Factors Influencing Donation Intention to Personal Medical Crowdfunding Projects Appearing on MSNS

This purpose of this study is to develop a research model by extending the theory of planned behavior in a new application context, and applies it to investigate the extrinsic factors influencing people’s attitude towards donating to medical crowdfunding projects appearing on mobile social networking sites (MSNS) and their intention to donate. A survey of 356 Chinese users was conducted and structural equation modeling was used to validate the proposed model and hypotheses. The results indicate that project information, retweeter information and MSNS information all have the significant effect on the general attitude towards donating to medical crowdfunding projects, and general attitude positively affects people’s donation intention. In addition, perceived behavioral control also has positive effect on people’s donation intention, while experienced donating to medical crowdfunding projects has negative effect on people’s donation intention. The research findings provide important theoretical and practical implications.

The Role of Nursing Homes Architectural Design in Mitigating the Risk of COVID-19 Pandemics: The Case of Slovenia

Currently, many older people live in institutions for various social and health reasons. In Slovenia, this proportion is almost 5% of the population aged 65 and over. In the COVID-19 pandemic, the elderly proved to be the most vulnerable social group, as they are exposed to a number of comorbidities that increase the risk of mortality. At that time, nursing homes represented one of the most critical types of housing, as seen from a disproportionate number of infections and deaths among nursing home residents worldwide, including Slovenia. During the emergency, a number of safety protocols had to be followed to prevent the spread of infection. Unfortunately, it turned out that while the safety measures protected the nursing home residents, they also had a negative effect on their mental health, mainly due to isolation and social distancing. It follows that especially in times of epidemics of infectious respiratory diseases, the quality of life in nursing homes requires special attention. In this context, it is also necessary to consider whether and how an appropriate architectural design can help mitigating the spread of infections, while at the same time enable older people to live in dignity and with a minimum of social exclusion. To this end, the present study examined 97 nursing homes in Slovenia, analysing the number of infections in nursing homes and their correlation with the degree of infection in the corresponding region in Slovenia. Additionally, 2 nursing homes were studied in more detail with the use of newly developed “Safe and Connected” evaluation tool, analysing the architectural features of each building. The advantages identified so far include living in smaller units, single rooms with balconies, the possibility of using green open spaces and the use of an adequate ventilation. Conclusions of this study are useful for further consideration of design of new nursing homes and the refurbishment of existing ones.

The Impact of Dormant Defects on Defect Prediction: A Study of 19 Apache Projects

Defect prediction models can be beneficial to prioritize testing, analysis, or code review activities, and has been the subject of a substantial effort in academia, and some applications in industrial contexts. A necessary precondition when creating a defect prediction model is the availability of defect data from the history of projects. If this data is noisy, the resulting defect prediction model could result to be unreliable. One of the causes of noise for defect datasets is the presence of “dormant defects,” i.e., of defects discovered several releases after their introduction. This can cause a class to be labeled as defect-free while it is not, and is, therefore “snoring.” In this article, we investigate the impact of snoring on classifiers' accuracy and the effectiveness of a possible countermeasure, i.e., dropping too recent data from a training set. We analyze the accuracy of 15 machine learning defect prediction classifiers, on data from more than 4,000 defects and 600 releases of 19 open source projects from the Apache ecosystem. Our results show that on average across projects (i) the presence of dormant defects decreases the recall of defect prediction classifiers, and (ii) removing from the training set the classes that in the last release are labeled as not defective significantly improves the accuracy of the classifiers. In summary, this article provides insights on how to create defects datasets by mitigating the negative effect of dormant defects on defect prediction.

Order matters: sleep spindles contribute to memory consolidation only when followed by rapid-eye-movement sleep

Sleep is known to benefit memory consolidation, but little is known about the contribution of sleep stages within the sleep cycle. The sequential hypothesis proposes that memories are first replayed during non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM or N) sleep and then integrated into existing networks during rapid-eye-movement (REM or R) sleep, two successive critical steps for memory consolidation. However, it lacks experimental evidence as N always precedes R sleep in physiological conditions. We tested this sequential hypothesis in patients with central hypersomnolence disorder, including patients with narcolepsy who present the unique, anti-physiological peculiarity of frequently falling asleep in R sleep before entering N sleep. Patients performed a visual perceptual learning task before and after daytime naps stopped after one sleep cycle, starting in N or R sleep and followed by the other stage (i.e. N-R vs. R-N sleep sequence). We compared over-nap changes in performance, reflecting memory consolidation, depending on the sleep sequence during the nap. Thirty-six patients who slept for a total of 67 naps were included in the analysis. Results show that sleep spindles are associated with memory consolidation only when N is followed by R sleep, that is in physiologically ordered N-R naps, thus providing support to the sequential hypothesis in humans. In addition, we found a negative effect of rapid-eye-movements in R sleep on perceptual consolidation, highlighting the complex role of sleep stages in the balance to remember and to forget.

Customer Concentration, Managerial Ability, and Corporate Performance

We examined whether and how managerial ability affects the relationship between customer concentration and corporate performance. Based on a novel measure of managerial ability, we found that customer concentration has a significant negative effect on corporate performance, while managerial ability can mitigate this effect. The negative effect of customer concentration is only significant in the subsample of low ability and lower efficiency in asset utilization, while the moderating effect of managerial ability is significant for all levels of asset utilization efficiency and more significant for firms with a lower gross margin. The results are robust to numerous robustness tests and endogeneity concerns. Additional analysis of mechanisms shows that in addition to superior operating ability, competent managers select major customers who are more beneficial to their company and decrease the sensitivity of their research and development (R&D) investment to customers. These findings indicate that the heterogeneity of managerial ability plays an important role in the supplier–customer context when the supplier firm generally faces one or more concentrated customers.

Effects of physical activity and feed and water restriction at reimplanting time on feed intake patterns, growth performance, and carcass characteristics of finishing beef steers

In the feedlot, there can be a decrease in dry matter intake (DMI) associated with reimplanting cattle that negatively affects growth performance. This study was conducted to determine the mechanisms causing a decrease in DMI after reimplanting and identify a strategy to mitigate the decrease. Crossbred steers [n = 200; 10 pens/treatment; initial bodyweight (BW) = 386 ± 4.9 kg] were used in a randomized complete block design experiment. Cattle were implanted with Revalor-IS on day 0. Treatments included a Revalor-200 implant on day 90 before feeding with the following management practices imposed: 1) steers were returned to their home pen immediately after reimplant (PCON); 2) steers were placed in pens and restricted from feed and water for 4 hours (RES); 3) steers were walked an additional 805 m after reimplant and then returned home (LOC); 4) steers were restricted from feed and water for 4 hours and walked an additional 805 m (RES+LOC); 5) steers were given an oral bolus of Megasphaera elsdenii (Lactipro; MS Biotec, Wamego, KS) and were restricted from feed and water for 4 hours, then walked an additional 805 m (LACT). One-hundred steers were given an ear tag to record minutes of activity (ESense Flex Tags, Allflex Livestock Intelligence, Madison, WI). As a percentage of BW, DMI was 5% greater (P = 0.01) from reimplant to end for PCON vs. RES, LOC, and RES+LOC treatments. Likewise, as a percentage of BW, DMI was 6.6% greater (P = 0.03) from reimplant to end and 4.0% greater (P = 0.05) overall for the PCON treatment vs. the LOC treatment. Overall, DMI as a percentage of BW, was 3.3% greater (P = 0.02) for PCON vs. RES, LOC, and RES+LOC treatments. There was an increase in G:F from reimplant to end (P = 0.05) for RES+LOC vs. the LACT treatment. From these data, we conclude that restricting cattle from feed and water for 4 hours after reimplanting did not alter subsequent DMI. Increasing locomotion had the greatest negative effect on DMI and growth performance. Management strategies to decrease locomotion associated with reimplanting would be beneficial to DMI and overall growth performance of finishing beef steers.

Analisis CAR, NPL, BOPO dan LDR terhadap Profitabilitas

This research aimed to examine the effect of Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Non Performing Loan (NPL),Operating Expenses Operating Income (BOPO) and Loan to Deposite Ratio (LDR) ratios on profitability (ROA). This type of research is quantitative research. The sample selection method in this research used purposive sampling method. The sample used was 20 of 45 banking companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange with the periode 2016-2020. The analytical method used was multiple linear regression analysis using the SPSS version 22 program. The result showed that the Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) t test had a significant effect on profitability (ROA) partially, Operating Expenses Operating Income (BOPO) has a negative effect on profitability(ROA) partially, then Non Performing Loan (NPL) and Loan to Deposite Ratio (LDR) have a positive and not significant effect on profitability (ROA). And from the result of the f test, the Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), Non Performing Loan (NPL), Operating Expenses Operating Income (BOPO) and Loan to Deposite Ratio (LDR) variables have a simultaneous effect on profitability (ROA). Keywords: CAR, NPL, BOPO, LDR, ROA

Evaluation of Different Internal Designs of Hydraulic Nozzles under an Accelerated Wear Test

The use of worn-out agricultural nozzles in pesticide application has a negative effect on the efficiency and cost of the application process. It also has an effect on environmental pollution due to an excessive amount of pesticide being applied when spraying with worn-out nozzles. In this paper, the resistance to wear of three different internal design hydraulic nozzles was ascertained. Changes in the flow rate and spray distribution as a result of this wear were also investigated. The wear test was done inside a closed system, and it was accelerated using an abrasive material to generate 100 h of wear. The tested nozzles were the Turbo TeeJet (TT)-twin chambered, Turbo Twinjet (TTj60)-dual outlet, and Drift Guard (DG)-pre-orifice. Wear rate, flow rate, and the virtual coefficient of variation (CVv) were measured at different wear intervals. The results showed that the TTj60 type was the most resistant to wear, followed by the TT type and DG. The latter two types showed an increase in the flow rate only in the first 45 h of wear. Virtual coefficient of variation (CVv) values were less than 10% after finishing the test (after 100 h of wear) for the three types of nozzles, which are acceptable values according to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 16122-2, 2015.