Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health Awareness and Price Sensitivity as Predictors of Consumer’s Purchase Attitude Towards Soft Drinks

This study investigates the association of both health hazards awareness and price sensitivity of soft drinks with consumer’s purchase attitude in Saudi Arabian market. The study also investigates whether there is a moderating role for each of consumer’s gender, age, education, and monthly income on the two studied relationships. The study has been conducted on 865 respondents of soft drinks consumers in Saudi Arabia and an online self-administered survey has been used to collect primary data from the participants. The study findings revealed a statistically significant negative associations of both soft drinks’ health hazards awareness and price sensitivity with consumer’s purchase attitude. Heath hazards awareness is higher than the price sensitivity in predicting the consumer’s purchase attitude. Hence, the consumer’s attitude is more responsive to health hazards awareness than the price sensitivity. The study also found that consumer’s gender, age, education, and income do not significantly moderate the relationships between either of health hazards awareness or price sensitivity and the purchase attitude of soft drinks. Thus, the study recommends marketers to adopt social orientation in doing marketing activities and do best to develop healthier soft drinks. Furthermore, marketers should be careful when setting soft drinks’ prices because of consumer sensitivity. Optimization of soft drinks’ cost structure can help in respect to price sensitivity. Finally, the undifferentiated marketing strategy is suitable for targeting in the Saudi market concerning gender, age, education, and income.
Cardy-Verlinde Formula and Its Self-Gravitational Corrections for Regular Black Holes

We check the consistency of the entropy of Bardeen and Ayon Beato-Garcia-Bronnikov black holes with the entropy of particular conformal field theory via Cardy-Verlinde formula. We also compute the first-order semiclassical corrections of this formula due to self-gravitational effects by modifying pure extensive and Casimir energy in the context of Keski-Vakkuri, Kraus and Wilczek analysis. It is concluded that the correction term remains positive for both black holes, which leads to the violation of the holographic bound.
A Cross-Cultural Approach to Understanding Entrepreneurial Intention

The current research aims to shed light on the role of culture in the formation of career intentions. It draws on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen), which has been widely employed to predict intentions, including entrepreneurial career intentions, but past research has almost exclusively been conducted in “Western” countries. The current research specifically explores the extent to which both the strength of relationships of TPB predictors with entrepreneurial career intentions and the TPB predictors themselves are invariant across cultures. The study compares six very different countries (Germany, India, Iran, Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands), drawing on an overall sample of 1,074 students and their assessments of entrepreneurial career intentions. Results support culture universal effects of attitudes and perceived behavioral control (self-efficacy) on entrepreneurial career intentions but cultural variation in the effects of subjective norm.
Can Foreign Aid Stimulate Sustainability? (working-in-progress) ∗

This paper empirically examines whether foreign aid exerts a positive impact on the process of sustainable development. With annul data for a sample of 71 countries over the period of 1980-2010, this research carefully investigates the time series properties of the data. Using newly developed panel data techniques for the interactive fixed effects panel data model with endogeneous regressors, this research finds evidence for the positive and significant effect of foreign aid on sustainable development in the receipient countries. This effect is very likely to go through the channels of natural resources depletion and human capital accummulation and is especially true for African countries. This research has important implications for public policies to better direct and manage foreign aid towards a sustainable future.
Osteoporotic Vertebral Fractures and the Role of Percutaneous Vertebroplasty in Patient Care

Background : Osteoporosis is an age-related skeletal condition of bone, with increasing prevalence in older populations. Insufficiency of the bone is associated with increased disability and mortality. Vertebral fractures are commonly secondary to osteoporosis, however only a proportion of patients may present clinically with identifiable symptoms. Percutaneous vertebroplasty is an interventional method of managing such patients. Aim: To determine the role of percutaneous vertebroplasty in managing patients with osteoporotic vertebral fractures. Methods : Electronic databases including MEDLINE, Cochrane Library and NHS Evidence were searched for meta-analyses and randomised controlled trials, with some provision given to expert reviews due to the small pool of publications available. Search terms used included “osteoporosis and vertebral fractures”, “vertebroplasty and osteoporosis”, “percutaneous vertebroplasty in the management of osteoporosis”, “vertebral body cement augmentation”, and “balloon kyphoplasty”. Results : Vertebroplasty reduces pain in the short-term (up to 2 weeks) after surgery and has sustained effects in improving quality of life. The long-term effects are difficult to establish due to the underlying osteoporosis disease progression and comorbidities. Conclusion : Vertebroplasty is worthwhile in treating acute vertebral fractures associated with pain. However more research is needed to fully determine its effectiveness in the long term.
Regulatory Knowledge Encoding Guidelines for Automated Compliance Audit of Building Engineering Design

The main challenges in automating the regulatory compliance checking of building engineering designs are the availability of computable representations of the building and the regulatory knowledge, as well as a system that can process and manage these representations effectively. The emergence of Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) at the start of the millennium has sparked useful research in the area of sharing building information effectively, but challenges remain with producing a practical and manageable regulatory knowledge representation that can be processed effectively by a compliance checking system. Research is being conducted to develop a two-part regulatory knowledge representation, which can be maintained independently by designers and regulators. One part is a set of compliant design procedures modelled as Business Process Diagrams (BPD) using an open standard Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), and the other is the associated regulatory constraints and rules encoded in a computable format suitable for execution with the BPMN. This paper reports on a set of guidelines developed for the purposes of encoding regulatory knowledge into the proposed computable representation. A verification method (C/VM2) prescribed by the New Zealand Building Code (NZBC) for the performance-based design of buildings related to fire safety has been selected as a case study to illustrate the encoding process. These guidelines are adaptable for encoding the entire NZBC. BACKGROUND
Predictors of Candidemia infections and its associated risk of mortality among adult and pediatric cancer patients: A retrospective study in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted at a tertiary care cancer hospital in Lahore, Pakistan. The data was collected from the medical records of all the patients who were found positive for Candida species between 1st January 2017 and 31st June 2017. Data were analyzed by using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) and Microsoft Excel (MS Offi ce 2010).
Query Methodology for Advanced Structured Using Crowd sourcing Systems

Query optimization is an important aspect in crowdsourcing system. We consider the optimized crowdsourcing system uses SQL operators based crowdsourcesystem. The client is required to gift a SQL-like operator and framework assumes the liability of process in the inquiry making the execution stating and upload withthe crowd sourcingoriginations. The relational databasemodel , Query mythology is providing query structured is important for crowdsourcing. The propose system, a cost-based query optimization approach for crowdsourcing systems. The cost and time is consider in query optimization objective is proposed methods and generates query plans that give a good balance between the cost and latency.A main change in latest closed-world model for query processing is not hold for human input. From an implementation perspective, human-oriented query operators in solicit, integrate and cleanse crowdsourced data. The system develops efficient algorithms uses optimizing selection queries, join queries, and complex selection-join queries using parallel system. WSe are analyzing the various approaches that help to resolve the user queries in crowd sourcing modelis supports cost based query optimization, optimizing multiple crowd sourcing operators and access tradeoff in between cost from monetary point of view and latency.
eyond local search : Bridging platforms and inter-sectoral echnological integration

This paper explores the dynamics of inter-sectoral technological integration by introducing the concept of bridging platform as a node of pervasive technologies, whose collective broad applicability may enhance the connection between ‘distant’ knowledge by offering a technological coupling. Using data on patents obtained from the CRIOS-PATSTAT database for four EU countries (Germany, UK, France and Italy), we provide empirical evidence that bridging platforms are likely to connect more effectively innovations across distant technological domains, fostering inter-sectoral technological integration and the develop-
Robustness Evaluation of Extracting Features Based on Self-organizing Map Neural Network

The descriptors should be robust to changes of images taken under various conditions in order to obtain correct recognition. HOG, LBP and convolutional neural network (CNN) are proved to perform better in extracting features of images. However, little attention was paid to the robustness of these methods. In this paper, we proposed a self-organizing map (SOM) neural network based descriptor evaluation method in order to assess the robust image features. It efficiently observes the features extracted by HOG, LBP and CNN with deep learning. The results show that CNN performs better and is more robust among the method of extracting features.
International sport federations’ commercialisation: a qualitative comparative analysis

ABSTRACT Research question: This study examines the conditions and configurations that particularly influence International Federations’ (IFs) commercialisation. Research method: Crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) is used to determine the conditions that are related to an IFs’ commercialisation. Sixteen interviews were conducted in six Olympic IFs and one international sport umbrella organisation. Results and findings: The findings reveal a variety of high and low commercialisation configurations. Specialisation is a key condition in both high and low commercialisation, and social media engagement is central in high commercialisation. Strategic planning and low accountability have low degrees of overlap with high commercialisation outcomes. With 13 out of 22 IFs achieving high levels of commercialisation, the findings demonstrate that IFs are increasingly developing business-like behaviours. Implications: The findings highlight the importance of specialisation and social media engagement to achieve high commercialisation. However, when IFs assume a monetisation agenda, there are associated risks such as stakeholder legitimacy, mission drift, goal vagueness and adherence to good governance principles.
Diamagneto-dielectric anisotropic wide angle impedance matching layers for active phased arrays

In this paper, we present the full process of designing anisotropic metamaterial (MM) wide angle impedance matching (WAIM) layers. These layers are used to reduce the scan losses that occur in active phased arrays for large scanning angles. Numerical results are provided to show the improvement in performances that such layers can ensure. The proposed anisotropic MM-WAIM layers achieve an improvement of about 1dB of more radiated power at θ = 70 ◦ from broadside, in a 13% of fractional bandwidth on the azimuthal plane φ = 90 ◦. Weaker improvements are obtained in the other azimuthal planes, however keeping the active reﬂection coeﬃcient below −9dB for all azimuthal planes up to θ = 60 ◦ and up to θ = 70 ◦ oﬀ-axis for planes φ = 45 ◦,90◦ in the whole operational band.
Analysis of nonlinear suspension power harvest potential

Because the power consumption of a controlled suspension is huge, the power harvest potential of a nonlinear controlled suspension is analyzed. Instead of simplifying the suspension to a linear model or adopting some control strategies to solve the problem, this paper investigates the effect of the nonlinear characteristics on the power harvesting potential. A mathematic model is introduced to calculate the nonlinear vibration, and the amount of harvested power was obtained using the multi-scale method. A numerical validation is carried out at the end of this study. The results show that the investigated mechanical parameters affect both the vibration amplitude and the induced current, while the electric parameters only affect the induced current. The power harvesting potential of the nonlinear suspension is generally greater than the linear suspension because the frequency band of the actual pavement also contains bandwidth surrounding the body resonance point. The only exception occurs if the vehicle travels on a road with a particular profile, e.g. a sine curve. To optimize harvested power, it is better to consider the nonlinear characteristics rather than simplifying the suspension to a linear model.
Effects of strong IMF B z southward events on the equatorial and mid-latitude ionosphere

Dayside ionospheric response to five intense ge- omagnetic storms (Dst< 120 nT) that occurred in 2001- 2005 was investigated by use of simultaneous TEC mea- surements by the CHAMP, SAC-C, TOPEX/Jason-1 satel- lites. Since the satellites passed over different longitudinal sectors and measured TEC in different range of altitudes, it was possible to obtain information about altitudinal and longitudinal ionosphere redistribution during these storms. Severe enhancements (up to 350%) of the equatorial and mid-latitude TEC above 430 km with concurrent traveling of the equatorial anomaly crests for a distance of 10-15 of latitude were observed during two of the five events an- alyzed here (6 November 2001 and 8 November 2004). This phenomenon, known as the dayside ionosphere uplift, or the "daytime super-fountain effect", occurred after sudden drop in IMF Bz and consequent penetration of the electric fields to the low-latitude ionosphere. However, the same order Bz negative events caused comparatively weak changes in the dayside TEC (up to 80 TECU) during the other three events of 18 June 2003, 11 February 2004 and 24 August 2005. At the main phase of these storms there were mostly observed formation of the "typical" dual peak structure of the equa- torial anomaly rather than the reinforcement of the fountain effect and the anomaly itself. Possible reasons and factors responsible for the development of the extreme ionosphere effects are discussed in the paper.
The effect of correlated climatic factors on the radial growth of eucalypt trees grown in coastal Zululand of South Africa

Understanding the relationship between stem radial growth and climatic conditions in plantation productivity is important to identify the climatic factors that most influence tree growth. This study aims to determine the climatic factors that most influence the stem radial growth of eucalypt trees plantation in the coastal Zululand area of South Africa. Daily stem radius was measured using automated point dendrometers located on 18 sample trees of Eucalyptus grandis × Eucalyptus urophylla (GU) and E. grandis × Eucalyptus camaldulensis (GC) hybrid clones. Daily averages of climatic data (temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity and wind speed) and total rainfall were also obtained from the site over the study period. Several statistical models that cope with the issue of multicollinearity were applied. Weather variables, together with tree age, explained a substantial amount of the variation (87% for GC clone and 79% for GU clone) in the daily stem radius. This study indicates that tree age is the most important factors that influence stem radius during the juvenile stage (up to 2 years) in all seasons. In winter, temperature, relative humidity and wind speed appear to be more important than the other weather variables.
SRR AND NBCSRR INSPIRED CPW FED TRIPLE BAND ANTENNA WITH MODIFIED GROUND PLANE

In this paper, a novel CPW-fed triple band metamaterial inspired antenna with modified ground plane is presented. The metamaterial inspired structures such as split ring resonator (SRR) and non bianisotropic complementary split ring resonator (NBCSRR) are embeded in this antenna for triple band operation. The proposed antenna with a compact size of 25 × 31.7 × 1.6 mm3 is fabricated and tested. The antenna with good radiation characteristics is suitable for WIMAX, C band and WLAN applications. The simulated and measured results are discussed and are in good agreement with each other.
Business-Driven Management of Hybrid IT Infrastructures

With the emergence of the cloud computing paradigm and the continuous search to reduce the cost of running Information Technology (IT) infrastructures, we are currently experiencing an important change in the way these infrastructures are assembled, configured and managed. In this research we consider the problem of managing a hybrid high-performance computing infrastructure whose processing elements are comprised of in-house dedicated machines, virtual machines acquired from cloud computing providers, and remote virtual machines made available by a best-effort peer-to-peer (P2P) grid. Each of these resources has a different cost basis. The applications that run in this hybrid infrastructure are characterised by a utility function: the utility yielded by the completion of an application depends on the time
Regime shift in Indian summer monsoon climatological intraseasonal oscillations

Using a high resolution daily rainfall data over Indian continent between 1951 and 2004, summer monsoon climatological intraseasonal oscillations (CISO) and its regime shift around mid seventies is investigated. Explaining 20% −40% of intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) amplitude, the summer monsoon CISO represents a significant predictable component of the monsoon ISOs. Indian monsoon CISO is characterized by a dominant northward propagating episode in both pre‐seventies (1951–75, pre75) and in the post‐seventies (1979–04, post79). The dominant episode starts in the beginning of July during pre75 in contrast to beginning of June during post79 period. We find that the IAV of the initial phase of both the first and the second ISO episodes worked in tandem with the changes in the northward propagation speed in producing the phase locking for the second episode during pre75 while for the first episode during post79. Change in northward propagation speed is shown to be consistent with changes in easterly vertical shear and meridional gradient of low level humidity during the two climate regimes.
Adsorption isotherm studies of BOD, TSS and colour reduction from palm oil mill effluent (POME) using boiler fly ash

Palm oil is one of the two most important vegetable oils in the world's oil and fats market. The extraction and purification processes generate different kinds of waste generally known as palm oil mill effluent (POME). Earlier studies had indicated the possibility of using boiler fly ash to adsorb impurities and colour in POME treatment. The adsorption treatment of POME using boiler fly ash was further investigated in detail in this work with regards to the reduction of BOD, colour and TSS from palm oil mill effluent. The amount of BOD, colour and TSS adsorbed increased as the weight of the boiler fly ash used was increased. Also, the smaller particle size of 425µm adsorbed more than the 850µm size. Attempts were made to fit the experimental data with the Freundlich, Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms. The R2 values, which ranged from 0.8974-0.9898, 0.8848-0.9824 and 0.6235-0.9101 for Freundlich, Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms respectively, showed that Freundlich isotherm gave a better fit followed by Langmuir and then Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherm. The sorption trend could be put as BOD > Colour > TSS. The apparent energy of adsorption was found to be 1.25, 0.58 and 0.97 (KJ/mol) for BOD, colour and TSS respectively, showing that sorption process occurs by physiosorption. Therefore, boiler fly ash is capable of reducing BOD, Colour and TSS from POME and hence could be used to develop a good adsorbent for POME treatment.
Framing and managing the categorisation and adoption of a hybrid product by its potential customers in the Dutch healthcare arena

and general the categories which are likely to be used by the respondents. The lower down the hierarchy, the more specific the categories are likely to be, with a correspondingly narrow range of convenience. If the entities all come from a very low level, then it is likely that all of themwill share various attributes inherited from higher levels in the hierarchy, and that these attributes will therefore not emerge during the sorting (which can only identify categories to which some entities belong and others do not). For instance, a sort at the level of ‘computers’, ‘printers’, ‘CD-ROMs’ will probably produce categories such as ‘has a keyboard’ or ‘uses paper’, whereas a sort at the level of ‘Mac Centris 610’, ‘Mac Classic’ and ‘Toshiba T3400CT=250’ would produce much more specialized constructs. This is something to beware of with object sorts, which are by definition at the most specific level possible. It may be that all of the objects shown to the respondents share some feature which the respondents consider highly important but which is never elicited in the sessions for the reason above, precisely because it is common to all the objects and therefore cannot be used as a criterion for sorting them into different groups. In an ideal world, this risk can be reduced by doing a series of sorts at progressively more detailed levels; if this is not possible, then it is a case of keeping an eye open for significant absence of features which were mentioned when other techniques were used. 2.2. Number of entities As a rough rule of thumb, if the results are to be analysed statistically, then the lowest number of entities should be about eight; otherwise, the lowest number is a matter for the questioner to decide. The maximum number of entities which is conveniently manageable for repeated single-criterion sorts is about 20 or 30, though it is possible to use significantly more in some circumstances. If the session is going to consist of an ‘all in one’ sort, then a much higher number becomes feasible.