Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Investigation into Establishing the Validity of the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model within Aid and Development Initiatives

In 2016, USD$142.6bn was invested into the global Aid and Development sector. Unfortunately, up to 30% wastage and 22.85% overhead and retention costs have been recorded in Aid and Development programs, at a time when more funding is needed to raise developing nations out of poverty. The inefficiency of Aid and Development programs can, in part, be attributed to the management, standard and quality of the aid agencies supply chain systems. An interesting question arises around the feasibility of transferring commercial supply chain systems management protocols and standards into aid agencies with an expectation that, if successful, similar efficiency gains would be observed in Aid and Development programs as they are in commercial organisations continuing to use the same protocols and standards. The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model is the recognised “gold standard” for commercial supply chain systems management and improvement. This work seeks to establish if the six primary management processes of SCOR could be overlaid onto the supply chain systems of aid agencies. To achieve this objective, this work has adopted a comparative case study approach to map the supply chain systems of three Aid and Development programs to investigate if the core elements of SCOR are present within these supply chain systems. The findings of this work suggest that despite the theoretical divide between aid agencies and commercial organisations, for example culturally, objectively and the institutional language used to describe both types of organisations, the core elements of SCOR were found to be present in the three case studies and it is possible to overlay SCOR onto the mapped Aid and Development supply chain systems of these case studies. The implications of this work are significant, because SCOR could be a positive disruptor in the global Aid sector if adopted by aid agencies. Along with the identification of the six primary management processes of SCOR within Aid and Development supply chain systems and the determination that SCOR does represent a valid alternative management framework for Aid and Development programs, this work has also contributed by identifying the atypical nature of Aid and Development supply chain systems, and the unit of standard in which to measure SCOR within these supply chain systems. The mapping process for an Aid and Development supply chain system has also been established, along with the foundation principles of forensic supply chain auditing.
Gains From Distortions in Congested City Networks.

This paper presents a model and an automated methodology for assessing gains from network distortions in cities. Distortions arise from excluding tra¢ c along certain routes. Distortions degrade network connectivity, but can be paradoxically useful for congestion amelioration. We show that such distortions are quantitatively large, increasingly pervasive in larger cities, and potentially very valuable. The results ultimately support the view that Braess’(1968) paradox is not just a theoretically interesting possibility, but a widespread feature of city road networks.
Unencumbered Gestural Interaction

Unencumbered hand gesture interfaces encompass both 3D interaction and 2D pointing. A model developed to study 3D interaction requires determining gestural strokes and hand motion dynamics and recognizing hand poses. Extended variable valued logic and a rule based induction algorithm contribute to inductive learning of hand gesture poses, yielding a recognition rate of 94 percent. FingerMouse, a freehand pointing system, detects pointing hand poses and tracks moving fingertips in close to real time.
Production , Manufacturing and Logistics Production and availability policies through the Markov Decision Process and myopic methods for contractual and selective orders

In this paper, we consider a supply chain with one manufacturer, one retailer, and some online customers. In addition to supplying the retailer, manufacturers may selectively take orders from individuals online. Through the Markov Decision Process, we explore the optimal production and availability policy for a manufacturer to determine whether to produce one more unit of products and whether to indicate ‘‘in stock’’ or ‘‘out of stock’’ on website. We measure the benefits and influences of adding online customers with and without the retailer’s inventory information sharing. We also simulate the production and availability policy via a myopic method, which can be implemented easily in the real world. Prediction of simple switching functions for the production and availability is proposed. We find the information sharing, production capacity and unit profit from online orders are the primary factors influencing manufacturer profits and optimal policy. The manufacturer might reserve 50% production capacity for contractual orders from the retailer and devote the remaining capacity to selective orders from spontaneous online
PENGARUH REAL MANIPULATION DALAM MEMODERASI CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE DAN CORPORATE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

This study aims to prove empirically the influence of real manipulation in moderating the negative corporate environmental disclosure against corporate financial performance in the short and long term. This research theory focuses on stakeholder theory.The research sample focuses on state-owned companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the 2013-2016 period. The criteria for selecting research samples used purposive sampling method, so that it was obtained 11 companies that became the research sample. Data were analyzed using classic assumption test, descriptive statistic, and moderated regression analysis using SPSS 19.0. The results of this study are corporate environmental disclosure has a positive effect on corporate financial performance in the short term, real manipulation moderates negatively corporate environmental disclosure towards corporate financial performance in the short term, corporate environmental disclosure has no effect towards corporate financial performance in the long run, and real manipulation can not moderate corporate environmental disclosure towards corporate financial performance in the long run. Keywords : Real Manipulation, Corporate Environmental Disclosure, Corporate Financial Performance
FASt - an autonomous sailing platform for oceanographic missions

Sailing has been for long times the only means of ship propulsion at sea. Although the performance of a sailing vessel is well below the present power driven ships, either in terms of navigation speed and predictability, wind energy is absolutely renewable, clean and free. Unmanned autonomous sailing boats may exhibit a virtually unlimited autonomy and be able to perform unassisted missions at sea for long periods of time. Promising applications include oceanographic and weather data collecting, surveillance and even military applications. The Microtransat competition, launched in Europe in 2006, has been a key initiative to promote the development of robotic unmanned sailing boats. Various regattas have taken place across Europe and the ultimate challenge will be a transatlantic race. This paper presents an autonomous sailing boat developed at the University of Porto, Portugal, with emphasis on the hardware and software computing infrastructure. This platform is capable of carrying a few kilograms of sensing equipment that can be hooked to the boat's main computer, also providing support for short and long range data communications.
SIS: An R Package for Sure Independence Screening in Ultrahigh-Dimensional Statistical Models

We revisit sure independence screening procedures for variable selection in generalized linear models and the Cox proportional hazards model. Through the publicly available R package SIS, we provide a unified environment to carry out variable selection using iterative sure independence screening (ISIS) and all of its variants. For the regularization steps in the ISIS recruiting process, available penalties include the LASSO, SCAD, and MCP while the implemented variants for the screening steps are sample splitting, data-driven thresholding, and combinations thereof. Performance of these feature selection techniques is investigated by means of real and simulated data sets, where we find considerable improvements in terms of model selection and computational time between our algorithms and traditional penalized pseudo-likelihood methods applied directly to the full set of covariates.
Effect of consumer based brand equity on purchase intention of the crisis brand: moderating role of peer recommendation

The marketing environment provides negative as well as positive information. Advanced technology accelerates the information dissemination mainly among peers. To address the research gap of the peer effect in product harm crisis, present study used a fictitious product harm crisis scenario related to the fictitious yogurt brand. Convenient sample of Sri Lankan based undergraduate business management students (n=100) were participated in the survey. Results of the Hierarchical multiple regressions suggested that peer recommendations moderate the relationship between consumer based brand equity and purchase intention of the crisis brand during product harm crises. This alarms the threat of connecting consumers in particular in negative information disseminating circumstances like product harm crises. Present study yields important research findings for researchers, policy makers, and marketers in particular to protect the crisis brand during product harm crises.
Streptomycin uptake via an inducible polyamine transport system in Escherichia coli.

The rate of uptake of streptomycin by Escherichia coli K12 becomes greatly enhanced after 10–20 min of incubation. Maximal rate of streptomycin and of gentamicin uptake is achieved by preincubation of the cells at 37 °C for 20 min in the presence of 5 μg/ml of streptomycin, kanamycin, gentamicin or neomycin. Spectinomycin and kasugamycin failed to increase streptomycin uptake. Enhanced streptomycin uptake is absolutely energy-dependent. The uptake of streptomycin by wild type E. coli is much repressed in the presence of glucose. A cya mutant of E. coli which cannot synthesize adenosine 3′:5′-monophosphate (cyclic AMP) exhibits poor uptake of streptomycin. The addition of cyclic AMP however, induces the uptake of streptomycin in this mutant. Transport of spermidine is ten times increased in the presence of 5 μg/ml streptomycin. The uptake of putrescine is enhanced two-fold under the same conditions. Increase of uptake is prevented by chloramphenicol. Streptomycin competitively inhibits the transport of spermidine and putrescine. Conversely, spermine, spermidine and putrescine inhibit the uptake of streptomycin. It is concluded from these results that interaction of streptomycin with the ribosomes results in the induction of a polyamine transport system which can be utilized by streptomycin.
Systemic Arterial Compliance and Diastolic Runoff in Essential Hypertension

Systemic arterial compliance was estimated in 31 men, including 15 pa tients with sustained essential hypertension and 16 normal subjects of the same age. Values were derived from analysis of the monoexponential blood pressure-time curve during diastole, according to a simple viscoelastic model. In normal subjects, baseline arterial compliance was 2.56 ± 0.18 ml/mm Hg. A significant decrease (1.88 ± 0.13 ml/mm Hg; P < 0.001) was observed in hypertensives. Administration of vasoactive substances (angiotensin and sodium nitroprusside) showed that, for the same blood pressure levels, normal subjects and hypertensives had similar values for compliance. How ever, the correlation between the basal values of diastolic pressure and compliance was significant in normal subjects (r = -0.76) but not in hyper tensives (r = -0.33); these results suggested differences between acute and long-term conditions in patients and controls. Calculated diastolic runoff was similar in both groups, approximating 58 and 55% of the stroke volume respectively. This study provides evidence that, in sustained essential hypertension, (1) the reduced arterial compliance cannot be related exclusively to the level of blood pressure, but also requires some abnormality of the volume of large arteries, and (2) the reservoir role of the large arteries is maintained.
Comparison of shallow and deep learning models for classification of Lasem batik patterns

Batik is a method of cloth decoration by dyeing process which is practiced particularly in Java, Indonesia. The batik pattern varies from one region to another. In this paper, we explore and compare the shallow and deep learning model to classify Lasem batik motifs automatically. Several shallow models are employed, such as the support vector machines, Gaussian naïve Bayes, and decision tree with the gray level co-occurrence matrix as the features. For the deep learning models, we use the convolutional neural network and deep belief network. We collect 698 batik images which can be classified into seven different types of Lasem batik motif. From the experiments, we found that the shallow model, particularly the support vector machines with linear function kernel performs best, even compared to the deep learning models.
Mortality risk in hemodialysis patients and changes in nutritional indicators: DOPPS.

BACKGROUND Nutritional status is strongly associated with outcomes among hemodialysis patients. We analyzed the independent predictive value of several readily measured nutritional indicators, including a modified subjective global assessment (mSGA), body mass index (BMI), serum albumin, serum creatinine, normalized protein catabolic rate (nPCR), serum bicarbonate, lymphocyte count, and neutrophil count, using baseline and six-month follow-up measurements. METHODS The study sample consisted of 7719 U.S. adult hemodialysis patients enrolled in the international Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (DOPPS), a prospective observational study that includes a random sample of hemodialysis patients from 145 dialysis facilities in the United States. Cox regression was used to estimate the relative risk of mortality associated with differences in measurements at baseline and six months later. Each analysis was adjusted for age, race, sex, and 15 summary comorbid conditions. RESULTS Lower baseline measurements of mSGA, BMI, serum albumin, serum creatinine, and lymphocyte count were independently associated with significantly higher risk of mortality. During six-month follow-up, decreases in BMI, serum albumin, and serum creatinine were also associated with significantly higher mortality risk. The risk of mortality increased with higher baseline and six-month increases in neutrophil count. CONCLUSIONS This study confirms that several readily-measured nutritional indicators predict mortality among hemodialysis patients and that changes in indicator values over six months provide additional important prognostic information. Interventions that modify these indicators of nutritional status may have an important impact on the survival of hemodialysis patients.
Endoglin (CD105) Expression in the Human Heart Throughout Gestation: An Immunohistochemical Study

Endoglin is an 180 KDa protein which plays an important role in the vascular system and cardiac embryogenesis. Indeed, monoallelic mutations in the endoglin gene are associated with the development of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia type 1; moreover endoglin knockout mice die precociously because of severe arteriovenous and cardiac malformations. In this study, endoglin immunohistochemical expression was analyzed in the heart of 23 fetuses (9-38 weeks), 5 of which displayed cardiac malformations, as well as in cardiac samples from 4 preterm and 1 term infants. At the ninth week, endoglin expression was recorded in the endocardium; it extended into the epicardial and myocardial vessels by the 10th week. This pattern was maintained throughout gestation in most fetuses, but not in those with cardiac malformations. Endoglin expression up to term gestation indicates that its role in human heart development is not limited to the early gestation. Endoglin altered expression in association with cardiac defects further highlights its importance in normal cardiac embryogenesis and morphogenesis.
INFLUENCE OF ELECTRONIC BANKING ON PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS IN KAKAMEGA COUNTY

The objectives of this study were to assess the influence of mobile banking services on performance of commercial banks in Kakamega County; ascertain the influence of online banking on performance of commercial banks in Kakamega County; assess the influence of electronic card banking on performance of commercial banks in Kakamega County and to establish the influence of telephone banking on performance of commercial banks in Kakamega County. The research design adopted was explanatory design which predicted the likelihood of a phenomena occurring given the presence of an event. The sampling technique used was stratified purposive random sampling. Data was collected from primary sources. Primary data was collected using questionnaires. The instruments were administered by the researcher on the selected respondents. Data was edited, coded and then analyzed using SPSS version 20. The findings indicated that electronic banking constructs (Mobile banking R=0.616, P=0.000, internet banking R=0.528, p=0.000, electronic card banking R=0.530, p=0.000 and telephone banking R=0.638, P=0.000) had significant influence on the performance of commercial banks in Kakamega County. Electronic banking significant accounted for 58.2% variation in the performance of commercial banks. The study recommended that commercial bank management need to decrease electronic banking bill payment services in commercial bank so as to enable customers to undertake transaction through electronic banking. The banks should also enhance electronic banking customer security and privacy to reduce fraud and cyber-crime associated with electronic banking. Key Words: Mobile Banking, Online Banking, Electronic Card Banking, Telephone Banking
Workplace training and the high skills vision: where does Investors in People fit?

Introduced in 1991, the purpose of the Investors in People (IiP) Standard was to create a benchmark for good training and development practice. Since this time, the Standard has become a central feature of the UK government's training policy. Much of the debate so far on IiP has focused on the extent of uptake. The aim of this paper is to broaden this debate: first, by reviewing the existing evidence on variations in accreditation rates across industrial sector and on the impact of the Standard on training and development activity; secondly, by exploring the new directions the Standard is taking. The paper discusses the policy implications that arise from the research undertaken to date and, in relation to the new directions the Standard is taking, considers the areas in which further research is needed.
Cerebral Temperature Dysregulation: MR Thermographic Monitoring in a Nonhuman Primate Study of Acute Ischemic Stroke

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Cerebral thermoregulation remains poorly understood. Temperature dysregulation is deeply implicated in the potentiation of cerebrovascular ischemia. We present a multiphasic, MR thermographic study in a nonhuman primate model of MCA infarction, hypothesizing detectable brain temperature disturbances and brain-systemic temperature decoupling. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three Rhesus Macaque nonhuman primates were sourced for 3-phase MR imaging: 1) baseline MR imaging, 2) 7-hour continuous MR imaging following minimally invasive, endovascular MCA stroke induction, and 3) poststroke day 1 MR imaging follow-up. MR thermometry was achieved by multivoxel spectroscopy (semi-localization by adiabatic selective refocusing) by using the proton resonance frequency chemical shift. The relationship of brain and systemic temperatures with time and infarction volumes was characterized by using a mixed-effects model. RESULTS: Following MCA infarction, progressive cerebral hyperthermia was observed in all 3 subjects, significantly outpacing systemic temperature fluctuations. Highly significant associations were observed for systemic, hemispheric, and global brain temperatures (F-statistic, P = .0005 for all regressions) relative to the time from stroke induction. Significant differences in the relationship between temperature and time following stroke onset were detected when comparing systemic temperatures with ipsilateral (P = .007), contralateral (P = .004), and infarction core (P = .003) temperatures following multiple-comparisons correction. Significant associations were observed between infarction volumes and both systemic (P ≤ .01) and ipsilateral (P = .04) brain temperatures, but not contralateral brain temperature (P = .08). CONCLUSIONS: Successful physiologic and continuous postischemic cerebral MR thermography was conducted and prescribed in a nonhuman primate infarction model to facilitate translatability. The results confirm hypothesized temperature disturbance and decoupling of physiologic brain-systemic temperature gradients. These findings inform a developing paradigm of brain thermoregulation and the applicability of brain temperature as a neuroimaging biomarker in CNS injury.
Smart elevator system for hazard notification

In this proposed method, the traditional elevators are upgraded in such a way that any alarming situation in the elevator can be detected and then sent to a main center where further action can be taken accordingly. Different emergency situation can be handled by implementing the system. Smart elevator system works by installing different modules inside the elevator such as speed sensors which will detect speed variations occurring above or below a certain threshold of elevator speed. The smart elevator system installed within the elevator sends a message to the emergency response center and sends an automated call as well. The smart system also includes an emotion detection algorithm which will detect emotions of the individual based on their expression in the elevator. The smart system also has a whisper detection system as well to know if someone stuck inside the elevator is alive during any hazardous situation. A broadcast signal is used as a check in the elevator system to evaluate if every part of the system is in stable state. Proposed system can completely replace the current elevator systems and become part of smart homes.
Precurrence risk of birth defects in Hawaii

ABSTRACT The aim of the investigation was to describe the risk of selected types of birth defects among older siblings of infants and fetuses with specific birth defects. Using data from a population‐based birth defects registry in Hawaii for deliveries during 1986–2000, the precurrence risk (risk among older siblings) for any major birth defect, birth defects of the same organ system, and same specific birth defect were calculated for nine major organ systems and 54 specific birth defects. The precurrence risk of any major birth defect (3.5%) was substantially less than the risk of any major birth defect among the entire population (4.7%). The precurrence risk of a birth defect of the same organ system was significantly higher than the reference rate for six (67%) of the major organ systems and eight (15%) of the specific birth defects. The precurrence risk of the same birth defect was substantially elevated for 15 (28%) of the specific birth defects. Precurrence risk of any major birth defect was not elevated, but tended to be lower than expected. However, for several categories, precurrence risk of birth defects of the same organ system or the same specific birth defect was substantially elevated.