Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Employees’ Views and Loyalty on HRM Activities: The Case of Sekyere Rural Bank-Ghana

This paper is supported by a project of China Ministry of education. (Project NO. 15YJC90033) Abstract This research looked at employees’ perception on HRM practices and their loyalty in the case of Sekyere Rural Bank in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Research over the years, tend to focus their concentration much on the impact HRM practices has on organizations but less attention has been taken to employees’ perception about the importance of HRM practices on their professional development and career success. The objectives of the study were to analyse perceptions of employees on HR practices Sekyere Rural Bank, ansalyse the loyalty of employees and establish the relationship between employees’ perception on HRM and their loyalty. It employed the use of convenient random sampling which gave employees in seven (7) branches of Sekyere Rural Bank equal opportunity of being selected. Questionnaires were designed for the purposes of the study to provide information on employees’ perception and employees’ loyalty. For the purposes of the study, 100 employees in the 7 branches of Sekyere Rural Bank were selected. From the results gathered, 84% out of 100% of those approached took part in the study (n=84). The findings of the study revealed that employees clearly understood the HR practices and had much positive perception on career planning and lowly perceived the other HR practices. Analysis from the loyalty scale also showed that employees’ of Sekyere Rural Bank had neutral response to the questions asked. This shows that employees’ loyalty and commitment to the organisation has not been achieved fully. It is thus recommended that management should make much effort in educating and training employees on the importance of the various HR practices, making their appraisal systems friendlier and also engaging them in their career planning projects as this makes them more loyal based on our findings.
Contraction theory based observer for a biochemical process

This contribution reports the design of state estimator for a nonlinear process using the recently proposed contraction analysis approach. Although the contraction based stability analysis for nonlinear systems is now an accepted tool for analyzing control systems with uncertain parameters, application of this technique for designing nonlinear state estimator is fairly recent and still evolving. The contraction analysis based estimator design method is briefly outlined before applying the method for a biochemical process, for which existing literature indicates the use of traditional nonlinear observers. A comparative study of estimator performance between an extended Luenberger observer based state estimation and the contraction observer has been reported. Results of simulation show that state estimation using contraction observer is better than that of the classical one.
Design of Dual Polarized Basestation Antenna for CELL Band Application using Parasitic Conductor

In this paper, a design of CELL band dual polarized base station antenna having air dielectric substrates has been proposed. The study of dual polarized base station antenna and their radiation properties including return loss, isolation, beam width, directivity, and radiation patterns for a single element are discussed. The antenna has a relative bandwidth of 31.7% (VSWR<1.4) with return loss of -16.5 dB at both ports. The port decoupling is better than -20 dB in the entire frequency band. The broad bandwidth is achieved by optimization of the feeding network which is implemented as an aperture coupled Microstrip feed and achieves a gain of average 7dB.
Behavioural factors associated with symptom outcomes in a primary care-based depression prevention intervention trial

Background. A randomized trial of a primary care-based intervention to prevent depression relapse resulted in improved adherence to long-term antidepressant medication and depression outcomes. We evaluated the effects of this intervention on behavioural processes and identified process predictors of improved depressive symptoms. Method. Patients at high risk for depression recurrence or relapse following successful acute phase treatment (N=386) were randomly assigned to receive a low intensity 12-month intervention or continued usual care. The intervention combined education about depression, shared decision-making regarding use of maintenance pharmacotherapy and cognitive-behavioural strategies to promote self-management. Baseline, 3, 6, 9 and 12-month interviews assessed patients' self-care practices, self-efficacy for managing depression and depressive symptoms. Results. Intervention patients had significantly greater self-efficacy for managing depression (P<0·01) and were more likely to keep track of depressive symptoms (P<0·0001), monitor early warning signs (P<0·0001), and plan for coping with high risk situations (P<0·0001) at all time points compared to usual care control patients. Self-efficacy for managing depression (P<0·0001), keeping track of depressive symptoms (P=0·05), monitoring for early warning signs (P=0·01), engaging in pleasant activities (P<0·0001) and engaging in social activities (P<0·0001) positively predicted improvements in depression symptom scores. Conclusions. A brief intervention designed to target cognitive-behavioural factors and promote adherence to pharmacotherapy in order to prevent depression relapse was highly successful in changing several behaviours related to controlling depression. Improvements in self-efficacy and several self-management behaviours that were targets of the intervention were significantly related to improvements in depression outcome.
Crosstalk between TLR2 and Sphk1 in microglia in the cerebral ischemia/reperfusion-induced inflammatory response

Stroke is associated with high morbidity and mortality, and much remains unknown about the injury-related mechanisms that occur following reperfusion. This study aimed to explore the roles of Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) and sphingosine kinase 1 (Sphk1) in microglial cells in inflammatory responses induced by cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R). For this purpose, C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into 4 groups as follows: the sham-operated group, the I/R group, the I/R group treated with TLR2 antibody, and the I/R group treated with N,N-dimethylsphingosine. Focal cerebral I/R was induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion. Double-labeling immunofluorescence was used to observe the protein expression of TLR2 and Sphk1 in the ischemic brain tissue. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction was performed to determine the mRNA levels of TLR2 and Sphkl in ischemic brain tissue. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was carried out to detect the protein contents of interleukin (IL)-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), IL-17 and IL-23 in ischemic brain tissue. The results revealed that I/R upregulated TLR2 and Sphk1 expression in microglial cells, and the inhibition of either TLR2 or Sphk1 inhibited the expression of the pro-inflammatory cytokines, IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-17 and IL-23. Notably, the inhibition of TLR2 activity also decreased Sphk1 expression. These results thus indicate that the activation of microglial cells, via a TLR2→Sphk1→pro-inflammatory cytokine (IL-1β, TNF-α, IL-17 and IL-23) pathway, may participate in I/R injury.
Effects of ovarian hormones on human cortical excitability

Ovarian steroids appear to alter neuronal function in women, but direct physiological evidence is lacking. In animals, estradiol enhances excitatory neurotransmission. Progesterone‐derived neurosteroids increase GABAergic inhibition. The effect of weak transcranial magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex on the motor evoked potential (MEP) from transcranial magnetic stimulation given milliseconds later is changed by GABAergic and glutamatergic agents. Using this technique previously, we showed more inhibition in the luteal phase relative to the midfollicular menstrual phase, which is consistent with a progesterone effect. To detect the effects of estradiol, we have now divided the follicular phase. We tested 14 healthy women during the early follicular (low estradiol, low progesterone), late follicular (high estradiol, low progesterone), and luteal (high estradiol, high progesterone) phases, with interstimulus intervals from 2 to 10msec (10 trials at each interval and 40 unconditioned trials). We calculated the ratio of the conditioned MEP at each interval to the mean unconditioned MEP: the higher the ratio, the less inhibition and the more facilitation caused by the first stimulus. The combined ratios increased significantly from the early follicular phase to the late follicular phase and then decreased again in the luteal phase. These findings demonstrate an excitatory neuronal effect associated with estradiol and confirm our earlier finding of inhibition associated with progesterone.
Involvement of LMO7 in the Association of Two Cell-Cell Adhesion Molecules, Nectin and E-cadherin, through Afadin and α-Actinin in Epithelial Cells*

Nectins are Ca2+-independent immunoglobulin-like cell-cell adhesion molecules that are involved in formation of cadherin-based adherens junctions (AJs). The nectin-based cell-cell adhesion induces activation of Cdc42 and Rac small G proteins, which eventually enhances the formation of AJs through reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. Although evidence has accumulated that nectins recruit cadherins to the nectin-based cell-cell adhesion sites through their cytoplasm-associated proteins, afadin and catenins, it is not fully understood how nectins are physically associated with cadherins. Here we identified a rat counterpart of the human LIM domain only 7 (LMO7) as an afadin- and α-actinin-binding protein. Rat LMO7 has two splice variants, LMO7a and LMO7b, consisting of 1,729 and 1,395 amino acids, respectively. LMO7 has calponin homology, PDZ, and LIM domains. Western blotting revealed that LMO7 was expressed ubiquitously in various rat tissues. Immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy revealed that LMO7 localized at cell-cell AJs, where afadin localized, in epithelial cells of rat gallbladder. In addition, LMO7 localized at the cytoplasmic faces of apical membranes in the same epithelial cells. We furthermore revealed that LMO7 bound α-actinin, an actin filament-bundling protein, which bound to α-catenin. Immunoprecipitation analysis revealed that LMO7 was associated with both the nectin-afadin and E-cadherin-catenin systems. LMO7 was assembled at the cell-cell adhesion sites after both the nectin-afadin and E-cadherin-catenin systems had been assembled. These results indicate that LMO7 is an afadin- and α-actinin-binding protein that connects the nectin-afadin and E-cadherin-catenin systems through α-actinin.
Apolipoprotein E polymorphism, Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia among elderly Finnish men

An association between late‐onset Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and the common polymorphic alleles of the gene coding for apolipoprotein E, ɛ2, ɛ3 and ɛ4, was assessed in a population sample of 393 elderly Finnish men aged 70 to 89 years. Of them, 7%, suffered Alzheimer's disease and 3% had vascular dementia. Among those who suffered Alzheimer's disease, there was a statistically significant excess of the ɛ4 allele. No such an association was observed between the apolipoprotein E alleles and vascular dementia. We conclude that the apolipoprotein E polymorphism confers information about a risk of Alzheimer's disease in this population sample of elderly Finnish men.
Consumer Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Public Goods

The value to society of charitable giving and philanthropy is recognised and growing in Europe and even more and more important in current troubled times ([36]). There are many factors, which affect the capability and willingness of people to pay for public goods voluntarily. The aim of the paper is to research factors of willingness to pay for public goods in the theoretical context of public goods and solve the issue of consumer acceptance of charging such goods. The data gathering procedure in the primary research is an experimental survey. The experimental survey is divided into three parts; part one contains mathematical issues, the second part of the survey focuses on ways of "collecting" funds and the motives of the willingness of individuals voluntarily pay to public goods. The last section contains demographic issues. The outcomes of our research will be useful for public sector organisations in the issue of public service charging also for non-governmental organisations in the question of financial resources gaining.
Recomendación de Contenidos Digitales basada en divergencias del lenguaje: Diseño, Experimentación y Evaluación

Para enfrentar el problema del descubrimiento de informacion en grandes repositorios de datos, como Internet, surgieron los sistemas de recomendacion. Estos sistemas ofrecen a los usuarios contenidos relevantes de acuerdo a su actividad previa. El funcionamiento de un sistema de recomendacion consta de dos etapas: el modelado de la actividad previa de los usuarios, para identificar sus preferencias, y la recomendacion de contenidos de acuerdo a estas preferencias. En el estado del arte de sistemas de recomendacion, una de las aproximaciones seguidas es la de los sistemas basados en contenido, que recopilan los contenidos previamente vistos y recomiendan contenidos similares. En este contexto, el modelado de usuarios se plantea como una recopilacion de terminos de los contenidos vistos, ponderados de acuerdo a alguna aproximacion. Este tipo de sistemas (basados en contenido) presentan un problema conocido como sobre-especializacion (i.e. recomendacion de contenidos muy similares entre si), afectando sensiblemente a la satisfaccion de los usuarios con este tipo de sistemas. A este respecto, en este trabajo se propone una aproximacion utilizando tecnicas de divergencias del lenguaje como metodo para modelar la actividad previa de los usuarios. Con ello se espera poder identificar los terminos originales de los contenidos consultados previamente por los usuarios, favoreciendo la recomendacion de contenidos originales. De esta manera se espera mejorar la satisfaccion del usuario en aspectos relacionados con la sobre-especializacion En el estado del arte, la evaluacion en sistemas de recomendacion habitualmente se ha llevado a cabo teniendo en cuenta unicamente la etapa de recomendacion. Sin embargo, en este trabajo se ha tenido en cuenta tambien la etapa previa de modelado. Por ello, se ha planteado una metodologia de evaluacion para evaluar la representatividad de los modelos generados, utilizando una nueva metrica desarrollada para tal fin: representatividad normalizada. Los resultados han demostrado como la aproximacion de modelado propuesta mejora el rendimiento de otras tecnicas del estado del arte. El modelado propuesto ha sido aplicado a varias aproximaciones de recomendacion de contenidos, basadas en Recuperacion de Informacion. Para la evaluacion de estas aproximaciones se ha planteado una tarea de evaluacion con usuarios reales, mediante la utilizacion de un prototipo de evaluacion, desarrollado para tal fin. Los resultados muestran como el rendimiento del sistema de recomendacion mejoran los de un sistema de recuperacion de informacion en terminos de satisfaccion de usuario, en un contexto susceptible de ser afectado por la sobre-especializacion de las recomendaciones.
WELLSO 2017 IV International Scientific Symposium Lifelong Wellbeing in the World STATE AND BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP AS AN ADAPTATION INSTRUMENT

The following article looks how the climate changes influence on dangerous industries. Global warming provokes natural disasters hurricanes, tsunami, earthquakes – that have negative influence on ultra dangerous industries. In the article particularly there is an example of Japanese “Fukushima – 1” atomic power plant accident which was caused by the earthquake and tsunami. In economics theory there are two points how to reduce ecological risks. The first one is based on state restrictive measures – financial instruments. The second point is based on business adaptation to constantly changing climate conditions of management. The article suggests economical strategy, which allows to combine resources of state, business, scientific institutes and non-profit organizations to reduce the risk of technogeneous disasters. Attention is given to the fact that in actively developing Russian economy with the growth of society needs the lack of possibilities of state financing is perceived, at the same time there are large investment projects which can’t be realized only by means of market mechanisms because of their scale and social importance. It is connected with the sphere of national safety, fuel – energy industry, transport infrastructure and community facilities. In this regard, the article discusses the French experience to realize large scale projects in the sphere of power industry. © 2018 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy. org.UK
Social Networking

SUMMARY The major social networking tools like MySpace and Facebook give people an online identity-and an online space to call their own. Other social networking tools are more nuanced than sharing whole personalities like on MySpace. Tools like Library Thing, Flickr, and del. icio.us that focus on connecting people through certain media and interests offer specialized value to users. This paper describes major social networking, social media sharing, and social bookmarking tools; what they are used for; and how libraries and librarians are using them. Tagging, a concept critical to social bookmarking and social media sharing, and folksonomy are discussed in relation to these tools.
Bond Fund Performance: Does Management Activity Pay?

Why are investors still pouring money into active funds despite numerous findings of underperformance and growing supply of low-cost passive alternatives? Recent equity fund studies explain this behavior with a positive activity-performance relation. This study is the first consistently analyzing the activity-performance relation in corporate and government bond funds since the 1980s. Contrasting equity funds, bond fund performance negatively relates to higher activity, especially to timing. Selection activity was positively related to performance only during the 2000s but is since then negatively related. Thus, higher activity does not pay for bond funds! Digging deeper into the sources of the relation for corporate bond funds reveals that intensive derivative use, long derivatives, larger size, higher fees, lower flow risk and a non-fundamental investment approach signal a less negative relation. For government bond funds, the results suggest that management ability is generally lower than in corporate bond funds.
Factors Influencing Strategic Planning Practices in Government Organizations: A Case of Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT . vi TABLE OF CONTENTS . vii LIST OF TABLES . ix LIST OF FIGURES . x LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS . xi CHAPTER ONE . 1 1.0 INTRODUCTION. 1 1.1 Background of the Study . 1 1.2 Statement of the Problem . 4 1.3 General Objectives . 5 1.4 Specific Objectives . 5 1.5 Significance of the Study . 6 1.6 Scope of the Study . 7 1.7 Definition of Terms. 7 1.8 Chapter Summary . 9 CHAPTER TWO . 10 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW . 10 2.
Efficient hydrogen production from alcohols under mild reaction conditions.

Today more than 80% of the energy consumed worldwide is based on fossil fuels. It is undisputable that the resulting CO 2 release has unwanted environmental consequences, such as global warming. In addition, fossil fuels are inherently limited. Therefore, developing a benign, unlimited energy system based on renewable resources represents one of the major challenges for the future. Among the different concepts for alternative energy carriers, the development of a “hydrogen-economy” has been proposed. In this respect in recent years, the use of biomass for hydrogen production has attracted much attention. Here, the dehydrogenation of bioalcohols and carbohydrates shows high potential. In the past, significant progress for this process has been achieved by using heterogeneous catalysts.
Diagnosis and management of cough executive summary: ACCP evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.

Recognition of the importance of cough in clinical medicine was the impetus for the original evidence-based consensus panel report on “Managing Cough as a Defense Mechanism and as a Symptom,” published in 1998,1 and this updated revision. Compared to the original cough consensus statement, this revision (1) more narrowly focuses the guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of cough, the symptom, in adult and pediatric populations, and minimizes the discussion of cough as a defense mechanism; (2) improves on the rigor of the evidence-based review and describes the methodology in a separate section; (3) updates and expands, when appropriate, all previous sections; and (4) adds new sections with topics that were not previously covered. These new sections include nonasthmatic eosinophilic bronchitis (NAEB); acute bronchitis; nonbronchiectatic suppurative airway diseases; cough due to aspiration secondary to oral/pharyngeal dysphagia; environmental/occupational causes of cough; tuberculosis (TB) and other infections; cough in the dialysis patient; uncommon causes of cough; unexplained cough, previously referred to as idiopathic cough; an empiric integrative approach to the management of cough; assessing cough severity and efficacy of therapy in clinical research; potential future therapies; and future directions for research.
The future for (second) life and learning

This paper highlights the potential of three-dimensional multi-user environments such as Second Life (SL) from the perspective of future developments in the service of learning. It notes trends within the SL innovation to date, including the provision of realistic settings, the exploitation of pleasant simulated environments for groups and the links with other learning technologies. It also considers the creativity sparked by SL’s potential to offer the illusion of 3-D ‘spaces’ and buildings, and points to infinite imaginative educational possibilities. It explores aspects of the construction of virtual representations of learners and teachers as avatars, and reveals a wide range of intriguing issues yet to be researched.
Relationship of human rectal aberrant crypt foci and formation of colorectal polyp: One-year following up after polypectomy.

AIM To clarify the relationship of human rectal aberrant crypt foci and formation of colorectal polyp. METHODS Eighty-nine subjects were recruited from the population of Japanese individuals who underwent polypectomy at Yokohama City University Hospital. All patients had baseline adenomas removed at year 0 colonoscopy. Aberrant crypt foci (ACF) were defined as lesions in which the crypts were more darkly stained with methylene blue than normal crypts and had larger diameters, often with oval or slit-like lumens and a thicker epithelial lining. RESULTS A total of 366 ACFs were identified in 89 patients; all had baseline adenomas removed at the first examination (year 0) colonoscopy and returned for the second (year 1). ACF in the lower rectum were assessed at year 0 and study group were divided into two groups depend on ACF numbers, 0-3 or over 3. All participants were examined in the number and maximum size of adenoma. There was no statistical difference in number and maximum size of ACF at year 0, however, maximum size of adenoma was larger in over 3 group than 0-3 group at year 1. CONCLUSION The number of ACF may be a predictive factor of relatively large adenoma incidence in the pilot phase study.