Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigating the Impact of a Small Business Consulting Course on Entrepreneurial Attitudes

This study uses the Entrepreneurial Attitudes Orientation (EAO) ( Robinson, et al., 1991) survey to determine whether students enrolled in a small business consulting course changed their entrepreneurial attitude. The EAO survey was used in a pre-test at the beginning of the semester and a post-test at the end of the semester, and four other key variables (age, intention to own a business, hours worked, and semesters as full-time students) are used to search for an explanation of change in students’ entrepreneurial attitude. The EAO survey was administered to students in a small business consulting class as well as marketing classes, used as a control group, for seven consecutive semesters. No significant attitude change was found for the small business consulting course in the overall EAO which confirms the “self-selection bias” of entrepreneurship students (Linan, 2004, McMullan & Long, 1987; Noel, 2002). However, the EAO measure did find a significant change in attitude among students who aspired to own a business and who had a strong work ethic. One conclude that can be drawn from this study is that students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship are impacted more by what professors do not teach, i.e., extraneous variables, than what professors teach.
Anti-convulsants and gene expression in malignant gliomas.

U nderstanding the molecular pathways which mediate tumor cell proliferation and therapeutic resistance in malignant gliomas is fundamental to the development of better treatments. At the present time, the most clinically relevant molecular feature in the setting of glioblastoma (GBM) is the status of the O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) gene. The presence of MGMT promoter methylation in malignant glioma has been demonstrated to correlate both with improvements in overall survival as well as improved therapeutic response to alkylating agents, specifically temozolomide. Although the effects of chemotherapeutic agents on specific molecular pathways have been studied to a great degree, the effects that other drugs may have on such pathways are less recognized. Brain tumor patients are commonly prescribed anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs), steroids, and other therapeutic agents to treat neurologic symptoms related to the intracranial mass lesion. In addition, many of these patients are on other drugs for various medical conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, etc. The possible effects of these agents on glioma proliferation may be negligible in most cases, but are largely unknown. The choice of AED agent, in particular, is usually not implicated as a source of bias in randomized trials of anti-tumoral therapies. Levetiracetam (LEV) has been increasingly used as an AED for brain tumor patients over the past decade. This drug may be attractive for these patients because it does not appear to induce cytochrome p450 enzymes, and SCIENCE TIMES
The Transition to the Single Market in the German Insurance Industry

The Single Market Project of the European Commission was supposed to change the financial service industry markedly. We provide a first attempt to assess its consequences on the insurance industry in Germany, the largest insurance market within the European Union. For this purpose we apply a Data Envelopment Analysis on a panel of German insurance companies and compute efficiency scores for the years 1992 through 1996 as well as a Malmquist index for the productivity growth. The results indicate cost saving potentials and an increasing divergence between fully efficient firms and efficiency laggards. Measured scale economies imply an L-shaped average cost curve for the industry and thus low cost saving potential from further merging activities.
Measuring and Dealing with the Uncertainty of SOA Solutions

The paper investigates the uncertainty of Web Services performance and the instability of their communication medium (the Internet), and shows the influence of these two factors on the overall dependability of SOA. We present our practical experience in benchmarking and measuring the behaviour of a number of existing Web Services used in e-science and bio-informatics, provide the results of statistical data analysis and discuss the probability distribution of delays contributing to the Web Services response time. The ratio between delay standard deviation and its average value is introduced to measure the performance uncertainty of a Web Service. Finally, we present the results of error and fault injection into Web Services. We summarise our experiments with SOA-specific exception handling features provided by two web service development kits and analyse exception propagation and performance as the major factors affecting fault tolerance (in particular, error handling and fault diagnosis) in Web Services. © 2010 University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Printed and published by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Computing Science, Claremont Tower, Claremont Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, England. Bibliographical details CHEN, Y. , GORBENKO, A. , KHARCHENKO, V. , ROMANOVSKY, A. Measuring and Dealing with the Uncertainty of SOA Solutions [By] Y. Chen, A. Gorbenko, V. Kharchenko, A. Romanovsky Newcastle upon Tyne: University of Newcastle upon Tyne: Computing Science, 2010. (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Computing Science, Technical Report Series, No. CS-TR-1225)
New dispatching strategy for the integration of active-demand and distributed storage in the electricity market

The proliferation of Distributed Generation (DG) in power systems calls for a redesign of electricity network management, which should be able to accommodate large amounts of intermittent generation. This issue requires a discussion about the current dispatching regulation, giving distributed storage systems and qualified electricity consumption the opportunity to provide ancillary services to the distribution grid. In this work, a new dispatching strategy for the integration of active-demand and distributed storage in the Italian electricity market is presented. The strategy is focused on a distribution Smart Grid (SG), where customers can indirectly participate to the Day-Ahead (DA) and the Ancillary Services Market (ASM) through a load aggregator, able to manage the consumers' flexible consumption through Direct Load Control (DLC). The dispatching strategy is described both in the architectural framework and in the functional aspects. The proposed dispatching strategy has been designed in order to fit the current Italian electricity market, giving the opportunity to increase the electricity market flexibility, ensuring a reduction of electricity zonal prices and contributing to the benefit of all the players involved.
Optimizing secondary school budget — A case study

Many activities are planned by an organization; however there are some constraints that must be considered. Therefore, the selection of the best activities is important to maximize the achievement of the organization's goals. Zero-One Goal Programming (ZOGP) model is used to select the best activities to be done throughout the year by considering the selected constraints. This method takes into account the weightage given by selected teachers. This investigation involved a secondary school's co-curriculum activities at Sekolah Agama Menengah Jeram (SAMJ), Selangor subject to their budgeting problems. The powerful computer software, LINDO 6.1 is used to obtain the optimal solution to generate solutions for decision variables where the variables must be equal to one or zero. From the results obtained, we can conclude that only two activities are not selected. Therefore, this ZOGP is an optimal method to be applied in solving the SAMJ's co-curriculum activities selection problem.
A clinical study of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis based on autopsy studies in elderly patients.

OBJECTIVES The prevalence of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) tends to be greater in the elderly although the precise outcome is not known. The present study investigated the outcome of IPF in elderly patients whose pathological diagnosis corresponded to usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) on autopsy findings. METHODS In a consecutive autopsy series, (n = 4,554 cases), complete information was obtained in 86 cases in which the clinical and pathological diagnosis was IPF and UIP, respectively. RESULTS Mean subject age was 80.5 years and there were 52 males and 34 females. Median survival time (MST) was 3.5 years overall. Dyspnea ranking by the MRC dyspnea scale (DR) on admission was closely related to the outcome. When MST was compared between DR0 and DR1, or DR2 and DR3, the former patient group survived significantly longer than the latter (p < 0.05). Twenty percent of patients died of severe respiratory failure. Other causes of death were disease progression of IPF (10.5%), bacterial pneumonia (23.3%) and lung cancer (17.4%). The patients in the young-elderly group (age < 75) survived for a significantly longer period than those in the old-elderly group (age > or = 75) (MST; 5.5 vs 2.0 years; p < 0.001). Both lung cancer and pneumonia were significantly more prevalent among IPF patients than among non-IPF patients; these IPF with lung cancer profoundly reflected the smoking history of IPF patients. CONCLUSIONS The poor outcome in IPF in elderly patients was characterized by more severe dyspnea, advanced age and co-morbidity.
Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities? Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable

Nothing inherent in the discipline steers planners either toward environmental protection or toward economic development -- or toward a third goal of planning: social equity. Instead, planners work within the tension generated among these three fundamental aims, which, collectively, I call the "planner's triangle," with sustainable development located at its center. This center cannot be reached directly, but only approximately and indirectly, through a sustained period of confronting and resolving the triangle's conflicts. To do so, planners have to redefine sustainability, since its current formulation romanticizes our sustainable past and is too vaguely holistic. Planners would benefit both from integrating social theory with environmental thinking and from combining their substantive skills with techniques for community conflict resolution, to confront economic and environmental injustice.
Calcium oscillations and mammalian egg activation

Fertilization in all species studied to date induces an increase in the intracellular concentration of free calcium ions ([Ca2+]i) within the egg. In mammals, this [Ca2+]i signal is delivered in the form of long‐lasting [Ca2+]i oscillations that begin shortly after fusion of the gametes and persist beyond the time of completion of meiosis. While not fully elucidated, recent evidence supports the notion that the sperm delivers into the ooplasm a trigger of oscillations, the so‐called sperm factor (SF). The recent discovery that mammalian sperm harbor a specific phospholipase C (PLC), PLCζ has consolidated this view. The fertilizing sperm, and presumably PLCζ promote Ca2+ release in eggs via the production of inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate (IP3), which binds and gates its receptor, the type‐1 IP3 receptor, located on the endoplasmic reticulum, the Ca2+ store of the cell. Repetitive Ca2+ release in this manner results in a positive cumulative effect on downstream signaling molecules that are responsible for the completion of all the events comprising egg activation. This review will discuss recent advances in our understanding of how [Ca2+]i oscillations are initiated and regulated in mammals, highlight areas of discrepancies, and emphasize the need to better characterize the downstream molecular cascades that are dependent on [Ca2+]i oscillations and that may impact embryo development. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Localization and Tracking of Passive RFID Tags Based on Direction Estimation

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is poised for growth as businesses and governments explore applications implementing RFID. The RFID technology will continue to evolve to meet new demands for human and target location and tracking. In particular, there are increasing needs to locate and track multiple RFID-tagged items that are closely spaced. As a result, localization and tracking techniques with higher accuracy yet low implementation complexity are required. This paper examines the applicability of direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation methods to the localization and tracking problems of passive RFID tags. Different scenarios of stationary and moving targets are considered. It is shown through performance analysis and simulation results that simple DOA estimation methods can be used to provide satisfactory localization performance.
Regulatory T cells in the induction and maintenance of peripheral transplantation tolerance

It is now possible to induce donor-specific transplantation tolerance in adult rodents using non-depleting monoclonal antibodies against T cell co-receptor and co-stimulation molecules or by immunisation with tolerogenic antigen-presenting cells. It is a common finding of all these models of peripheral tolerance, as well as of various mouse models of autoimmune disease, that regulatory CD4+ T cells are the principal mediators. There are currently no specific markers for regulatory T cells, but in some autoimmune models their activity has been associated with the expression of activation markers such as CD25 and CTLA4, or anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10 and TGF-β. CD4+CD25+ T cells from both naïve and tolerised donors are able to transfer tolerance to grafts in lymphopenic recipients, and this may be directly applicable to bone-marrow transplantation. The challenge is now to understand the biological principles that allow such immune re-programming so that they can be safely applied to clinical organ grafting.
Prediction-Based Energy-Aware Relay Cooperation for Lifetime Maximization

In this paper, we investigate into the problem of energy-aware power allocation for a dual-hop cooperative relay network, and propose a prediction-based perceived lifetime (P-PLT) power allocation algorithm for network lifetime maximization. We obtain MMSE channel prediction for the future time slots and maximize perceived lifetime at each time slot to determine the power allocation. The P-PLT algorithm implements m-step channel prediction for power allocation, where m depends on the trade-off between performance and complexity. Compared to the existing non-prediction based energy-aware power allocation algorithm, which is solely based on the current channel state information, the proposed algorithm can provide substantial performance improvement as shown in the numerical results.
Regional Interaction and Economic Diversity: Exploring the Role of Geographically Overlapping Markets for a Municipality’s Diversity in Retail and Durables

This paper is devoted to the study of municipal diversity in retail and durables. Specifically, it analyzes how a region’s relative market-accessibility in a system (or hierarchy) of municipalities affects the extent of diversity. In the theoretical part of the paper a simple modelmunicipal diversity in retail and durables is introduced, which incorporates the municipality’s position in a system of municipalities. Using this model as a point of reference, the paper explores the relationship between market-size and diversity in Swedish regions from 1993 to 2001 by means of a panel data approach. Three types of market-sizes are considered: (i) intramunicipal,(ii) intra-regional and (iii) extra-regional. It is shown that the relationships between diversity and the three types of market-sizes differ between different types of municipalities in the hierarchy, implying that such a classification is warranted. One particular finding that corresponds to the agglomeration shadow-effects usually discussed in NEG-theories is that large municipalities gain from proximity to surrounding municipalities while small municipalities do not.
Early experience with mass storage on a Unix-based supercomputer

Some problems encountered in bringing up a MSS (mass storage system) in a Unix environment and the solutions to the problems are examined . In particular, a way of implementing the bitfile client that would allow a multitude of interactive users to gain access to the same MSS while using a limited number of hardware paths was needed. There was also the problem of how the bitfile mover was going to communicate with the bitfile client. These problems needed to be solved using the tools provided by the Unix operating system. At the same time, the authors had to deal with the unique problems created because the Unix system was running on a supercomputer and a wide range of file sizes were being handled. Some early experiences with the system and some of its limitations are discussed. >
Effect of cancer therapy on host response and immunobiology

The advances in bioengineering and hybridoma technology and the acquisition of basic knowledge about human antitumor defenses have facilitated the development of biologic therapies as a fourth cancer treatment approach. It is becoming important, therefore, to reconsider how conventional therapies affect host responses. It is apparent from the work of many laboratories that both the biologic agents and certain anticancer agents can cause augmentation of antitumor host defenses. These augmenting effects are generally seen at less than maximally tolerated doses. In contrast, at maximally tolerated doses these agents may induce long-lasting untoward effects, some of which (eg, long-term immunodepression) seem incongruent with effective host response-based therapies. This review examines developments in these areas over the past year and suggests that the maximal benefit may not be derived from the combination of chemotherapeutic agents with biologic therapies unless the optimal conditions for their administration in such combinations are redefined.
Examining the Interplay Among Negative Emotionality, Cognitive Functioning, and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptom Severity

Abstract Cognition and emotion, traditionally thought of as largely distinct, have recently begun to be conceptualized as dynamically linked processes that interact to influence functioning. This study investigated the moderating effects of cognitive functioning on the relationship between negative emotionality and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom severity. A total of 216 (140 hyperactive/inattentive; 76 typically developing) preschoolers aged 3–4 years were administered a neuropsychological test battery (i.e., NEPSY). To avoid method bias, child negative emotionality was rated by teachers (Temperament Assessment Battery for Children-Revised), and parents rated symptom severity on the ADHD Rating Scale (ADHD-RS-IV). Hierarchical Linear Regression analyses revealed that both negative emotionality and Perceptual-Motor & Executive Functions accounted for significant unique variance in ADHD symptom severity. Significant interactions indicated that when negative emotionality is low, but not high, neuropsychological functioning accounts for significant variability in ADHD symptoms, with lower functioning predicting more symptoms. Emotional and neuropsychological functioning, both individually and in combination, play a significant role in the expression of ADHD symptom severity. (JINS, 2011, 17, 502–510)
Genetic Evidence for an East Asian Origin of Domestic Dogs

The origin of the domestic dog from wolves has been established, but the number of founding events, as well as where and when these occurred, is not known. To address these questions, we examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence variation among 654 domestic dogs representing all major dog populations worldwide. Although our data indicate several maternal origins from wolf, >95% of all sequences belonged to three phylogenetic groups universally represented at similar frequencies, suggesting a common origin from a single gene pool for all dog populations. A larger genetic variation in East Asia than in other regions and the pattern of phylogeographic variation suggest an East Asian origin for the domestic dog, ∼15,000 years ago.
Performance Monitoring of VoIP Flows for Large Network Operations

The monitoring of performance in VoIP traffic has become vital because users generally expect VoIP service quality that is as high as that of PSTN services. A lightweight method of processing by extracting VoIP flows from Internet traffics is proposed in this paper. Estimating delay variations and the packet loss ratio using knowledge about specific features and the characteristics of VoIP flows, i.e., the inter-packet gap (IPG) which is constant in VoIP flows, is also proposed. Simulation with actual traffic trace is used to evaluate the method, and this revealed that delay variations (IPG variance) can be accurately estimated by monitoring only a few percentage of all flows. The proposed method can be used as a first-alert tool to monitor large amounts of flows to detect signs of degradation in VoIP flows. The method can be used by ISPs to estimate whether VoIP flow performance is adequate within their networks and at ingress from other ISPs.
Abnormalities of taste sensation in cancer patients

In fifty patients with cancer, subjective and objective correlates of anorexia of malignancy were studied. Decreased taste was reported by 25patients, and an aversion for meat was reported by 16 patients. The decreased taste symptom correlated with an elevated taste threshold for sweet (sucrose), and the symptom of meat aversion correlated with a lowered taste threshold for bitter (urea). The likelihood of having a taste abnormality increased with increasing extent of disease, but not with histologic type of neoplasm. Patients with an abnormality of taste had an increased incidence of weight loss compared with patients with normal taste, even though many in the latter group had other causes of weight loss. These observations suggest that an abnormality of taste may be one determinant of the anorexia of malignancy. Better understanding of the anorexia in the cancer patient may contribute to the care of the patient.
Triple Bottom Line & Corporate Social Responsibility - A Study at NALCO***

The importance of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) emerged significantly in the last decade. Over the time, CSR expanded to include economic, social and ecological interests translated to Profit, People and Planet as the components of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL). CSR has been interwoven with Corporate Governance (CG) and has become a yard stick for good governance practices. Now-a-days, businesses operate in an environment in which societal concerns have been given top priority. An attempt has been made, in this paper to highlight some of the valuable initiatives with respect to the components of Triple Bottom Line undertaken by the NALCO***