Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study on the Driving Factors of Cross-Border Online Consumer Purchase Behaviour

In recent years, with the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, increasing number of domestic consumers prefer to purchase overseas products through cross-border online shopping. On the basis of the technology acceptance model and planning action theory, this paper constructs the driving factor model of cross-border online shopping behaviour and makes empirical analysis. The results show that behavioural attitude has a significant positive effect on purchase willingness, and perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have positive effects on behavioural attitude. Besides, perceived epidemic, perceived value and convenience have moderation effects on behavioural attitude affecting purchase willingness. Based on these results, this paper believes that the key to improve consumers’ willingness of cross-border online shopping lies in their behaviour attitude. The positive behaviour attitude can be improved by improving purchase efficiency and expanding product categories. In addition, strategies such as enhancing promotional activities, increasing publicity of positive information on cross-border online shopping and improving relevant technologies of operation systems are proposed to improve cross-border online consumer purchase behaviour.
Particle filtering with propagation delayed measurements

This paper investigates the problem of propagation delayed measurements in a particle filtering scenario. Based on implicit constraints specified by target dynamics and physics rules of signal propagation, authors apply the ideas that were first proposed in their previous work to the case of particle filters. Unlike the deterministic sampling based approach called propagation delayed measurement filter (PDMF) in their previous work, the new algorithm proposed here (called as PDM particle filter (PDM-PF)) has the potential to be used with general nonlinear models. This advantage and the estimation results of PDM-PF are illustrated in a challenging target tracking scenario by making comparisons to PDMF along with some other alternative particle filters.
Calcium Channel Blocking Agents in the Treatment of Urticaria

high penetrance and, as she has the same HLA typing, her risk is also very great. Taking into account this and the immunologic evidence found in this case makes this girl almost a sure candidate to develop overt diabetes. Therefore, immunosuppressive treatment is to be considered in this unique case. Nevertheless, taking into account the side effects of this regimen, the opinion of others will be gratefully appreciated.
The Phylloplane as a Source of Bacillus thuringiensis Variants

Novel variants of Bacillus thuringiensis were isolated from the phylloplane of deciduous and conifer trees as well as of other plants. These isolates displayed a range of toxicity towards Trichoplusia ni. Immunoblot and toxin protein analysis indicate that these strains included representatives of the three principal B. thuringiensis pathotypes active against larvae of the orders Lepidoptera, Diptera, and Coleoptera. We propose that B. thuringiensis be considered part of the common leaf microflora of many plants.
Time Synchronization for Molecular Communication With Drift

Molecular communication is a promising communication paradigm which enables information exchange by emitting and sensing molecules at a micro- or nano-scale. Time synchronization is a basic but important issue for molecular communication. This letter proposes a maximum likelihood estimator for the clock offset between two nanomachines in a molecular communication system with drift. In a directional fluid medium, the transmitter nanomachine records the message sending time instant and passes it to the receiver. The receiver uses this information to estimate the clock offset. Newton–Raphson method is used to approximate the maximum likelihood estimator. The conditions of the channel parameters, such as the flow velocity, the distance between the transmitter and the receiver, and the diffusion coefficient, are discussed. The simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed estimator.
Neurogenesis in the Hypothalamus of Adult Mice: Potential Role in Energy Balance

Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) induces weight loss in obese rodents and humans, and for reasons that are not understood, its effects persist after the cessation of treatment. Here we demonstrate that centrally administered CNTF induces cell proliferation in feeding centers of the murine hypothalamus. Many of the newborn cells express neuronal markers and show functional phenotypes relevant for energy-balance control, including a capacity for leptin-induced phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3). Coadministration of the mitotic blocker cytosine-β-d-arabinofuranoside (Ara-C) eliminates the proliferation of neural cells and abrogates the long-term, but not the short-term, effect of CNTF on body weight. These findings link the sustained effect of CNTF on energy balance to hypothalamic neurogenesis and suggest that regulated hypothalamic neurogenesis in adult mice may play a previously unappreciated role in physiology and disease.
Preprocessing for the Automated Transcription of Polyphonic Music: Linking Wavelet Theory and Auditory Filtering

In this paper a fast method for the calculation of a linear time-frequency distribution based on the gammatone lter auditory model is introduced as a preprocessing step for the automated transcription of music and auditory source separation. Examples show that this method has a promising potential for the analysis of music pieces with a limited spectral overlap of the diierent signal components. In the past few years wavelet transforms have become an important tool for signal processing. See (Rioul and Vetterli, 1991) for an overview. An important property of both the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) and the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) is their linearity, which makes them more suitable for the analysis of multicomponent signals than quadratic time-frequency distributions (TFD) suuering from cross-term artefacts. The CWT is given by a dd; a > 0: (1) For admissibility of a time function g(t) as a mother wavelet, it must satisfy Z 1 ? 1 jg(t)j 2 dt < 1; and G(0) = 0; (2) where G(f) is the Fourier transform of g(t). Functions satisfying these conditions look like short waves, which has been the reason for naming them wavelets. The main diierence between the STFT and the CWT lies in the fact, that for the STFT the analysis window remains unaltered, whereas the CWT window changes its scale due to the scaling factor a. The quasi-logarithmic organization of musical scales and of the frequency resolution in the human cochlea makes the CWT a more appropriate TFD of acoustic signals than the STFT. Since eq.1 cannot be evaluated everywhere, it has to be modiied by picking certain xed values for a and b yielding a discrete approximation of the CWT. Furthermore, the wavelets used throughout our work are close to being analytic (progressive), that is they satisfy 8f < 0 : G(f) 0. Thus, given the complex-valued lter outputs the instantaneous frequencies can be estimated from the phases and the signal envelopes can be estimated from the moduli, if the signal components have a negligible overlap. Due to the high computational burden of the quasi-continuous CWT, innnite impulse response (IIR) realizations like our gammatone approach are desirable. As stated by Patterson (1992) the gammatone lter can be a good approximation of the ltering in the human cochlea if the parameters are properly adjusted. See g.1 for an example of a gammatone impulse response. A quasi-analytic version of the gammatone lter is of the …
Credit Risk Assessment of Payment Gateway Loans for Working Capital Funding of E-Commerce Industry

Credit risk assessment plays a very important role in the loan process as one of the major problems that an e-commerce industry may face is the lack of capital because of very low credit rating and lack of collateral, in current scenario working capital loan applications are accepted through online mode by banks, since these loans are collateral free there is high credit risk attached to it. This paper proposes a new product that is payment gateway loan and uses data of payment gateway transactions for credit appraisal and credit scoring framework along with the potential influence that a payment gateway loan may have on the bank and financial institutions risk management.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE AND THE EXTENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE

Purpose of this study: This study examines the relationship between environmental performance and the extent of environmental disclosure. Methodology: The sample of this study consists of 35 high profile companies. The environmental performance is measured based on the results of the assessment of PROPER and the extent of environmental disclosure index by using GRI checklist items. This research applies content analysis, descriptive, and inferential statistical analyses. Main Findings: The result shows that the extent of environmental disclosure, on an average is low (22.5%). Mining companies provide the highest environmental disclosure (58.2%) followed by chemicals (21.4%), utilities (19.0%), pulp and papers (16.5%), industrial (11.0%), and oil and gas (4.2%). The analysis also presents that environmental performance does not affect the level of environmental disclosure. Implications: This result suggests that high environmental performance may not encourage companies to communicate more environmental issues. This finding indicates that motivation for a company to disclose environmental information is not always based on the legitimacy perspectives, but might be an accountability form.
Three essays in commodity risk management

This thesis includes three essays. These essays focus on the commodity market and cover a wide range of topics. Their topics range from the roles of inventory, pricing strategies to impacts of government policies on the commodity market. The first essay provides an analytical framework to distinguish the roles of inventory by investigating their behaviors in a frequency domain. If inventory was used as a buffer for demand shocks, then the stock level should decrease at all frequencies under both the production smoothing and the stockout avoidance strategies. The inventory investment is negative at all frequencies under the stockout avoidance strategy while it is negative at high frequencies (short-term) and is positive at low frequencies (long-term). On the other hand, if inventory is used as a speculative tool, then its level and the inventory investment should increase with the increases in demand and prices at all frequencies. The volatilities of inventory investment also reveal the roles of inventory. Under production smoothing theory, inventory investment is as volatile as the demand at all frequencies while it is as volatile as the output if growth is persistent but less volatile than output if growth is not persistent. The crude oil inventory at the aggregate level followed the inventory the smoothing motive in the period of flexible production from 1/1931 to 12/1972 and the stockout avoidance motive during the period of restricted production from 1/1973-12/2012. The oil inventory at Cushing exhibits a speculative characteristic. However, trading inventory at Cushing did not have effects on price. Price was determined by supply and demand at the aggregate level. The second essay studies role pricing strategies in the price discovery process through a supply chain, especially in the case of stainless steel. Full cost pricing is shown to connect the component costs to the product price. The surcharge system employed by stainless steel
Modeling the performance of flexible substrates for lead-free applications

In this paper, the performance of flexible substrates for lead-free applications was studied using finite element method (FEM). Firstly, the thermal induced stress in the flex substrate during the lead free solder reflow process was predicted. The shear stress at the interface between the copper track and flex was plotted. This shear stress increases with the thickness of the copper track. Secondly, an ACF flip chip was taken as a typical lead-free application of the flex substrate. The reflow effect on the reliability of ACF interconnections was analyzed. Higher stress was identified along the interface between the conductive particle and the metallization, and the interfacial stress increases with the reflow peak temperature and the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the adhesive. The moisture effect on the reliability of ACF joints were studied using a macro-micro modeling technique, the predominantly tensile stress found at the interface between the conductive particle and metallization could reduce the contact area and even cause the electrical failure. Modeling results are consistent with the findings in the experimental work
Association between the receptor for advanced glycation end products gene polymorphisms and cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

PURPOSE Polymorphisms in the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) gene may influence the risk of cancer, but the results are inconsistent. Therefore, we performed a systematic review to identify statistical evidence of the association between the 3 polymorphisms rs2070600 G/S (82G>S), rs1800624 T/A ( -374 T>A) and rs1800625C/T (-429 C>T) and the risk of cancer. METHODS We searched PubMed database (http://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/), EMBASE database (http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/embase ) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database (http://www.cnki.net/) until Aug 30, 2014 to identify eligible studies. RESULTS The pooled analysis revealed positive association between RAGE rs2070600 polymorphism and cancer risk in all genetic models (homozygous: OR=1.831, 95%CI: 1.548-2.166, p<0.001, allele: OR=1.321, 95%CI: 1.164-1.499, p<0.001, heterozygous: OR=1.42, 95%CI:1.126-1.792, p=0.003, dominant: OR=1.499, 95%CI: 1.200-1.874 ; p<0.001, recessive: OR=1.376, 95%CI: 1.197-1.583, p<0.001). We failed to get an effective conclusion about the association between the rs1800624 and rs1800625 polymorphisms and cancer risk in overall comparison. But in subgroup analysis, the rs1800624 polymorphism significantly increased lung cancer susceptibility in the homozygous model (OR=1.486, 95%CI:1.147-1.924, p=0.003) and the allele model (OR=1.15, 95%CI:1.029-1.285, p=0.014), but most likely contributed to decreased susceptibility to breast cancer in the allele model (OR=0.791 95%CI: 0.648-0.965, p=0.021), the heterozygous model (OR=0.733, 95%CI:0.577-0.931, p=0.011) and the dominant model (OR=0.741, 95%CI:0.588-0.934, p=0.011). No significant association was found between RAGE rs1088625 polymorphism and cancer risk in Caucasians, but these results should be interpreted with caution. CONCLUSION The polymorphism of rs2070600 in the RAGE gene may increase the susceptibility to several human cancers, especially to lung cancer and to Asians. The rs1800264 most likely contributes to decreased susceptibility to breast cancer but increased susceptibility to lung cancer. However, large-scale studies involving various cancer types and different populations are needed for a precise conclusion.
Multiple Ground-Glass Opacities with Different Growth Rates in the Same Lobe of the Lung during the Follow-Up after the Resection of Pulmonary Adenocarcinoma: A Case Report

The patient, a 77-year-old male, underwent right middle lobectomy for adenocarcinoma of the lung, pT1aN0M0, in November 2007. In November 2008, chest CT revealed two ground-glass opacities (GGOs) in the right lower lobe. In October 2009, both of these GGOs had increased in size, and three new GGOs were found. In July 2011, all of the five GGOs had increased in size and three new GGOs were found yet again. Right lower lobe S6 segmentectomy was performed on September 6, 2011, and histopathological examination revealed eight pulmonary adenocarcinomas in the right S6; all of them classified as pl0, ly0, v0, pT1aN0M0. Among the eight lesions, the doubling times of five were measured during the follow-up course, and the mean doubling time was 402 days. The mean doubling time of the lesions showing high c-erbB2 expression was significantly lesser than that of the lesions showing low c-erbB2 expression (273 days vs. 488 days, p = 0.047). Despite being localized GGOs that had arisen in the same individual, it should be noted that the growth rate of the GGO lesions may vary according to the expression level of a molecular markers, and some GGO lesions may show rapid increase in size.
A Minimally Invasive Method for Beat-by-Beat Estimation of Cardiac Pressure-Volume Loops

This paper develops a minimally invasive means of estimating a patient-specific cardiac pressure-volume loop beat-to-beat. This method involves estimating the left ventricular pressure and volume waveforms using clinically available information including heart rate and aortic pressure, supported by a baseline echocardiography reading. Validation of the method was performed across an experimental data set spanning 5 Piétrain pigs, 46,318 heartbeats and a diverse clinical protocol. The method was able to accurately locate a pressure-volume loop, identifying the end-diastolic volume, end-systolic volume, mean-diastolic pressure and mean-systolic pressure of the ventricle with reasonable accuracy. While there were larger percentage errors associated with stroke work derived from the estimated pressure-volume loops, there was a strong correlation (average R value of 0.83) between the estimated and measured stroke work values. These results provide support for the potential of the method to track patient condition, in real-time, in a clinical environment. This method has the potential to yield additional information from readily available waveforms to aid in clinical
Corporate Governance and Corporate Fraud: An Examination of Interaction Effects in Nigeria

This research paper examined the relationship between corporate governance and the commission of corporate fraud among quoted companies in Nigeria. The research utilized a sample of eighteen (18) companies whose data were collected through content analyses on the basis of the availability of information from annual reports and other media reports. Data for the study were analyzed using a binary logit multiple regression analysis method. The findings of the study showed that there is a negative relationship between the independence of the board of directors and corporate fraud. The findings further show that there is a negative relationship between the commitment of the audit committee to their roles and corporate fraud. Finally, the findings show that there is a positive relationship between ownership structure and the phenomenon of corporate fraud in organizations. From the findings of the study, it is concluded that increasing the number of independent members in the board of directors will increase the ability of the board of directors to checkmate fraud commission. However, the ability of independence of board members to forestall corporate fraud is below the optimal level. It is also concluded that the commitment of the audit committee is an important deterrent of corporate fraud. Finally, increased concentration of ownership with only a few individuals will lead to increased fraud. Thus, it is recommended that the number of independent members in the board of directors be statutorily increased. Finally, it is recommended that the concentration of ownership in a few hands be discouraged.
On semi-discrete sub-partitions of vector-valued measures

We introduce a concept of optimal transport for vector-valued measures and its dual formulation. In this note we concentrate on the semi-discrete case and show some fundamental differences between the scalar and vector cases. A manifestation of this difference is the possibility of non-existence of optimal solution for the dual problem for feasible primer problems.
Covalent Bond between Ligand and Receptor Required for Efficient Activation in Rhodopsin*

Rhodopsin is an extensively studied member of the G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Although rhodopsin shares many features with the other GPCRs, it exhibits unique features as a photoreceptor molecule. A hallmark in the molecular structure of rhodopsin is the covalently bound chromophore that regulates the activity of the receptor acting as an agonist or inverse agonist. Here we show the pivotal role of the covalent bond between the retinal chromophore and the lysine residue at position 296 in the activation pathway of bovine rhodopsin, by use of a rhodopsin mutant K296G reconstituted with retinylidene Schiff bases. Our results show that photoreceptive functions of rhodopsin, such as regiospecific photoisomerization of the ligand, and its quantum yield were not affected by the absence of the covalent bond, whereas the activation mechanism triggered by photoisomerization of the retinal was severely affected. Furthermore, our results show that an active state similar to the Meta-II intermediate of wild-type rhodopsin did not form in the bleaching process of this mutant, although it exhibited relatively weak G protein activity after light irradiation because of an increased basal activity of the receptor. We propose that the covalent bond is required for transmitting structural changes from the photoisomerized agonist to the receptor and that the covalent bond forcibly keeps the low affinity agonist in the receptor, resulting in a more efficient G protein activation.
Comparison of the prognostic values of invasive and noninvasive assessments of baroreflex sensitivity in heart failure

Objectives No studies have compared the prognostic values of invasive (phenylephrine, Phe) and noninvasive (transfer function) assessments of baroreflex sensitivity (BRS). Methods Three hundred and one heart failure patients [age: 53 ± 8 years, New York Heart Association class II–III: 88%, left-ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF): 28 ± 8%] underwent an 8 min ECG and arterial pressure recording, followed by Phe administration. Results Phe-BRS and transfer function BRS (TF-BRS) could be measured in 89 and 72% of cases, respectively. The correlation and the 5–95th percentiles of the difference between the two methods were 0.61 (P < 0.0001), and −7.6, +7.5 ms/mmHg, respectively. During a median of 36 months, 23% of the patients experienced a cardiac event. In the common dataset of 202 patients, both BRS measurements (<3 ms/mmHg) were significantly associated with the outcome (both P < 0.001), but Phe-BRS had a better discriminatory power (area under the curve (AUC): 0.74 vs. 0.66, P = 0.03). Patients with a missing BRS (due to high grade ectopic activity) had a higher event rate (Phe-BRS: 38 vs. 24%, P = 0.23; TF-BRS: 37 vs. 19%, P = 0.002). Using this information, a prognostic index was derived for each BRS method, increasing measurability to 94 and 98%, respectively. Both indexes significantly predicted the outcome after adjustment for clinical covariates [hazard ratio (95% CI): 1.9 (1.1–3.3), P = 0.03 for Phe index and 2.0 (1.1–3.7), P = 0.02 for transfer function index]. Conclusion Although the measurability of TF-BRS in heart failure patients is impaired, prognostic information can be extended to almost all patients, with a predictive power similar to that of Phe-BRS. The two measurements, however, convey a certain amount of independent prognostic information. Hence, TF-BRS can be integrated with but not replace Phe-BRS.