Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multinational Enterprise, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and Trade Flows: Africa (2008-2014)

Africa’s poor growth performance after decolonization has been called “the worst economic tragedy of the 20th century” (Artadi and Sala-i-Martin, 2004). Between 1960 and 1980, the per capita GDP of the continent of the continent increased slightly, but has since then stagnated at a very low level (UNDP, 2007). As such, the 1980s was a lost decade for most of sub-Saharan Africa, and the 1990s were only marginally better. (UNDP, 2007). Foreign direct investment (FDI) which, according to Sichei and Kinyondo (2012), entails an investor acquiring substantial controlling interest in a foreign firm or sets up a subsidiary in a foreign country, is an integral part of an open and effective international economic system and a major catalyst to development. (OECD, 2002). Africa’s failure to attract FDI is highlighted by the declining share of Africa in global FDI flows; from 4.6% in the 1970s, to 1.6% in the 1990s, though Africa recovered somewhat in the first half of 2000s. (UNDP, 2007). FDIs are one of two categories of activities conducted by Multinationals Enterprises (MNEs) in the course of carrying out International Business. International Business is transactions taking place across national borders for the purpose of satisfying the needs of individuals and organisations. The other category of activities conducted by MNEs is Trade, which is subdivided into Services and Merchandise. (Rugman and Collinson, 2006). In this essay, Multinational Enterprise, the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and Trade flows into and out of Africa are discussed. Due to the voluminous nature of the data, only Merchandise Trade flows are discussed. The scope of the essay is limited to the displaying, in Tabular form, of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and the Merchandise Trade flows from, the perspective of World total flows, the perspective of Africa’s top ten import and export trade partner flows, the perspective of Total Africa flows; the perspectives of flows into and out of Eastern Africa, Middle Africa, Northern Africa, Southern Africa, and Western Africa; and the perspective of the flows into and out of the individual economies of Africa. Such issues as why do nations trade, and barriers to trade, are outside the scope of this essay. Despite the limited scope of the essay, the data non-the-less, provides adequate information to trace the FDI and Merchandise trade flows into and out of Africa, from where in the world they come from and go; to which parts of Africa they come from and go; and even to which individual economies they come from and go to.
Sexting among Spanish adolescents: Prevalence and personality profiles.

BACKGROUND Voluntarily sending sexual content (e.g., photos, videos) among adolescents via the Internet and mobile phones, a phenomenon called sexting , is receiving increasing social and research attention. The aims of this study were: 1) to analyze the prevalence and trends of sexting among adolescents by gender and age and 2) to examine the personality profile of adolescents that participated in sexting. METHOD The sample consisted of 3,223 Spanish adolescents from 12 to 17 years of age (49.9% female; mean age = 14.06, SD = 1.37) who anonymously and voluntarily completed self-report questionnaires on sexting and the big five personality factors. RESULTS The overall prevalence of sexting was 13.5%. The prevalence was 3.4% at 12 years old and increased to 36.1% at 17 years of age, showing a growing and significant linear trend. Overall, no differences were found between males and females. The personality profile of those involved in sexting was characterized by higher Extraversion and Neuroticism and by lower scores in Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. CONCLUSIONS Given its high prevalence, beyond adopting a perspective based on the dangers of sexting, an educational approach that emphasizes responsible and informed use of information and communication technologies is necessary.
Improvement in survival of breast cancer patients - trends over two time periods in a single institution in an Asia Pacific country, Malaysia.

BACKGROUND There is improvement in breast cancer survival in the developed world, but information on breast cancer survival trends in the Asia Pacific region is limited. The aim of the study was to evaluate survival trends and factors that affect survival in Malaysia. METHODS Two prospective groups of 423 and 965 newly diagnosed breast cancer patients in University of Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia diagnosed in two time periods ie. 1993 to 1997 and in 1998 to 2002 were studied. Vital status was obtained from the National Registry of Births and Deaths. The overall survival was calculated from the date of diagnosis to the date of death from any cause. The survival differences between the two groups were analysed using the log-rank or Peto-Wilcoxon method. Survival estimates and independent prognostic factors were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and multivariate analysis using Cox proportional hazard models. P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Analyses were performed using SPlus 2000 Professional Release 2. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Median follow-up for the two groups were 55 months (SD 29.2 months) in the first group and 52 months (SD 24.43) in the second group. There was improvement in 5-year observed survival from 58.4% (CI 0.54-0.63) to 75.7% (CI 0.73-0.79). The improvement in survival was significantly seen in all co-variates (p< 0.05) except for those aged 40 years and below (p= 0.27), tumour size 2 to 5 cm (p=0.11), grade 3 (p=0.32) and patients with Stage IV disease (p= 0.80). Stage of disease, lymph node (LN) involvement, size and grade were identified as independent prognostic factors in cohort one. For the second cohort; stage and LN involvement remained independent factors with the addition of ER status and ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS There was improvement in 5-year observed survival. Besides known prognostic factors, Malay ethnicity was an independent prognostic factor.
A Volatility-Driven Asset Allocation (VDAA)

This article advocates a systematic rebalancing process –Volatility-Driven Asset Allocation or VDAA – for dynamically managing the strategic asset allocation. The goal of the suggested algorithm is to adjust the asset exposures so as to reflect the assumptions investors used when determining their strategic allocation, in terms of balance between risk contributions and expected returns. Such an idea makes sense from the economic point of view of a risk-adverse investor who wishes to achieve a smooth long-run performance. The stable risk contribution is determined by a long-run target, with short-term deviations from this target driving the rebalancing of the portfolio exposure. Rebalancing between asset classes allows smoothing the global volatility of the portfolio by decreasing exposure in asset classes yielding temporarily higher risk contributions and by increasing weight in asset classes with temporarily lower risk contributions. Both our backtests and robustness study demonstrate that this risk rebalancing strategy is superior in terms of information ratio to traditional rebalancing rules.
Developing environmental supply chain performance measures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review extant literature and present a proposed research agenda to examine whether environmental, i.e. green performance measures, can be integrated within an existing supply chain performance framework, explore what a meaningful industry‐recognised environmental measure should look like, and understand the direct benefits of incorporating environmental measures within a supply chain performance framework.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on an extensive literature review in four key areas: performance management, supply chain performance management, environmental management and benchmarking.Findings – The literature suggests there is an opportunity to explore the relationship between the environment and logistics and that environmental supply chain performance measurement (SCPM) should enable organisations to more effectively benchmark their supply chain environmental performance. A framework incorporating these notions and a research agenda for em.
Multi-scale, torsion-based shape representations for space curves

Space curves are efficient, highly descriptive features of 3-D objects. A new multiscale shape representation (the resampled torsion scale space or TSS image) for space curves suitable for recognition of a noisy curve at any scale or orientation is introduced. A two-phase matching algorithm consisting of TSS matching (using extrema of TSS zero-crossing contours) followed by transformation parameter optimization demonstrates the usefulness of the representation in recognition tasks. <<ETX>>
Association Rules Technique to Diagnosis Financial Performance for Ksa Stock Market Companies

Association Rules technique is a technique for discovering useful knowledge from large databases. A number of industries are currently using this technique. A common approach for knowledge discovery is to identify association rules, which reveal relationships among different critical success factors. In this paper, we use this approach to analyze a large database containing financial statement and market data. Our aim is to obtain association rules indicating relationships between financial performance parameters and market indices. Random data sampling was be used to obtain these association rules. After reviewing the basic concepts associated with Association Rules technique, we discuss our approach for identifying association rules and report on the rules generated.
Linking Service Quality at the Cellar Door with Brand Equity Building

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the cellar door experience on the postvisit behavior of wine tourists with respect to winery brands. The underlying premise is that positive winery experiences can influence brand equity building, which in turn can be translated into positive behavioral intentions. A sample of 349 winery visitors and structural equation modeling analysis are used to test the proposed conceptual model, which incorporates three temporal dimensions of the winery experience (i.e., previsit, on-site, and postvisit). The main findings confirm that service quality at the cellar door has a strong positive impact on visitor satisfaction, which is a positive antecedent of consumer based brand equity. Satisfaction has both direct and indirect effects on future behavioral intentions and brand extensibility. The findings confirm the existence of a service quality/satisfaction/consumer-based brand equity/behavioral intentions/brand extensibility chain of causality.
Application of growth technologies in enhancing food security and sustainability

Anabolic steroids have been widely used in the beef cattle industry for over 50 years as safe and effective growth-promoting agents, and today, more than 90% of all feedlot cattle in the US receive some type of steroidal implant during their lifetime (NAHMS, USDA 2000). A list of approval of growth promotants by the FDA is shown in Table 1. Generally, implants have been shown to increase growth rate 8 to 28%, improve feed efficiency 5 to 20%, and enhance lean tissue mass of the carcass 3 to 10% (Duckett and Owens, 1997). This improvement in production efficiency has multiple benefits: 1) it clearly and dramatically reduces production costs by reducing the amount of feed required per unit of gain (Avery and Avery, 2007); 2) it reduces the amount of land necessary to produce equivalent amounts of food for consumers; 3) it limits the production of greenhouse gases by reducing the number of animals required to produce equivalent amounts of beef (Avery and Avery, 2007); and 4) it extends cost savings to consumers by providing a year-round, affordable supply of beef at reduced prices (Lawrence and Ibarburu, 2006). Since animal products contribute significantly to the total caloric and nutrient intake in the human population, altering the composition of growth toward more lean tissue and less adipose tissue results in a healthier product with fewer calories that still is rich in beneficial nutrients. In addition to steroidal implants, a newer class of orally active growth promotants, known as b-adrenergic agonists (BAA; Ractopamine-HCl; 2003 and Zilpaterol-HCl; 2006), have been approved for use in finishing beef cattle in the last decade. These products provide similar production benefits as steroidal implants, but differ in application and mode of action. Beta-adrenergic agonists are fed during the last 20 to 42 days of the cattle finishing period, depending on the specific product. The purpose of this paper is to explain how anabolic implants and BAA work and their benefits to beef cattle production.
Gender difference in cycling speed and age of winning performers in ultra-cycling – the 508-mile “Furnace Creek” from 1983 to 2012

Abstract We analysed (i) the gender difference in cycling speed and (ii) the age of winning performers in the 508-mile “Furnace Creek 508”. Changes in cycling speeds and gender differences from 1983 to 2012 were analysed using linear, non-linear and hierarchical multi-level regression analyses for the annual three fastest women and men. Cycling speed increased non-linearly in men from 14.6 (s = 0.3) km · h−1 (1983) to 27.1 (s = 0.7) km · h−1 (2012) and non-linearly in women from 11.0 (s = 0.3) km · h−1 (1984) to 24.2 (s = 0.2) km · h−1 (2012). The gender difference in cycling speed decreased linearly from 26.2 (s = 0.5)% (1984) to 10.7 (s = 1.9)% (2012). The age of winning performers increased from 26 (s = 2) years (1984) to 43 (s = 11) years (2012) in women and from 33 (s = 6) years (1983) to 50 (s = 5) years (2012) in men. To summarise, these results suggest that (i) women will be able to narrow the gender gap in cycling speed in the near future in an ultra-endurance cycling race such as the “Furnace Creek 508” due to the linear decrease in gender difference and (ii) the maturity of these athletes has changed during the last three decades where winning performers become older and faster across years.
Globalization and fashion marketing performance

This article introduces papers selected for this special issue of the Journal of Global Fashion Marketing. These papers were selected as being among the very best submitted to the 2012 ITAA-KSMS Joint Symposium held in conjunction with the 2012 Global Marketing Conference at Seoul. In keeping with the conference theme, Globalization and Marketing Performance, the articles in this special issue of JGFM offer the reader new insight into important issues related to fashion marketing within the continually evolving global setting.
The structural and environmental correlates of business strategy

An attempt is made to relate several common dimensions of business-level strategy to their organizational contexts. A model is developed that predicts the structural and environmental correlates of a strategy on the basis of the number and uncertainty of its contingencies. It is shown that strategies of complex product innovation, marketing differentiation, market breadth and conservative cost control each have pronounced but very different relationships with bureaucratic and organic structural devices of uncertainty reduction, differentiation and integration, and with environmental dynamism, heterogeneity and hostility.
Optimizing Working Capital Management

Although the operating cycle, the cash conversion cycle, and the net trade cycle are more comprehensive measures of working capital management comparing with traditional measures of liquidity such as the current ratio and the quick ratio. However, these measures do not consider the optimal points of payables, inventory, and receivables. In this study we suggest more accurate measures of the efficiency of working capital management where optimal levels of inventory, receivables, and payables are identified, and total holding and opportunities cost are minimized and recalculating the operating cycle, the cash conversion cycle, and the net trade cycle according to these optimal points.
Implementation of hybrid adaptive fuzzy sliding model control and evolutionary neural observer for biped robot systems

In this paper, a hybrid adaptive fuzzy sliding-mode dynamic evolutionary neural network (DENN) technique is proposed for biped robot control. The hybrid control system, containing a key and a secondary controller, is implemented. The key controller combining an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode estimator and a DENN observer plays the role of the principal controller meanwhile the secondary controller is a compensator for the approximated error of the biped system uncertainty. The adaptive fuzzy controller is designed with two update rules to train the weights and the approximated fuzzy error of the estimator. Using Lyapunov principle, the adaptive fuzzy rules of the control system are derived so that the asymptotical stability of the biped system can be ensured. Eventually, simulation and experiment results confirm the efficiency, the robustness and the trajectory following performance of the new adaptive fuzzy control method for biped systems.
To Be or Not to Be: When Should a Threshold Firm in an Emerging Market Move to Professional Management?

Recent research emphasizes the importance of the separation of ownership and control for growing threshold firms. Demand for specialized management knowledge by growing owner-run SMEs is usually resolved through the separation of ownership and control, using top management labor market and agency contracts. Under certain environmental institutional conditions, owners of SMEs from emerging markets face difficulties separating ownership and control. For example, the majority of Russian companies are run by their primary owners. In rare situations when separation of ownership and control formally occurs, high risk of economic fraud and owner’s fear often revert management succession to a default owner-control scenario. These conditions pose a threat for a growing threshold firm needing professional management knowledge assets. Using a dataset of 500 entrepreneurial companies from fast growing industries in St. Petersburg and Moscow, this study defines and studies threshold firms and also analyzes how various perceived characteristics of the institutional environment are influencing the probability of separation of ownership and control in threshold firms. According to the estimation results institutional factors such as poor security of ownership rights and misfit of company with formal regulatory norms have a negative impact on the probability of separation of ownership and control in threshold firms. As a result, threshold firms limit their growth possibilities since their access to specialized knowledge is limited to the knowledge base of the owner.
Group II and IV phospholipase A2 are produced in human pancreatic cancer cells and influence prognosis

BACKGROUND Phospholipase A2 (PLA2) is involved in regulating biosynthesis of arachidonic acid and its metabolites. There are three major structurally different forms of PLA2: group I, also called pancreatic PLA2 (PLA2-I); group II, referred to as secretory non-pancreatic or synovial or platelet PLA2 (PLA2-II); group IV, referred to as cytosolic PLA2 (PLA2-IV). AIMS To examine PLA2-I, PLA2-II, and PLA2-IV in normal and pancreatic cancer tissues. Patients—PLA2 was studied in 58 pancreatic adenocarcinomas, obtained from 25 women and 33 men undergoing pancreatic resection. Normal organ donor pancreas served as control. METHODS The enzymes were analysed by northern blot, in situ hybridisation, and immunohistochemistry. The molecular findings were correlated with clinical variables of the patients. RESULTS Northern blot analysis of total RNA showed enhanced PLA2 group II and IV mRNA expression in 52% and 55% of the pancreatic cancer samples respectively compared with the normal controls (p = 0.0013 and p = 0.0025). On immunohistochemical analysis, intense PLA2-I immunoreactivity was seen in acinar cells, but not in ductal cells, in the normal pancreas. In pancreatic cancer cells, PLA2-I immunostaining was absent. PLA2-II immunostaining was visible only in some acinar and ductal cells in the normal pancreas, whereas in pancreatic cancer increased PLA2-II immunoreactivity was present in 65% of the cancer samples. On in situ hybridisation, weak PLA2-IV mRNA signals were detected in acinar and ductal cells of normal samples; these signals were present to a much greater extent in pancreatic cancer cells. The presence of PLA2-II in pancreatic cancer was associated with a higher degree of fibrosis (p<0.01). Furthermore, there was a significant correlation between the enhanced expression of PLA2-II and longer survival after surgery (p<0.03), but not of PLA2-IV and longer postoperative survival. CONCLUSION These data suggest that PLA2-II and PLA2-IV are upregulated in human pancreatic cancer, and that upregulation of PLA2-II in pancreatic cancer covariates negatively with cancer cell growth.
Are markets efficient? The extreme case of corporatebankruptcy: a literature review

In 1970, Fama presented the foundations of what was to become the central proposition in finance: the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) . Under the EMH’s framework, a market is efficient if prices always reflect all available information. Behavioural finance is an alternative perspective to understand financial markets, which incorporates the implications of psychological decision processes. This new framework is based on a well-developed theoretical body, which provides a better explanation to certain patterns of market behaviour that cannot be understood within the traditional approach. The emergence of behavioural finance created a fundamental dilemma in the finance literature: which of the two competing theories best describes the actual behaviour of financial markets? This paper reviews existing knowledge on how markets behave when companies announce bankruptcy. This acute and economically significant bad news event constitutes an attractive scenario to explore the irrational pricing patterns that are motivated by market participants’ biases and psychological defences in dealing with extreme bad news. This paper starts by summarizing the theoretical frameworks of both the EMH and behavioural finance. Several papers that address the corporate bankruptcy issue in light of these competing theories are also reviewed. The paper concludes suggesting new areas of research that can be explored to deepen our understanding of how (in)efficient the market is in this extreme bad news context.
Target App Cluster App 4 App 3 App 2 App 1

Incentivized by monetary gain, some app developers launch fraudulent campaigns to boost their apps’ rankings in the mobile app stores. They pay some service providers for boost services, which then organize large groups of collusive attackers to take fraudulent actions such as posting high app ratings or inflating apps’ downloads. If not addressed timely, such attacks will increasingly damage the healthiness of app ecosystems. In this work, we propose a novel approach to identify attackers of collusive promotion groups in an app store. Our approach exploits the unusual ranking change patterns of apps to identify promoted apps, measures their pairwise similarity, forms targeted app clusters (TACs), and finally identifies the collusive group members. Our evaluation based on a dataset of Apple’s China App store has demonstrated that our approach is able and scalable to report highly suspicious apps and reviewers. App stores may use our techniques to narrow down the suspicious lists for further investigation.