Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Corporate social responsibility and stakeholders: Review of the last decade (2006–2015)

Abstract Background: Globalization, strong development of information-communication technologies and the emergence of new burning challenges for the global communities enabled the concept of corporate social responsibility to be perceived as a business model that allows for successful differentiation of companies, as well creating sustainable competitive advantage. Objective: The goal of the paper is to offer a short overview of the role of internal and external stakeholders within the concept of corporate social responsibility and point out the importance of quality relationships between the company and its stakeholders with the aim of improving the standard of living of all community members. Methods/approach: The paper is based on a systematic analysis of previously published relevant international scientific papers in the field of corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory and information-communication technologies. Results: This paper demonstrates that the concept of corporate social responsibility has gone, in its several decades of existence, from the "unnecessary dependency" phase to the critical business model phase. Conclusions: As there is a natural connection between the concept of corporate social responsibility and the stakeholders, it can be concluded that the quality of the relationship between the company and its stakeholders represents a key factor that affects the success of the company in its notion of differentiating itself from competitors and creating sustainable competitive advantage.
Spatial Dimensions of Sectoral Labor Productivity Convergence in Turkey: A Spatial Panel Data Approach

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate spatial dimensions of interregional labor productivity convergence in Turkey between 2005 and 2011 period in three sector disaggregation. We employed spatial panel data approach to investigate the absolute and conditional beta convergence. Annual gross value added per worker data has been used as labor productivity proxy for 26 sub-regions. Analysis results show us that absolute and conditional convergence is highly significant for all agriculture, industry and services sector and also in sectors total. We also found that, while industry, services and sectors total show significant spatial dependency, there is no strong evidence of spatial interaction in agriculture sector for Turkey. Structural problems of Turkish agriculture sector are considered to be the main reasons behind this finding.
Supervisory Board Composition and Firm Financial Performance: A Case of Companies Listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange

Abstract Purpose: This paper investigates the relationship between the internal governance structure and financial performance of Polish companies. Ensuring diversity of corporate boards has been on the agenda of various regulators on a national and international level as it is generally expected corporate boards that are more diverse will be more competent and more effective monitoring managerial actions, and therefore positively impact company performance. Methodology: This paper uses a sample of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and examines the two main compositional features of company supervisory boards (independence and experience) and their practices by companies. We also investigate the effect of diversity on company performance. As our empirical methodology, we use linear regression analysis. Findings: Our findings support the proposal that diversity matters, especially in terms of the presence of experienced members on supervisory boards, and that such diversity positively affects financial results. In addition to the main finding, the results of the study indicate also the importance of the ownership structure. Family firms and companies with a higher level of gearing are more likely to perform less effectively. Originality: To date, research on the association between supervisory board diversity and financial performance in either the Polish or Central and Eastern European capital markets has been limited. The paper also points to the importance of having experienced members on a company’s supervisory board. Independent members on supervisory boards do not seem to have a similar association.
Design of a pressure sensitive matrix for analyzing direct haptic patient-therapist interaction in motor rehabilitation after stroke

Abstract: Robot based therapy is one of the prevalent therapeutic approaches in motor stroke rehabilitation. It is often used in hospitals in combination with conventional therapy. In order to optimize human-robot interaction, we aim to investigate how a therapist physically supports patients during motor training of the upper extremities. This paper presents the design of a flexible textile sensor matrix, which measures the pressure exerted between therapist and patient during direct haptic interaction as well as the hand position and orientation in space. The matrix contains 144 sensors which enables measuring pressure intensity and localization of areas where the pressure is applied. The measurement matrix was evaluated with four healthy participants.
Adjustment of instantaneous reference walking speed during synchronized robot-based gait rehabilitation

Abstract: This paper presents a method to adjust the instantaneous reference speed of the mobile platform or treadmill of robotic gait rehabilitation systems during compliant, synchronized therapy. This method is particularly useful when the robot-patient synchronization algorithms generate compensations that fluctuate significantly throughout the gait cycle, making it unsuitable to apply these compensations directly to the reference speed values. The method was tested with a synchronization algorithm that generates continues temporal-compensations based on a phase controller. The tests comprised simulation of different scenarios and a practical test with a healthy subject using an over-ground gait rehabilitation system.
Macroeconomic (in)stability and endogenous market structure with productive government expenditure

Abstract We consider the congestion effect of productive government spending in a monopolistic competition model with endogenous entry, and analyze the possibility of local indeterminacy. Some main findings emerge from the analysis. First, the indeterminacy condition is independent of the monopoly power. Second, productive government expenditure can be a source of local indeterminacy, while a higher degree of public goods congestion lessens the beneficial effect of productive government expenditure, and therefore reduces the possibility of indeterminacy. Third, a higher degree of internal returns to scale is associated with a lower possibility for the emergence of indeterminacy when production externalities are present.
Behavioral Despair in the Talmud: New Solutions to Unsolved Millennium-Old Legal Problems

Abstract We solve two “unsolvable” (teyku) problems from the Talmud that had remained unsolved for about one and a half thousand years despite massive and nearly continuous commentary and analysis throughout the centuries. The Talmudic problems concern the implied decision-making of farmers who have left some scattered fruit behind, and the alleged impossibility of knowing whether they would return for given amounts of fruit over given amounts of land area if we aware of their behavior at exactly one point. We solve the problems by formalizing the Talmudic discussion and expressing five natural economic and mathematical assumptions that are also eminently reasonable in the original domain. If we also allow a sixth assumption regarding the farmer’s minimum wage, we can solve two other related unsolvable problems.
Review of Various Delay Causing Factors and Their Resolution by Application of Lean Principles in India

Abstract Practically speaking, not all real estate construction projects are accomplished in the defined span and within budget. Various factors responsible for occurrence of delays are one of the long-standing issues in the field of real estate. Delays make contractors endure productivity loss, cause high disturbance expenses, and prolongation costs. The aim of the research is to summarize several delay causing factors, which are observed in the execution of previous real estate construction projects. It then proposes implementation of standard prevention procedures to minimize delays. Time effect examination is the approach to evaluating and allotting the upshots of delays or changing a venture schedule. This review sets execution framework of the two sub-principles of the Toyota Way attributes known as philosophy sub-principles and process subprinciples to guide real estate construction businesses in their lean change to delay free real estate construction work. These are implemented after investigating the critical factors responsible for delays in the delayed projects by comparing their as-planned schedules with the adjusted schedules. Methods used in the research include structured surveys and content analysis, which is performed after collection of quantitative data from the respondents. The lean construction principles will be designed and provided to clients to be productive in performing work packages on their scheduled time with minimum possibility of time overrun.
Innovative enterprises operating in the Member States of the European Union

Summary Contemporary enterprises should be innovative to survive on a competitive market. Innovations are the basic factor of development of each firm. They must be systematically developed and implemented in all areas of socio-economic activity. The base for the creation of such a system can be a complex diagnosis of the current state of the commonness of introduction of the innovations in particular enterprises. This diagnosis can be conducted on the base of results of the empirical researches, conducted in February 2016 by TNS Political & Social in 28 EU Member States, Switzerland and the United States. These researches, among other things, refered to commonness of introduction of innovations in enterprises. In this publication an attempt to achieve the following objectives is undertaken: conducting of statistical-comparative analysis of the empirical researches on the commonness of introduction of specific types of innovations in enterprises operating in the Member States of the European Union and the United States, verification of the thesis that the commonness of implementation of certain types of innovations in enterprises functioning in the EU Member States is relatively low and varied. The analysis of empirical material allowed to achieve these objectives.
Risk profiles and corporate social responsibility for socially disadvantaged groups

Developing a suitable mechanism to stimulate the effective redeployment of capital to social activities can be designed using the corporate social responsibility (CSR) concept. Informational asymmetry about the real state of social risks influences the effectiveness of allocations in social protection. Reducing information asymmetries can be achieved by providing the corporations with socially determined risk profiles based on predetermined patterns. Offering concrete lines of action following the risk profiles approach which to base investment decisions of companies in CSR can maximize the results of such a mechanism. In a previous study the authors have developed a theoretical model for determining the poverty risk profile. This study aims to present the practical application of the theoretical model and to provide comments on some errors. Hence, the authors analyzed Buzau county municipalities in presenting the highest risk level determined by the theoretical model and related causes and performed an impact assessment of an investment in CSR based on a model. Specifically, the authors evaluated the impact of reducing the risk of poverty for a suitable investment in CSR. In the second part of the study, the authors analyzed the types of errors that can be found in the municipalities risk profile model due to the granularity of the data. Thus, for the error of over-inclusion, the authors assessed social allocative efficiency at the community level using benchmarking analysis, Data Envelopment respectively and analyzed the data of the under-inclusion error in Buzau county villages. The paper aims to analyze the relative limits on quantitative models and risk of poverty and the practical implementation of these types of models in the development of corporate social responsibility.The study provides also a useful tool which can be made available to companies in order to increase the vulnerable groups’ life quality and the satisfaction of shareholders, stakeholders and related parties following redeployments according to specific CSR mechanisms.
Interventional Approach for Path-Specific Effects

Abstract Standard causal mediation analysis decomposes the total effect into a direct effect and an indirect effect in settings with only one single mediator. Under the settings with multiple mediators, all mediators are often treated as one single block of mediators. The effect mediated by a certain combination of mediators, i. e. path-specific effect (PSE), is not always identifiable without making strong assumptions. In this paper, the authors propose a method, defining a randomly interventional analogue of PSE (rPSE), as an alternative approach for mechanism investigation. This method is valid under assumptions of no unmeasured confounding and allows settings with mediators dependent on each other, interaction, and mediator-outcome confounders which are affected by exposure. In addition, under linearity and no-interaction, our method has the same form of traditional path analysis for PSE. Furthermore, under single mediator without a mediator-outcome confounder affected by exposure, it also has the same form of the results of causal mediation analysis. We also provide SAS code for settings of linear regression with exposure-mediator interaction and perform analysis in the Framingham Heart Study dataset, investigating the mechanism of smoking on systolic blood pressure as mediated by both cholesterol and body weight. Allowing decomposition of total effect into several rPSEs, our method contributes to investigation of complicated causal mechanisms in settings with multiple mediators.
Thematizing Common Sense (Presentation of the Dossier ‘Science and Common Sense’)

The epistemological issue of common sense within the field of philosophy of sciences is relatively recent. It acquired momentum with the emergence of the new sub-field known as the philosophy of mind to a large degree an outcome of the emergence of psychology as a scientific discipline. “Folk psychology”, understood as a modality of common sense, is a central topic shared by “social psychology”, “development psychology”, “philosophy of mind”, “epistemology” eventually coordinated within the interdisciplinary field of “cognitive sciences”.
Understanding Student Motivation: A Key to Retention in Higher Education

Abstract This paper explores what motivates college students at different stages of their academic studies. Using Herzberg’s two-factor theory, the researchers conducted a survey of 535 students in three south-western universities to determine if motivations changed throughout their academic careers. Results showed that students at different stages of their college careers have different concern s and, as such, different motivational strategies are needed to respond to their concerns. Implications are given to grow and retain enrolment.
Specifics of IFRS Adoption by Central and Eastern European Countries: Evidence from Research

Abstract The paper reviews recent literature on the specifics of adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by the new EU members from the Central and Eastern Europe. Despite being members of the EU or OECD, the transition to a standard developed economy has not yet finished. The first part of the paper presents macroeconomic statistics and capital market data, which underline a unique economic structure of the region (relative unimportance of capital markets for raising capital, strong dependence on foreign direct investments) combined with the lacks in institutional environment. Under such conditions, the economic consequences of IFRS adoption can be unpredictable and adverse. The second part of the paper analyses the reflection of specifics of the IFRS adoption in the CEE region in research studies covered by the Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science database. The analysis reveals (a) cross-country disproportion in the research coverage of the area; (b) relatively low coverage of the IFRS research focusing on these transition countries in top journals.
Predicting the NHL playoffs with PageRank

Abstract Applying Google’s PageRank model to sports is a popular concept in contemporary sports ranking. However, there is limited evidence that rankings generated with PageRank models do well at predicting the winners of playoffs series. In this paper, we use a PageRank model to predict the outcomes of the 2008–2016 NHL playoffs. Unlike previous studies that use a uniform personalization vector, we incorporate Corsi statistics into a personalization vector, use a nine-fold cross validation to identify tuning parameters, and evaluate the prediction accuracy of the tuned model. We found our ratings had a 70% accuracy for predicting the outcome of playoff series, outperforming the Colley, Massey, Bradley-Terry, Maher, and Generalized Markov models by 5%. The implication of our results is that fitting parameter values and adding a personalization vector can lead to improved performance when using PageRank models.
A COMPUTAÇÃO DO FLUXO ÓPTICO EM IMAGENS OBTIDAS POR UM SISTEMA MÓVEL DE MAPEAMENTO TERRESTRE

Em um sistema móvel de mapeamento terrestre (SMMT), o posicionamento é obtido por processamento do sinal GPS. Entretanto, pode ocorrer a perda do sinal por conta da obstrução causada por construções ou vegetação, por exemplo. Há sistemas de mapeamento móvel que possuem um sensor inercial também para orientar as imagens. Tanto o posicionamento quanto a orientação (atitude) podem resultar degradados devido à deriva do mecanismo inercial causada pelo acúmulo de erros durante o intervalo de tempo que perdurar a falta de recepção do sinal GPS. As imagens de um SMMT obtidas durante a ausência dos sinais GPS ficam então mal orientadas. Uma alternativa para orientar as imagens, quando não se têm o posicionamento e a orientação dados por sensores externos, é a utilização das informações sobre o movimento interno das imagens, através do fluxo óptico binocular. Este trabalho apresenta a computação do fluxo óptico pelo método diferencial no contexto de um SMMT, com vários testes combinando-se a quantidade de imagens de uma seqÃ¼ência com a variável de regularização do fluxo óptico para determinar as configurações que devem ser utilizadas com este tipo de imagem. Em trabalhos futuros, espera-se que o fluxo óptico possa, combinado com técnicas fotogramétricas e de navegação, contribuir com a automação do caminhamento fotogramétrico, baseando-se apenas nas imagens.
Modeling Guessing Components in the Measurement of Political Knowledge

Due to the crucial role of political knowledge in democratic participation, the measurement of political knowledge has been a major concern in the discipline of political science. Common formats used for political knowledge questions include multiple-choice items and open-ended identification questions. The conventional wisdom holds that multiple-choice items induce guessing behavior, which leads to underestimated item-difficulty parameters and biased estimates of political knowledge. This article examines guessing behavior in multiple-choice items and argues that a successful guess requires certain levels of knowledge conditional on the difficulties of items. To deal with this issue, we propose a Bayesian IRT guessing model that accommodates the guessing components of item responses. The proposed model is applied to analyzing survey data in Taiwan, and the results show that the proposed model appropriately describes the guessing components based on respondents’ levels of political knowledge and item characteristics. That is, in general, partially informed respondents are more likely to have a successful guess because well-informed respondents do not need to guess and barely informed ones are highly seducible by the attractive distractors. We also examine the gender gap in political knowledge and find that, even when the guessing effect is accounted for, men are more knowledgeable than women about political affairs, which is consistent with the literature.
Contrast Induced Acute Kidney Injury and Direct Cytotoxicity of Iodinated Radiocontrast Media on Renal Proximal Tubule Cells

The administration of intravenous iodinated radiocontrast media (RCM) to visualize internal structures during diagnostic procedures has increased exponentially since their first use in 1928. A serious side effect of RCM exposure is contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI), which is defined as an abrupt and prolonged decline in renal function occurring 48–72 hours after injection. Multiple attempts have been made to decrease the toxicity of RCM by altering ionic strength and osmolarity, yet there is little evidence to substantiate that a specific RCM is superior in avoiding CI-AKI. RCM-associated kidney dysfunction is largely attributed to alterations in renal hemodynamics, specifically renal vasoconstriction; however, numerous studies indicate direct cytotoxicity as a source of epithelial damage. Exposure of in vitro renal proximal tubule cells to RCM has been shown to affect proximal tubule epithelium in the following manner: 1) changes to cellular morphology in the form of vacuolization; 2) increased production of reactive oxygen species, resulting in oxidative stress; 3) mitochondrial dysfunction, resulting in decreased efficiency of the electron transport chain and ATP production; 4) perturbation of the protein folding capacity of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) (activating the unfolded protein response and inducing ER stress); and 5) decreased activity of cell survival kinases. The present review focuses on the direct cytotoxicity of RCM on proximal tubule cells in the absence of in vivo complications, such as alterations in renal hemodynamics or cytokine influence.
Augmentation of Virtual Endoscopic Images with Intra-operative Data using Content-Nets

Medical imaging applications are challenging for machine learning and computer vision methods, in general, for two main reasons: it is difficult to generate reliable ground truth and databases are usually too small in size for training state of the art methods. Virtual images obtained from computer simulations could be used to train classifiers and validate image processing methods if their appearances were comparable (in texture and color) to the actual appearance of intra-operative medical images. Recent works focus on style transfer to generate artistic images by combining the content of an image and the style of another one. A main challenge is the generation of pairs with similar content ensuring preservation of anatomical features, especially across multi-modal data. This paper presents a deep-learning approach to content-preserving style transfer of intra-operative medical data for realistic virtual endoscopy. We propose a multi-objective optimization strategy for Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to obtain content-matching pairs that are blended using a siamese u-net architecture (called Content-net) that uses a measure of the content of activations to modulate skip connections. Our approach has been applied to transfer the appearance of bronchoscopic intra-operative videos to virtual bronchoscopies. Experiments assess images in terms of, both, content and appearance and show that our simulated data can substitute intra-operative videos for the design and training of image processing methods.