Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Histology and ultrastructure reveal a new granulosis-like virus in Penaeus monodon affected by yellow head disease

A recently repor1t.d dlsease s y n d ~ o m e of Penaeus monodon In Thalland IS called 'yellow-head' or hua leung In Thal I t is usually charactenzed by llght yellow coloratlon of the dorsal cephalothorax area and generally pale or bleached appearance of a f f ~ c t e d prawns The yellow color In the cephalothorav reglon iesults from the underlying y e l l o ~ ~ hepatopancreas showlng through the translucent carapace In mo~ibund shrimp In h~stological prepdrations of moribund yellow-head specimens for the light mlcloscope. no consistent bacteiial fungal or parasltlc agents could be found The lylnphold organs ot yellow-head specimens sho\ved extensive abnormalities These Included obv~ously necrotlc cells and vacuolated cells with hypertrophied nuciel Also evldent were vely densely basophi l~c , globose cytoplasmic ~nclusions located adjacent to some ot the hypertroph~ed nuclei Slrn~lar basophil~c inclusions were found In interst~tl~il hepatopancreat~c tissue In connective tlssue u n d e ~ lylng the mld gut, In cardlac tissue, In glll t~ s sue and In hematopoetlc tissue T lansm~ss~on electron mlclographs revealed the presence of pic\iously undescrlbed rod-shaped, enveloped virions in the cytoplasm adjacent to the nuclei of cells f~ om various tissues Free vlnons \yere also present In intercellular spaces The virions were s ~ r n d a to those of the ~tlsect grahulosls vlruses (Baculov~r~dae) In terms of cytoplasmic locatlon size, morphology and development. However, they were not occluded by granulln KEY LVORDS Bdculo\~~rus P e n a ~ u s monodon Thailand YBV Yellowhead disease
Effects of Total Quality Management implementation on business performance in service institutions: A case of Kenya Wildlife Services

The service sector is getting competitive every day. In order to be successful Quality Management (QM) practices ought to be the integral part of any organization’s strategic management. Kenya’s national parks form the pillar of the country’s tourism industry. Over one million international tourists visit Kenya annually to partake in wildlife safari and other forms of nature-based tourism. However, Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) is being faced by some challenges which they are trying to manage. These include; decline in the volume of international tourists visiting the national parks, human wildlife conflict, encroachment and poaching, and poor infrastructure. The purpose of this study is to establish how Total Quality Management (TQM) practices are employed while addressing these challenges by examining whether there are any gaps or discrepancies (positive or negative) between the service quality management offered by KWS and the actual TQM practices by (KEBS, 2008). The study was guided by the following objectives: To determine the TQM principles used, to obtain the effects of TQM implementation on organizational business performance, to determine challenges in the implementation of TQM.
Top management group heterogeneity and firm performance

Using a sample of 84 Fortune 500 food and oil companies, observed over the period 1967 to 1981, this paper tests a number of hypotheses relating top management group composition to firm performance. Specifically, it was expected that homogeneous top management groups would interact more efficiently and therefore be preferable when competition is intense, but that heterogeneous groups would facilitate adaptation and therefore be preferable under conditions of environmental change. Partial support for these hypotheses was found; however, the pattern of results also highlights the numerous difficulties in untangling and identifying the determinants of firm performance.
Mitochondrial matrix granules: Their behavior during changing metabolic situations and their relationship to contact sites between inner and outer mitochondrial membranes

Since their discovery in the early fifties mitochondrial granules have been the subject of many researches. Some twenty years ago two hypotheses on their function were introduced. Peachey thought that the granules were a sink of cations and that they would eventually regulate the concentrations of these ions. Alternatively, Barnard thought that the granules were precursors of the mitochondrial inner membrane. There are only a few data on organic constituents of the granules. Phospholipids (e.g., cardiolipin) glycoprotein or lipids, calcium precipitable lipoprotein, cytochrome c oxidase seem to be present in the granules. There has been much debate on whether calcium is present or not. Reports are mostly based on X‐ray microanalysis, the result of which depends on preparation techniques.
D2‐like dopamine receptors in amphibian retina: Localization with fluorescent ligands

Dopamine induces several light adaptive changes in amphibian retina via receptors with D2‐like pharmacology, but the identity of the primary target cells has not been determined. Using a fluorescent probe consisting of a selective D2 antagonist, N‐(p‐aminophenethyl)‐ spiperone (NAPS), derivatized with the fluorophore Bodipy (NAPS‐Bodipy), we identified the distribution of dopamine binding sites in the retina of two amphibians, post‐metamorphic Xenopus laevis and larval Ambystoma tigrinum. Specific labeling was defined as staining that was displaced by D2 selective ligands (eticlopride or sulpiride), but insensitve to D1 selective drugs (SCH 23390), adrenergic catecholamines (epinephrine or norepinephrine), or serotoninergic analogues (ketanserin). Both rod and cone cells showed specific dopamine D2‐like binding sites arranged in clustered arrays on discrete membrane domains of the inner segment. Labeling of photoreceptor outer segments was continuous and was not displaced by competition with D2 selective ligands; this labeling was considered nonspecific. In addition, in both species, clustered binding of the D2‐probe was found on Müller cells and on a subset of inner retinal cells with the morphology of amacrine/interplexiform cells. Our data provide direct evidence for D2 receptors on both rods and cones, and suggest that the receptors may be clustered into patches within a discrete cellular domain, the inner segment. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Is Internet addiction a useful concept?

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 47(1) The Internet is utilised by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, with its numerous benefits only leading to an increase in the number of users. But there is a dark side to the Internet, and one of the negative consequences of the vast potentials of the Internet has been its excessive and uncontrollable use, often referred to as ‘Internet addiction’. Hardly a day passes without this phenomenon of the modern age being mentioned in the media. Over the past decade, Internet addiction and related behaviours have been attracting the attention of mental health researchers and clinicians, although this field is still in its infancy. In some Asian countries, such as South Korea, Internet addiction and similar problems are considered issues of public health significance. However, in such countries, competitive online video gaming is heavily promoted, blurring the boundary between ‘normal excessive’ and pathologically excessive use of the Internet and online video games. The very term ‘Internet addiction’ is controversial and the concept remains elusive. This article aims to examine some of the most important issues surrounding Internet addiction and to propose an alternative conceptualisation.
The Impact of the Korean Government's Privatization of Korea Telecom (KT) on the Korean Telecommunications Industry: KT's Financial and Operating Performance

Abstract This article examines the relation between the privatization of state-owned enterprises and the changes in their financial and operating performance through the case study of Korea Telecom (KT), which is the biggest telecommunications (telecom) company in Korea. The Korean government completed the privatization of KT in May 2002, arguing that it would help KT to improve its financial and operating performance, as well as contribute to the development of the telecom industry. This article presents the changes in KT's revenues, assets, net income margins, return on assets, real sales per employee, investments, and dividends to evaluate its financial and operating performance, as well as the impact of the privatization of KT on the Korean telecom industry over the pre- and post-privatization windows.
On Market Timing, Stock Picking, and Managerial Skills of Mutual Fund Managers with Manipulation-Proof Performance Measure

The on-going debate over whether fund managers have skills and whether those skills are short-lived is still inconclusive. Using the performance measure that can’t be manipulated with respect to the underlying distribution, time variation, nor estimation error, (the manipulation-proof performance measure (MPPM, Goetzmann et al. (2007)), we rank all U.S. domestic equity mutual funds from 1980 to 2012 on a quarterly basis and analyze their portfolio holding to contribute to the literature in two folds. First, managers ranked highest on MPPM in the current quarter earn largest fee-adjusted fund returns in the following quarter. Those managers hold younger, smaller, lower book-to-market, and momentum stocks. Second, taking long positions of the addition and short positions of the removal from their quarterly holdings from the highest ranked managers would outperform the lowest ranked managers by 12 basis points at the following quarter. Even though higher ranked managers have better stock picking skills, their fund returns are not large enough to offset their frequent transactions and higher expenses to insure positive alphas.
On the Variance of Children's Toys Value

Toys could reflect a culture.The value of toys is determined by a community,which is constituted by the producers and the players of the toys.In traditional society,when the toys community is integrated,the toys could always reflect traditional social life.They could not only satisfy the children's demands,but also bring the children into the traditional culture.But in modern society,as the pattern of social life and the productive pattern of the toys change,the toys combine more closely with modern technology and business than before,and the producers of the toys become the controller of children's games.The disintegration of the play's community results in the value decline of traditional toys.
Public worry about specific food safety issues

Consumers may encounter a number of potential food hazards through their food choice decisions and consumption behaviour. It is psychologically determined risk perceptions that drive acceptance of such potential food hazards, and define people's risk‐taking or self‐protective behaviours. As such, it is necessary to understand exactly what consumers are worried about. Food issues of concern to consumers were identified in a previous exploratory focus group study. A list of 18 food safety issues was developed for the purpose of the study reported here, with the aim of comparing worry about the different issues and investigating any demographic differences. Factor analysis indicated that attitudes to the 18 food safety issues reflected two underlying constructs, the first relating to technological food issues and the second to lifestyle food issues. In general, people were more worried about technological food hazards compared to lifestyle hazards. Demographic differences were observed for gender, age and social class, but not for geographical region, or having children; furthermore, experience of food allergy or intolerance increased worry about technological issues.
Buyers, suppliers, and R&D spillovers

The role of buyers and suppliers has received little attention in the literature on research and development (R&D) spillovers and productivity, which has focused primarily on the moderating roles of technological and geographic proximity. In this study, we examine R&D spillovers that result from buyer and supplier relationships at the transaction level, utilizing a unique dataset identifying individual buyers and suppliers of Japanese manufacturing firms, matched with data from R&D surveys and the Census of Manufactures. In an analysis of more than 20,000 Japanese manufacturing plants, we find that R&D stocks of buyers and suppliers provide a substantial productivity performance premium over and above the effect of technologically and geographically proximate R&D stocks. These effects are magnified if the supplier and buyer have business group ties based on capital ownership relationships. While the effects of technologically proximate R&D decay with distance, this is not the case for spillovers from buyers and suppliers. Our results identify transaction-based spillovers as a key influence on productivity and social returns to R&D.
Empirical research on the relationship between corporate governance and accounting information quality

This article selects listed companies that were punished by China Securities Regulatory Commission and Stock Exchange from 2001 to 2007 as samples,and presents an empirical research on the relationship between corporate governance and accounting information quality.The result shows that accounting information quality is significantly positive relation to equity concentration,standard audit report and state-owned control,and insignificantly related to size,component and meeting frequency of corporate board.
Design, analysis and simulation of biped running robot

Legged systems are potentially expected to have outstanding mobility. However, they have shown only modest levels of capability to traverse on flat ground. This paper introduces a biped robot inspired by the hind limbs of cats. We present the characteristics of the system and conduct a position analysis based on vector loop equations. Afterwards, the ground clearance and parallel movement of the robotic leg are shown. We present a speed equation in an effort to verify how the major parameters affect the speed. In addition, we explore control strategies for ground speed matching, acceleration, slip, and speed control. A dynamic simulation shows that the biped robot reached 13.31 leg lengths per second (9.3km/h). This biped robot with the speed equation and its control strategies allow us to understand legged locomotion and can show us how to improve the speed.
A CMOS watch-dog sensor for guaranteeing the quality of perishables

We developed a CMOS integrated-circuit sensor that simulates the change in quality of various perishables. This sensor is attached to each perishable goods such as farm and marine products and is carried from producers to consumers with the goods. During the distribution process, the sensor experiences the surrounding temperature and simulates the deterioration of the goods that is caused by the temperatures. By reading the output of the sensor, consumers can know whether the goods are fresh or not. This sensor consists of subthreshold CMOS circuits with a low-power consumption of 5 muW or less
Predicting Takeover Targets - An Empirical Analysis of the European Market

This thesis studies the influence factors for takeover prediction and the potential to generate abnormal returns based on takeover probabilities in the European market. A takeover prediction model is developed using conditional logit regression and a sample of 856 target and 18,808 non-target observations from 1996 to 2010. Studying the sixth merger wave and the differences between the markets of the United Kingdom (UK) and Continental Europe (CE) is new to this research area. The empirical analysis finds significant negative influences of sales growth, EBITDA-margin, current ratio and industry disturbances as well as positive relations of P/E-ratio and UK-firms on takeover probability. An out-of-sample test for 2011 and 2012 finds a predictive accuracy of 75.5% for the model, identifying 54% of targets and 76% of non-targets correctly. The derived yearly-rebalanced long-only investment strategy for the high takeover probability decile generates market-adjusted returns of 9.7% p.a. for the European market sample over the last 17 years. The results show large differences for both, this strategy and for takeover announcement returns between UK and CE targets.
The Polyp Prevention Trial–Continued Follow-up Study: No Effect of a Low-Fat, High-Fiber, High-Fruit, and -Vegetable Diet on Adenoma Recurrence Eight Years after Randomization

The Polyp Prevention Trial (PPT) was a multicenter randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effects of a high-fiber (18 g/1,000 kcal), high-fruit and -vegetable (3.5 servings/1,000 kcal), and low-fat (20% of total energy) diet on the recurrence of adenomatous polyps in the large bowel over a period of 4 years. Although intervention participants reported a significantly reduced intake of dietary fat, and increased fiber, fruit, and vegetable intakes, their risk of recurrent adenomas was not significantly different from that of the controls. Since the PPT intervention lasted only 4 years, it is possible that participants need to be followed for a longer period of time before treatment differences in adenoma recurrence emerge, particularly if diet affects early events in the neoplastic process. The PPT-Continued Follow-up Study (PPT-CFS) was a post-intervention observation of PPT participants for an additional 4 years from the completion of the trial. Of the 1,905 PPT participants, 1,192 consented to participate in the PPT-CFS and confirmed colonoscopy reports were obtained on 801 participants. The mean time between the main trial end point colonoscopy and the first colonoscopy in the PPT-CFS was 3.94 years (intervention group) and 3.87 years (control group). The baseline characteristics of 405 intervention participants and 396 control participants in the PPT-CFS were quite similar. Even though the intervention group participants increased their fat intake and decreased their intakes of fiber, fruits, and vegetables during the PPT-CFS, they did not go back to their prerandomization baseline diet (P < 0.001 from paired t tests) and intake for each of the three dietary goals was still significantly different from that in the controls during the PPT-CFS (P < 0.001 from t tests). As the CFS participants are a subset of the people in the PPT study, the nonparticipants might not be missing completely at random. Therefore, a multiple imputation method was used to adjust for potential selection bias. The relative risk (95% confidence intervals) of recurrent adenoma in the intervention group compared with the control group was 0.98 (0.88-1.09). There were no significant intervention-control group differences in the relative risk for recurrence of an advanced adenoma (1.06; 0.81-1.39) or multiple adenomas (0.92; 0.77-1.10). We also used a multiple imputation method to examine the cumulative recurrence of adenomas through the end of the PPT-CFS: the intervention-control relative risk (95% confidence intervals) for any adenoma recurrence was 1.04 (0.98-1.09). This study failed to show any effect of a low-fat, high-fiber, high-fruit and -vegetable eating pattern on adenoma recurrence even with 8 years of follow-up. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(9):1745–52)
Effect of Phytase Superdoses and Citric Acid on Growth Performance, Plasma Phosphorus and Tibia Ash in Broilers Fed Canola Meal-Based Diets Severely Limited in Available Phosphorus

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of phytase superdoses alone or in combination with citric acid (CA) in canola meal-based diets severely limited in available phosphorus (Pa) on growth performance, plasma phosphorus (P), and tibia ash (TA) in broilers from 22 to 42 d of age. Two hundreds and eighty 21-d-old male broilers were used in 28 pens of 10 birds per each. The experimental diets consisted of a positive control (PC) diet and six negative control (NC) diets which consisted of two levels of CA (0 and 20 g/Kg) and three levels of phytase (0, 1000 and 4000 U/Kg) in a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement. The PC diet contained 4.3 g/Kg Pa, but all NC diets contained 1.5 g/Kg Pa. Results indicated that the birds fed the PC diet had a significantly higher average daily gain (ADG), plasma P and TA, but a lower feed conversion ratio (FCR) than those fed the NC diet. The ADG, FCR and plasma P values in birds fed NC diets supplemented with 4000 U/Kg phytase enzyme (with or without CA) significantly reached those of birds fed the PC diet. But, addition of phytase enzyme at 1000 U/Kg only plus CA to the NC diet could significantly improve FCR and plasma P. A significant interaction was observed between phytase and CA for FCR and plasma P. Although TA values in NC + 1000 U/Kg phytase treatments (with or without CA) were similar to the PC treatment, TA values of NC + 4000 U/Kg phytase treatments (with or without CA) was greater than that of the PC treatment. Results of this study showed that, in severely limited Pa corn-canola meal-based diets, supplementing 4000 U/Kg phytase or also 1000 U/Kg phytase plus CA will be sufficient to obtain the comparable feed efficiency in broilers to those fed the adequate Pa diet.
Icefex: Protocol Format Extraction from IL-based Concolic Execution

Protocol reverse engineering is useful for many security applications, including intelligent fuzzing, intrusion detection and fingerprint generation. Since manual reverse engineering is a time-consuming and tedious process, a number of automatic techniques have been proposed. However, the accuracy of these techniques is limited due to the complexity of binary instructions, and the derived formats have missed constraints that are critical for security applications. In this paper, we propose a new approach for protocol format extraction. Our approach reasons about only the evaluation behavior of a program on the input message from concolic execution, and enables field identification and constraint inference with high accuracy. Moreover, it performs binary analysis with low complexity by reducing modern instruction sets to BIL, a small, well-specified and architecture-independent language. We have implemented our approach into a system called Icefex and evaluated it over real-world implementations of DNS, eDonkey, FTP, HTTP and McAfee ePO protocols. Experimental results show that our approach is more accurate and effective at extracting protocol formats than other approaches.
Market Reaction to International Investment Announcements of Malaysian Firms: Illusion or Reality

This research substantiates evidence on the efficiency of one of the fastest developing and largest emerging securities market (Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange) in the Asia Pacific rim with respect to foreign investment announcements. Specifically, in this study we are interested in finding out whether or not: (1) foreign investment announcement is relevant information and market reacts toward it and (2) what forms of market reaction does this information produce. Our study focuses on international investment announcements made in 1990 through 2000 for firms listed on the main board of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) of Malaysia. The result shows that the announcements of foreign investment produce a significant positive daily abnormal return surrounding the event period. This implies that foreign investment announcements do contain new relevant information and thus move the market. In addition, investors also generally react favorably to the international investment efforts of Malaysia firms listed at KLSE. This is evidenced by the significant positive reaction of the market to announcement of investments in foreign countries. The t-statistic for the fourteen days, prior and fourteen days after the announcement indicate non-significance abnormal returns. Since none of the abnormal return is statically significant for each one of the fourteen days before and after the event period, it seems that the market reflects this new information (foreign investment announcements) rather efficiently. Keywords: market reaction, international investment announcement, relevant information.