Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Demand Response Providing Ancillary Services A Comparison of Opportunities and Challenges in the US Wholesale Markets

Interest in using demand response (DR) resources to supply low cost reliability products to the bulk electricity system is on the rise due to the uncertain impacts of increasing penetrations of intermittent generation and recent rulings supporting demand side participation in wholesale markets from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, organized electricity and ancillary services markets are just beginning to support DR resources for ancillary services, and the set of rules and requirements for participation are unique to each market. This paper discusses the opportunities that exist in the ancillary service markets in each US Independent System Operator territory and identifies challenges to market participation for demand response resources. It compares resource requirements, limits to aggregation, measurement and verification, bidding requirements, market timelines, and the types of organizations that can play in the markets. Additionally, it uses market clearing prices and market size to compare what value may be extracted from these markets, and identifies how these prices are currently determined. Using these criteria, PJM and ERCOT have the most favorable conditions for demand response participation in ancillary service markets, and changes to rules that effect aggregation and minimum resource size could promote more participation in other AS markets across the US.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Behind the Scenes

Research literature on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is still limited and tends to focus on the learner perspective. This paper reports on the experiences of ten UK-based individuals involved in designing, developing, or delivering MOOCs (learning technologists, coordinators, designers, course builders or facilitators). We focus on the following key areas: 1) reasons to offer MOOCs, 2) design, creation and delivery processes, 3) attainment and course evaluation, and 4) challenges and recommendations for the future. Findings show that MOOCs are usually collaboratively created to “follow the trend”, increase student enrolments, repurpose existing materials and/or address an international audience. The role of the teacher (also in the form of student moderators) centers on maintaining discussions on track. Evaluations of MOOC usually lack agreed indicators of success.
Automatic resource specification generation for resource selection in large-scale distributed environments

Author(s): Huang, Richard Yu-Hua | Abstract: With an increasing number of available resources in large- scale distributed environments, a key challenge is resource selection. First, we show why explicit resource selection is necessary to optimize application performance. Using both a simple and a more sophisticated scheduling heuristic, and for both a real application and a spectrum of randomly generated applications, we show that explicitly pre-selecting resources before running the scheduling heuristic always improved application performance. With several middleware systems providing resource selection services, a user is still faced with a difficult question: "What should I ask for? " Since most users end up using naive and suboptimal resource specifications, we propose an automated way to answer this question. We present an automated resource specification generator that given a workflow application (DAG- structured) generates an appropriate resource specification, including number of resources, the range of clock rates among the resources, and network connectivity. Out automated resource specification generator is composed of a size prediction model, a scheduling heuristic prediction model, and a resource specification generator. Our size prediction model employs application structure information as well as an optional utility function that trades off cost and performance. With extensive simulation experiments for different types of applications, resource conditions, and scheduling heuristics, we show that our model leads consistently to close to optimal application performance and often reduces resource usage. Further, we construct a model that predicts the optimal scheduling heuristic that can be used in conjunction with the size prediction model. Lastly, we show how our resource specification generator can be used in practice to generate resource specifications for three real-world resource selection systems and offer alternative resource specifications when the best resource request cannot be fulfilled
Investigation of the relationship between virulence factors and genotype of Candida spp. isolated from blood cultures.

INTRODUCTION The aim of study was to investigate the virulence factors of phospholipase, proteinase, esterase production and biofilm formation in Candida species isolated from patients with candidemia, and to assess their relationship with Candida genotypes derived after repetitive sequence-based polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) fingerprinting. METHODOLOGY Fifty-two strains were identified to species level according to conventional methods and sequencing. The DiversiLab system was used for the genotyping. Enzyme activities and biofilm formation were evaluated using microbiological methods. RESULTS The 52 strains were identified as follows: 29 C. parapsilosis, 19 C. albicans, 2 C. glabrata, and 2 C. tropicalis. Phospholipase and proteinase activities were observed to have statistically significant differences between C. albicans and non-albicans Candida (NAC) strains (p < 0.05), with C. albicans strains showing higher virulence. Rep-PCR revealed eight major genotypes (A-H). The 19 C. albicans and the 33 non-albicans Candida isolates yielded seven (A-G) and four (A, B, C, H) genotypes, respectively. C. albicans strains were not shown to have a predominant genotype and showed higher phospholipase and proteinase activitiy than did NAC, regardless of genotype. Genotype H (52%) was the predominant genotype for the NAC including 27 C. parapsilosis strains, but the majority of strains showed low virulence. CONCLUSIONS NAC species were the most common causative agent for candidemia. Genotyping showed low transmission of C. albicans strains, but transmission of C. parapsilosis was high. In candidemia, several Candida virulence factors may be responsible at the same time. However, different genotypes of Candida strains showed different virulence activity.
The Methyltransferase from the LlaDII Restriction-Modification System Influences the Level of Expression of Its Own Gene

ABSTRACT The type II restriction-modification (R-M) system LlaDII isolated from Lactococcus lactis contains two tandemly arranged genes, llaDIIR and llaDIIM, encoding a restriction endonuclease (REase) and a methyltransferase (MTase), respectively. Interestingly, two LlaDII recognition sites are present in the llaDIIM promoter region, suggesting that they may influence the activity of the promoter through methylation status. In this study, separate promoters for llaDIIR and llaDIIM were identified, and the regulation of the two genes at the transcriptional level was investigated. DNA fragments containing the putative promoters were cloned in a promoter probe vector and tested for activity in the presence and absence of the active MTase. The level of expression of the MTase was 5- to 10-fold higher than the level of expression of the REase. The results also showed that the presence of M.LlaDII reduced the in vivo expression of the llaDIIM promoter (PllaDIIM) up to 1,000-fold, whereas the activity of the llaDIIR promoter (PllaDIIR) was not affected. Based on site-specific mutations it was shown that both of the LlaDII recognition sites within PllaDIIM are required to obtain complete repression of transcriptional activity. No regulation was found for llaDIIR, which appears to be constitutively expressed.
PV based soft switched cascaded multilevel inverter fed drive system

In this paper, we present the hybrid pulse width modulation technique for soft switched cascaded multilevel inverter with PV panel as renewable energy source. The proposed modulation scheme is hybrid alternative phase opposition disposition. It inherits the switching loss reduction along with reduced harmonic performance of cascaded multilevel inverter fed drive system. The inverter topology used here has recently suggested in the area of high power medium voltage applications. The performance of this cascaded inverter has been analysed using simulation and experimentation. Simulation study of the inverter employing the proposed HAPOD strategy has been done in MATLAB/SIMULINK. AT89C2051 controller is used in the experimental setup.
Time adjustment in speech synthesis.

Fairbanks' speech time‐adjusting device has been simulated, using a hybrid computer. This device discards or repeats recorded speech segments to compress or expand the time dimension. A dichotic method for time compression of speech was investigated in which odd‐numbered time segments were presented to one ear and even‐numbered segments to the other ear. A preference test suggested that speech compressed with the dichotic method may be more intelligible than speech compressed with Fairbanks' method. Potential applications for time‐adjusted speech and possibilities for further research are suggested.
The Antecedents and Consequences of Strategic HRM in Malaysian and Philippine SMEs

From a survey of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia and the Philippines, the authors find that the adoption of strategic Human Resource Management (HRM) is at best at a moderate level. The adoption of strategic HRM by SMEs in both Malaysia and the Philippines is predicted from the positive effect of legal and regulatory requirements, the importance of business environment challenges, and the strategic role of the HR professional. Furthermore, regression analysis shows that in both countries, SMEs with strategic human resource management have better organizational performance in terms of human resource outcomes, operational outcomes, and financial outcomes, but the impact is larger in the Philippine SMEs. This study adds empirical evidence currently available from a small set of countries, mostly in North America and Europe. The authors end this chapter with implications for policy makers and HR practitioners and provide recommendations for future research.
RRECENT GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, ISLAMIC STOCK MARKETS INTEGRATION: A CASE STUDY OF SELECTED ASIAN COUNTRIES

This study aims to assess empirically the impact of the recent financial crisis on the integration of Islamic stock markets in the Asian region. Leading Muslims South East Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, and Geo-Politically important South Asian countries like Pakistan and India’s Islamic stock markets performance have been compared vis-a-vis with the Islamic stock market of America, used as a benchmark in the study. The period of analysis has been divided into two sub-periods: pre-crises time period: January 2005 - June 2007 and crises from July 2007 - June 2010. The relevant data regarding these stock markets have been taken from Dow Jones Islamic Index series. The adverse effects of financial crisis on stock’s returns and integration of Islamic stock markets have been investigated through Analysis of variance model (ANOVA), Pearson correlation coefficient method, And finally, a newly developed cointegration technique, powered by Pesaran et al [1] named as Auto Regressive Distributed Lag model (ARDL) are used to investigate the long run integration among the Islamic stock market. Finding of the study reveals that Islamic stock markets performance is adversely affected from exogenous financial shocks like the conventional stock markets. The study also affirms increasing integration among the Islamic markets during the crisis period. The practical implementations of the study can be described as a greater mutual resilience of Islamic stock markets exists during the crises therefore; the stakeholders should be made conscious about this tendency and should minimize interdependence among stock markets by taking some pre-emptive measures.
Influence of birth prematurity on colostrum composition and subsequent immunity of piglets.

Two groups of seven pregnant sows were farrowing either naturally after 111-114 days of gestation or prematurely after 109 days following an injection of 125 micrograms/animal of a prostaglandin analogue. Colostrum intake was controlled individually on piglets during the first 24 h of life. Measurements of IgG, IgA and IgM were performed on 3 samples of colostrum after 0, 12 and 24 h following the birth of the first piglet, then in the serum of the piglets, sampled at 4, 12 and 42 days of age. Then, we calculated the total amount of Ig intake during the first 24 h of life and an estimation of the Ig stores of each piglet on the basis of weight, blood volume, and hematocrit at different ages. Results showed a marked average difference in the birth weight in favour of mature piglets as well as an increased colostrum intake: 315 vs an average of 213 g for premature piglets. Considerable variations between sows were found in the initial level of colostral IgG, independently of the gestation length. Two thirds of the IgG intake by piglets occurred during the first 12 h. Total Immunoglobulin intake in the first day was respectively 15.8 g vs 25.1 g for premature or mature piglets. Total estimated Ig content in the serum of 4 day-old piglets was also lower for premature ones (2.55 vs 3.2 g/animal), representing 10 to 27% of the total amount of Igs ingested during the first day of life. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Beyond Reliance and Compliance

Increasingly autonomous machines may lead to issues in human-automation systems that go beyond the typical concerns of reliance and compliance. This study used an interaction-oriented approach that considers interdependence in coordinating and cooperating on a joint task. A shared-resource microworld environment was developed to assess how changes in environmental demands and agent behavior affect cooperation and system performance. Seventy-two participants were recruited to perform a scheduling task that required coordination with a cooperative and a relatively uncooperative automated agent. Cooperative automation enhanced performance because it provided more resources to the person and because the person provided more resources to the automation. Considering interdependence theory and the associated structure, signal, strategy, and sequence of human-automation interaction can guide design for appropriate trust and cooperation.
Creating Start-up New Ventures: A Conceptual Approach

There has been limited research into the creation process of new venture start up firms embedded in radical innovations such as the Internet. This study attempts to develop a theoretical perspective on this process that is primarily grounded in diffusion theory but also borrows from other disciplines. The objective is to develop theory rather than test theory. The study develops a number of working propositions and then demonstrates how these working propositions can be operationalized using case data. The result suggests that the process activities over time are dependent on macro and micro activities in line with a flexible master plan rather than a sequence of unrelated linier activities and static objectives.
Genesis of pandemic influenza

During the last decade the number of reported outbreaks caused by highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in domestic poultry has drastically increased. At the same time, low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) strains, such as H9N2 in many parts of the Middle East and Asia and H6N2 in live bird markets in California, have become endemic. Each AI outbreak brings the concomitant possibility of poultry-to-human transmission. Indeed, human illness and death have resulted from such occasional transmissions with highly pathogenic avian H7N7 and H5N1 viruses while avian H9N2 viruses have been isolated from individuals with mild influenza. The transmission of avian influenza directly from poultry to humans has brought a sense of urgency in terms of understanding the mechanisms that lead to interspecies transmission of influenza. Domestic poultry species have been previously overlooked as potential intermediate hosts in the generation of influenza viruses with the capacity to infect humans. In this review, we will discuss molecular and epidemiological aspects that have led to the recurrent emergence of avian influenza strains with pandemic potential, with a particular emphasis on the current Asian H5N1 viruses.
The Cost of Risk: A COTOR-VALCON 1 Discussion

A central concern of insurance company management is knowing whether, and how, they are creating value for shareholders. This leads to finance questions like, “What is our cost of capital? ” and “What rate of profit distinguishes a division or line of business that creates value from one that does not? ” The actuarial profession has spent over a century quantifying profit and loss in this inherently tricky business, what with its randomness, uncertainty, and delayed revelation of ultimate reality. But grappling with the relationship between the balance sheet and the stock ticker is a relatively recent challenge for actuaries.
Financial Services Costs in Poland＇s Cooperative Banking in Opinion of Small and Medium-size Enterprise

Poland In their development strategy, Poland’s cooperative (co-op) banks should equally consider the competition and the rising expectations of their clientele. According to bank customers, an essential element of customer satisfaction—which ties into their loyalty—is the cost of financial services. Currently, delivering a comfortable level of costs for financial services appears to be one of the key verifiers of a bank’s offer, especially in a slowed economy. An effort was made to assess the satisfaction level of Poland’s co-op bank clients from the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector based on costs for services offered by said banks. The study indicated that 2/3 of the clientele was dissatisfied with high financial service and operation charges and low interest rates on current funds deposited by businesses. Co-op banks were able to deliver satisfactory interest rates for working capital loans in current accounts to over 60% of their
Effect of relationship benefits on satisfaction with an e-commerce communication tool

This study focuses on Ali Trademanager (阿里旺旺), an e-commerce communication tool, to analyze the relationship between the concept of interests developed by Gwinner et. al. (1998), who proposed a paradigm as a starting point for domestic and foreign scholars to assess the relationship between the interests of customer satisfaction. This study also intends to organize the relevant literature, draw the appropriate research, and combine the assumptions made regarding the characteristics and development of Ali Trademanager. It also uses customer interest in the social dimension, which adds another benefit as a function of two factors that affect customer satisfaction. Consequently, customer satisfaction as a result of a variable construct is a theoretical research model in this study. The design and distribution of the questionnaire, as well as data collection, were performed through various social networking platforms, such as micro-channel, micro-channel circle of friends, Sina Weibo, Tencent QQ, and QQ space. SPSS statistical software was employed for data analysis to build a test model used in this study to assess the degree of influence of customer interest in social and functional differences in the degree of efficiency and customer satisfaction. In terms of social and functional benefits, empirical results indicate that customer interest positively influences positive customer satisfaction, including the social influence of customer satisfaction and the greatest explanatory power. The social and functional benefits have been determined to have a significant positive correlation. Based on the results and the current status of the development of the e-commerce industry, the electricity suppliers improve customer perception of relational benefits, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction. The study suggests recommendations, including maintaining long-term relationships with customers.
Implementation of VRS in India

In today's Indian business environment, inter-organization rivalry has become intense. Most of the organizations in the erstwhile protected business environment had focused on production volumes, not necessarily on productivity. Consequently, they often got overstaffed as they tried to neutralize the adverse impact of absenteeism and unionization on production volumes by hiring new staff. Organizations are now exposed to the inevitability of improving productivity in order to survive in the competitive environment. Many of them have taken recourse to Voluntary Retirement Schemes (VRS) to reduce the employee strength. This paper examines different types of VRS offered by organizations in the year 1999–2000 in India. It also examines the effect of VRS on the profitability of these organizations. The authors adopted two approaches to the study. In the first phase, they collected the details of VRS that were announced by organizations in India in the year 1999–2000 and examined the performance implications of these schemes after a time lag of two years. They gathered 30 such responses in total and did a content analysis of these schemes. In the second phase of the study, the authors met managers in four organizations which were selected based on their willingness to discuss about the schemes. Having discussed with the managers, the employees, and the union leaders in these organizations, they developed detailed cases. These cases provided an insight about various qualitative issues relating to VRS. The discussion with managers in the companies showed that managers spent substantial time to decide the following characteristics of VRS: duration of VRS eligibility for VRS discretions with managers compensation The authors considered PAT⁄Total assets as a measure of success of implementation of VRS as, conceptually, VRS should result in improvement in PAT owing to reduction in labour expenses. Further, in the gap of two years after VRS, there would be no expenditure on scheme-related payments as in the first year. It should inflate the change in PAT. Hence, lack of gain in PAT⁄Total assets would be a clear signal of decline of financial performance of the organization in the post-VRS phase. The study reveals that: There is no fixed pattern of VRS among organizations and even the implementation of VRS differs significantly between organizations. The design of schemes that target older employees and remain conservative to work out compensation to employees should be encouraged. The schemes that are kept open for appropriate period of time seem to be more effective. The success of VRS significantly depends on how the scheme is implemented and the perception of the persons opting for VRS and the survivors. Factors contributing to the success of VRS are effective communication, building trust among employees about procedural justice, and involvement of multiple stakeholders.