Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Invisible Hands and Visible Advisors: An Economic Interpretation of Standardization

This article provides an outline of the economic factors influencing the development of standards. Standards may develop through market mechanisms, organizations that combine market participants and government guidance. Each of these mechanisms may produce desirable outcomes or distort them, depending on market structure, chance historical events, and the costs of technical alternatives. Many economically desirable and distorted outcomes are possible in theory, while in practice, it is often difficult to know what is a good or bad economic choice. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Expression of Salmonella typhimurium rpoS and rpoS-dependent genes in the intracellular environment of eukaryotic cells

Adaptation to the intracellular environment of host cells is crucial for the pathogenesis of Salmonella infections. The alternative sigma factor RpoS is a global regulator of gene expression during starvation and stress conditions and is required for virulence in Salmonella spp. We have used lacZ reporter fusions to rpoS and rpoS-dependent genes to study rpoS regulation after entry of Salmonella typhimurium into macrophages and epithelial cells. The results demonstrate that expression of an rpoS::lacZ translational fusion increases rapidly in S. typhimurium after phagocytosis. Activity of RpoS also increases after bacterial entry into both macrophages and epithelial cells, as demonstrated by the induction of the rpoS-regulated genes katE and spvB. A control rpoS-independent promoter for neomycin resistance does not show significant induction after cell entry. These results demonstrate that the regulatory system mediated by RpoS in S. typhimurium is activated by the intracellular environment of eukaryotic cells.
Distinct functions for Aldh1 and Raldh2 in the control of ligand production for embryonic retinoid signaling pathways.

During vertebrate embryogenesis retinoic acid (RA) synthesis must be spatiotemporally regulated in order to appropriately stimulate various retinoid signaling pathways. Various forms of mammalian aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) have been shown to oxidize the vitamin A precursor retinal to RA in vitro. Here we show that injection of Xenopus embryos with mRNAs for either mouse Aldh1 or mouse Raldh2 stimulates RA synthesis at low and high levels, respectively, while injection of human ALDH3 mRNA is unable to stimulate any detectable level of RA synthesis. This provides evidence that some members of the ALDH gene family can indeed perform RA synthesis in vivo. Whole-mount immunohistochemical analyses of mouse embryos indicate that ALDH1 and RALDH2 proteins are localized in distinct tissues. RALDH2 is detected at E7.5-E10.5 primarily in trunk tissue (paraxial mesoderm, somites, pericardium, midgut, mesonephros) plus transiently from E8.5-E9.5 in the ventral optic vesicle and surrounding frontonasal region. ALDH1 is first detected at E9.0-E10. 5 primarily in cranial tissues (ventral mesencephalon, dorsal retina, thymic primordia, otic vesicles) and in the mesonephros. As previous findings indicate that embryonic RA is more abundant in trunk rather than cranial tissues, our findings suggest that Raldh2 and Aldh1 control distinct retinoid signaling pathways by stimulating high and low RA biosynthetic activities, respectively, in various trunk and cranial tissues.
Why do firms pay for liquidity provision in limit order markets

In recent years, a number of electronic limit order have reintroduced market makers for some securities (Designated Market Makers). This trend has mainly been initiated by financial intermediaries and listed firms themselves, without any regulatory pressure. In this paper we ask why firms are willing to pay to improve the secondary market liquidity of its shares. We show that a contributing factor in this decision is the likelihood that the firm will interact with the capital markets in the near future, either because they have capital needs, or that they are planning to repurchase shares. We also find some evidence of agency costs, managers desiring good liquidity when they plan insider trades.
Pension Calculations for the PAYG and the Funded Pension System in Slovakia

This paper contains the summary of theoretical knowledge about the basic criteria used for the evaluation of performance of the “Pay-As-You-Go” (PAYG) and the “Fully-Funded” pension system. On basis of this knowledge the paper presents the calculations of pension and replacement rates for both systems in the Slovak Republic (SR). The calculations show that the PAYG system designed in the proposed legislation might be unsustainable in the mid-to-long run because of its generosity under the negative expected demography changes. By comparison of replacement rates under different appreciation of the assets in the “Fully-Funded” system and different real wage growth rates in the SR the calculations show under what conditions the “Fully-Funded” pension system outperforms the designed PAYG.
A NEW TREND FOR E-LEARNING IN KSA USING EDUCATIONAL CLOUDS

Cloud computing provides a shared pool of computing resources that can be rapidly and elastically provisioned and released based on users’ demand to serve a wide and constantly expanding range of information processing needs. Due to its tremendous advantages this technology is maturing rapidly and is being adopted in many applications including government, business, and education. In this paper, we study how cloud computing can benefit e-learning education in KSA. We discuss the cloud computing educational environment and explore how universities and institutions may take advantage of clouds not only in terms of cost but also in terms of efficiency, reliability, portability, flexibility, and security. We present several case studies for educational clouds introduced by popular cloud providers which reflect the increasing interest in this new trend. We also discuss future challenges to cloud education.
Parkin Ubiquitinates and Promotes the Degradation of RanBP2*

Parkinson disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder, which involves the deterioration of dopaminergic neurons in the pars compacta of the substantia nigra. The etiology of PD is still unknown, but recent identification of mutations in familial cases of PD has advanced the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of this neurological disease. Mutations in the parkin gene, which encodes for ubiquitin-protein ligase (E3), have been implicated in autosomal recessive juvenile Parkinsonism, an early onset and common familial form of PD. Here we reported that Parkin selectively binds to RanBP2, which is localized in the cytoplasmic filament of the nuclear pore complex and belongs to the small ubiquitin-related modifier E3 ligase family. We also demonstrated that RanBP2 becomes a target for Parkin E3 ubiquitin-ligase and is processed via Parkin-mediated ubiquitination and subsequent proteasomal degradation. Furthermore, Parkin controls the intracellular levels of sumoylated HDAC4, as a result of the ubiquitination and degradation of RanBP2. Our findings suggested that the intracellular levels of RanBP2 and its functional activity may be modulated by Parkin-mediated ubiquitination and proteasomal pathways.
A Network-based View of the U.S. Energy Sector

We describe portions of the U.S input-output tables through the tools of networks analysis—focusing on either energy intensive industries or those that are part of the separate and distinct energy sector. We first represent both energy intensive and energy sector industries visually through network diagrams for the years 1997, 2002, and 2007. Next, we show that the energy sector is generally more densely connected than either energy intensive industries or all industries over those years, and is more likely to have groups of three sub-sectors all linked as well. We then move to the level of individual industries within the broad sectors and find that energy intensive industries have the most in-coming connections on average for these tables. Energy sector ones have fewer, but the number grows over time, as do outgoing connections. Other measures of centrality—closeness and betweenness—vary over time for both the energy sector and energy intensive industries. Specifically, petroleum refining and electricity generation stand out for their centrality, drilling oil and gas wells for its lack of centrality.
Synthesis and Characterization of Nanostructured Thin Films of (CdS) 0.6 Se 0.4 for Solar Cell

The high quality thin films of (CdS)0.6 Se0.4 have been synthesized using thermal evaporation technique onto precleaned rotating amorphous glass substrate at room temperature. The films were characterized by X-Ray Diffractometer, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy and UV-VIS Spectrophotometer. The XRD spectrum illustrates that the films are polycrystalline having hexagonal structure. AFM images reveals that, sample is smooth with well defined nano sized grains. SEM shows that all the grains are spherical in nature and grains forming conglomerate to form a cluster. The optical band gap energy was estimated within 1.95 to 2.05 eV by using UV-VIS Spectrophotometer.
Why and how service quality perceptions impact consumer responses

Purpose – This study aims to explore the relationship between the perceived quality of services provided by specialist physicians and patients' attitudinal responses along cognitive, emotive and conative levels.Design/methodology/approach – The SERVQUAL model was used to evaluate the quality of the medical services. The data were collected in a survey of medium‐level executives enrolled in professional MBA and executive BA programs in Israel.Findings – The study shows that patients' evaluations regarding service quality do affect significantly their attitudinal responses. It has also found out that service dimensions relating to anxiety reduction and the desires to reduce perceived risk, namely the Assurance and the Reliability dimensions are the most important for patients in these kinds of service encounters.Practical implications – The study should encourage service managers of health care‐providing organizations to use these results to ensure higher patient satisfaction. These results indicate that, i.
Modeling of cement milling process based on long term industrial data

The present study aims to develop a dynamical model of cement milling process as well as an autoregressive model of the errors of the previous one. Modeling is based exclusively on long term industrial data sets of five cement mills. Not only the dynamics of each mill is estimated but also separate dynamical parameters are computed for each cement type processed in the same mill. Detailed information about the parameters uncertainty is provided. The described system identification can be utilized for the effective parameterization of a robust controller regulating the cement milling process as well as for the construction of efficient simulators.
An Evolutionary Secure Energy Efficient Routing Protocol in Internet of Things

Recently, Internet of Things (IoT) devices are highly utilized in diverse fields such as environmental monitoring, industries, smart home etc. Under such instance, a cluster head is selected among the diverse IoT devices of wireless Sensor Network (WSN) based IoT network to maintain the reliable network with efficient data transmission. To accomplish the efficient cluster head selection, we have used Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering algorithm. Therefore, it is necessary to implement secure energy aware routing protocol in IoT. This paper proposed a novel method with the combination of Optimal Secured Energy Aware Protocol (OSEAP) and Improved Bacterial Foraging Optimization (IBFO) algorithm. The aforesaid challenges against the secure energy awareness objective under IoT are not yet dealt by any researchers. Furthermore, the Optimal Secured Energy Aware Protocol (OSEAP) and Improved Bacterial Foraging Optimization (IBFO) algorithm is one of the best methods to save more energy with security among the nodes. The performance analysis in terms of delay, throughput, and energy determined by comparing the proposed method with the existing method Secure Energy aware routing protocol (SEAP). Thus, the analysis of our implementation reveals the superior performance of the proposed method.
The application of airline yield management techniques to a holiday retail shopping setting

Most airlines utilize a revenue maximizing technique called yield management (YM), which allows the airlines to allocate their fixed capacity of seats to various fare categories in the most profitable manner possible. The discriminatory pricing goal is to sell only non‐discounted seats to the business travel segment. Suggests that yield management techniques may also be appropriate in certain retail settings where capacity (i.e. product inventory) is not necessarily “perishable” in the same sense as unsold seats on an airline flight however, its value may decline with the culmination of a well‐defined shopping period (e.g. the “Christmas holiday” shopping period). Examines how knowledge of customer price sensitivity as it pertains to this shopping period, coupled with the appropriate use of discount pricing, can maximize the revenue gained from sales of a seasonal product associated with a specific holiday.
Long-term private rental in a changing Australian private rental sector

An increasing proportion of Australians are now renting privately, many for over 10 years or more. Long-term renters experience higher levels of housing stress and are less likely to feel part of the community. Policy-makers need to respond to the needs of long-term renters, especially households with children and those facing retirement. Description Private rental is increasing, especially long-term rental: There has been sustained, long-term growth in the Australian private rental sector in recent decades. In 2011, 1.8 million Australian households (or 23.4% of all households) privately rented their housing. A third of all private renters are long-term renters (defined as renting for periods of 10 years or more continuously), an increase from just over a quarter in 1994. Middle-aged cohorts living long-term in the private rental sector are now working their way up to become older aged renters. Families with children increasingly rent: A high and growing number of private renter households include dependent children (727 012). An increasing percentage of long-term renters are households with children (30.0% in 2007–08), largely due to the increase in single-parent households. Rates of housing stress have increased: Rates of housing stress among private renters increased from 1981 to 2011. Most recent data indicates that 62.6 per cent of long-term renters are in housing stress. Long-term renters experience very high rates of housing stress relative to other tenure groups, but have lower rates of mobility compared with shorter term renters. Long-term renters are dissatisfied financially and don’t feel part of the community: Long-term private renters, particularly those on lower incomes, experience lower rates of satisfaction with their financial situation than other private renters or homeowners. They report significantly lower rates of satisfaction with feeling part of their local community than other tenure groups. Policy needs to support aspects of long-term renting (e.g. lower mobility) that work well for renters but also effectively address the negative aspects (e.g. heightened levels of housing stress). Families with dependent children (especially single parents), and older middle-aged households ageing within the private rental system warrant special policy attention to avoid potentially large increases in demand for housing and other assistance in the medium-term future.
Volatility Transmission Across Equity Markets: Did the Relationships Hold During the Global Financial Crisis?

Previous research has proven that large financial markets can be prime determinants of volatility in smaller markets. This paper seeks to examine in a broader sense the linkages between developed and emerging financial markets. More specifically, we examine the relationship between two greatest emerging markets of Eastern Europe, Russia and Poland and their role in transmitting financial volatility. Utilizing bivariate DCC- GARCH modeling, we estimate volatility spillover effects and dynamic conditional correlation between equity markets in South and North America, the US and European markets. Our results show that the US market (S&P500 index) is the main volatility transmitter worldwide, whereas the UK, German and French markets are the sources of volatility for the European developed and emerging European equity markets. However, the German DAX index, contrary to some studies, cannot be considered as dominant in the European region, in spite of the leadership of the German economy. According to the results of our study the role of volatility transmitter belongs to the UK stock market. More importantly, we find that the influence of Russian market volatility exceeds the influence of Poland in the Eastern and Northern European regions, closely tracking their levels of market capitalization.
Electrical impedance measurements: an objective measure of prelabor cervical change

Objective: To investigate the use of electrical impedance measurements of the pregnant cervix as an objective measure of cervical favorability (Bishop score ≥ 5). Methods: A prospective study of 86 women, investigating electrical impedance measurements of the pregnant cervix at the time of induction of labor. Transfer electrical impedance measurements were made by placing a tetrapolar pencil probe of 8 mm in diameter on the surface of the cervix. A Bishop score was determined simultaneously. Results: A mean resistivity (standard error of the mean) of 7.03 (6.01–8.04) Ωm was measured for the unfavorable group and 5.34 (4.61–6.07) Ωm for the favorable group. This was a statistically significant difference (p = 0.016). Conclusion: We highlight the ability of this safe, painless technique to differentiate the favorable from the unfavorable cervix at induction of labor.
On the mechanism of adhesion in biological systems

I study adhesion relevant to biological systems, e.g., flies, crickets and lizards, where the adhesive microstructures consist of arrays of thin fibers. The effective elastic modulus of the fiber arrays can be very small which is of fundamental importance for adhesion on smooth and rough substrates. I study how the adhesion depend on the substrate roughness amplitude and apply the theoretical results to lizards. ©2003 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1562192 #
Study and Practice of Forest-bathing field in Japan

Japan has made remarkable achievements in the study and development of forest tourism for health care reason. Through the comprehensive investigation into the development of forest-bathing field in Japan, this paper studied the forest tourism for health care factor in Japan and concluded the evaluation standard and construction of forest-bathing field, as well as personnel training. In the end, some suggestions were proposed for the study and development of forest tourism for health care factor in Asia.
Formation of Citation and Reply ties over intra-organizational blog network 1

The effect of brick-and-mortar and online factors o n the formation of citation and reply ties is studied using an unique data set that compiles blog ging activity within a global IT services firm for over a year and a half. We found that online ti es over the blog network are not limited by the brick-and-mortar ties. Rather, they behave as a coh esive, persistent, and independent group. Further examination of online ties reveals interest ing interaction among different types of ties. We observe the transformation of reply-together tie s into direct reply ties over time. This illustrates the effect of lateral communication in the blogs. We observe a very interesting negative effect of citations ties on future reply t ies suggesting that certain pairs of actors might be substituting one type of tie for the other. We a lso find positive effect of the reciprocal and simmelian conditions as predicted by prior work in social sciences. However, having multiclique simmelian ties between a pair of individuals ha a negative effect on their future interaction. The insights from these findings are d iscussed in the light of the characteristic of different ties. 1 This is a student authored paper.
Determination of Service Quality Factors of Private Commercial Banks in Bangladesh

The present study determines the importance of perceived service quality factors of Private Commercial Banks (PCB) in Bangladesh and finds out the variability of these dimensions or factors across gender, age, education level, and occupation. Researches suggest that customers do not perceive quality in unidimensional way but rather evaluate quality based on multiple factors. In this study researchers considered six dimensions such as accessibility, reliability, tangibles, empathy, security, and assurance in determining the service quality factors of private commercial banks. For this purpose 300 customers who conduct consumer banking were interviewed with a structured questionnaire. The multiple regression analysis, a technique of multivariate analysis, adopted to determine the importance of the perceived service quality factors. Furthermore, cross tabulation, a technique of descriptive statistics, used to determine the variability of six dimensions across age, gender, education level, and occupation. The study finds that tangible is the most important factor in determining the service quality of private commercial banks followed by reliability, empathy, accessibility, and assurance. It also finds that these six factors or dimensions vary across gender, age, education level, and occupation.
An Empirical Investigation of Brand Loyalty Behavior among Hotel Employees in Northern Malaysia

Employee brand loyalty is essential to all organizations as it could translate into high organizational performance. In order to encourage employees to exhibit loyalty behavior, it has been argued that organizations need to create an environment that is perceived as positive for performance. As such, this paper reports the findings of a study conducted in two hotels to examine the impact of internal market orientation on employee brand loyalty behavior. The findings of this study indicates that only internal intelligence dissemination has an impact on employee brand loyalty behavior.
Sympatric host races of the European corn borer: adaptation to host plants and hybrid performance

The European corn borer (ECB), Ostrinia nubilalis, is a major pest of maize crops. In Europe, two sympatric host races are found: one feeds on maize (Zea mays) and the other mainly on mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). The two host races are genetically differentiated, seldom crossing in the laboratory or in the field, and females preferentially lay eggs on their native host species. We conducted two independent experiments, in field and greenhouse conditions, to determine whether the two host races are locally adapted to their host species. The effect of larval density and the performance of hybrids were also investigated. Despite some differences in overall larval feeding performance, both experiments revealed consistent patterns of local adaptation for survival and for larval weight in males. In females the same trend was observed but with weaker statistical support. F1 hybrids did not seem to be disadvantaged compared with the two parental races. Overall, our results showed that both host races are physiologically adapted to their native host. The fitness trade‐off between the two host plants provides a potential driving force for ecological speciation in this species.