Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Application Extent of the Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) Main Components in the Jordanian Industrial Public Firms

This study aims to measure the application extent of a four main components of the Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) in the Jordanian public industrial firms which are Sales & Marketing, Management & Production, Accounting & Finance, and Human Resources, and to classify the application extent in these firms to low, medium and high. The study was applied on a sample of 82 firms. The results indicated that there is a medium application extent for the four components of Sales & Marketing, Management & Production, Accounting & Finance, and Human Resources, and the level of application was close for these four components Keywords : Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP), Application extent, Industrial firms, Jordan.
Efficient Reactivation of Latent Herpes Simplex Virus from Mouse Central Nervous System Tissues

ABSTRACT For decades, numerous ex vivo studies have documented that latent herpes simplex virus (HSV) reactivates efficiently from ganglia, but rarely from the central nervous systems (CNS), of mice when assayed by mincing tissues before explant culture, despite the presence of viral genomes in both sites. Here we show that 88% of mouse brain stems reactivated latent virus when they were dissociated into cell suspensions before ex vivo explant culture. The efficient reactivation of HSV from the mouse CNS was demonstrated with more than one viral strain, viral serotype, and mouse strain, further indicating that the CNS can be an authentic latency site for HSV with the potential to cause recurrent disease.
Corporate Governance in Emerging Markets: Why It Matters to Investors - and What They Can Do About It

What should investors do when scholarly research on corporate governance in emerging markets does not provide conclusive evidence on which aspects of governance matter most across all the emerging markets and how they affect firm performance? A researcher and a practitioner team up to offer guidelines and recommendations that focus on board independence and business group affiliation. Every day, institutional investors in emerging markets must make practical decisions on the basis of incomplete and at times conflicting information. So, it is critically important that they make the best use of this imperfect knowledge. Moreover, investors too often enter emerging markets with misguided perceptions of the underlying realities. And worse, they may cling to a conceptual framework of governance that does not allow them even to consider the searching questions they should be asking. This Private Sector Opinion, by the authors, explicitly highlights this problem. The authors identify a serious gap in research on emerging markets between high-level cross-country studies, with their inconclusive findings on good governance indicators at the macro level, and the separate effort to establish firm-level or country-specific governance metrics, typically based on what works 'in the West. ' Unfortunately, less than one percent of the research papers available on corporate governance focus on emerging markets.
Speech modeling and processing by low-dimensional dynamic glottal models

We discuss the use of low-dimensional physical models of the voice source for speech coding and processing applications. A class of waveform-adaptive dynamic glottal models and parameter tracking procedures are illustrated. The model and analysis procedures are assessed by addressing signal transformations on recorded speech, achievable by fitting the model to the data, and then acting on the physically-oriented parameters of the voice source. The class of models proposed provides in principle a tool for both the estimation of glottal source signals, and the encoding of the speech signal for transformation purposes. The application of this model to time stretching and to frequency control (pitch shifting) is also illustrated. The experiments show that copy synthesis is perceptually almost indistinguishable form the target, and that time stretching and ”pitch extrapolation” effects can be obtained by simple control strategies.
Les différences de performance financière entre les entreprises: résultats du marché français

The question of what drives firm profitability has been intriguing re-searchers for some time. At the heart of the debate lies the relative importance of the industry structure, corporate strategy, and firm heterogeneity on firm performance. The current paper reexamines this issue using the data from French publicly traded companies. The findings indicate some convergence [e.g. the role of industry and firm effects] and divergence [e.g. the role of diversification] with some of the studies that use data from the US market.
Renal Transplant Al › c › lar › nda Hiperkolesterolemi Tedavisi Treatment of Hypercholesterolemia in the Kidney Transplant Recipient Population

Introduction Premature cardiovascular morbidity and mortality are still the major problems in the long-term after renal transplantation (1). The relative age-specific death rates due to cardiovascular disease are 510 times greater than in the general population (13). Hyperlipidemia is a major modifiable risk factor contributing to cardiovascular complications after renal transplantation (4). It has also been implicated in the development of chronic allograft nephropathy and may jeopardize long-term graft outcome (5,6). Short-term studies have demonstrated that hypercholesterolemia with raised low density lipoprotein (LDL) represented the most frequent abnormality, which was associated with corticosteroid and cyclosporine treatment in a dose-dependent manner (7). In this review, the lipid abnormalities and the use of anti-lipidemic treatment in renal transplant recipient population will be summarized.
Effect of Surgical Trauma on Regional Blood Flow in Rat Sciatic Nerve

UNLABELLED The factors affecting peripheral nerve blood flow (NBF) are not well defined. We used [14C]butanol distribution to quantitate NBF in rat sciatic nerve following either (1) simple surgical exposure (EXP) or (2) EXP plus nerve mobilization and isolation (ISOL). Undisturbed contralateral nerves were controls. The epineurial contribution to NBF after EXP was also assessed. Results (units: ml.min-1 x 100 g-1): Within 1 to 6 h after EXP (N = 7), NBF was 22.1 +/- 2.7 vs 11.9 +/- 1.5 control (P < 0.01). Seven to 24 h after EXP (N = 6), NBF was unchanged from control. Two hours following EXP, both endoneurial NBF and total (epineurial plus endoneurial) NBF were elevated (P < 0.05, P < 0.02, respectively). Within 48 h after ISOL (N = 6) NBF was 30.3 +/- 3.9 vs 13.2 +/- 2.1 control (P < 0.005). Three to seven days after ISOL (N = 8), NBF was unchanged from control. CONCLUSION Surgical trauma induces a brisk flow response in peripheral nerve that is proportionate in duration to the trauma severity. Measurements of NBF after EXP or ISOL are therefore potentially misleading if the changes in NBF due to the trauma are not accounted for.
Implementation and acceptance of hospital information system

Healthcare is important to every country, including developing country like Malaysia in providing a good life. Therefore, the Malaysian Government had taken several iniatiatives to enhance healthcare sector. One of the initiatives is bringing the Information System into Malaysian Public Hospitals. This is similar to enhance the ICT tools within Malaysia in achieving 2020 Vision to make Malaysia as developed country. Thus, this paper is aims to investigate the implementation of THIS, IHIS and BHIS in Malaysian Public Hospitals based on interviews. The findings were analysed by content analysis using Nvivo. From the findings, it was found that the HIS implementation phases have different phases in each category of HIS hospitals, however their activities are similar. Moreover, the types of HIS have faces with different issues and challenges of low satisfaction and acceptance levels.
Impact of continuous Medical Aid utilisation on healthcare utilisation: unique insight using the 2008–2012 Korean Welfare Panel Study (KOWEPS)

Objectives Although there has been considerable discussion about the social safety net, few studies related to effect of duration of continuous receipt of Medical Aid on healthcare utilisation have been conducted. Therefore, we investigate whether the duration of receiving Medical Aid affected medical care utilisation. Setting Data were collected from the Korean Welfare Panel Study conducted from 2008 to 2012. Participants We included 11 783 samples. Interventions Estimating changes in their healthcare utilisation during specific time intervals (1, 2 and ≥3 years) after they switched from National Health Insurance to Medical Aid. Primary and secondary outcome measures Number of outpatient visits. Results The number of outpatient visits per year was 0.0.051-fold higher (p value: 0.434) among those who were Medical Aid beneficiaries for a continuous period of 1 year, 0.0. 267-fold higher (p value: 0.000) among those who were beneficiaries for a continuous period of 2 years, and 0.0. 562-fold higher (p value:<0.0001) among those who were beneficiaries for a continuous period of 3 years than it was among those who were beneficiaries of National Health Insurance. Conclusions Our results reflect an association between the number of consecutive years of receiving Medical Aid and number of outpatient visits. Since duration of dependence is correlated with reduced exit rates, limits on length of benefits should be considered to strengthen the incentive to return to work.
Workplace Flexibility and Institutions in Europe. A Tale of Two Countries

This paper studies the determinants of the joint adoption of employment, wage and working time flexibility in workplaces, paying attention to the existence of complementarities. To better understand the role of country-specific institutional features, we compare the adoption of flexibility in Italy and Great Britain, two EU countries characterized by quite different product and labour market regulation. Empirical analysis based on establishment-level data shows that the probability of adopting any forms of flexibility is highly influenced by both firm characteristics and institutional variables, mainly by employment protection, union power and firm-level bargaining. Country-specific patterns also emerge: in Italy employment and wage flexibility are complement and they are both substitute for time flexibility; in Great Britain the flexibility mix is less clear cut. These results suggest that both policy makers and social partners should be aware that incentives or restrictions to specific forms of flexibility are likely to produce effects also on the use of other flexible work arrangements.
Development of system for measuring visibility along the free space optical link using digital camera

Fog and low cloudiness are the worst phenomena for Free Space Optical (FSO) links. High density of small water particles of the size comparable to the wavelength of radiation attenuates the signal and cause communication outages. We present the results from the constructed visibility measurement using camera with black and white target in real conditions at the mountain meteorological observatory Milešovka. It is proved that the camera measurement system is able to measure inhomogeneous fog along the FSO link and detects quick changes in visibility in contrast to the professional visibility meters. The correlation coefficient between the measured attenuation and theoretic attenuation of optical link computed from measured visibility reaches value 0.97 in the selected time interval. The camera measurement differs from the calibrated visibility meters by a maximum of a few meters in homogeneous fog.
Achieving enterprise competitiveness through an effective management process

The paper draws attention to the importance of a management process for enterprise competitiveness. By adapting the input-output analysis framework, a management system model is developed as a way to assess and evaluate a management process. Based on in-depth interviews with top executives, the model helps evaluate the effectiveness of a management process. This evaluation is based on a manufacturing firm with ISO 9001: 2008 and HACCP, and a service provider with numerous quality- related awards and an international accreditation. The findings essentially underline the significance of performance measurement in an effective management process and identify three roadblock for achieving this effectiveness. Finally, future research direction on management process is also suggested.
The Good Temp

Excerpt] The story of the explosion of temporary employment and the challenge to the permanent employment contract in the last half of the twentieth century has been told many times. Researchers from''a variety of academic disciplines have written about it, as have activists who organize to help American workers maintain a decent standard of living and a modicum of dignity, and policy analysts who fear the degradation of the employment relationship that seems to be a foregone implication of temporary work. They have focused on different units of analysis: workers who desire permanent jobs but can't find them, workers who have lost out as companies have downsized and restructured, businesses and their myriad reasons for using temporary workers as a solution to their profitability and competition problems, and the temporary help service industry (THS) itself. The Good Temp takes a different tack to explain these developments in labor market institutions and behaviors. Specifically, we look at how the THS industry in the United States reinvented temporary work in the second half of the twentieth century and examine how individual THS agencies continue to manufacture and market this reinvented product—the good temporary worker—today. It is a customized, historically specific make and model whose marketability rested on two selling points: that temporary employment could be a viable alternative to permanent employment and that the workers on whom the system of temporary employment relations depends could be as good as permanent workers and sometimes better. The historical and social construction of "the good temp," we show, was embedded in THS-industry profitmaking strategies and relied on the diffusion of new norms about what constituted acceptable employment practice. Now entrenched, these norms underpin our current employment relations in the United States which many, if not most, of us experience as precarious and contingent, even when we have so-called permanent jobs.
Effects of TOD on Housing, Parking, and Travel

This report provides original data on transit-oriented development (TOD) residential trip generation and parking, and the behavior and motivation of TOD residents, employees, and employers in their mode choice. The report also identifies best practices to promote, maintain, and improve TOD-related transit ridership. This report will be helpful to project, land-use, and transportation planners; transit agencies; the development community; and federal, state, and local decision makers considering TOD.
Impact of Different Welding Techniques on Biological Effect Markers in Exhaled Breath Condensate of 58 Mild Steel Welders

Total mass and composition of welding fumes are predominantly dependent on the welding technique and welding wire applied. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of welding techniques on biological effect markers in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) of 58 healthy welders. The welding techniques applied were gas metal arc welding with solid wire (GMAW) (n = 29) or flux cored wire (FCAW) (n = 29). Welding fume particles were collected with personal samplers in the breathing zone inside the helmets. Levels of leukotriene B4 (LTB4), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), and 8-isoprostane (8-iso-PGF2α) were measured with immunoassay kits and the EBC pH was measured after deaeration. Significantly higher 8-iso-PGF2α concentrations and a less acid pH were detected in EBC of welders using the FCAW than in EBC of welders using the GMAW technique. The lowest LTB4 concentrations were measured in nonsmoking welders applying a solid wire. No significant influences were found in EBC concentrations of PGE2 based upon smoking status or type of welding technique. This study suggests an enhanced irritative effect in the lower airways of mild steel welders due to the application of FCAW compared to GMAW, most likely associated with a higher emission of welding fumes.
Cardiac functional and structural alterations induced by endotoxin in rats: Importance of platelet-activating factor

ObjectiveIn this study, we evaluated the time course of the alterations in left ventricular (LV) dimensions, LV wall thickness, and LV systolic function in rats with endotoxemia by using echocardiography as well as myocardial histopathologic assessments. Our second goal was to examine whether pretreatment with a platelet-activating factor (PAF) antagonist would ameliorate the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced cardiovascular collapse during the early phase. DesignA prospective, controlled, in vivo animal laboratory study. SettingResearch laboratory at a university. SubjectsMale, Wistar rats (8–9 wks old; n = 83). InterventionsIn pentobarbital-anesthetized rats, the right carotid artery was cannulated to measure the arterial blood pressure and to sample blood. The right jugular vein also was catheterized for the administration of drugs. LPS (2 mg/kg) derived from Klebsiella pneumoniae or physiologic saline was administered in the presence or absence of pretreatment with TCV-309, a specific potent PAF antagonist. Echocardiographic studies were performed with an 8- to 13-MHz transducer. Measurements and Main Results LPS administration immediately induced progressive hypotension. The maximal hypotensive response was observed at 10 mins after LPS infusion with mean arterial pressure decreasing from 119 ± 2 to 56 ± 3 mm Hg (p < .001). LV end-diastolic internal dimensions decreased from 6.4 ± 0.1 to 3.1 ± 0.1 mm (p < .001) at 30 mins after LPS and remained significantly reduced compared with control rats. LV end-systolic dimensions also decreased dramatically from 3.5 ± 0.2 to 0.5 ± 0.1 mm (p < .001) at 30 mins after LPS and remained significantly reduced throughout the experiment. LV fractional shortening increased from 45 ± 1% to 84 ± 2% (p < .001) at 30 mins after LPS and remained elevated compared with control rats. LV wall thickness increased strikingly from 15 mins until 2 hrs after LPS infusion. Pathologic studies demonstrated marked congestion of capillaries and mild edema in the LV myocardium. The hematocrit increased after the administration of LPS. LPS markedly increased sympathetic tone as demonstrated by the elevation of plasma concentrations of epinephrine and norepinephrine. There was no elevation of concentrations of nitrite and nitrate. Pretreatment with TCV-309, a specific potent PAF antagonist, reduced LPS-induced hypotension and attenuated LV functional and structural changes. TCV-309 administration reduced the LPS-induced adrenergic activation and hemoconcentration. ConclusionsThe hypotension that occurred during the initial phase of LPS-induced shock was accompanied by LV functional and structural alterations. The marked increase in LV wall thickness can be ascribed to the congestion of capillaries and edema in the LV myocardium. Pretreatment with a PAF antagonist reduced LPS-induced alterations. PAF may play a pivotal role during the initial phase of LPS-induced cardiovascular responses.
Comment on “Global diversity and geography of soil fungi”

Tedersoo et al. (Research Article, 28 November 2014, p. 1078) present a compelling study regarding patterns of biodiversity of fungi, carried out at a scale unprecedented to date for fungal biogeographical studies. The study demonstrates strong global biogeographic patterns in richness and community composition of soil fungi. What concerns us with the study is what we do not see. Unfortunately, this study underestimates the fungal diversity of one key group of soil fungi due to reliance on a single primer with known flaws.
Haemolysis of Plasmodium falciparum trophozoite‐infected erythrocytes after artemisinin exposure

This study has examined in vitro, how exposure to the antimalarial drug artemisinin affects Plasmodium falciparum and its host erythrocytes. Factors examined include: cell morphology, intracellular haemoglobin levels, and haemoglobin catabolism (haemozoin production). To avoid uninfected erythrocytes complicating the study, P. falciparum ring‐infected erythrocytes were concentrated to 99% parasitaemia, by saponin haemolysis, before the parasites were grown with or without artemisinin. Without artemisinin, the parasites completed their life cycle in the normal time (40 h), during which a mean of 980 pmol of ferriprotoporphyrin IX from haemoglobin was incorporated into haemozoin per 106 parasitized erythrocytes, and intracellular haemoglobin level decreased by 90%. Exposure of ring‐infected erythrocytes to artemisinin (250 ng per ml of culture medium) inhibited parasite growth completely, haemozoin production by 95%, and decreased the intraerythrocytic haemoglobin level by 90%; the infected erythrocytes remained intact during the 64 h of study. Haemozoin production was also inhibited when the drug was administered at the trophozoite stage of parasite growth, but the infected erythrocytes haemolysed. These findings may contribute to understanding of antimalarial actions of artemisinin that promote parasite clearance.
Delft University of Technology Review of energy-efficient train control and timetabling

The energy consumption of trains is highly efficient due to the low friction between steel wheels and rails, although the efficiency is also influenced largely by the driving strategy applied and the scheduled running times in the timetable. Optimal energy-efficient driving strategies can reduce operating costs significantly and contribute to a further increase of the sustainability of railway transportation. The railway sector hence shows an increasing interest in efficient algorithms for energy-efficient train control, which could be used in real-time Driver Advisory Systems (DAS) or Automatic Train Operation (ATO) systems. This paper gives an extensive literature review on energy-efficient train control (EETC) and the related topic of energy-efficient train timetabling (EETT), from the first simple models from the 1960s of a train running on a level track to the advanced models and algorithms of the last decade dealing with varying gradients and speed limits, and including regenerative braking. Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle (PMP) has been applied intensively to derive optimal driving regimes that make up the optimal energy-efficient driving strategy of a train under different conditions. Still, the optimal sequence and switching points of the optimal driving regimes are not trivial in general, which led to a wide range of optimization models and algorithms to compute the optimal train trajectories and more recently to use them to optimize timetables with a trade-off between energy efficiency and travel times.