Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
GroupTrust: Dependable Trust Management

As advanced computing and communication technologies penetrate every aspect of our life, we have witnessed the persistent growth of open systems where entities interact with one another without prior knowledge or experiences. Trust becomes an important metric in such open systems. This paper presents a dependable trust management scheme—GroupTrust, and a working system to support GroupTrust. It makes three original contributions. First, we identify a set of vulnerabilities that are common in existing reputation based trust models. We show that reputation trust built solely on direct experiences or by combining direct experiences with uniform trust propagation can be vulnerable. Second, we develop GroupTrust, a dependable trust management scheme to provide reliable trust management in the presence of dishonest ratings, malicious camouflage, and malicious collusive behaviors. The GroupTrust scheme is novel in two aspects: (i) we develop a pairwise similarity based feedback credibility to enhance the resilience of trust computation in the presence of dishonest ratings; (ii) we propose to propagate trust based on a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model, which defines trust propagation threshold to control how trust should be propagated. Finally, we evaluate the effectiveness of GroupTrust against four threat models using both simulated and real world datasets. Our experimental results show that feedback credibility based local trust computation can effectively constrain strategically malicious participants from taking advantages of their dishonest ratings. SIR-based trust propagation control enables safe trust propagation and blocks irrational trust propagation. We show that GroupTrust scheme significantly outperforms other trust models in terms of both performance and attack resilience in the presence of dishonest feedbacks, sparse feedbacks, and strategically malicious participants against four representative threat models.
CONTRACT INCENTIVES AND EXCESSIVE NITROGEN USE IN AGRICULTURE

This study examines incentives for input use under tournament contracts. We analyze implications of contract design for nitrate-based environmental externalities generated by agricultural producers. Outcomes are compared from contracts awarded by tournament to those from fixed-payment contracts. Our findings show contract insecurity can distort input use. The model developed in this analysis is applied to a region of the U.S. where tournament-based production is prevalent and groundwater contamination is a problem. We find contract insecurity increases nitrogen use by about 12%, resulting in a 17% increase in nitrate leaching. Implications for contract modification to reduce environmental externalities while maintaining contract incentives are discussed.
New Paradigm for Re-engineering Education: Globalization, Localization and Individualization

List of Figures. List of Tables. Preface. Introduction. - Section 1: New Paradigm for Education Reform: 1. New Paradigm for Educational Reforms: Globalization, Localization, and Individualization. - 2. Three Waves of Education Reform: Internal, Interface, and Future. - 3. Fostering Local Knowledge and Human Development in Globalization of Education. - 4. A New Theory of Self Learning in Networked Human and IT Environment. - 5. Economic Considerations in Education Reforms and Policymaking. - 6. A Comprehensive Framework for Analysis of Education Reform Policy. - . Education reforms in the Asia-Pacific Region: Trends, challenges, and research. - 8. Education Reforms Towards the Third Wave: The Case of Hong Kong. - Section 2: New Paradigm for Educational Leadership: 9. New Paradigm for School Leadership. - 10. School Leadership and three Waves of Education Reforms. - 11. Leadership for Strategic Management and Action Learning. - 12. Leadership and School Performance: Multi-dimensional and Multi-level Study. - 13. Characteristics of School Leadership and Influence of Societal Culture. - Section 3: Re-engineering School Management for Effectiveness: 14. Evaluating School Effectiveness: Conceptualization and Practical Dilemmas. - 15. Monitoring Education Quality at Multi-levels: Framework and Practice. - 16. Studying Cultural Factors in Educational Effectiveness. - 17. Managing Teacher Effectiveness: Multiple Models & Multi-dimensions. - 18. Implementing Multi-level Self-management in Schools. - 19. Reengineering Total Home-school Partnership. - 20. Managing Parental Involvement in Education with a New Framework. - 21. Managing School Crises with Multi-perspectives.
Withdrawal of Survival Factors Results in Activation of the JNK Pathway in Neuronal Cells Leading to Fas Ligand Induction and Cell Death

ABSTRACT The JNK pathway modulates AP-1 activity. While in some cells it may have proliferative and protective roles, in neuronal cells it is involved in apoptosis in response to stress or withdrawal of survival signals. To understand how JNK activation leads to apoptosis, we used PC12 cells and primary neuronal cultures. In PC12 cells, deliberate JNK activation is followed by induction of Fas ligand (FasL) expression and apoptosis. JNK activation detected by c-Jun phosphorylation and FasL induction are also observed after removal of either nerve growth factor from differentiated PC12 cells or KCl from primary cerebellar granule neurons (CGCs). Sequestation of FasL by incubation with a Fas-Fc decoy inhibits apoptosis in all three cases. CGCs derived from gld mice (defective in FasL) are less sensitive to apoptosis caused by KCl removal than wild-type neurons. In PC12 cells, protection is also conferred by a c-Jun mutant lacking JNK phosphoacceptor sites and a small molecule inhibitor of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and JNK, which inhibits FasL induction. Hence, the JNK-to-c-Jun-to-FasL pathway is an important mediator of stress-induced neuronal apoptosis.
RGB-Guided Hyperspectral Image Upsampling

Hyperspectral imaging usually lack of spatial resolution due to limitations of hardware design of imaging sensors. On the contrary, latest imaging sensors capture a RGB image with resolution of multiple times larger than a hyperspectral image. In this paper, we present an algorithm to enhance and upsample the resolution of hyperspectral images. Our algorithm consists of two stages: spatial upsampling stage and spectrum substitution stage. The spatial upsampling stage is guided by a high resolution RGB image of the same scene, and the spectrum substitution stage utilizes sparse coding to locally refine the upsampled hyperspectral image through dictionary substitution. Experiments show that our algorithm is highly effective and has outperformed state-of-the-art matrix factorization based approaches.
Design of Multiple Beam Forming Antenna System Using Substrate Integrated Folded Waveguide (SIFW) Technology

This paper introduces a novel structure of 4£4 multiple beam forming antenna system using substrate integrated folded waveguide technology. For high speed wireless communication it is necessary to minimize the interferences and multipath fading. Multiple beam forming antenna system is a good solution to these problems. The substrate integrated folded waveguide (SIFW) technology reduces the width of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) by half. All the basic building blocks required for the antenna array system are designed and simulated individually. They are then combined to form the butler matrix fed antenna array system. The SIFW technology reduces the total width of butler matrix. The radiation performance of the multiple beam forming antenna system is realized by integrating the H-plane SIFW horn antennas with the output ports of the butler matrix. The system is practically realized and good directive multiple beams with symmetric gain (5.8dB, 5.63dB, 5.31dB and 5.9dB for the beams 1R, 2L, 2R and 1L) have been achieved.
Does the Real Interest Parity Hypothesis Hold? Evidence for Developed and Emerging Markets

Evidence is presented on the Real Interest Parity Hypothesis for a set of emerging and developed countries. This is done by carrying out a set of unit-root tests on the real interest differentials with respect to Germany and the US. Our results support the hypothesis of a rapid reversion towards a zero differential for developed countries and towards a positive one for emerging markets. An important result is that this adjustment tends to be highly asymmetric and markedly different for developed and emerging countries. Our evidence reveals a high degree of market integration for developed countries and highlights the importance of risk premia for emerging markets.
Observations of an Edge-enhancing Instability in Snow Crystal Growth near -15 C

We present observations of the formation of plate-like snow crystals that provide evidence for an edge-enhancing crystal growth instability. This instability arises when the condensation coefficient describing the growth of an ice prism facet increases as the width of the facet becomes narrower. Coupled with the effects of particle diffusion, this phenomenon causes thin plate-like crystals to develop from thicker prisms, sharpening the edges of the plates to micron or sub-micron dimensions as they grow. This sharpening effect is largely responsible for the formation of thin plate-like ice crystals from water vapor near -15 C, which is a dominant feature in the snow crystal morphology diagram. Other faceted crystalline materials may exhibit similar morphological growth instabilities that promote the diffusion-limited growth of plate-like or needle-like structures.
Why Did Bank Lending Rates Diverge from Policy Rates after the Financial Crisis?

The global finance crisis prompted central banks in many countries to cut short-term policy rates to near zero levels. Yet, lending rates did not fall as much as the decline in policy rates would have suggested. We argue that comparing lending rates to policy rates is misleading: banks do not obtain all their funds at policy rates, and after the crisis, costs of funding rose substantially. Comparing lending rates with a weighted average cost of funds suggests that banks did not substantially change their rate setting behaviour after the financial crisis: interest rate pass-through relationships across eleven countries in Europe appear to have remained stable.
Business Perspectives on Ubiquitous Computing

The goal of this paper is to establish what kind of business impacts companies can expect from applying ubiquitous computing technologies to their services, products and processes. The paper concentrates on business applications and thus omits the more intensely studied domains of home, office and classroom automation. It derives its answers on the basis of existing business applications and a more theoretical discussion of data integration aspects. As a result, it proposes that first, ubiquitous computing enables the consistent integration of the real and the virtual worlds, and thus has the potential to eliminate very costly media breaks. Second, it may eventually allow for a much more comprehensive depth of integration, which in turn might open the door to the control of complex systems. The paper concludes with a list of expected business benefits and envisions a development path for future business applications. However, it also makes clear that there remain a whole series of tough and unresolved issues, ranging from technical infrastructure to social and ethical impacts.
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium BaeSR two-component system positively regulates sodA in response to ciprofloxacin

In response to antibiotics, bacteria activate regulatory systems that control the expression of genes that participate in detoxifying these compounds, like multidrug efflux systems. We previously demonstrated that the BaeSR two-component system from Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) participates in the detection of ciprofloxacin, a bactericidal antibiotic, and in the positive regulation of mdtA, an efflux pump implicated in antibiotic resistance. In the present work, we provide further evidence for a role of the S. Typhimurium BaeSR two-component system in response to ciprofloxacin treatment and show that it regulates sodA expression. We demonstrate that, in the absence of BaeSR, the transcript levels of sodA and the activity of its gene product are lower. Using electrophoretic mobility shift assays and transcriptional fusions, we demonstrate that BaeR regulates sodA by a direct interaction with the promoter region.
The Pandora's box of social integration mechanisms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to perform empirical tests to explore the influence of social integration mechanisms on organizations’ absorptive capacities theorized by Zahra and George.Design/methodology/approach – This study uses a cross‐sectional design to test the relationships between potential absorptive capacity, three social integration mechanisms (cross‐functional teams, participation in decision making, and self‐managing teams), and realized absorptive capacity, in a sample of 92 organizations that bid competitively to provide products and services to a US university.Findings – An organization's use of cross‐functional teams is negatively related to its realized absorptive capacity and negatively moderates the relationship between potential and realized absorptive capacity. Self‐managing teams negatively moderate the relationship between an organization's potential absorptive capacity and its realized absorptive capacity.Research limitations/implications – The cross‐sectional design allo.
Intrinsic Motivation and Information Systems Security Policy Compliance in Organizations

Intrinsic Motivation and Information Systems Security Policy Compliance in Organizations by Yurita Yakimin Abdul Talib A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctoral of Philosophy in Business at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015 Chair: Professor Gurpreet Dhillon Department of Information Systems, School of Business Incidents of computer abuse, proprietary information leaks and other security lapses have been on the increase. Most often, such security lapses are attributed to internal employees in organizations subverting established organizational IS security policy. As employee compliance with IS security policy is the key to escalating IS security breaches, understanding employee motivation for following IS security policy is critical. In addition to several types of extrinsic motives noted in prior studies, including sanctions, rewards, and social pressures, this study adds that an important contributing intrinsic factor is empowerment. Per Thomas and Velthouse’s (1990) intrinsic motivation model, empowerment is the positive feelings derived from IS security task assessments. Through survey data collected from 289 participants, the study assesses how dimensions of psychological empowerment (i.e., competence, meaning, impact, and choice) as derived from IS security task may impact the IS security performance of the participants, measured by their compliance with IS security policy. The study demonstrates that the competence and meaning dimensions of psychological empowerment have a positive impact on participants’ IS security policy compliance intention, while impact has a marginal negative influence on compliance. Furthermore, dimensions of psychological empowerment can be predicted by structural empowerment facets, particularly IS security education, training, and awareness (SETA), access to IS security strategy and goals, and participation in IS security decision-making. In addition, the competence and meaning dimensions of psychological empowerment may act as mediators for the relations between structural empowerment and participants’ IS security policy compliance. Theoretical contributions, managerial implications, and directions for future research of this study will be discussed.
Incidence of Hospitalization for Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection amongst Children in Ontario, Canada: A Population-Based Study Using Validated Health Administrative Data

Importance RSV is a common illness among young children that causes significant morbidity and health care costs. Objective Routinely collected health administrative data can be used to track disease incidence, explore risk factors and conduct health services research. Due to potential for misclassification bias, the accuracy of data-elements should be validated prior to use. The objectives of this study were to validate an algorithm to accurately identify pediatric cases of hospitalized respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) from within Ontario’s health administrative data, estimate annual incidence of hospitalization due to RSV and report the prevalence of major risk factors within hospitalized patients. Study Design and Setting A retrospective chart review was performed to establish a reference-standard cohort of children from the Ottawa region admitted to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) for RSV-related disease in 2010 and 2011. Chart review data was linked to Ontario’s administrative data and used to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of algorithms of RSV-related ICD-10 codes within provincial hospitalization and emergency department databases. Age- and sex-standardized incidence was calculated over time, with trends in incidence assessed using Poisson regression. Results From a total of 1411 admissions, chart review identified 327 children hospitalized for laboratory confirmed RSV-related disease. Following linkage to administrative data and restriction to first admissions, there were 289 RSV patients in the reference-standard cohort. The best algorithm, based on hospitalization data, resulted in sensitivity 97.9% (95%CI: 95.5–99.2%), specificity 99.6% (95%CI: 98.2–99.8%), PPV 96.9% (95%CI: 94.2–98.6%), NPV 99.4% (95%CI: 99.4–99.9%). Incidence of hospitalized RSV in Ontario from 2005–2012 was 10.2 per 1000 children under 1 year and 4.8 per 1000 children aged 1 to 3 years. During the surveillance period, there was no identifiable increasing or decreasing linear trend in the incidence of hospitalized RSV, hospital length of stay and PICU admission rates. Among the Ontario RSV cohort, 16.3% had one or more major risk factors, with a decreasing trend observed over time. Conclusion Children hospitalized for RSV-related disease can be accurately identified within population-based health administrative data. RSV is a major public health concern and incidence has not changed over time, suggesting a lack of progress in prevention.
The Friendly and Predatory Acquisition of Large U.S. Corporations in the 1960s: The Other Contested Terrain

Cet article etudie les rachats d'entreprise aux U.S.A. dans les annees 1960. Les mecanismes de concentration affectent l'organisation des entreprises et le monde des affaires. Ceux-ci sont de type predateur ou pacifiques. Ils dependent, d'une part, d'une strategie d'entreprise et de la position occupee par les differentes entreprises dans le reseau de dependance economique. Ils tiennent aussi aux situations specifiques des chefs d'entreprise dans le reseau social que constitue le monde des affaires et au type de propriete juridique et financiere
Targeting of Acetylcholinesterase in Neurons In Vivo: A Dual Processing Function for the Proline-Rich Membrane Anchor Subunit and the Attachment Domain on the Catalytic Subunit

Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) accumulates on axonal varicosities and is primarily found as tetramers associated with a proline-rich membrane anchor (PRiMA). PRiMA is a small transmembrane protein that efficiently transforms secreted AChE to an enzyme anchored on the outer cell surface. Surprisingly, in the striatum of the PRiMA knock-out mouse, despite a normal level of AChE mRNA, we find only 2–3% of wild type AChE activity, with the residual AChE localized in the endoplasmic reticulum, demonstrating that PRiMA in vivo is necessary for intracellular processing of AChE in neurons. Moreover, deletion of the retention signal of the AChE catalytic subunit in mice, which is the domain of interaction with PRiMA, does not restore AChE activity in the striatum, establishing that PRiMA is necessary to target and/or to stabilize nascent AChE in neurons. These unexpected findings open new avenues to modulating AChE activity and its distribution in CNS disorders.
The Development of Morphological Knowledge in Relation to Early Spelling Ability

This study assessed the morphological knowledge of kinder­ garteners and first graders in relation to their early spelling ability. Morphological knowledge was investigated because, in order to spell, children need to understand that words are composed of morphemes and phonemes, and because poor spellers have particular difficulty with inflected forms of words. Kindergarteners and first graders were grouped by their implicit understanding of morphology and were given tests of dictated spelling and morphological analysis. First graders with poor morphological knowledge omitted more inflectional mor­ phemes in spelling and were less able to identify base morphemes in spoken words than kindergarteners and first graders with higher lev­ els of implicit morphological knowledge. The results demonstrate the importance of morphological knowledge in the development of spelling proficiency.
Spatial Cognition, Memory Capacity, and the Evolution of Mammalian Hippocampal Networks

The discovery of grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) of the rat (Fyhn et al. 2004) and of the precise triangular pattern of their firing fields (Hafting et al. 2005) requires a substantial reformulation of the questions relating to spatial cognition. It now appears, more clearly than before, that spatial computations per se are largely performed by the rat brain before the hippocampus is ever accessed, and culminate in a sort of universal map of allocentric space, in MEC layer II. Only a portion of the EC participates in such a map, which is applied and used irrespective of context, but in combination with context-specific signals that determine the activity of other parts of entorhinal cortex. The hippocampus operates on the universal map and on context-specific signals to create context-specific metric representations of space, which are stored in memory. The capacity of the hippocampus to rapidly switch between the representations of different contexts is illustrated by hippocampal global “remapping,” i.e., the transition to new, unrelated arrangements of place fields by the same population of recorded cells, after suitable behavioral manipulations, and without concurrent MEC remapping (Fyhn et al. 2007). Consequently, understanding the circuitry of the hippocampus crucially involves understanding this capacity for decorrelating spatial representations, at least in rodents. It could well be that in other species complex memories of a less spatial nature take a more prominent role, in which case it would be even more appropriate to approach hippocampal decorrelation and memory processes at an abstract level, and independent of the possibly species-specific spatial processes so finely investigated with the rat model (see also chapter 2 of this volume, by Lucia F. Jacobs). Which approaches can take us beyond a mere functional description of the role of different networks in the brain, and lead us to understand, in evolutionary terms, their design principles? In recent years I have studied three apparently disparate topics from a computational viewpoint: the lamination of the sensory cortex, the differentiation into subfields of the mammalian hippocampus, and the neuronal dynamics that might underlie the faculty for language in the human frontal lobes. These studies share a common perspective: they Spatial Cognition, Memory Capacity, and the Evolution of Mammalian Hippocampal Networks