Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EFFECT OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION , LEARNING ORIENTATION , STRATEGIC IMPROVISATION ON SME PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this research is to study the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation, learning orientation, strategic improvisation and performance of small-medium enterprises (SMEs). Based on the theoretical consideration, a model was proposed to examine these relationships. Quantitative survey method was used and data were collected from the owner/managers who were randomly selected from a sampling frame of registered SMEs. A total of 368 usable responses were received from a total of 1920 distributed questionnaires, giving a response rate of 19.2 percent. Partial Least Square (PLS) structural equation modelling (PLS version 2) was used for the data analysis. The findings revealed that significant association exists between entrepreneurial orientation, learning orientation, strategic improvisation and performance of small-medium enterprises (SMEs) KeywordsEntrepreneurial Orientation, Learning Orientation, Strategic Improvisation Performance, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES)
The economic returns to education in Mexico: a comparison between urban and rural areas

T his study uses the Mincer equation to calculate the private economic returns to education in urban and rural areas of Mexico in the 1994-2005 period. The findings indicate that investing in education is profitable in both types of area. Returns to education were found to be greater in the countryside than in cities in most of the years analysed and at every level of education. Education in rural areas tends to be more profitable for women at the basic education levels and for men at the higher levels. In urban areas, education proved to be more profitable for men at the primary and higher levels and, in some years, for women at the lower and upper secondary levels. K E Y W O R D S
Ecohydrology in Mediterranean areas

Ecohydrology in Mediterranean areas: a numerical model to describe growing seasons out of phase with precipitations D. Pumo, F. Viola, and L. V. Noto Dipartimento di Ingegneria Idraulica ed Applicazioni Ambientali, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 90128 – Palermo, Italy Received: 3 August 2007 – Accepted: 20 August 2007 – Published: 4 September 2007 Correspondence to: D. Pumo (pumo@idra.unipa.it)
Does city structure cause unemployment ? The case study 0f Cape Town

Wolpe for their much appreciated help. The authors are also grateful to researchers at DPRU, University of Cape Town, and especially Haroon Bhorat and Eckart Naumann for their kind help and advice. All opinions expressed in the present paper are the authors' only. 2 Summary Several theoretical and empirical findings suggest that the spatial organization of cities can be a source of unemployment among unskilled workers and ethnic minorities, stressing either the role of residential segregation or that of the physical disconnection between work and residence. The present paper investigates this issue in South Africa by focusing on the example of Cape Town, a sprawling and highly segregated city. Using the dataset of the 1999 study on the Migration and Settlement in the Cape Metropolitan Area complemented by local population statistics extracted from the 1996 Census and local employment statistics extracted from the City of Cape Town's 2000 RSC Levy database, we regress the unemployment probability of a selection of workers in 24 different areas of the city on their individual and household attributes as well as on the characteristics of their locations. Results obtained so far suggest that (i) distance to jobs, (ii) rural origin (especially for women) and (iii) the length of time spent in their present dwelling reduce the employment probability of workers.
Effects of upstream coherent structures on low-frequency motion of shock-induced turbulent separation

x Streamwise direction z Spanwise direction y Wall-normal direction U Streamwise velocity (m/s) U∞ Streamwise freestream velocity (m/s) uτ Skin friction velocity M Mach number δ Boundary layer thickness θ Momentum thickness δ∗ Displacement thickness Um Mean streamwise velocity at any given location in the boundary layer σu R.M. S streamwise velocity at any given location in the boundary layer xsep Separation location (located using a threshold technique) Ul Mean streamwise velocity along a streamwise line upstream of the separation location T Static temperature Cp Specific heat at constant pressure
Basic Wrench Tectonics

En echelon structures which may trap oil and gas develop in a systematic pattern along wrench zones in sedimentary basins. Laboratory clay models simulate the formation of en echelon folds and faults caused by wrenching. Folds form early in the deformation and are accompanied or followed by conjugate strike-slip, reverse, or normal faulting. Deformation may cease at any stage or may continue until strike slip along the wrench zone produces a wrench fault and separation of the severed parts of early structures. Oblique movements of fault blocks on opposite sides of a wrench fault cause divergence or convergence and enhancement, respectively, of extensional or compressional structures. Basins form in areas of extension and are filled with sediment, whereas upthrust blocks e erge in areas of compression and become sediment sources. The combined effects of wrenching in a petroliferous basin are to increase its prospectiveness for major hydrocarbon reserves.
Predictive Spelling With a P300-Based Brain–Computer Interface: Increasing the Rate of Communication

This study compared a conventional P300 speller brain–computer interface (BCI) to one used in conjunction with a predictive spelling program. Performance differences in accuracy, bit rate, selections per minute, and output characters per minute (OCM) were examined. An 8 × 9 matrix of letters, numbers, and other keyboard commands was used. Participants (N = 24) were required to correctly complete the same 58 character sentence (i.e., correcting for errors) using the predictive speller (PS) and the nonpredictive speller (NS), counterbalanced. The PS produced significantly higher OCMs than the NS. Time to complete the task in the PS condition was 12 min 43 s as compared to 20 min 20 sec in the NS condition. Despite the marked improvement in overall output, accuracy was significantly higher in the NS paradigm. P300 amplitudes were significantly larger in the NS than in the PS paradigm, which is attributed to increased workload and task demands. These results demonstrate the potential efficacy of predictive spelling in the context of BCI.
Disaster Risk Reduction: Fundamental to saving lives and reducing poverty

This briefing has been written in response to the drought in the Horn of Africa, which is facing the worst food crisis of the 21st Century. While severe drought has undoubtedly led to the huge scale of the disaster, this crisis has been caused by people and policies, as much as by weather patterns. An adequate response to the current crisis must not only meet urgent humanitarian needs, but also address these underlying problems. Disaster Risk Reduction has as key role to play in analysing, managing and addressing the causal factors of disaster and their impact on men and women. It is proven to be effective and cost effective. Yet it is systematically underfunded by donors, and not an integral element of humanitarian and development work across the board. To prevent future crises, this has got to change.
A Geographical Location Model for Targeted Implementation of Lure-and-Kill Strategies Against Disease-Transmitting Mosquitoes in Rural Areas

Outdoor devices for luring and killing disease-transmitting mosquitoes have been proposed as potential com- plementary interventions alongside existing intra-domiciliary methods namely insecticide treated nets and house spraying with residual insecticides. To enhance effectiveness of such outdoor interventions, it is essential to optimally locate them in such a way that they target most of the outdoor mosquitoes. Using odour-baited lure and kill stations (OBS) as an example, we describe a map model derived from: 1) com-munity participatory mapping conducted to identify mosquito breeding habitats, 2) entomological field studies conducted to estimate outdoor mosquito densities and to determine safe distances of the OBS from human dwellings, and 3) field surveys conducted to map households, roads, outdoor human aggregations and landmarks. The resulting data were combined in a Ge- ographical Information Systems (GIS) environment and analysed to determine optimal locations for the OBS. Separately, a GIS-interpolated map produced by asking community members to rank different zones of the study area and show where they expected to find most mosquitoes, was visually compared to another map interpolated from the entomological survey of outdoor mosquito densities. An easy-to-interpret suitability map showing optimal sites for placing OBS was produced, which clearly depicted areas least suitable and areas most suitable for locating the devices. Comparative visual interpretation of maps derived from interpolating the community knowledge and entomological data revealed major similarities between the two maps. Using distribution patterns of human and mosquito populations as well as characteristics of candidate outdoor interventions, it is possible to readily determine suitable areas for targeted positioning of the interventions, thus improve effectiveness. This study also highlights possibilities of relying on community knowledge to approximate areas where mosquitoes are most abundant and where to locate outdoor complementary interventions such as odour-baited lure and kill stations for controlling disease-transmitting mosquitoes.
Obstetric care : challenges for quality improvement

The point of departure for the following commentary is a research-intervention project focused on improvement of obstetric care in public maternity hospitals in a large Brazilian city from 2015 to 2017, in which we aimed to understand the context for implementation of the intervention. The sources were interactions with administrators from the Municipal Health Department and the maternity hospitals, and especially interviews with administrators, physicians, nurses, and postpartum primiparous women in the hospitals. The participating maternity services all had what they perceived as adequate infrastructure and were all engaged in the Brazilian National Policy for Humanization of Childbirth. The deliveries were attended by obstetric nurses and physicians 1. All of the maternity services complied with the Brazilian Ministry of Health guidelines to reduce obstetric interventions and increase the use of evidencebased practices to manage labor and delivery in low-risk pregnant women 1,2. These maternity services have cesarean rates from 30 to 35%, lower than the national average for the public sector, which is 43%, and less than half the extremely high average of 88% in the private sector 3. It is beyond the scope here to make generalizations, but we believe that the questions and comments addressed can contribute to dealing with prevalent problems in the management of childbirth in Brazil and in improving the quality of care. One issue that deserves attention is the coexistence (although with little integration) of the model of childbirth care conducted by obstetric nurses and the more traditional and interventionist model conducted by obstetric physicians. There is a clear power struggle with inter-professional tension, undermining what could otherwise be a desirable form of complementary work. Mutual distrust often appears between physicians and nurses, which hinders timely action in situations in which a delivery initially assessed as low-risk evolves to a situation of greater risk, making medical intervention necessary. Physicians claim to be called in too late in such situations and are quick to point out that they are subject to professional liability. Nurses complain that doctors take too long when called in. It may be difficult to distinguish precisely between the two roles, and thus each professional needs to be more tolerant in dealing with ambiguous situations, without losing sight of readiness, quality of care, and patient safety for mothers and infants. Patient-centered care should be the cornerstone for these professionals, with teamwork as the basis 4. In Brazil, efforts to reverse the high rates of unnecessary interventions have been based especially on evidence from the UK which indicates that the care provided by professional midwives with Obstetric care: challenges for quality improvement
CHOICE INCONSISTENCIES AMONG THE ELDERLY : EVIDENCE FROM PLAN CHOICE IN THE MEDICARE PART D PROGRAM

We are grateful to Amy Finkelstein, Panle Jia, Jerry Hausman and seminar participants at Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University, Duke, MIT and the NBER for helpful comments; to Jim Hendrix, Chris Messner, Pallavi Mudumby, Steven Pieri and John Porell from Wolters Kluwer for providing data; to Matthew Harding for providing Matlab code, to Iuliana Pascu, Arnaldo Pereira, Charles Wu, Josephine Duh and particularly John Graves and Natalija Novta for research assistance; and to the National Institute of Aging for financial support.The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Adenosine inhibits IL-12 and TNF-a production via adenosine A 2 a receptor-dependent and independent mechanisms

Interleukin 12 (IL-12) is a crucial cytokine in the regulation of T helper 1 vs. T helper 2 immune responses. In the present study, we investigated the effect of the endogenous purine nucleoside adenosine on the production of IL-12. In mouse macrophages, adenosine suppressed IL-12 production. Although the order of potency of adenosine receptor agonists suggested the involvement of A2a receptors, data obtained with A2a receptor-deficient mice showed that the adenosine suppression of IL-12 and even TNF-a production is only partly mediated by A2a receptor ligation. Studies with adenosine receptor antagonists or the adenosine uptake blocker dipyridamole showed that adenosine released endogenously also decreases IL-12. Although adenosine increases IL-10 production, the inhibition of IL-12 production is independent of the increased IL-10. The mechanism of action of adenosine was not associated with alterations of the activation of the p38 and p42/p44 mitogen-activated protein kinases or the phosphorylation of the c-Jun terminal kinase. Adenosine failed to affect steady-state levels of either IL-12 p35 or p40 mRNA, but augmented IL-10 mRNA levels. In summary, adenosine inhibits IL-12 production via various adenosine receptors. These results support the notion that adenosinebased therapies might be useful in certain autoimmune and/or inflammatory diseases. —Haskó, G. , Kuhel, D. G. , Chen, J.-F. , Schwarzschild, M. A. , Deitch, E. A. , Mabley, J. G. , Marton, A. , Szabó, C. Adenosine inhibits IL-12 and TNF-a production via adenosine A2a receptor-dependent and independent mechanisms. FASEB J. 14, 2065–2074 (2000)
Bathymetric digital elevation model generation from L-band and X-band synthetic aperture radar images in the Gulf of Naples, Italy: innovative techniques and experimental results

The present Ph.D. Thesis investigates remote sensing bathymetric techniques in coastal area based on the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Since SAR signal is not able to pass sea surface and to reach sea bottom, indirect processes with sea floor morphology sensed through the effects it may have on sea surface are investigated. The conventional bathymetric techniques are briefly analyzed and the main advantages related to the use of remote sensing SAR-based bathymetric techniques highlighted. Proper sea surface modeling is performed and its interaction with SAR is investigated. Two different bathymetric techniques are proposed: the Wave-Based Approach (WBA) and the Current-Based Approach (CBA). Several theories for proper modeling of the involved phenomena and of their retrieval from SAR images are presented and the most promising are identified. An error budget analysis is performed and potential performance, specifications and requirements of the considered bathymetric approaches are described. With specific reference to the area of the Gulf of Naples, Italy, the Wave-Based Approach is selected because of current velocity being too slow or too irregular both in time and in intensity for proper application of the Current-Based Approach. Therefore, a WBA algorithm for sea surface spectrum retrieval from SAR data is proposed. The proposed WBA algorithm is applied on both L-band ALOS PALSAR images and X-band COSMO-SkyMed SAR images covering the area of the Gulf of Naples, Italy. The experimental results and the achieved improvements with respect to the approaches found in the available literature are presented. Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of seabed are obtained and a correlation analysis with the retrieved water depth values from the official nautical charts provided by the Italian Navy Hydrographic Institute is performed.
Journal of Complementary and Integrative Medicine CAM in Canadian Hospitals : The New Frontier ?

The provision in hospitals of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (TCAM), as recognized by the World Health Organization, is now widespread in many of the world’s healthcare systems. As a significant part of integrative medicine (IM) or healthcare (IHC), research has now begun to focus on the varied parameters of hospital-based TCAM, however, little research has been conducted on the topic in the Canadian context. Drawing on a multi-site case study of four Canadian hospitals, qualitative observation was conducted at hospital sites, and interviews were conducted with senior hospital leaders and biomedical and TCAM hospital practitioners. The main focus of inquiry was to obtain the views of hospital leaders on the topic of incorporating TCAM, and to examine the motivations for TCAM inclusion, economic dimensions and level of integration between TCAM and biomedicine. Hospital leaders were both highly critical of TCAM and cautiously supportive. Inclusion of TCAM was directly related to hospital leadership and institutional relationships, while TCAM practitioners remained marginalized due to economic, geographical, political and epistemological
BIASES IN SOCIAL INTERACTION : THE ROLE OF HUMAN COGNITION IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Introducing people into participatory urban planning and the need for their active engagement is more than urgent the last decades. The purpose of this research is to focus on interaction that takes place in the social complex system of decision-making for urban planning and to address the potential barriers in communication between the actors involved in terms of the hidden biases that can lead or mislead the selection of alternatives and final decisions. The way people communicate and interact with each other plays a crucial role on the outcome of any decision making process; hence there is a need to focus on that interpersonal social frictions and the possible reasons that may affect their cognition and inevitably their behavior as what dictates a person's attitude is a subjective construction of reality based on the participant’s beliefs about self and the world. There is a recent interest in the way heuristic factors affect the flow of decision-making and the contribution of Social Psychology discipline is considered as a necessary field to evaluate the usage of communicative rationality. The implications of complexity and uncertainty in the modern society affect participatory urban planning nowadays. Our analysis is based on how these patterns relate with cognitive biases and social norms when reaching consensus or not. Introducing those, they are related with human’s behavior and attitude towards individual information processing or occur within group processes concerning how people assess the reliability and supremacy of certain statements and adjust their rationality to the available resources. The existence of these factors addresses the need to form the basis of a new rationale in terms of communicative decision-making. The idea derives from models such as heuristic systematic model or bounded rationality theory as these models try to explain how people receive and process messages and arguments in the social world. The purpose is to take into consideration the evolutionary dynamics of social complex systems in order to achieve a robust and committed participation while using the heuristics to reduce the complexity and reach less biased decisions.
Quantification of strong emissions of methane in the Arctic using spectral measurements from TANSO-FTS and IASI

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after the carbon dioxide but it is 25 times more effective in contributing to the radiative forcing than the carbon dioxide. Since the pre-industrial times global methane concentration have more than doubled in the atmosphere. This increase is generally caused by anthropogenic activities like the massif use and extraction of fossil fuel, rice paddy agriculture, emissions from landfills. In recent years, several studies show that climate warming and thawing of permafrost act on the mobiliza- tion of old stored carbon in Arctic causing a sustained release of methane to the atmosphere(2),(3),(4). The methane emissions from thawing permafrost and methane hydrates in the northern circumpolar region will become potentially important in the end of the 21st centry because they could increase dramatically due to the rapid climate warming of the Artic and the large carbon pools stored there. The objective of this study is to evaluate and quantify methane strong emissions in this region of the globe using spectral measurements from the Thermal And Near Infrared Sensor for carbon Observations-Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO-FTS) and the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI). We use also the LMDZ-PYVAR model to simulate methane fluxes and to estimate how they could be observed by Infrared Sounders from space. To select spectra with high values of methane we developed a statistical approach based on the singular value decomposition. Using this approach we can identify spectra over the important emission sources of methane and we can by this way reduce the number of spectra to retrieve by an line-by-line radiative transfer model in order to focus on those which contain high amount of methane. In order to estimate the capacity of TANSO-FTS and IASI to detect peaks of methane emission with short duration at quasi-real time, we used data from MACC (Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate) simulations to compute spectra which we are compared to those from TANSO-FTS and IASI.
Importance-Satisfaction Analysis of Attribute Assessment for Ski Resort

본 연구는 스키리조트 이용자들의 선택속성에 있어 IPA(importancr-performance-analysis) 분석기법을 이용한 스키리조트 선택속성에서 중요도와 만족도를 비교 평가함으로써 전략적 우선순위를 결정, 수립하는데 유용하게 활용할 수 있는 이론적 근거를 제시하는데 목적이 있다. 연구대상은 2010년 1월 3일부터 1월 31일까지 전라도 M리조트, 강원도 D, Y, H 경기도 B 스키장 총 5곳의 스키장에서 스키리조트 이용객들을 모집단으로 각 50부씩 총 250부 중 13부를 제외한 237(94.8%)부를 유효 표본으로 설정하였다. 수집된 자료는 SPSS WIN Version 15.0 Program을 이용하여 조사대상자의 특성을 알아보기 위해 빈도분석, 지각차이를 검증하기 위해 쌍대비교분석, IPA를 적용하여 이용 전·후 평가를 실시하였으며, 측정도구의 타당성 및 신뢰성을 검증을 위한 스키리조트 속성들에 대해 요인분석을 실시하였다. 첫째, 스키장의 가까운 정도, 매니아 전문코스 운영, 리프트 대기시간, 숙박과 연계한 패키지 상품, 스키 및 스노보드 프로그램 운영, 슬로프 상태, 편리한 주차시설, 등의 항목들로 이루어졌다. 둘째, 2사분면에 코스의 다양성, 조기개장 여부, 대중교통 편리성, 무료셔틀 운행, 도로상태 등의 항목으로 나타났다. 셋째, 초보자를 위한 프로그램, 대형마트, 숙박시설, 단체스키 캠프의 다양한 프로그램, 다양한 식당 등의 항목이 포함 되었다. 넷째, 눈썰매장 유무, 할인제도 다양성, 스키 및 보드대회, 다양한 이벤트, 오락시설 등 으로 나타났다.