Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does the perceived globalness of a brand enhance quality and prestige perceptions of consumers ? A critical review

Recently, several papers claim to have found empirical evidence for a positive impact of the “perceived globalness” of a brand (PBG) on the consumer evaluation of the quality and the prestige of the brand. From these studies, it has been concluded that consumers generally prefer brands which they perceive to be global brands rather than local brands. This paper critically reviews the empirical evidence and the theoretical rationale given for PBG effects on quality and prestige. It finds the empirical evidence to be inconclusive and sometimes even contradictory and the theoretical rationale to be unconvincing. The article identifies three potential confounds of PBG from which several alternative hypotheses are formulated. It concludes with suggestions how to discern between competing hypotheses in future research. Key-words: International Brand Management, Perceived Brand Globalness, Global Brands, Local Brands Does the perceived globalness of a brand enhance quality and prestige perceptions of consumers? A critical review
Where Are All the Introverts Hiding? An Analysis of Introversion in Research

Since their origin, extraversion andintroversion have become staples in both researchterminology and colloquial language. In 2012, Susan Cainreleased a New York Times Best-Seller, Quiet: The Powerof Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, whichdiscussed the role of introverts in a society that valuesextraversion. This paper analyzes the Five-Factor Modelas well as case studies of various articles displaying biasagainst introversion. These articles are used to discusshow the bias against introversion has become part ofpsychological research and the need to reverse trendsof stereotyping and misinformation. Other articles arealso discussed, which present a more well-roundedpresentation of introversion and extraversion.
Brahmanical Hinduism : Brahmanical Terms in a Buddhist Guise

It is obvious that a teacher must be able to communicate, if his teaching is to be understand by his audience. This creates difficulties if he wishes to teach something new, for which terms do not yet exist. He has the choice of coining new terms or of using old terms in a new sense. Both categories must be clearly defined, or his listeners may not understood the first and may understand the second in their old sense. An investigation into the terminology used by the Buddha shows how he coped with this problem.
Climate Information for Improved Planning and Management of Mega Cities (Needs Perspective)

The majority of the population of the planet (6.6 billion) now live in urban areas, which have distinct impacts upon climate at scales from the local to the global. This urban effect is due to the physical form of the city (its three-dimensional geometry and material composition) and its functions (the day-to-day activity patterns that generate emissions of waste heat and materials into the overlying air). While a substantial body of knowledge on the science of urban climates has been developed over the past fifty years, there is little evidence that this knowledge is incorporated into urban planning and design practice. This paper focuses on this gap by examining the nature of urban climate expertise and the needs of those that make decisions about urban areas. In conclusion it makes recommendations to maintain and enhance urban observations and data; to improve understanding of local, regional and global climate linkages; to develop tools for practical planning; and to disseminate urban climate knowledge and its relevance to urban planning to both practicing meteorologists and urban decision makers.
Miller Cycle and Variable Geometry Manifold Implementations for Performance and Emissions Improvements

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Snowmobile Team has designed and constructed a clean and quiet, high performance snowmobile for entry in the 2015 SAE International Clean Snowmobile Challenge. Built on a 2013 Ski-doo MXZ chassis, the design features a Rotax 600cc ACE port fuel-injected turbocharged four-stroke engine equipped to operate efficiently on gasoline and alcohol based fuel blends. The engine has been customized with a Woodward control system which allows for full engine optimization with complete flex-fuel iso-butanol capabilities. An electronic throttle body and mass airflow sensor are used in conjunction with a heated wide-band oxygen sensor to enable closed-loop fuel control. Utilizing a 3-way catalyst designed by Continetal Emitec GmbH, this sled reduces NOX, HC, and CO emissions by up to 95%. Optimized intake and exhaust camshafts were developed to optimize Miller cycle operation. An external wastegate, electronic boost control, and charge air cooler have been fitted to enable complete control of the turbocharger. A variable geometry intake manifold was implemented to account for the cylinder air-filling imbalance caused by a 270 degree crankshaft. With all of the modifications, the clean turbocharged Rotax ACE is capable of a power output of 45 kW and utilizes a catalytic muffler system to reduce sound levels to 69 dB(A) using SAE test procedure J192. The lightweight combination of the MXZ chassis and revolutionary ACE engine results in a rider-friendly package that meets the criteria to succeed at the Clean Snowmobile Challenge and is desirable to snowmobile consumers.
How Many Listings is too Many ? Agent Listing Inventory and Sales Performance

This paper examines potential principal-agent issues arising from the size of the agent listing inventory; how does an agent’s inventory affect sales outcomes of individual client properties in terms of selling price and liquidity? The theory implies that greater inventory tends to dilute agent selling effort for individual properties. It remains an empirical question whether diluted sales effort leads to lower prices, longer marketing time or both. Using a sample of residential properties listed for sale between 1999 and 2009 from an east coast multiple listing service, we empirically test this prediction by analyzing the effect of agent inventory level on both selling price and marketing duration. Results indicate that higher agent inventory tends to reduce selling price and substantially increases marketing duration.
İris Çiçeği Türünün YSA Yöntemleri ve ANFIS ile Tahmini

Oruntu kullanilarak siniflandirma yapmak, sanayi ve tip alaninda yaygin olarak kullanilmaktadir. Fakat gozlemsel siniflandirma yapilirken kisisel hatalar meydana gelmektedir. Bu siniflandirma hatalarini azaltmak icin yapay ogrenme yontemleri kullanilmaktadir. Bu calismada, yapay sinir agi (YSA) ve bulanik yapay sinir agi (ANFIS) kullanilarak iris cicegi turunun siniflandirilmasi amaclanmaktadir. Bu tur calismalarda yaygin olarak kullanilan iris cicegine ait ornek verilerden yararlanilmistir. Uc katmanli, ileri beslemeli, dort girisli ve bir cikisli YSA modeli secilmistir. YSA modelinin egitiminde 90 adet veri ve testinde de 60 adet veri kullanilmistir. Her girisinde iki adet bulanik kume bulunan, dort girisli ve bir cikisli, ANFIS modeli uretilmistir. Bu modelde de ayni sayilarda ornekler kullanilarak egitim ve test yapilmistir. Calisma neticesinde uygulanan her iki yontem icin, tahmin degerleri ile gercek degerler arasinda dusuk hata oranlari elde edilmistir. YSA ve ANFIS yontemlerinin siniflandirma sonuclari karsilastirilmis ve YSA yonteminin ANFIS yontemine gore daha yakin tahminler urettigi bulunmustur.
The su ( 2 | 3 ) Dynamic Spin Chain Niklas Beisert

The complete one-loop, planar dilatation operator of the N = 4 superconformal gauge theory was recently derived and shown to be integrable. Here, we present further compelling evidence for a generalisation of this integrable structure to higher orders of the coupling constant. For that we consider the su(2|3) subsector and investigate the restrictions imposed on the spin chain Hamiltonian by the symmetry algebra. This allows us to uniquely fix the energy shifts up to the three-loop level and thus prove the correctness of a conjecture in hep-th/0303060. A novel aspect of this spin chain model is that the higher-loop Hamiltonian, as for N = 4 SYM in general, does not preserve the number of spin sites. Yet this dynamic spin chain appears to be integrable.
Antioxidant potentials of local fruits and foreign wines sold in Ile-Ife , Nigeria

Some locally consumed fruits, sugarcane and wines s old in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, were investigated for thei r phenol content and antioxidant potential of the met hanolic extracts with a view of exploring the healt hpromoting effect of the fruits and wines. The tota l phenolic content in each fruit and wines was dete rmined spectrophotometrically according to Folin-Ciocalteu method and calculated as Gallic Acid Equivalent (GA E) while the antioxidant properties of some of the fru its were estimated by the 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picryhydr azyl method (DPPH). The results obtained showed the hig hest phenolic content in red grape (1.129 ± 0.073 mgGAE/ml) and the lowest in sugar cane (0.160 ± 0.0 03 mg/GAE/ml). The wines also varied in their pheno lic contents with Baron D’ Romeo Red wine (0.306 ± 0.014 m gGAE/ml) having the highest phenolic content for the alcoholic wines class and Eva of Spain (0.132 ± 0.002 mgGAE/ml) had the highest phenolic content i n the non-alcoholic group. The results also showed that t e phenolic content of the alcoholic was greater th an that found in the non-alcoholic wines. On the other hand , the antioxidant properties determined in red grap e, banana, sweet orange, apple and watermelons showed a change in colour from purple to light yellow inst an ly in all the fruits except water melon. The study con cluded that the fruits are valuable sources of natu ral phenolic antioxidants which are known to have health promoti ng properties. Also, that non-alcoholic wines shoul d be improved upon by inclusion of fruits known to conta i ntioxidant potentials. © 2014 International Formulae Group. All rights res erved.
Firm Performance Following Dividend Policy Changes : An Empirical Analysis

An analysis of firm performance following dividend policy changes was conducted. It is found that operating performance improves following dividend decreases, there is a reduction in financial leverage and an improvement in liquidity. A sensitivity analysis shows that the improvement in operating performance is attributable to the decision to decrease dividends and is not caused by a mean reversion in earnings. Thus, the decision to decrease dividends reverses a declining trend of poor performance, and reduces financial leverage and liquidity problems. Finally, consistent with previous studies, the findings here are that the market reacts negatively to announcements of dividend decreases.
Cost-Efficient Data Retrieval for Differential Query Services in Clouds

the wants of Cloud computing is increasing thanks to huge increase of user access to the cloud databases. The a lot of range of users are attempting to access the cloud databases to satisfy their storage necessities wherever the cloud service suppliers have to be compelled to concentrate on providing economical services. within the existing work, EIRQ technique is enforced wherever it aims to retrieve the documents supported user necessities and additionally concentrate on reduction of communication value. The EIRQ doesn‟ t focus on retrieving most similar documents to the users. thence it must be focused to boost the user friendly setting. during this work, the page ranking theme is introduced that concentrates on retrieving the foremost similar documents to the users. This approach improves the user friendly setting still because it tries to concentrate on the reduction of communication value.
MASCULINITY AND WORKPLACE WELLBEING IN THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

The construction industry is known to be highly masculinised and to have work practices that detrimentally affect employee wellbeing. Drawing on rapid ethnographic research, we explore the wellbeing of female and male construction professionals. This involved interviews with 21 senior female and male business leaders, participant observation of 14 company events, onsite shadowing of 44 male and female construction professionals for 2-5 days and 61 interviews of project staff across 6 major construction sites operated by two multinational contractors in Australia. Our findings reveal significant symptoms of poor mental health such as stress, panic attacks, insomnia, fatigue and anxiety, as well as strains on family life among men and women. Many employees endure these experiences in silence, adhering to unspoken masculine workplace norms of long hours, total availability, and presenteeism. Employees regularly worked double their contracted hours and discussed the need to ‘prove their worth’, leaving little time for work-life balance. Despite some efforts to address this by the companies, physical safety appeared a higher priority than psycho-social wellbeing, even in the face of lost productivity. We conclude that the masculinity of the sector is linked to workplace wellbeing for both the men and women that work in the industry.
Graphless: Toward Serverless Graph Processing

Our society is increasingly solving complex problems through the use of graph processing. Existing graph processing systems focus on performance, which allows addressing ever-larger and more complex problems. They also require uncommon expertise to properly deploy and utilize. To make graph processing generally accessible-to small and medium enterprises and institutions, to common research groups, to individuals-, in this work we design and implement the Graphless graph-processing system. Graphless is based on the serverless paradigm, which proposes to simplify computing by letting developers only focus on small, stateless functions, which are deployed and managed automatically. We address with Graphless the key challenge of combining the stateless functions assumed by serverless computing with the (opposite) data-intensive nature of graph processing. Graphless tackles this challenge through an architectural approach that allows it to deploy with push or with pull operation, and a collection of backend services, such as an orchestrator and a memory-as-a-service component. We implement Graphless and conduct with it real-world experiments using Amazon Lambda for cloud-based serverless resources. Using the LDBC Graphalytics benchmark, we analyze Graphless, and compare its performance and operational cost with the graph-processing systems Apache Giraph (big data domain) and GraphMat (HPC). Overall, we show evidence Graphless provides performance and cost-efficiency similar to Giraph, for algorithms that can benefit from fine-grained elasticity, and lower than GraphMat, but is architecturally easier to deploy, and provides both push and pull operation.
From Socio-Technical Requirements to Technical Security Design : an STS-based Framework

Security is a central issue in socio-technical systems, i.e., large systems composed of autonomous subsystems that interact to achieve their objectives. The engineering of secure socio-technical systems is not just a technical challenge, but it needs to consider the social and organizational components of socio-technical systems too. But, security specification is to no avail without the correct enforcement of such requirements. Security enforcement in sociotechnical systems is no trivial task: the conceptual gap between social/organizational concepts and operational ones (mechanisms used in implementation), generates ambiguities that, combined with the size and complexity of such systems, may lead to an erroneous enforcement of security requirements. In previous work we have proposed STS, a security requirements method for socio-technical systems. In this paper, we build on top of STS and its modeling language, STS-ml, to capture security requirements for socio-technical systems, and create a comprehensive framework to enforce them into the implementation. The framework proposes transformation rules that allow passing from social/organizational requirements to procedural models, to security policies, that once verified are mapped to enforcement rules used in the implementation, bridging the gap between high-level security requirements and security mechanisms of the implementation. We apply our framework to a case study about e-commerce, and report on promising results from empirical evaluation.
Evaluation of Anticancer Activity of Delonix regia Extract against Chemical Induced Skin Carcinogenesis in Mammals

Cancer has emerged as a life threatening non-communicable disease and it is characterized by the abnormal proliferation, invasiveness and metastasis of cells. During the last few decades, there has been a sudden increase in the cancer global burden due to the change in life style, environment, genetic variation, virus infection etc. which directly or indirectly responsible for the cancer development [1]. Among all the cancers, skin carcinogenesis are the most prevalent as it represents almost one third of all the newly diagnosed cases. Melanoma and non-melanoma are the two major categories of skin cancer. Anticancer activity of Delonix regia against skin cancer is studied in the present paper.
1 60 3 . 08 18 0 v 3 [ gr-q c ] 1 J un 2 01 7 Electrodynamics and spacetime geometry : Astrophysical applications

After a brief review of the foundations of (pre-metric) electromagnetism, we explore some physical consequences of electrodynamics in curved spacetime. In general, new electromagnetic couplings and related phenomena are induced by the spacetime curvature. The applications of astrophysical interest considered here correspond essentially to the following geometries: the Schwarzschild spacetime and the spacetime around a rotating spherical mass in the weak field and slow rotation regime. In the latter, we use the Parameterised Post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism. We also explore the hypothesis that the electric and magnetic properties of vacuum reflect the spacetime isometries. Therefore, the permittivity and permeability tensors should not be considered homogeneous and isotropic a priori. For spherical geometries we consider the effect of relaxing the homogeneity assumption in the constitutive relations between the fields and excitations. This affects the generalized Gauss and Maxwell-Ampère laws where the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability in vacuum depend on the radial coordinate in accordance with the local isometries of space. For the axially symmetric geometries we relax both the assumptions of homogeneity and isotropy. We explore simple solutions and discuss the physical implications related to different phenomena such as: the decay of electromagnetic fields in the presence of gravity, magnetic terms in Gauss law due to the gravitomagnetism of the spacetime around rotating objects, a frame-dragging effect on electric fields and the possibility of a spatial (radial) variability of the velocity of light in vacuum around spherical astrophysical objects for strong gravitational fields.
Intentional Communities of Practice, the Challenge of Interactivity

This chapter examines the support of social interaction in a cooperative, situated online learning environment, and the cultural barriers that hinder such intention and interactivity. The findings of a literature review suggest that the greatest challenge to intentional Community of Practice (CoP) is a sense of interdependence among CoP members, the authenticity of the practice or purpose, and a trajectory for the CoP’s future. This case study attends to these issues with a cohort of practicing teachers. It explores an initiative to nurture CoP with cooperative projects and with the support of an online community portal. The case challenges CoP theory from an intentional or instructional standpoint, and informs design and technology in support of CoP.
Preparation of defect free TFC FO membranes using robust and highly porous ceramic substrate

In this study, robust and defect-free thin film composite (TFC) forward osmosis (FO) membranes have been successfully fabricated using ceramic hollow fibers as the substrate. Polydopamine (PDA) coating under controlled conditions is effective to reduce the surface pores of the substrate and make the substrate smooth enough for the interfacial polymerization. The pure water permeability (A), solute permeability (B) and structural parameter (S) of the resultant FO membrane are 0.854 L·m-2h-1bar-1 (LMH/Bar) 0.186 L·m-2h-1 (LMH) and 1720 µm, respectively. The water flux and reverse draw solute flux are measured using NaCl and proprietary ferric sodium citrate (FeNaCA) draw solutions at low and high osmotic pressure ranges. With increasing the osmotic pressure, higher water flux is obtained but its increase is not directly proportional to the increase in the osmotic pressure. At the membrane surface, the effect of dilutive concentration polarization is much less serious for FeNaCA draw solutions. At an osmotic pressure of 89.6 bar, the developed TFC membrane generates water fluxes of 11.5 and 30.0 LMH using NaCl and synthesized FeNaCA draw solutions. The corresponding reverse draw solute flux is 7.0 g·m-2h-1 (gMH) for NaCl draw solution but it is not detectable for FeNaCA draw solution. This means that the developed TFC FO membranes are defect free and their surface pores are at molecular level. The performance of the developed TFC FO membranes are also demonstrated for the enrichment of BSA protein.
Production of Japanese geminates by native English speakers: Durational accuracy and native speaker evaluation

The study presented in this talk examines whether learners of Japanese as a second language make a significant progress in accurately producing Japanese single and geminate stops after being immersed in Japan. Production and perception of this consonant contrast is known to be difficult for learners of Japanese whose native language does not have phonological length distinctions (Hirata, 2015). Previous studies by Toda (1997) and Masuda and Hayes-Harb (2005) suggested that learners might improve their production accuracy from the very beginning to the end of a year of studying Japanese. However, Han (1992) showed that advanced learners had problems with this single/geminate consonant distinction even when they had lived in Japan for more than a year. Thus, a question still remains as to whether learners truly move towards authentic and accurate production over a long term. Specifically, our study focused on intermediate learners of Japanese who had the first exposure to an immersed setting in Japan for four months. Examination of learners at this particular level not only fills a gap in extant literature, but also provides insight into a general belief that their production ability is expected to boost during language immersion. Another unique aspect of this study was that it examined the learners’ production at three different speaking rates. Native Japanese speakers show stable and predictable durational ratios between target minimal pairs even when speaking at different speaking rates (Hirata and Whiton, 2005; Hirata and Amano, 2010). The present study analyzed the learners’ production by referring to Hirata and Whiton’s (2005) native speaker model in terms of their durational variability and stability.