nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Successful Implementation of Turnaround Strategies in the Manufacturing Sector in Harare, Zimbabwe Impediments and Challenges Faced

The concept of turnaround strategy seeks to bring back profitability in a declining business. In Zimbabwe, ever since the government adopted multi currency system industries have failed to realise any meaningful positive performance. The manufacturing sector was the most affected. It is against this background that the researchers sought to explore the extent of successful implementation of turnaround strategies in the manufacturing sector in Harare over the period 2009 to 2014 on back drop of impediments and challenges faced. The study employed triangulation approach design as it was found to be the most suitable. A stratified random sampling was used to select companies for the purposes of the study across the 14 sub sectors of the manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe. A minimum of 2 respondents per company was selected. Data was collected using questionnaires which were administered physically and electronically. In depth interviews were also conducted for chief executive officers and managing directors. The findings of the study were that companies in the manufacturing sector implemented turnaround strategies that were focussed on cutting down costs, with retrenchments yielding no positive results. Toxic organisational cultures, misaligned organisational structures, working capital constraints, old and dilapidated machinery, liquidity crisis, and choking government policies have been identified as major internal and external challenges affecting implementation of turnaround strategies. The study recommends that top management in the manufacturing industry should conduct concrete situational analysis in order to obtain in depth understanding of the underlying problems facing their organisations. Competent management should also be put in place. The manufacturing companies are also recommended to engage services of turnaround specialists, establish strategic alliances, engage all stakeholders and also strive to seek cost competitiveness. The study further recommends that the government should take an active role in ensuring that an enabling environment has exist to allow firms in the manufacturing sector to recover from the economic decline.
When It Could Have Been Worse, It Gets Better: How Favorable Uncertainty Resolution Slows Hedonic Adaptation

Thankfully, most product consumption experiences are positive. Unfortunately, however, those positive experiences are not always guaranteed to occur, and defects creep into the consumer experience. Though its assertion runs counter to most prescriptions, the current research proposes that exposing consumers to the mere possibility of these negative experiences, occurring in a consumption sequence increases consumers' happiness with those experiences overtime. Six studies demonstrate this effect and further show that this effect is driven by hedonic responses as a result of favorable uncertainty resolution. That is, with the mere possibility of a negative experience, a consumer, who actually experiences a positive outcome, is likely to feel relief or pleasantness from not having to experience the negative experience. This research enriches existing literature on hedonic adaptation and uncertainty and has significant implications for consumer behavior.
As time goes by maintaining longitudinal satisfaction: a perspective of hedonic adaptation

The purpose of this paper is to improve our understanding of how firms can maintain longitudinal satisfaction. Previous research on longitudinal satisfaction demonstrates that the product attributes weight on satisfaction shifts over time. However, the existing literature lacks an understanding of the intervening mechanism. Inspired by the hedonic adaptation theory, this research first argues that the shift depends on the attribute's variability. Then, it posits that hedonic adaptation might play a mediation role in connecting the attribute's weight and longitudinal satisfaction. Finally, the research incorporates consumer intentional activities into the antecedents of longitudinal satisfaction.  The authors test a series of hypotheses across two studies. Using the Slope shift Parameter Theory and Structural Equation Modeling, data collected from smartphone owners in four MBA classes (Study 1) and eight business venues in China (Study 2) are analyzed to confirm the research model.  The findings suggest that hedonic adaptation occurs during the ownership process. It is revealed that both the attribute's variability and consumption behavior play important roles in sustaining long term satisfaction, confirming the mediating effects of hedonic adaptation on the relationship above.  The hedonic adaptation theory is applied to study the mediating role of product attribute variability and consumption behavior in sustaining customer satisfaction over time. Three contributions are offered: First, hedonic adaptation occurs during the ownership process; second, the attribute's variability and consumption behavior both play important roles in sustaining longitudinal satisfaction; third, the mediating effects of hedonic adaptation are confirmed for the relationship between attribute's variability and sustaining satisfaction and consumption behavior and sustaining satisfaction.
More than activities: using a 'sense of place' to enrich student experience in adventure sport

There has been increasing interest in recent years in the significance of a sense of place in the literature of outdoor adventure education. In the UK relationships between outdoor education and the environment still appear largely focused on the science of the natural environment and the activity in question. In this paper, we present empirical evidence from an action research project to demonstrate how a combination of formal and informal pedagogy in a higher education context can lead to a sociocultural and historical understanding of place and enrich the learning experience of students when teaching the classical outdoor adventurous activity of sailing. The sport of dinghy sailing is a module within a Bachelor's undergraduate degree in outdoor education and was taught from a small fishing town in Devon, England. We adopted an integrated and experiential critical pedagogy of place that allowed theory and practice, thought and action to be a holistic experience, and this approach provided opportunities for informal, as well as formal learning. This action research project explored the impact on the student experience when sailing skills were developed along with a sense of place. It used methods including: photo elicitation, focus group interviews and evidence from the analysis of written student assignments. Our findings show that students discover a significance of the meaningful relationship between the sociocultural history of where that activity takes place and the activity itself and that as a result their experience of the learning and research process was enriched.
Molybdenum disilicide silicon nitride bushing nozzles tailor made for basalt fibers production

A carefully comparative study of several ceramics compounds allowed the identification of MoSi 2 blended with Si 3 N 4 as a suitable material for the realization of bushing nozzles, specifically designed for basalt fibers production. Degradation static tests were developed and performed to demonstrate the high resistance to oxidation at operating temperature of MoSi 2 Si 3 N 4 composites with respect to alumina, zirconia stabilized with magnesia or yttria, pure MoSi 2 pure Si 3 N 4 and MoSi 2 englobing SiC. Moreover, the MoSi 2 Si 3 N 4 composites resulted resistant to corrosion and chemical inert with respect to oxidizing components present in basalt melts. Bushings in MoSi 2 Si 3 N 4 were obtained by using hot isostatic pressing and were processed through mechanical drilling. The basalt fibers produced with the MoSi 2 Si 3 N 4 bushing showed a constant diameter and a regular surface morphology. The bushing was recovered intact without defects or fractures demonstrating the efficiency of the selected material. Replacing platinum rhodium bushings with ceramic ones could greatly reduce costs of basaltic fibers production and could encourage the use of these eco friendly, natural fibers as reinforcement in lightweight polymer composites.
New azidation methods for the functionalization of silicon nitride and application in copper catalyzed azide alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC)

In this study, a new direct functionalization method of silicon nitride (Si3N4) using azidation and click chemistry is presented. First, amino groups (NHx) were created on a Si3N4 substrate by fluoride etching. These NHx terminated Si3N4 surfaces were analyzed by chemical derivatization X ray photoelectron spectroscopy with 4 trifluoromethylbenzaldehyde, and a derivatization yield of 20% was concluded. In the second step, freshly prepared NHx surfaces were transformed into azides, which were used immediately in a click reaction with halogenated alkynes. The presented combination of amination, azidation, and click reaction is a promising alternative for common silane based Si3N4 functionalization methods.
Surface etching, chemical modification and characterization of silicon nitride and silicon oxide selective functionalization of Si3N4 and SiO2.
Venue: Journal of physics. Condensed matter an Institute of Physics journal

The ability to selectively chemically functionalize silicon nitride (Si3N4) or silicon dioxide (SiO2) surfaces after cleaning would open interesting technological applications. In order to achieve this goal, the chemical composition of surfaces needs to be carefully characterized so that target chemical reactions can proceed on only one surface at a time. While wet chemically cleaned silicon dioxide surfaces have been shown to be terminated with surficial Si OH sites, chemical composition of the HF etched silicon nitride surfaces is more controversial. In this work, we removed the native oxide under various aqueous HF etching conditions and studied the chemical nature of the resulting Si3N4 surfaces using infrared absorption spectroscopy (IRAS) x ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) low energy ion scattering (LEIS) and contact angle measurements. We find that HF etched silicon nitride surfaces are terminated by surficial Si F and Si OH bonds, with slightly subsurface Si OH, Si O Si, and Si NH2 groups. The concentration of surficial Si F sites is not dependent on HF concentration, but the distribution of oxygen and Si NH2 displays a weak dependence. The Si OH groups of the etched nitride surface are shown to react in a similar manner to the Si OH sites on SiO2, and therefore no selectivity was found. Chemical selectivity was, however, demonstrated by first reacting the NH2 groups on the etched nitride surface with aldehyde molecules, which do not react with the Si OH sites on a SiO2 surface, and then using trichloro organosilanes for selective reaction only on the SiO2 surface (no reactivity on the aldehyde terminated Si3N4 surface)
Notch Signaling and Alloreactivity
Venue: Transplantation

Solid organ and allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation have become standard therapeutic interventions that save patient lives and improve quality of life. Our enhanced understanding of transplantation immunobiology has refined clinical management and improved outcomes. However, organ rejection and graft versus host disease remain major obstacles to the broader successful application of these therapeutic procedures. Notch signaling regulates multiple aspects of adaptive and innate immunity. Preclinical studies identified Notch signaling as a promising target in autoimmune diseases, as well as after allogeneic hematopoietic cell and solid organ transplantation. Notch was found to be a central regulator of alloreactivity across clinically relevant models of transplantation. Notch inhibition in T cells prevented graft versus host disease and organ rejection, establishing organ tolerance by skewing CD4+ T helper polarization away from a proinflammatory response toward suppressive regulatory T cells. Notch ligand blockade also dampened alloantibody deposition and prevented chronic rejection through humoral mechanisms. Toxicities of systemic Notch blockade were observed with &ggr; secretase inhibitors in preclinical and early clinical trials across different indications, but they did not arise upon preclinical targeting of Delta like Notch ligands, a strategy sufficient to confer full benefits of Notch ablation in T cell alloimmunity. Because multiple clinical grade reagents have been developed to target individual Notch ligands and receptors, the benefits of Notch blockade in transplantation are calling for translation of preclinical findings into human transplantation medicine.
DC programming approaches for discrete portfolio optimization under concave transaction costs
Venue: Optim. Lett.

The paper investigates DC programming and DCA for both modeling discrete portfolio optimization under concave transaction costs as DC programs, and their solution. DC reformulations are established by using penalty techniques in DC programming. A suitable global optimization branch and bound technique is also developed where a DC relaxation technique is used for lower bounding. Numerical simulations are reported that show the efficiency of DCA and the globality of its computed solutions, compared to standard algorithms for nonconvex nonlinear integer programs.
Porous Empire: Foreign visitors and the post Stalin Soviet state

Porous Empire" is a study of the relationship between Soviet institutions, Soviet society and the millions of foreigners who visited the USSR between the mid 1950s and the mid 1980s. "Porous Empire" traces how Soviet economic, propaganda, and state security institutions, all shaped during the isolationist Stalin period, struggled to accommodate their practices to millions of visitors with material expectations and assumed legal rights radically unlike those of Soviet citizens. While much recent Soviet historiography focuses on the ways in which the post Stalin opening to the outside world led to the erosion of official Soviet ideology, I argue that ideological attitudes inherited from the Stalin era structured institutional responses to a growing foreign presence in Soviet life. Therefore, while Soviet institutions had to accommodate their economic practices to the growing numbers of tourists and other visitors inside the Soviet borders and were forced to concede the existence of contact zones between foreigners and Soviet citizens that loosened some of the absolute sovereignty claims of the Soviet party statem, they remained loyal to visions of Soviet economic independence, committed to fighting the cultural Cold War, and profoundly suspicious of the outside world. The gap between Soviet concessions to the era of international mobility and Soviet attitudes to the outside world shaped the peculiar nature of globalization in its Soviet context: even as the Soviet opening up to the world promoted Westernization and undermined some of the ideological foundations of Soviet power, it also generated, within the bowels of Soviet institutions, a profound and honestly held commitment to authoritarianism and social discipline as an instrument of geopolitical resistance, a mental attitude that still shapes Russian official approaches to the outside world 25 years after the fall of the USSR. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History First Advisor Benjamin Nathans
Simultaneous Localization and Mapping
Venue: Springer Handbook of Robotics, 2nd Ed.

This chapter provides a comprehensive introduction in to the simultaneous localization and mapping problem, better known in its abbreviated form as SLAM. SLAM addresses the problem of a robot navigating an unknown environment. While navigating the environment, the robot seeks to acquire a map thereof, and at the same time it wishes to localize itself using its map. The use of SLAM problems can be motivated in two different ways: one might be interested in detailed environment models, or one might seek to maintain an accurate sense of a mobile robot's location. SLAM serves both of these purposes. We review three major paradigms of algorithms from which a huge number of recently published methods are derived. First comes the traditional approach, which relies on the extended Kalman filter (EKF) for representing the robot's best estimate. The second paradigm draws its intuition from the fact that the SLAM problem can be viewed as a sparse graph of constraints, and it applies nonlinear optimization for recovering the map and the robot's locations. Finally, we survey the particle filter paradigm, which applies nonparametric 37.1 Overview. 871
Delineating the role of endorser's perceived qualities and consumer characteristics on celebrity endorsement effectiveness

This study examines the influence of both endorser's credibility qualities, such as expertise and trustworthiness, and consumers' characteristics, such as gender and team identification, on endorsement effectiveness expressed as purchase intentions. A survey quasi experimental research design was used in the context of sports celebrity endorsements. Data were collected from 289 respondents via a convenience sample. The findings indicated gender differences only on team identification and not on endorsers' perceived qualities or on endorsement effectiveness. Team identification differences had a significant impact on purchase intentions while marginally affected athletes' credibility. Of the two examined elements of credibility, trustworthiness constitutes a significant differentiation factor for purchase intentions. The study provides several theoretical and practical implications.
The importance of key celebrity characteristics for customer segmentation by age and gender: Does beauty matter in professional football?

This paper examines through the lens of sport whether male and female customers as well as differently aged customers focus on different celebrity characteristics and whether they are influenced by celebrities' facial attractiveness. Drawing on psychological and sociological theories like attachment theory, social role theory of gender, or social norm theory as well as on the academic literature on celebrity endorsement in general, we develop several hypotheses regarding how a fan's age and gender affect the importance of key characteristics of football stars namely experience, personality, exemplary behavior, and skills. Using a proprietary dataset that combines archival data concerning professional football players and clubs with survey data of more than 2100 football fans, we find evidence that female fans attach more importance to a player's personality and behavior while male fans seem to focus on experience and skills. We further find that when fans get older, the importance of a player's behavior and experience increases. Moreover, our results show that the facial attractiveness of players clearly influences fan perceptions. Our results contribute to existing research on customer segmentation by providing a more differentiated picture of the effects of key celebrity characteristics on different customers.
The Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on Consumer Buying Behavior

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer's buying intentions. This study concentrated on discovering the thoughts of Pakistani customers about celebrity endorsement by analyzing the different characteristics of the celebrity endorsement with respect to consumer's buying intentions. In this study we reviewed the former literature present on the topic of celebrity endorsement. That gives clear perception of different important prospects regarding this topic. In order to discover the impact of different attributes of celebrity on consumer buying behavior quantitative approach is applied. The data has been collected from 150 respondents with the help of structured questionnaire and analyzed by using software SPSS.It was find that some aspects of celerity endorsement like gender, attractiveness, credibility, endorser type multiple celerity endorsement proved to be effective with respect to buying intentions while multiple product endorsement has negative relationship with consumer buying behavior. In the end the study proves that the overall impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer's buying intentions is positive.  Celebrity endorsement, Celebrity endorser, Purchase intentions, Consumer buying behavior, Celebrity endorsement in Pakistan
Copycat Suicide Induced by Entertainment Celebrity Suicides in South Korea
Venue: Psychiatry investigation

Throughout the past several years, there have been a number of entertainment celebrity suicides in South Korea. The aim of this study was to investigate the clustering of suicides following celebrities' suicides in South Korea from 2005 to 2008, particularly according to certain characteristics.  Seven celebrity suicides were examined and defined using the Korean Integrated Newspaper Database System (KINDS) and from these, we considered four affected periods occurring 28 days after each celebrity's suicide. A Poisson time series autoregression model was used to estimate the relative risk of the total suicide number for each affected period from 2005 to 2008. Logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate whether there were specific increases in the numbers of suicides in subgroups matching each celebrity.  There were significant increases in the risk of suicide during the affected periods. Remarkable increases were found in the subgroups matching each celebrity, especially in the group in which all factors (sex, age, and method) were similar.  This study provides confirmation that a significant copycat effect was induced by these celebrities' suicides, especially among people who identified more with the celebrities. This implies that countermeasures for upright media coverage of celebrity suicides should be discussed and practiced properly in South Korea.
Presentation of blended learning conceptual pattern based on individual and social constructivism theory

This investigation aims at studying capabilities and characteristics of blended learning and individual and social constructivism theory qualitatively and the presentation of conceptual pattern of blended learning based on these theories. The methodology of the present study is Mayring qualitative content analysis. First, some fundamental questions about blended learning pattern and individual and social constructivism have been asked. They include: 1.What are characteristics and capabilities of blended learning as a relatively new approach? 2. What are characteristics and components of blended learning based on individual and social constructivism theory? 3. How are blended learning models which are derived from individual and social constructivism theory? Then, analysis aspects, main categories and subcategories of answers were determined by using theoretical foundations relating to various views about blended learning and constructivism theory. Finally, main categories were differentiated from sub categories and learning conceptual patterns were designed according to individual and social constructivism theory based on the research findings. The findings of the analysis resulted in the recognition of the components of the blended learning model based on constructivism. They were presented in nine main components including: 1. Learning 2. Different kinds of learning 3. Factors influencing learning 4. The role of the learner 5. Learner's activities 6. The role of the teacher 7. Teaching guidelines 8. Group activities 9.