Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Farm Level Capital: Capital positions, structures, the dynamics of farm level investments, capital accumulation and leverage positions

This paper aims to describe and highlight the key issues of farm capital structures, the dynamics of investments and accumulation of farm capital, and the financial leverage and borrowing rates on farms in selected European countries. Data collected from the Farm Account Data Network (FADN) suggest that the European farming sector uses quite different farm business strategies, capabilities to generate capital revenues, and segmented agricultural loan market regimes. Such diverse business strategies have substantial, and perhaps more substantial than expected, implications for the financial leverage and performance of farms. As an illustration, the financial risks clearly increased in the Danish agricultural sector with loan rates following an upward sloping trend in 2006; the first sign of the forthcoming financial crisis that may also severely hit highly leveraged agricultural firms. By using standard measures for farm assets and lending rates, we reveal that countries adopt different approaches to evaluating agricultural assets, or the agricultural asset markets simply differ substantially depending on the country in question. This has implications for most of the financial indicators. In those countries that have seen rapidly increasing asset prices at the margin, which were revised accordingly in the accounting systems for the whole stock of assets, firm values increased significantly, even though the firms had been disinvesting. If there is an asset price bubble and it bursts, there may be serious knock-on effects for some countries. The large variation in leverage positions and their substantial decrease over time raises new issues to be addressed in more analytical studies.
Intra- and interobserver agreement on radiographic phenotype in the diagnosis of canine hip dysplasia.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the repeatability and reproducibility of the presence of a circumferential femoral head osteophyte (CFHO), a curvilinear caudolateral osteophyte (CCO), osteosclerosis of the cranial acetabular edge (Scler CrAE), degenerative joint disease (DJD), and the diagnosis of suspected canine hip dysplasia (CHD) in different groups of experienced observers. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SAMPLE POPULATION Standard hip extended radiographs (n = 50). METHODS Nine experienced observers were divided into 3 groups: surgeons (DECVS), radiologists (DECVDI), and non-board certified observers (NBC) and 2 subgroups (academics and non-academics). Cohen's kappa (κ) was calculated for CFHO, CCO, Scler CrAE, DJD, and suspected CHD, and weighted κ was calculated for DJD score to determine inter- and intraobserver agreement. RESULTS Intraobserver agreement on CFHO, CCO, Scler CrAE, DJD, and suspected CHD ranged from slight to almost perfect, but was not significantly different between NBC, DECVS, and DECVDI. Radiologists and non-board certified observers had a more uniform scoring than surgeons on the overall DJD score, as did academics versus non-academics. Interobserver agreement for NBC was more uniform than that of radiologists and surgeons on CCO and DJD. NBC and radiologists scored more uniformly than surgeons on CFHO, and radiologists scored more uniformly than NBC and surgeons on Scler CrAE. Academics scored more uniformly than non-academics, but only significantly for Scler CrAE. CONCLUSIONS Recognition of specific radiographic markers is only fairly reliable within and between experienced observers. Therefore, care must be taken to apply these traits in official screening, surgical decision-making and scientific research.
Very High Power IGCT PEBB technology

In the field of power electronics the power electronics building block (PEBB) is a key functional component. With regard to the applications, it is of outmost importance that the PEBB technology used is compact, cost-effective and reliable. The IGCT is at the forefront of technology in high power, medium-voltage applications. For further improvement in size and costs a new ANPC IGCT PEBB has been developed. The main new technologies to achieve higher powers are the new low-inductive gate-unit to maintain hardswitched operation up to more than 6000 A, the increased SOA of the 91 mm asymmetric IGCT (4 inch technology) and the antiparallel diode up to more than 6000 A and the active NPC technology, which allows an optimum and equal loss balancing in all power semiconductors. The maximum inverter output power has been increased by 80% with a parallel increase in the power density and reduced costs per kVA
Plug-In Electric Vehicles: A Case Study of Seven Markets

This paper provides insights into the developing plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) markets in Norway, Netherlands, California, United States, France, Japan, and Germany. This is accomplished by applying a Technological Innovation System (TIS) approach that systematically identifies the role of different factors in promulgating new markets. The authors comparison between markets shows that in all studied regions, sales of PEVs are supported through various types of government incentives, government resources, and other activities. However, regions with relatively strong PEV markets have a greater focus on market formation activities and relatively higher costs savings associated with operating an electric vehicle as compared to a conventional vehicle. To determine whether these factors are the primary determinants of PEV market shares, further research should be undertaken that also incorporates analysis related to the presence and government support for entrepreneurial activities related to electric vehicle innovation.
Ethics and Business Strategy: Sexual Orientation in IKEA

The company is the dynamic outcome of economic and social forces that influence each other; this idea requires to dedicate effort and attention to managing relational dynamics among its components. This study aims to investigate how protecting the worker also in his sexual orientation may positively influence the economic results of the whole business. The sampling technique used proves to be representative of the conclusions obtained. The survey will be developed trying to understand how this dynamics are managed within the Swedish multinational IKEA, a corporate traditionally careful towards such issues.
Best Places to Live

See all WINNER Top 100 rank: 35 Population: 83,000 Compare Edmond to Top 10 Best Places A 20-minute drive from Oklahoma City, this affluent bedroom community is the definition of family-friendly. Crime is low, for one thing. Jobs are plentiful. And there's lots for parents and kids to do right in town: Residents cite the weeklong "Liberty Fest" Fourth of July festival as an must-go event. Edmond is also home to the University of Central Oklahoma, which in turn is the nation's official home for competitive "sitting volleyball," played by disabled athletes. Go cheer them on! --B.D. Subscribe to Money Magazine
Impact of conscious intent on chunking during motor learning

Humans and other mammals learn sequences of movements by splitting them into smaller “chunks. ” Such chunks are defined by the faster speed of performance of groups of movements. The purpose of this report is to determine how conscious intent to learn impacts chunking, an issue that remains unknown. Here, we studied 80 subjects who either with or without conscious intent learned a motor sequence. Performance was tested before and up to 1-wk post-training. Chunk formation, carryover of chunks, and concatenation of chunks into longer chunks, all measures of motor chunking success, were determined at each time-point. We found that formation, carryover, and concatenation of chunks were comparable across groups and did not improve over the training session and subsequent testing times. Thus, motor learning progressed in the absence of improvements in chunking irrespective of conscious intent. These data suggest that mechanisms other than chunking contribute to successful motor learning with and without conscious intent.
The Black Box: Unraveling Family Business Succession

Using the family business succession, resourcebased view of firms, familiness, and organizational clan literatures, this article develops a model based on the ability of the family business to use familiness, a specific bundle of attributes deriving from a family’s culture, as a competitive advantage for the family firm. In particular, this resource-based framework of family business shows how familiness can distinguish between family firms that succeed beyond the second generation and those that do not. Implications for future research are discussed.
Management of systemic sclerosis.

Systemic sclerosis is a connective tissue disorder with a prevalence of 19±75 cases per 100,000 people. It is characterized by fibrosis of the skin and visceral organs, prominent vascular phenomena, such as Raynaud's, and immune aberration. There is a broad spectrum of disease with diverse presentations and a variable disease course. The limited form of scleroderma features skin fibrosis limited to distal extremities and has a more indolent disease course. The diffuse variant can have widespread and life-threatening organ involvement, including cutaneous, gastrointestinal, renal and cardiorespiratory systems. The cause of SSc remains unknown, but both genetic and environmental factors are thought to contribute to disease pathogenesis. Immune mediators stimulate fibroblasts and damage vascular endothelium, which in turn causes mediator release resulting in further fibroblast proliferation [Figure 1]. Fibroblast stimulation leads to increased collagen production, the hallmark of SSc. Furst [1] has argued persuasively that rational treatment of SSc should aim to interrupt the above pathogenic cycle. Treatment should be directed at prevention and limiting of vascular damage, at prevention and resolution of fibrosis, and/or at suppression of the immune response. In this article, we review the treatment of SSc taking Furst's mechanistic approach, dividing therapies into those that interfere with vascular phenomena, antifibrotic agents and immunosuppressive drugs respectively. Many difficulties confront clinical researchers in SSc: the relative rarity of the condition; the relatively slow rate of disease progression resulting in the need for long duration clinical trials; the difficulty of identifying reliable, reproducible outcome measures; the inclusion of patients with late, potentially irreversible disease; and disease heterogeneity [2,3]. However, the trend towards large multicenter national and international clinical trials of longer duration involving patients with early disease and the use of standardized disease-scoring systems is helping to overcome these problems. Prevention and treatment of vascular phenomena Vascular involvement is prominent in SSc, with Raynaud's phenomenon occurring almost universally. The involvement of renal or pulmonary vasculature is serious and life-threatening.
NUMERICAL PREDICTIONS OF WIND TURBINE POWER AND AERODYNAMIC LOADS FOR THE NREL PHASE II COMBINED EXPERIMENT ROTOR

A blade element momentum (BEM), vortex lattice (VL) and a Reynolds-avera ged thin-layer Navier-Stokes method (RaNS) were evaluated for their ability to predict the aerodynamic performance of the Combined Experiment Phase II Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine. To evaluate blade stall modeling, the BEM and VL methods utilized the Du-Selig stall delay model along with experimental and computationally derived airfoil characteristics. To validate the methods, experimental data from the IEA Annex XIV database were used. Additional data reduction was applied to sort the experimental data into steady wind speed bins with known error and to make it suitable for validation of numerical methods. All three methods produce good power and sectional normal force predictions at pre-stall wind conditions. The RaNS method fails to capture the correct aerodynamic performance once the blade begins to stall. The VL and BEM methods show better capability in predicting post stall behavior, however to obtain more accurate power and load predictions they need improved stall delay models and adequate airfoil properties. Predicting the correct inboard stall delay is still a challenge to these methods.
The life course perspective: a challenge for public health research and prevention.

Recently, there has been a growing awareness in public health research of the long-term impact on health of various events and exposures earlier in life. Last year this journal introduced a section with several papers applying such a ‘life course perspective’, which illustrated the contributions that this perspective is already making to the field of social epidemiology.1,2 The first proponents of the ‘life course perspective’ concentrated on events and exposures in fetal life,3 but later studies showed that circumstances throughout childhood and adult age influence health in old age.4 A number of chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and some cancers seem to be influenced … Correspondence: Merete Osler, Professor, Institute of Public Health/Epidemiology, University of Southern Denmark, JB Winsowsvej 9B, 5000 Odense C, Denmark, e-mail: Mosler{at}health.sdu. dk
Water Deficit Effects on Osmotic Potential, Cell Wall Elasticity, and Proline in Five Forage Grasses

Physiological responses of forage grasses to water deficit are not well documented, but may be important in determining drought resistance. The objective of this study was to determine the response of osmotic potential, leaf proline concentration, and cell wall elasticity to water deficit for the C 4 (warm-season) grasses 'Nebraska 54' indiangrass [Sorghastrum nutans (L.) Nash], 'Pathfinder' switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), and 'Pawnee' big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman), and the C 3 (cool-season) grasses, 'Ioreed' reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.), and 'Lincoln' smooth bromegrass (Bromus inermis Leyss.). Other measurements included leaf water potential, soil water content, and osmotic adjustment [. ]
Essays On Customer Relationship Management In Social Networks

We study the “group-to-one” social influence of strong and weak ties within a social network in the context of virtual product purchasing. We propose a comprehensive framework combining social interaction models, social influence models, and tie strength measures. We use customer data provided by an online gaming company to test our framework, which is built with four generalized linear mixed models. We find that the social influence mechanism through strong and weak ties is complex. Sharing and reciprocity play an important role in the way social influence affects customers’ purchasing behaviors. We also find that, as a whole, weak ties are more influential than strong ties. We run policy simulations to demonstrate the utility of our framework and discuss how companies can use it to increase their revenues. Our research findings are also applicable to other industries, particularly the eBook and online music industry.
Use of a Green Fluorescent Strain for Analysis of Xylella fastidiosa Colonization of Vitis vinifera

ABSTRACT Xylella fastidiosa causes Pierce's disease of grapevine as well as several other major agricultural diseases but is a benign endophyte in most host plants. X. fastidiosa colonizes the xylem vessels of host plants and is transmitted by xylem sap-feeding insect vectors. To understand better the pattern of host colonization and its relationship to disease, we engineered X. fastidiosa to express a green fluorescent protein (Gfp) constitutively and performed confocal laser-scanning microscopic analysis of colonization in a susceptible host, Vitis vinifera. In symptomatic leaves, the fraction of vessels colonized by X. fastidiosa was fivefold higher than in nearby asymptomatic leaves. The fraction of vessels completely blocked by X. fastidiosa colonies increased 40-fold in symptomatic leaves and was the feature of colonization most dramatically linked to symptoms. Therefore, the extent of vessel blockage by bacterial colonization is highly likely to be a crucial variable in symptom expression. Intriguingly, a high proportion (>80%) of colonized vessels were not blocked in infected leaves and instead had small colonies or solitary cells, suggesting that vessel blockage is not a colonization strategy employed by the pathogen but, rather, a by-product of endophytic colonization. We present evidence for X. fastidiosa movement through bordered pits to neighboring vessels and propose that vessel-to-vessel movement is a key colonization strategy whose failure results in vessel plugging and disease.
Using Partial-Policy Q-Learning to Plan Path for Robot Navigation in Unknown Enviroment

Reinforcement learning has been widely used as a mechanism for robot navigation to learn good policies from the environment and make decisions to take actions with optimizing a cumulative future reward signal. Due to limit power, robots should reach to the final destination in shortest time by taking the shortest path. To achieve this aim, choosing a method to get a shortest path is necessary. However, most RL methods suffer from the slow convergence and the trade-off problem of exploration and exploitation. To solve these problems, a novel improved Q-learning method is proposed. Q-learning is a well-known model-free RL method. Model-free RL methods are computationally cheaper than model-based methods, because action values can be accessed by inspecting a look-up table constructed through trial-and-error. The proposed method uses a non-zero primary values of Q-table instead of all zeroes in conventional Q-learning, and a partial-policy to accelerate the convergence. The results of experiments undertaken on simulated mazes show that the proposed method not only reduces the time consuming but also leads to much better performance than previous model-free method of Q-learning.
Different Risk-Adjusted Fund Performance Measures: A Comparison

Traditional risk-adjusted performance measures, such as the Sharpe ratio, the Treynor index or Jensen's alpha, based on the mean-variance framework, are widely used to rank mutual funds. However, performance measures that consider risk by taking into account only losses, such as Value-at-Risk (VaR), would be more appropriate. Standard VaR assumes that returns are normally distributed, though they usually present skewness and kurtosis. In this paper we compare these different measures of risk: traditional ones vs. ones that take into account fat tails and asymmetry, such as those based on the Cornish-Fisher expansion and on the extreme value theory. Moreover, we construct a performance index similar to the Sharpe ratio using these VaR-based risk measures. We then use these measures to compare the rating of a set of mutual funds, assessing the different measures' usefulness under the Basel II risk management framework.
Deletion of the Myopathy Loop of Dictyostelium Myosin II and Its Impact on Motor Functions*

One of the putative actin-binding sites ofDictyostelium myosin II is the β-strand-turn-β-strand structure (Ile398-Leu-Ala-Gly-Arg-Asp403-Leu-Val405), the “myopathy loop,” which is located at the distal end of the upper 50-kDa subdomain and next to the conserved arginine (Arg397), whose mutation in human cardiac myosin results in familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The myopathy loop contains the TEDS residue (Asp403), which is a target of the heavy-chain kinase in myosin I. Moreover, the loop contains a cluster of hydrophobic residues (Ile398, Leu399, Leu404, and Val405), whose side chains are fully exposed to the solvent. In our study, the myopathy loop was deleted from Dictyostelium myosin II to investigate its functional roles. The mutation abolished hydrophobic interactions of actin and myosin in the strong binding state during the ATPase cycle. Association of the mutant myosin and actin was maintained only through ionic interactions under these conditions. Without strong hydrophobic interactions, the mutant myosin still exhibited motor functions, although at low levels. It is likely that the observed defects resulted mainly from a loss of the cluster of hydrophobic residues, since replacement of Asp403 or Arg402 with alanine generated a mutant with less severe or no defects compared with those of the deletion mutant.
Moving K-7 education into the information age

In this paper, we examine the state of K-7 computer science (CS) education research, and propose how it might be advanced---using graph theory as an example. First, issues raised in CS education research are presented and we high-light some of the results upon which current research can be constructed. We further examine some of the challenges that arise when contemplating the introduction of CS topics in elementary education. We present our current efforts in integrating and evaluating CS topics in elementary classrooms and discuss preliminary outcomes of a study on integrating graph theory into elementary classrooms. Finally we discuss possible future directions for research.
Analysis of the Adoption of ASEAN MRA on Tourism Professional at Jakarta Five Star Hotel Towards the Human Resources Global Competitiveness

A key step towards achieving the successful of an ASEAN MRA in Tourism is the adoption of consistent competency standards in vocational education and training systems for the tourism sector across ASEAN as described in the ASEAN Common Competency Standards for Tourism Professionals (ACCSTTP) Framework. It has been expended with the result of competency standards in 32 jobs titles with 242 competency units. Utilizing methodology of focus group discussion with hotel and tourism practitioners, as well as secondary data from related sources, it has been analyzed that there are some crucial aspects such as the variations and gaps in capacity between ASEAN Member Countries in relation to VET standards for tourism; the need to change from supply-driven to demand-driven VET for tourism qualifications; the need to strengthen the role of Technical Reference Groups (TRGs) to socialize the adoption of ASEAN MRA for Tourism.The results confirm that the adoption of ACCSTP must provide a “common language” for dialogue and recognition of existing accredited hospitality and tourism standard competency for professional qualifications. Widespread adoption of the Framework for job specification for the tourism and hospitality sectors must recognized as an essential step to facilitate wider use of the instrument as a reference for employment of tourism and hospitality sector professionals which contribute to the development of an MRA in Tourism. It is recommended to monitor the adoption progress of the competency standards regularly, the third-party certification’s involvement and adjust the goal accordingly.