the Translocation of Filamin A and SHIP2 to Sites of Phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-Triphosphate (PtdIns(3,4,5)P3) Accumulation, and PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 Localization Is Mutually Modified by Co-recruited SHIP2*

Phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-triphosphate (PtdIns(3,4,5)P3) accumulates at the leading edge of migrating cells and works, at least partially, as both a compass to indicate directionality and a hub for subsequent intracellular events. However, how PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 regulates the migratory machinery has not been fully elucidated. Here, we demonstrate a novel mechanism for efficient lamellipodium formation that depends on PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 and the reciprocal regulation of PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 itself. LL5β, whose subcellular localization is directed by membrane PtdIns(3,4,5)P3, recruits the actin-cross-linking protein Filamin A to the plasma membrane, where PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 accumulates, with the Filamin A-binding Src homology 2 domain-containing inositol polyphosphate 5-phosphatase 2 (SHIP2). A large and dynamic lamellipodium was formed in the presence of Filamin A and LL5β by the application of epidermal growth factor. Conversely, depletion of either Filamin A or LL5β or the overexpression of either an F-actin-cross-linking mutant of Filamin A or a mutant of LL5β without its PtdIns(3,4,5)P3-interacting region inhibited such events in COS-7 cells. Because F-actin initially polymerizes near the plasma membrane, it is likely that membrane-recruited Filamin A efficiently cross-links newly polymerized F-actin, leading to enhanced lamellipodium formation at the site of PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 accumulation. Moreover, we demonstrate that co-recruited SHIP2 dephosphorylates PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 at the same location.
New Sonorities for Jazz Recordings: Separation and Mixing using Deep Neural Networks

The audio mixing process is an art that has proven to be extremely hard to model: What makes a certain mix better than another one? How can the mixing processing chain be automatically optimized to obtain better results in a more efficient manner? Over the last years, the scientific community has exploited methods from signal processing, music information retrieval, machine learning, and more recently, deep learning techniques to address these issues. In this work, a novel system based on deep neural networks (DNNs) is presented. It replaces the previously proposed steps of pitch-informed source separation and panoramabased remixing by an ensemble of trained DNNs.
Testen sicherheitskritischer Software zwischen Theorie und Praxis: Eine Bestandsaufnahme (Testing Safety-Critical Software in Theory and Practice: A Summary)

Zusammenfassung Dynamisches Testen wird — ungeachtet der bekannten Schwächen — in der Praxis häufig verwendet. Dies gilt auch für die Entwicklung sicherheitskritischer Software. Im Folgenden werden die Ursachen für diese Situation analysiert. Darüber hinaus werden die möglichen Alternativen untersucht sowie die Forderungen ausgewählter Standards in Bezug auf die Software-Prüfung diskutiert.
Components of Manufacturing Strategy within Levels of U.S. Manufacturing Supply Chains

Since Skinner‘s breakthrough article in 1969 [26], the importance of manufacturing management has gained momentum. Manufacturing companies have shifted from financial strategies to manufacturing strategies to derive competitive strategy and profitability. Although financial strategies are still important to a manufacturing company, it is manufacturing strategies that are being used to increase profitability. Many researchers have identified components of manufacturing strategy (Skinner [27], Porter [22], Hayes & Wheelright [14], Wheelright [31], Garvin [11, 12], Adam & Swamidass [2], Anderson, Cleveland & Schroeder [4], Ward, Leong & Snyder [30], White [32], Manoochehri [18]), while others have tested these components against industry (Richardson, Taylor & Gordon [23], Schroeder, Anderson & Cleveland [25], Swamidass [28], Roth, DeMeyer & Amano [24], Marucheck, Pannesi & Anderson [19], Dsouza, McDougall & Deane [8], Wood, Ritzman & Sharma [33], Flynn, Schroeder & Sakakibara [9, 18], Lee, Everett & Tuan [17]). All of these studies indicate the need for a more thorough and expansive empirically based analysis of manufacturing strategy. The present study builds on the efforts of past research to provide a comprehensive analysis that culminates in a survey that far exceeds (in mailing size) previous survey research on manufacturing strategy. In addition, our study differs from previous studies of manufacturing strategy because we relate manufacturing strategy to the respondent‘s company‘s level in the supply chain. Our study involves a national mailing to 3,375 managers that represent 3,285 different manufacturing companies. Six hundred thirty four of the returned surveys were analyzed to answer the following questions: • What are the current components of manufacturing strategy that have been identified as competitive strengths? • What components combine to make coherent manufacturing strategies? • Do manufacturing strategies differ in importance across five levels of supply chain?
Building a microfinance industry : PRET/FINNET in Haiti

The note illustrates a case study of USAID support to the microfinance sector in Haiti, 1995 - to the present: the story of a donor that recognized opportunity, was flexible, took risks, and invested the time and resources needed to build a microfinance industry. Interest rate ceilings were intended to protect low-income people, but in fact they made it impossible for them to get credit. An explosion in micro-credit may be predicted when ceilings' removal occur, which is what determined future success. Initially, the vision was to move away from subsidy, because it was predictable enough margin to do microfinance profitably would occur, though the great impact was not anticipated.
Complexity, Robustness, and Performance: Trade-Offs in Organizational Design

This paper analyses the relationship between organizational complexity (the degree of detail of information necessary to correctly assign agents to positions), robustness (the relative loss of performance due to mis-allocated agents), and performance. More complex structures are not necessarily more profitable, but are less robust. One of the least complex structures always performs worst. Superior organizational performance may vanish completely due to mis-allocated agents. Organizational performance can be enhanced through training agents; re-assigning them when adequate knowledge about their characteristics is obtained through monitoring; simplifying the organizational structure; and influencing the environment. The trade-offs involved are analysed.
Management of technology deployed in service innovations

Services form a major portion of the GDP of several nations, especially that of the first world nations. These nations also experience high cost of providing services of different kinds. This has resulted in the displacement of non-customer facing services to countries that can offer them at lower prices. Nations have to be concerned about sustaining their economies even as such off-shoring of services continue to grow. It is therefore important to understand how countries can create those service innovations that will help them retain the growth trajectory of their economies. We believe that the different types of service innovations need different approaches to the use of technologies. This paper review related work, introduce a new perspective on service innovation and identify how technologies can be managed to create optimal value from service innovations.
Evaluation of optimization algorithms for sparse and redundant dictionaries

In this paper, we are comparing the optimization algorithms incorporated with overcomplete discrete cosine transform (DCT) based dictionary and discrete Tchebichef transform (DTT) basis function used as a dictionary for sparse representation. Further, we measured the performance of optimization greedy algorithm family e.g., Matching Pursuit (MP), Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) and Stage-wise Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (St-OMP) and convex relaxation technique like Basis Pursuit (BP) on proposed pre-specified dictionaries in terms of accuracy and probability of error. We also compared performance in terms of sparse coefficients recovery atoms and analyzed the error of probability over small image patch using the fixed dictionaries. Result showed that our proposed dictionary based on DTT basis function performed well and also convex relaxation achieved good sparse coefficients as compared to other optimization algorithms. The BP produced more accuracy as compared to greedy techniques with little increase of the processing time.
Optimized design of harmonic-injection dividers

A new formulation is presented for the efficient harmonic-balance analysis of the division bandwidth of frequency dividers by a high order. The procedure is based on some mathematical properties of the solution curve under low-amplitude of the input generator. Through a simple fitting technique, it is possible to determine the variation of the synchronization bandwidth versus any design parameter, while keeping constant the central frequency of the division band. The procedure also enables a prediction of the frequency-division interval for any value of the input-generator amplitude within the region of linear behavior with respect to the input source. It has been applied to the optimization of the input matching network in a frequency divider by 10, which uses a nonlinear transmission line (NLTL) as a feedback network.
Effects of feeding energy or protein supplements before or after calving on performance of spring-calving cows grazing native range.

In three consecutive years, spring-calving Hereford and Hereford x Angus cows (n = 348) were used to determine effects of level of supplemental energy or protein before and after calving on cowherd performance. Beginning on November 1, cows were individually fed 1.22 kg/d of a 40% CP (PROTEIN) or 2.44 kg/d of a 20% CP supplement (ENERGY) until calving. After calving, cows remained on the same supplement, were switched to the other supplement, or were fed 2.44 kg/d of a 40% CP supplement (HI PROT). Supplementation ended on April 20, the start of a 65-d breeding season. Cows fed ENERGY during gestation had greater BW gains (9 kg) at calving than PROTEIN-fed cows (P < .01). Calf weaning weight was not affected by supplementation. Cows fed ENERGY before calving had an 11% greater pregnancy rate than the cows fed PROTEIN (P < .002). Cows fed PROTEIN or ENERGY after calving had similar BW gains but cows fed HI PROT after calving lost less BW during supplementation (P < .002). Pregnancy rates were not influenced by treatments fed for a short period after calving. In conclusion, conception rates were significantly improved by feeding greater levels of supplemental energy prepartum but not postpartum. Energy supplements can affect reproduction with minimal effects on BW or condition.
Silencing of CDK5 as potential therapy for Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract Neurodegeneration is one of the greatest public health challenges for the 21st century. Among neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent and best characterized. Nevertheless, despite the large investment in AD research, currently there is no effective therapeutic option. In the present review, we highlight a novel alternative, which takes advantage of the biotechnological outbreak deployed by the discovery of the RNA interference-based gene silencing mechanism, and its application as a tool for neurodegeneration treatment. Here, we highlight cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK5) as a key candidate target for therapeutic gene silencing. Unlike other members of the cyclin-dependent kinase family, CDK5 does not seem to play a crucial role in cell cycle regulation. By contrast, CDK5 participates in multiple functions during nervous system development and has been established as a key mediator of Tau hyperphosphorylation and neurofibrillary pathology, thus serving as an optimal candidate for targeted therapy in the adult nervous system. We propose that the use of RNA interference for CDK5 silencing presents an attractive and specific therapeutic alternative for AD and perhaps against other tauopathies.
The Cancer Genome Anatomy Project: new resources for reading the molecular signatures of cancer

The Cancer Genome Anatomy Project (CGAP) has built informational, technological, and physical resources to interface genomics with basic and clinical cancer research. The CGAP web site (http://cgap.nci.nih.gov) provides informatics tools for in silico analysis of the CGAP datasets as well as information for accessing each of the CGAP resources. Published in 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Basel Accord and Lending Behavior: Evidence from Mena Region

In 1988, an agreement was reached in Basel to set common requirements of bank capital in order to promote the soundness and stability of the international banking system. In line with the agreement, banks were required to hold capital in proportion to their perceived credit risks, which may have caused a “credit crunch,” and a significant reduction in credit supply. We investigate the direct link between the implementation of the Basel Accord and lending activities using a data set of annual observations from 1989 to 2004 for banks in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. The results provide support evidence of a significant increase in credit growth following the implementation of capital regulations in general. Despite the higher capital adequacy ratio, banks expanded credit and assets. Credit growth appears to be driven by demand fluctuations attributed to real growth, cost of borrowing and exchange rate risk. Overall, the effects of macroeconomic variables, in contrast to capital adequacy, appear to be more dominant in determining credit growth, regardless of the capital adequacy ratio, and variation across banks by nationality, ownership, and listing.
The effect of airline mergers on on-time performance

This study analyzed the effect of mergers in the airline industry on on-time performance. The importance of this study is reflected by the on-going discussion relating to whether airline mergers are disadvantageous to consumers. Data provided by the US government is used to compare the frequency and length of flight delays before and after a merger. The statistical analyses show that on-time performance becomes worse after a merger. However, when looking at mergers independently, we can conclude that the effect of mergers on on-time performance is not equal for every merger studied.
RUNTIME ANALYSIS OF RANDOM LOCAL SEARCH WITH REINFORCEMENT BASED SELECTION OF NON-STATIONARY AUXILIARY OBJECTIVES : INITIAL STUDY

It has been shown that single-objective optimization may be improved by introducing auxiliary objectives. In theoretical studies, auxiliary objectives are usually designed to be helpful. However, in practice, some of the auxiliary objectives may change their properties during optimization process. Such objectives may be efficient and obstructive at different steps of optimization. We analyse EA+RL method of objective selection. Precisely, Random Local Search with Q-learning using greedy exploration strategy is considered on the XdivK and OneMax problems. We theoretically show on the OneMax problem that EA+RL ignores the objective which is currently obstructive. We also show that EA+RL does not manage to ignore a non-stationary obstructive objective on the XdivK problem.
On bisimulation and model-checking for concurrent systems with partial order semantics

In concurrency theory—the branch of (theoretical) computer science that studies the logical and mathematical foundations of parallel computation—there are two main formal ways of modelling the behaviour of systems where multiple actions or events can happen independently and at the same time: either with interleaving or with partial order semantics. On the one hand, the interleaving semantics approach proposes to reduce concurrency to the nondeterministic, sequential computation of the events the system can perform independently. On the other hand, partial order semantics represent concurrency explicitly by means of an independence relation on the set of events that the system can execute in parallel; following this approach, the so-called ‘true concurrency’ approach, independence or concurrency is a primitive notion rather than a derived concept as in the interleaving framework. Using interleaving or partial order semantics is, however, more than a matter of taste. In fact, choosing one kind of semantics over the other can have important implications—both from theoretical and practical viewpoints—as making such a choice can raise different issues, some of which we investigate here. More specifically, this thesis studies concurrent systems with partial order semantics and focuses on their bisimulation and model-checking problems; the theories and techniques herein apply, in a uniform way, to different classes of Petri nets, event structures, and transition system with independence (TSI) models. Some results of this work are: a number of mu-calculi (in this case, fixpoint extensions of modal logic) that, in certain classes of systems, induce exactly the same identifications as some of the standard bisimulation equivalences used in concurrency. Secondly, the introduction of (infinite) higher-order logic games for bisimulation and for model-checking, where the players of the games are given (local) monadic second-order power on the sets of elements they are allowed to play. And, finally, the formalization of a new order-theoretic concurrent game model that provides a uniform approach to bisimulation and model-checking and bridges some mathematical concepts in order theory with the more operational world of games. In particular, we show that in all cases the logic games for bisimulation and model-checking developed in this thesis are sound and complete, and therefore, also determined—even when considering models of infinite state systems; moreover, these logic games are decidable in the finite case and underpin novel decision procedures for systems verification. Since the mu-calculi and (infinite) logic games studied here generalisewell-known fixpoint modal logics as well as game-theoretic decision procedures for analysing concurrent systems with interleaving semantics, this thesis provides some of the groundwork for the design of a logic-based, game-theoretic framework for studying, in a uniform manner, several concurrent systems regardless of whether they have an interleaving or a partial order semantics.
The Stock Market Valuation of IT Innovations: Evidence from the Investment Banking Industry

It is always a challenge to teach students IT skills and capabilities in a non-IT course setting. However, there is an increasing tendency for IT innovations initiated outside the IT organization. It is thus all the more important for educators from non-IT disciplines not only to keep up with technological development but also to motivate students to learn IT skills in a non-IT course setting such as in a finance classroom. In this paper, we examine the role of IT innovations in a non-IT organization such as an investment bank. We empirically investigate whether IT innovations can bring added market value to the investment banking industry. We find that an investment bank that invests heavily in IT innovations outperforms its industry peers in the stock market. The implication of this finding highlights the need for our educators to motivate our students to gain knowledge of IT even for non-IT disciplines.