Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
RH conservador: um estudo sobre mudanças na gestão de pessoas em empresas estabelecidas no Brasil

Teoricos e gestores da area preocupam-se com quais mudancas podem contribuir com a administracao de recursos humanos (ARH) nas organizacoes, e tambem com a propria contribuicao da ARH para com as organizacoes. Segundo Lawler (2011) a ARH vem buscando desempenhar um papel mais estrategico nas organizacoes, mas suas praticas nao foram concebidas com isso em mente. Na medida em que a ARH, tanto como campo pratico da Administracao de Empresas quanto area de ensino e pesquisa, observa a necessidade de considerar o contexto, surgem estudos dedicados a verificar as especificidades nacionais. Considerando que: (a) organizacoes enfrentam um crescente imperativo para redesenhar-se, buscando ter agilidade e se adaptar mais rapidamente diante de um contexto cada vez mais dinâmico; (b) teoricos vem apontando a necessidade de mudancas na ARH; (c) praticos vem buscando caminhos para esse alinhamento; e (d) as peculiaridades locais influenciam esse movimento de mudanca, surge uma pergunta: Tendo em vista as peculiaridades contextuais brasileiras, as organizacoes estao promovendo mudancas na ARH? As 92 mudancas identificadas se mostraram relativamente dispersas dentre os diversos portes e segmentos das organizacoes pesquisadas. De fato, nos causou alguma surpresa que organizacoes que fazem uso intenso da tecnologia, como as de computacao e telecomunicacoes, nao aparecessem com destaque em iniciativas de mudanca, uma vez que a literatura destaca o fator tecnologico como impulsionador de modificacoes. Os resultados da presente pesquisa apontam que as mudancas, pouco tem de disruptivas e transformacionais, segundo um perfil conservador onde se estabelece um elevado isoformismo.
Rapid Mixing of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo on Strongly Log-Concave Distributions

We obtain several quantitative bounds on the mixing properties of the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm for a strongly log-concave target distribution $\pi$ on $\mathbb{R}^{d}$, showing that HMC mixes quickly in this setting. One of our main results is a dimension-free bound on the mixing of an "ideal" HMC chain, which is used to show that the usual leapfrog implementation of HMC can sample from $\pi$ using only $\mathcal{O}(d^{\frac{1}{4}})$ gradient evaluations. This dependence on dimension is sharp, and our results significantly extend and improve previous quantitative bounds on the mixing of HMC.
The Relationship Between Auto Insurance Rate Regulation and Insured Loss Costs: An Empirical Analysis

This study points out a potential unintended effect of efforts to enhance affordability of insurance prices by regulating rates: It may ultimately lead to higher insurance costs. This is because rate regulation that suppresses insurance prices below competitive levels, or provides significant premium subsidies for some consumers, creates a variety of incentive distortions in the market. The article summarizes the theoretical arguments for this effect and provides empirical evidence of cost-increasing effects of rate regulation. The analysis uses state-level data on automobile insurance costs and claims rates for the period 1990 through 1998, and employs empirical methods that control for the possible reverse causation of high insurance costs leading to consumer demand for rate regulation. We find that bodily injury and property damage liability loss costs are higher in rate-regulated states, and that the bodily injury to property damage liability claims ratio is higher in regulated states.
Gender identification from video sequences

Automated ways of identifying human attributes such as gender from surveillance video is a fast growing area in machine vision today. This thesis presents, investigates and implements a system framework with the task of identifying gender from, relatively low resolution, detected faces in video sequences recorded in a natural environment, i.e. arbitrary poses, facial expressions, illumination, occlusion etc. An individuals face is detected, tracked and classified during multiple frames to get a more robust and reliable classification result for each individual. A Support vector machine trained on a dataset of still facial images collected under more controlled settings is used as a classifier. The proposed framework achieves a classification rate of 80% on the recorded video sequences and, while not perfect, could be successfully used to estimate the distribution of males and females entering e.g. a shopping mall. Acknowledgements This masters thesis was done in collaboration with Viametrics. I would therefore like to thank Dan Ekström, Development Manager, and the rest of the colleagues at Viametrics for the support and advice received during this project and for giving me the opportunity of doing my master thesis with them. I would also like to thank my supervisor at Chalmers, Professor Mats Rudemo, for his support and ideas during the length of this project. Johan Wiebe, Gothenburg 14/06/02
STRATEGIC PLANNING PRACTICES AT SAFARICOM LIMITED BY: BENSON GITAU NJUGUNA A MANAGEMENT RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (MBA), SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION. 1 1.1 Background of the Study . 1 1.1.1 Strategic Planning . 1 1.1.2 Safaricom Limited . 3 1.2 Statement of the Research Problem . 4 1.3 Objectives of the Study. 5 1.4 Importance of the Study. 5 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW. 7 2.1 The concept of Strategy . 7 2.2 Strategic Planning . 8 2.3 Strategic Planning Models . 9 2.4 Strategic Planning Process. 11 2.4. 1 Mission. 12 2. 4.2 Objectives . 12 vi 2. 4.3 Situation Analysis . 12 2. 4.4 Strategy Formulation . 13 2. 4.5 Strategy Implementation. 14 2. 4.6 Strategy Evaluation and Control. 14 2.5 Identifying Strategic Issues. 14 2.5. 1 Formulating Strategies . 15 2.5. 2 Strategy Implementation. 15 2.6 Performance Measurement . 15 2.7 Strategic Planning Practices. 16 2.8 Challenges in Implementation of Strategic Planning Practices . 18 CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY . 19 3.1 Research Design. 19 3.2 Data Collection . 19 3.3 Data Analysis . 19 CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS. 20 4.
OXIDATIVE STABILITY OF SILVER CARP OIL SUPPLEMENTED WITH POTATO PEELS EXTRACT COMPARED TO SYNTHETIC ANTIOXYDANTS DURING LONG TERM STORAGE

The main goal of the current investigation is to use Potato peel extract (PPE) compared to butylated hydroxyl anisole ( BHA ) on the oxidative stability of silver carp oil over a period of 70 days at two temperatures (25 o C and 45 o C). The progress of lipid oxidation was assessed in terms of Peroxide value (PV) , Conjugated diens (CD) , Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) ,free fatty acid ( FFA) and Iodine value (IV). Different organic solvent , including ethanol , methanol, hexane and acetone were used to prepare potato peels extracts. The antioxidant capacity of the ethanol and methanol extract was tested in-vitro. This extracts showed strong reducing power and diphenyl picryl-hydrazyl ( DPPH) radical scavenging ability. After 70 days storage at 25 0 C , silver carp oil containing 800,1600 and 2400 ppm ethanol extract of potato peels showed lower values of PV (30.48 ,14.83 ,11.7 meq/kg) and CD ( 11.68 , 10.97 , 9.41 nmol/g ) than the control samples of oil (PV 68.75meq/kg , CD 34.43 nmol/g ). Also the oil containing 200ppm of BHA showed PV and CD values of 9.61 and 8.32nmol/g respectively after 70 days. Similarly after 70 days at 25 0 C , TBARS and FFA of the oil containing 800 , 1600, 2400 ppm were 163.56,156.39 ,120.69 and 0.41,0.31,0.225 respectively which were lower than the control (TBARS: 346.44 and FFA:0.486) . These results demonstrated that potato peel is a potent source of natural antioxidant that may be used to prevent oxidation of silver carp oil.
Applying Bayesian Segmentation in Volumetric Silhouette-based Reconstruction.

We present a technique for incorporating probabilistic (or soft) segmentations into the shape-from-silhouette (SFS) technique for volumetric reconstruction from a set of images. In basic SFS points in 3D space are back-projected to all the images and if any of these falls outside the contours of the object, the point is disregarded. We extend the concept to a more probabilistic nature and show that high quality models can be obtained by thresholding the final point probabilities. The method used for determining the soft segmentations is based upon a Bayesian framework, but the idea of combining probabilistic segmentations would remain the same for any soft segmentation method.
NLP Based Text Summarization Using Semantic Analysis

Due to an exponential growth in the generation of textual data, the need for tools and mechanisms for automatic summarization of documents has become very critical. Text documents are vital to any organization's day-to-day working and as such, long documents often hamper trivial work. Therefore, an automatic summarizer is vital towards reducing human effort. Text summarization is an important activity in the analysis of a high volume text documents and is currently a major research topic in Natural Language Processing. It is the process of generation of the summary of input text by extracting the representative sentences from it. In this project, we present a novel technique for generating the summarization of domain specific text by using Semantic Analysis for text summarization, which is a subset of Natural Language Processing.
Two App Stores in One Smartphone : A Comparative Study on Mobile Application Stores between Google Play and T-Store

The tremendous advancement of technology sparked a lot of opportunities for developers and consumers to pave way to a dynamic application market in smartphones. This study focuses on the users` perspective, that is, the preference between two application markets that varies in many perspectives of its features. Hence, the purpose of this study is to provide a comparative study on two mobile application stores in smartphones; Google Play and T-Store. A survey was conducted to compare the markets, and the results showed the different influencing factors on choosing and using each application store. In addition, the results somehow revealed the harmony of co-existence in smartphones.
In-silico analysis of PtpA - an antigenic protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

PtpA, a low-molecular weight tyrosine phosphatase, is a secreted protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Many secretory proteins of Mtb are known to be the prominent targets of host immune response. It plays an important role in host-pathogen interaction and it interferes with the passing of the protein from one endosomal vesicle to the next endosomal vesicle in the infected macrophage. It inhibits host phagolysosomal fusion in the infected macrophages and thus allows the bacteria to survive within macrophages. Analysis of primary and secondary structure of the protein was done by ProtParam and GOR IV respectively. Since the number of negatively charged residues are higher than the positively charged residues, PtpA is an acidic protein. Immunity against Mtb is T-cell mediated Thus an important criterion in seeking protective antigens should be that they induce T-cell- mediated immunity. The characterization of PtpA inducing CD4+ T-cell responses could critically contribute to the development of subunit vaccines for Mtb. Here we performed computational analysis by using Proped, T-cell epitope prediction program. In-silico antigenicity prediction of PtpA was done using VaxiJen. Owing to the resistance of this protein to the natural immune response, in-silico antigenicity and T-cell epitope prediction will be helpful to design better subunit vaccines to develop effective acquired immune response to Mtb.
The correlation of muscle thickness and pennation angle assessed by ultrasound with sarcopenia in elderly Chinese community dwellers

Background: Sarcopenia is typically defined as the loss of muscle mass, strength and low physical performance with aging. Ultrasound is a safe and easy method for evaluating muscle mass and quality by muscle thickness (MT) and pennation angle (PA), respectively. Although the positive correlations between MT and muscle mass and handgrip strength were observed, the relationship between MT, PA and physical performance remains unclear. Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the correlation of aforementioned ultrasound parameters with muscle mass, muscle strength and physical performance and explore the utility of ultrasound in predicting sarcopenia. Patients and methods: A total of 265 elderly Chinese community dwellers were included. MT of both forearm and lower leg as well as PA of gastrocnemius was assessed by ultrasound. Muscle mass was assessed by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Muscle strength was measured by a Jamar hand dynamometer. Physical performance was assessed by the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB). Results: Anterior radial MT in men and regional MTs except posterior fibula in women were negatively correlated with the age. No significant correlation was observed between PA and the age in both genders. Posterior tibial MT and posterior fibula MT were positively correlated with the relative appendicular skeletal muscle mass in men and women, respectively. Anterior ulnar MT was positively correlated with grip strength in both genders. Moreover, gastrocnemius medialis PA showed a positive association with gait speed and SPPB in women but not in men. Conclusion: A combination of posterior fibula MT, anterior ulnar MT and gastrocnemius medialis PA measured by muscle ultrasound is helpful for the assessment of sarcopenia in Chinese elderly women. In addition, a combination of posterior tibial MT and anterior ulnar MT measured by muscle ultrasound is helpful for the assessment of sarcopenia in Chinese elderly men.
Better management of hydropower in an era of climate change.

Ten years ago the World Commission on Dams (WCD) report established new standards for the sustainable development of water infrastructure, but the hopes many of us had then for a new era of more thoughtful development have been attenuated by the resilience of the hydraulic bureaucracy and the emergence of new influences on the hydropower debate. Particularly important is the impact of climate change as a driver of government policies in favour of hydropower, water storage and inter-basin water transfers. As a former Director of Freshwater for WWF International and now as a researcher on the water-energy nexus, I spent much of the past decade seeking to influence the direction of water infrastructure development, and in this viewpoint I have been asked to reflect on the changes that have occurred, and the opportunities in an era of climate change to reduce the environmental and social impacts of hydropower development while maximising the benefits. Better outcomes are more likely with a renewed focus on limiting the perverse impacts of climate change policies, implementing standards for certification of more sustainable hydropower, building capacities within developing countries, and enhancing management of existing dams.
Effect of international activity on firm performance

There is evidence that better performing firms tend to enter international markets. Internationally active firms are larger, more productive, and pay higher wages than other firms in the same industry. Positive performance effects of engaging in international activity are found especially in firms from less advanced economies that interact with partners from more advanced economies. Lowering barriers to the international division of labor should be part of any pro-growth policy.
Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy: An Overview of Vitreous Immune and Biomarkers

This chapter discusses about the effect of vitreous immune system and biomarkers on the progression of proliferative diabetic retinopathy. Immune system and biomarkers have been believed to have an important role in the progression of diabetic retinopathy (DR) severity. Hyperglycemic will influence immune cells resulting in chronic inflammation on the retina. This condition progressively disrupts the blood-retinal barrier in retina causing those inflammatory molecules and immune cells to transfer from circulation. The transfer of these molecules plays an important part in the progression of prolifera- tive diabetic retinopathy. In addition, biomarkers are indicators for some complex processes happened in our body, and are measured to determine diagnosis and prognosis of some treatment. There are several biomarkers that have been identified in DR patients including biomarkers of oxidative stress, hypoxia-inducible factors, angiogenic factors, pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, cell adhesion molecules, and soluble CD200. The value of these biomarkers will tell us their possible role in the progression of DR. By improving the knowledge of molecular pathway in DR pathophysiology, the advancement of selective therapy approaches could be discovered and the management of DR could be more efficient.
Chemical compositions of six metal-poor stars in the ultra-faint dwarf spheroidal galaxy Boötes I

Context. Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies recently discovered around the Milky Way (MW) contain extremely metal-poor stars, and might represent the building blocks of low-metallicity components of the MW. Among them, the Bootes I dwarf spheroidal galaxy is of particular interest because of its exclusively old stellar population. Detailed chemical compositions of individual stars in this galaxy are a key to understanding formation and chemical evolution in the oldest galaxies in the Universe and their roles in building up the MW halo. Aims. Previous studies of the chemical abundances of Bootes I show discrepancies in elemental abundances between different authors, and thus a consistent picture of its chemical enrichment history has not yet been established. In the present work, we independently determine chemical compositions of six red giant stars in Bootes I, some of which overlap with those analyzed in the previous studies. Based on the derived abundances, we re-examine trends and scatters in elemental abundances and make comparisons with MW field halo stars and other dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the MW. Methods. High-resolution spectra of a sample of stars were obtained with the High Dispersion Spectrograph mounted on the Subaru Telescope. Abundances of 12 elements, including C, Na, α, Fe-peak, and neutron capture elements, were determined for the sample stars. The abundance results were compared to those in field MW halo stars previously obtained using an abundance analysis technique similar to the present study. Results. We confirm the low metallicity of Boo-094 ([Fe/H] = −3.4). Except for this star, the abundance ratios ([X/Fe]) of elements lighter than zinc are generally homogeneous with small scatter around the mean values in the metallicities spanned by the other five stars (−2.7 −2.7 show no significant enhancement of carbon. The [Mg/Fe] and [Ca/Fe] ratios are almost constant with a modest decreasing trend with increasing [Fe/H] and are slightly lower than the field halo stars. The [Sr/Fe] and [Sr/Ba] ratios also tend to be lower in the Bootes I stars than in the halo stars. Conclusions. Our results of small scatter in the [X/Fe] ratios for elements lighter than zinc suggest that these abundances were homogeneous among the ejecta of prior generation(s) of stars in this galaxy. The lower mean [Mg/Fe] and [Ca/Fe] ratios relative to the field halo stars and the similarity in these abundance ratios with some of the more luminous dwarf spheroidal galaxies at metallicities [Fe/H] < −2 can be interpreted as star formation in Bootes I having lasted at least until Type Ia supernovae started to contribute to the chemical enrichment in this galaxy.
Cultural Political System: Popular Culture and Films in Indian Election Campaigns

The use of popular culture of music, dance, songs, theatre, videos and films for electioneering has been part of the Indian election process. Politics has been the narrative of Indian cinema since the beginning of century where political themes, political roles and political issues were exemplified through lead roles of politicians, enactment of political scenes, political satires and songs. This chapter examines the role of film artists in politics, popular political songs in films and campaign films that have expanded the levels of traditional and new media campaigning in India. Films and songs in the films glorify the country, arouse patriotism and whenever needed expose social issues such as high prices, corruption, feudalism, and other political issues. In the process, political campaign films became a way of marketing parties and candidates. This further characterizes the future of the political cultural system and the political economy of Indian cinema.
Lexical stress, phrasal accent and prosodic boundaries in the realization of domain-initial stops in Dutch

This study examines the effects of prosodic boundaries, lexical stress, and phrasal accent on the acoustic realization of stops (/t, d/) in Dutch, with special attention paid to language-specificity in the phonetics-prosody interface. The results obtained from various acoustic measures show systematic phonetic variations in the production of /t d/ as a function of prosodic position, which may be interpreted as being due to prosodicallyconditioned articulatory strengthening. Shorter VOTs were found for the voiceless stop /t/ in prosodically stronger locations (as opposed to longer VOTs in this position in English). The results suggest that prosodically-driven phonetic realization is bounded by a language-specific phonological feature system.
Stepwise Green Investment under Policy Uncertainty

We analyse how market price and policy uncertainty, in the form of random provision or retraction of a subsidy, interact to affect the optimal time of investment and the size of a renewable energy (RE) project that can be completed in either a single (lumpy investment) or multiple stages (stepwise investment). The subsidy takes the form of a fixed premium on top of the electricity price, and, therefore, investment is subject to electricity price uncertainty. We show that the risk of a permanent retraction (provision) of a subsidy increases (decreases) the incentive to invest, yet lowers (raises) the amount of installed capacity, and that this result is more pronounced as the size of the subsidy increases. Additionally, we show that increasing the number of policy interventions lowers the expected value of a subsidy and the size of the project. Furthermore, we illustrate that, although an increase in the size of a subsidy lowers the relative value of the stepwise investment strategy, the expected value of a lumpy investment strategy is still lower than that of stepwise investment.
Pricing of Complementary Goods and Network Effects

We discuss the case of a monopolist of a base good in the presence of a complementary good provided either by it or by another firm. We assess and calibrate the extent of the influence on the profits from the base good that is created by the existence of the complementary good. We establish an equivalence between a model of a base and a complementary good and a reduced-form model of the base good in which network effects are assumed in the consumers' utility functions as a surrogate for the presence of direct or indirect network effects, such as complementary goods produced by other firms. We also assess and calibrate the influence on profits of the intensity of network effects and quality improvements in both goods. We evaluate the incentive that a monopolist of the base good has to improve its quality rather than that of the complementary good under different market structures. Finally, based on our results, we discuss a possible explanation of the fact that Microsoft Office has a significantly higher price than Microsoft Windows although both products have comparable market shares.