Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electronic Commerce Adoption Barriers in Small to Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Developed and Developing Countries: A Cross-Country Comparison

Today, electronic commerce (e-commerce) has been utilised as a rapid vehicle to transform the world into an information society. In the business environment, e-commerce has made considerable inroads not only into large organisations but also the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, SMEs are not adopting e-commerce with same speed as their larger counterparts. This slow growth has been attributed to various adoption barriers, which have been well documented in numerous research studies. While several recent studies have begun examining the relationship between the perceptions of adoption barriers in developed economies, the relationship between the perceptions of these barriers has not been fully examined in developing economies. This paper examines the correlation and underlying factors of barriers to e-commerce (as perceived by SME owner/managers) in a developing economy (Indonesia). It then compares these with SME owner/manager perceptions from a developed economy (Sweden). The study showed that there are differences in the groupings and priorities of barriers to e-commerce between the two locations. Most importantly, however, was the finding that while Swedish respondents were more concerned with technical issues, the Indonesian respondents were more concerned with organisational barriers.
Pasos Adelante: The Effectiveness of a Community-based Chronic Disease Prevention Program

Background Implementing programs that target primary prevention of chronic diseases is critical for at-risk populations. Pasos Adelante, or "Steps Forward," is a curriculum aimed at preventing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic diseases in Hispanic populations. Pasos Adelante is adapted from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's cardiovascular disease prevention curriculum, Su Corazón, Su Vida, and includes sessions on diabetes and community advocacy and incorporates walking clubs. Context The Pasos Adelante curriculum was implemented in two Arizona, United States-Sonora, Mexico border counties. Key issues in these communities are safety, access to recreational facilities, climate, and cultural beliefs. Methods Pasos Adelante is a 12-week program facilitated by community health workers. The program includes interactive sessions on chronic disease prevention, nutrition, and physical activity. Evaluation of the program included precurriculum and postcurriculum questionnaires with self-reported measures of physical activity and dietary patterns. Approximately 250 people participated in the program in Yuma and Santa Cruz counties. Consequences Postprogram evaluation results demonstrate a significant increase in moderate to vigorous walking among participants and shifts in nutritional patterns. Interpretation The Pasos Adelante program demonstrates that an educational curriculum in conjunction with the support of community health workers can motivate people in Arizona/Sonora border communities to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors.
The isochores in human chromosomes 21 and 22.

t c m r l a b ommunications article entitled “No Isochores in the uman Chromosomes 21 and 22? ,” Häring and Kypr 1) have questioned whether isochores and homogenety of GC level exist in the contiguously sequenced uman chromosomes 21 and 22. Their communication s structured in two parts. In the first part, they asume, without justification, that a sequence can be homogeneous” only if randomization no longer lowers he variance in GC level among its segments. Since hey find “the variations to be higher everywhere comared to the randomized sequences,” they incorrectly onclude that “the (G 1 C) content is certainly not omogeneous on the isochore scale in the two human hromosomes. ” Unfortunately, both the title and the bstract mention only the results from this first part of heir analysis. The second part of their paper, summarized in its ig. 4, tells quite a different story. Indeed, this figure hows “[r]egions of homogenous (G 1 C) content longer han 300 kbp” along human chromosomes 21 and 22, at he isochore scale, in clear contradiction to what is oncluded in the abstract, and in answer to the quesion posed in their title. The authors make no attempt o reconcile these more positive results with the conradictory assertions in the first part of their paper. imilarly, the definitions of “homogeneous” used in the wo parts of their paper are in contradiction to one nother, and the authors make no attempt to explain his. The communication in question is, unfortunately, awed in both parts, and isochores continue to exist on uman chromosomes 21 and 22. The flaw in the first part of the paper is a simple one, amely an unreasonably strict definition of homogenety. The DNA sequences within individual isochores how variations of GC level that are small compared to hose in the entire human genome, but much greater han those expected from a “random” sequence in hich nucleotides are independent and identically dis-
Contribution à l'Échocardiographie Multidimensionnelle

Les travaux presentes dans cette Habilitation a Diriger des Recherches concernent la restitution des deformations volumiques du ventricule gauche du cœur au cours du temps. Les donnees sont des images echocardiographiques acquises pendant un seul cycle cardiaque avec un nouveau prototype de sonde ultrasonore, dont le capteur est mis en rotation rapide (jusqu'a 8 tours par seconde) a l'interieur de la tete de la sonde. Ces recherches s'inscrivent dans la thematique scientifique des modeles dynamiques deformables de la discipline "Traitement du Signal et de l'Image". Elles portent plus particulie¬rement sur les modelisations harmoniques multidimensionnelles. En 2D, les contours du ventricule sont modelises pour restituer simplement des portions absentes (frontieres virtuelles) ou deformees de ces contours, en fournissant des parametres de forme directement interpretables et en nombre limite. En 3D, un volume du ventricule est reconstruit a partir de quelques contours en utilisant un modele dont les parametres sont les coefficients de Fourier basses frequences de ces contours. En 4D, les deformations du ventricule sont obtenues pendant un cycle cardiaque en etendant le modele precedent. L'ajustement des parametres du modele aux donnees (iteratif, mais robuste et rapide) realise une pseudo-interpolation circulaire de Shannon sur les donnees, meme lorsque la repartition spatiale de celles-ci n'est pas uniforme ou qu'elle varie au cours du temps. Un protocole clinique, VG4D, a ete developpe pour valider l'ensemble des travaux. Il est utilise dans les services de Cardiologie et de Medecine Nucleaire du Centre Hospitalier Regio¬nal d'Orleans et Universitaire de Tours. Les campagnes d'experimentation menees ont montre l'interet de VG4D pour visualiser la contraction du ventricule au cours du temps.
Seasonal and spatial variations in infiltration rates in badland surfaces under Mediterranean climatic conditions

This paper investigates the spatial and temporal variations of infiltration rates on badland landscapes under Mediterranean climatic conditions of the eastern Iberian Peninsula. Soil infiltration was measured under simulated rainfall and by cylinder infiltrometer for typical winter, spring, summer, and autumn conditions. The spatial variability of infiltration within the badland landscapes is determined by the two main geomorphological units: slopes and pediments. Slopes show greater steady state infiltration rates than pediments (averaging 6.6 and 11.9 mm h−1, respectively), but they generate faster runoff and the runoff curves are steeper than on the slopes. For short thunderstorms, pediments generate more runoff because soils on the slopes have a wider and deeper crack network, which favors higher infiltration rates at the beginning of the rainfall. However, for simulated storms of 40 min duration, the runoff rate on the slopes (74.3%) is slightly greater than on the pediments (72.5%) due to their lower steady state infiltration rate. For both slopes and pediments, greater steady state infiltration rates were measured under simulated rainfall (fc) for summer (18.9 and 11.6 mm h−1) than for winter (11.8 and 6.8 mm h−1), spring (3.8 and 8.7 mm h−1), and autumn (4.1 and 8.3 mm h−1) for slope and pediment positions, respectively. Measurements by means of cylinder infiltrometer (ifc) confirm these seasonal trends. On the pediment plots, ifc varies from 43 mm −1 in winter to 26 mm h−1 in spring, rises to 62 mm h−1 in summer, and finally drops to 26 mm h−1 in autumn. For the slope positions, ifc has a similar seasonal trend: 18 mm h−1 in winter, 9 mm h−1 in spring, 52 mm h−1 in summer, and 10 mm h−1 in autumn. Measurements by means of cylinder infiltrometer results in 3 times greater steady state infiltration rates due to the effect of water depth pressure and crust development under simulated rainfall. In summer the development of wide and deep cracks results in macropore flow, and these are important factors in pipe initiation.
Promoting Cybersecurity Knowledge via Gamification: An Innovative Intervention Design

Cybersecurity is becoming a critical challenge as technology thrives with novel innovations. The increase in cyber threats is quite alarming. Cyber-users’ vulnerability is a serious issue as negligent behaviour alongside a lack of basic cybersecurity knowledge constitutes a major cause of attacks today. Several approaches have been introduced via security systems to provide prevailing defence against numerous cybersecurity attacks. However, they are relinquished to limited impact due to a lack of compliance with security guidelines by end-users deficient in basic cybersecurity knowledge. Gamification has played an important role in educational contexts as it promotes motivation and engaging learning. Though still a new research field, literature has postulated that the innovative application of gamification in cybersecurity could be a winning strategy to combat cybersecurity threats. This paper, via an experimental/qualitative approach, proposes a comprehensive cybersecurity gamification design based on established gamification theories to ensure the validity of the cybersecurity gamification tool. The cybersecurity gamification tool is aimed at promoting the cybersecurity knowledge of end-users. Gamification design has the potential to transform a training environment by altering the player’s emotional experience alongside their social position and sense of identity. Gamification, if implemented properly, can impact beyond just learning but also boost knowledge, learning experience and engagement of the targeted audience through motivation by the game elements. This research is ongoing and the result of a survey evaluating the impact of the gamification tool in promoting cybersecurity knowledge will be presented in a future publication.
The impact of a psychoeducational intervention on family members’ views about schizophrenia: Results from the OASIS Italian multi-centre study

Background: The opinions of relatives of patients with schizophrenia about this disorder can influence its course and outcome. Aims: In 2003, the Italian Psychiatric Association promoted a study on family psychoeducational intervention to explore its effectiveness in improving relatives’ opinions and beliefs about schizophrenia. Methods: In each of the 10 Italian mental health centres, 30 patients with schizophrenia and 30 key relatives were randomly recruited to receive the experimental intervention or the standard care. The experimental intervention consisted of 12 manual-based informative sessions on schizophrenia. Each relative filled in the self-reported questionnaire on family opinions about schizophrenia. Results: The treated sample included 107 patients and 112 relatives; the control group consisted of 105 patients and 118 relatives. In both groups, stress, traumas, heredity and family difficulties were most frequently mentioned as causing the disorder. Relatives’ opinions about patients’ civil rights and social competence, in particular the right to get married, to have children and to vote, improved and the belief that patients with schizophrenia are unpredictable decreased at the end of the intervention. Conclusions: These results confirm that relatives of patients with schizophrenia should receive psychoeducational interventions, particularly in Italy where family involvement in schizophrenia care is particularly frequent.
Climbing down Charney’s ladder: machine learning and the post-Dennard era of computational climate science

The advent of digital computing in the 1950s sparked a revolution in the science of weather and climate. Meteorology, long based on extrapolating patterns in space and time, gave way to computational methods in a decade of advances in numerical weather forecasting. Those same methods also gave rise to computational climate science, studying the behaviour of those same numerical equations over intervals much longer than weather events, and changes in external boundary conditions. Several subsequent decades of exponential growth in computational power have brought us to the present day, where models ever grow in resolution and complexity, capable of mastery of many small-scale phenomena with global repercussions, and ever more intricate feedbacks in the Earth system. The current juncture in computing, seven decades later, heralds an end to what is called Dennard scaling, the physics behind ever smaller computational units and ever faster arithmetic. This is prompting a fundamental change in our approach to the simulation of weather and climate, potentially as revolutionary as that wrought by John von Neumann in the 1950s. One approach could return us to an earlier era of pattern recognition and extrapolation, this time aided by computational power. Another approach could lead us to insights that continue to be expressed in mathematical equations. In either approach, or any synthesis of those, it is clearly no longer the steady march of the last few decades, continuing to add detail to ever more elaborate models. In this prospectus, we attempt to show the outlines of how this may unfold in the coming decades, a new harnessing of physical knowledge, computation and data. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Machine learning for weather and climate modelling’.
Does pregnancy affect swimming performance of female Mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis?

Summary 1. The cost of reproduction due to limiting of the reproductive female’s locomotion capability has been suggested many times, but has rarely been directly examined, especially in fishes. Here, the effect of pregnancy on swimming performance in the viviparous Mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis, was studied. 2. Eight females of G. affinis were isolated, each in a separate aquarium, and critical swimming speed (Ucrit), body mass (BM) and cross-section area were measured every 5 days from the beginning of the pregnancy until 2–4 days after parturition. 3. Swimming kinematics (tail beat frequency and amplitude) was measured in non-pregnant and pregnant females at different swimming speeds. 4. BM increased during pregnancy from 0·47 ± 0·13 g to 0·72 ± 0·19 g, and the cross-section area also increased during pregnancy from 0·21 ± 0·06 cm2 to 0·32 ± 0·07 cm2. Ucrit decreased from 25·0 ± 1·3 cm s−1 before pregnancy to 20·1 ± 1·5 cm s−1 just before parturition, and returned to 24·7 ± 1·4 cm s−1 2–4 days after parturition. Interindividual variation was repeatable and reflects real differences among individuals. 5. Swimming kinematics was not affected by pregnancy. 6. The results suggest that reductions in Ucrit are probably because of aerobic constraints and not necessarily due to hydrodynamic changes resulting from changing in body form or plasticity. Moreover, the reduction in Ucrit is, potentially, a ‘cost of reproduction’ owing to decrease in the ability to gain food during pregnancy in G. affinis females.
Equivalence of constructs measured by job-specific and commercially available aptitude tests

This study examined the equivalence of constructs underlying scores on tests designed to measure the knowledge, skills, and abilities required by specific jobs with the constructs underlying scores on aptitude tests taken from published test batteries. Several models of construct equivalence, differing in their assumptions about factor patterns, factor loadings, and variable uniquenesses, were assessed with confirmatory factor analysis. Results indicated that the job-specific tests measured constructs that were essentially equivalent with the constructs measured by the commercially available tests, although the magnitude of unique residual variances differed among the two sets of tests. Furthermore, multiple-groups confirmatory factor analysis indicated that tests loaded equivalently on shared constructs across several sex and race subgroups, although unique residual variances differed across groups. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed. Choices of predictor measures in personnel selection contexts typically require decisions regarding whether tests of general aptitudes relevant to success across diverse jobs, or tests designed to measure the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed to perform the jobs of interest, should be used. Tests of the former type are commercially available and may be cost effective in the short term. Moreover, substantial meta-analytic evidence suggests that general aptitude tests predict success across a wide variety of jobs (Ghiselli, 1966,1973; Hunter & Hunter, 1984). General aptitude tests can be criticized, however, for containing items that have no apparent relevance to success for any particular job (Kleiman & Faley, 1985). Determination of the desired predictors for a job requires that the user base his or her decisions on some logical, empirical, or theoretical foundation (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1987). Hence, general aptitude tests may come under particularly close scrutiny if a rationale for their choice has not been made explicit (Kleiman & Faley, 1985). Defending the use
Handbook of Brownian Motion - Facts and Formulae

I: Theory. - I. Stochastic processes in general. - II. Linear diffusions. - III. Stochastic calculus. - IV. Brownian motion. - V. Local time as a Markov process. - VI. Differential systems associated to Brownian motion. - Appendix 1. Briefly on some diffusions. - II: TABLES OF DISTRIBUTIONS OF FUNCTIONALS OF BROWNIAN MOTION AND RELATED PROCESSES. - 1. Brownian motion. - 2. Brownian motion with drift. - 3. Reflecting Brownian motion. - 4. Bessel process of order ? - 5. Bessel process of order 1/2. - 6. Bessel process of order zero. - 7. Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. - 8. Radial Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. - 9. Geometric Brownian motion. - Appendix 2. Special functions. - Appendix 3. Inverse Laplace transforms. - Appendix 4. Differential equations and their solutions. - Appendix 5. Formulae for n-fold differentiation.
Parental prey selection affects risk-taking behaviour and spatial learning in avian offspring

Early nutrition shapes life history. Parents should, therefore, provide a diet that will optimize the nutrient intake of their offspring. In a number of passerines, there is an often observed, but unexplained, peak in spider provisioning during chick development. We show that the proportion of spiders in the diet of nestling blue tits, Cyanistes caeruleus, varies significantly with the age of chicks but is unrelated to the timing of breeding or spider availability. Moreover, this parental prey selection supplies nestlings with high levels of taurine particularly at younger ages. This amino acid is known to be both vital and limiting for mammalian development and consequently found in high concentrations in placenta and milk. Based on the known roles of taurine in mammalian brain development and function, we then asked whether by supplying taurine-rich spiders, avian parents influence the stress responsiveness and cognitive function of their offspring. To test this, we provided wild blue tit nestlings with either a taurine supplement or control treatment once daily from the ages of 2–14 days. Then pairs of size- and sex-matched siblings were brought into captivity for behavioural testing. We found that juveniles that had received additional taurine as neonates took significantly greater risks when investigating novel objects than controls. Taurine birds were also more successful at a spatial learning task than controls. Additionally, those individuals that succeeded at a spatial learning task had shown intermediate levels of risk taking. Non-learners were generally very risk-averse controls. Early diet therefore has downstream impacts on behavioural characteristics that could affect fitness via foraging and competitive performance. Fine-scale prey selection is a mechanism by which parents can manipulate the behavioural phenotype of offspring.
Corticospinal tract integrity is related to primary motor cortex thinning in relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis

Background: The relationship between white matter injury and cortical atrophy development in relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) remains unclear. Objectives: To investigate the associations between corticospinal tract integrity and cortical morphology measures of the primary motor cortex in RRMS patients and healthy controls. Methods: 51 RRMS patients and 30 healthy controls underwent MRI examination for cortical reconstruction and assessment of corticospinal tract integrity. Partial correlation and multiple linear regression analyses were used to investigate the associations of focal and normal appearing white matter (NAWM) injury of the corticospinal tract with thickness and surface area measures of the primary motor cortex. Relationships between MRI measures and clinical disability as assessed by the Expanded Disability Status Scale and disease duration were also investigated. Results: In patients only, decreased cortical thickness was related to increased corticospinal tract NAWM mean, axial and radial diffusivities in addition to corticospinal tract lesion volume. The final multiple linear regression model for PMC thickness retained only NAWM axial diffusivity as a significant predictor (adjusted R2= 0.270, p= 0.001). Clinical measures were associated with NAWM corticospinal tract integrity measures. Conclusions: Primary motor cortex thinning in RRMS is related to alterations in connected white matter and is best explained by decreased NAWM integrity.
What time is it? Temporal psychology measures relate differently to alcohol-related health outcomes

Abstract Background: Scores on temporal psychology measures continue to be associated with alcohol-related problems; however, few studies have examined these associations using more than one temporal psychology instrument. This omission is potentially problematic as not all instruments measure the same dimensions of temporal psychology. The present study aimed to address this gap in the literature. Methods: Participants (N = 410) were opportunistically sampled from a University in the United Kingdom and completed the following questionnaires: The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test; The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; The Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory; The Temporal Focus Scale; The Adolescent Time Inventory-Time Attitudes Scale; and The Consideration of Future Consequences Scale-14. Results: Results showed weak to moderate correlations (with one exception, CFC-F and ZTPI-F) between scores on the various temporal scales, indicating that they measure related but distinct constructs. Structural equation modelling and linear regression revealed that AUDIT scores were most strongly associated with present hedonism, symptoms of anxiety were most strongly associated with negative feelings about the present, and symptoms of depression were more moderately associated with a broader range of indicators. Conclusions: Cognitive and affective dimensions of temporal psychology relate differently to different health outcomes, and researchers need to be explicit and clear in reporting findings.