Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BUILDING BRIDGES AND SOLVING RUBIKS CUBES: TRIBALISM IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL ENVIRONMENTS

Summary: Engineering asset intensive organisations are typified by the presence of numerous highly cohesive sub-groups derived from elements such as occupation (engineer, trades, management), professional association (e.g. mechanical, electrical), function (e.g. operator or maintainer), and contractual arrangement (e.g. outsourced contract labour). The presence of highly cohesive groups within organisations (termed “tribalism”) affords a number of benefits both for the individual and the organisation. At an individual level being a member of such a group drives professional and occupational identities which is associated with occupational competence, emotional well-being and higher morale. In a broader setting highly cohesive groups also encourage the transfer of tacit knowledge between group members, display higher levels of citizenship behaviour and social support. However at an organisational level the effects of highly cohesive groups are more variable. While on one hand high levels of cohesion are likely to result in higher retention, morale and productivity, tribalism can also have significant negative effects such as the emergence of information silos and inter-group conflict. The case of an innovative management structure implemented into a coal fired power station is used an example of the challenges faced in dealing with the negative effects of tribalism and the difficulties associated with solving those issues. Several recommendations are put forward for others wishing to achieve similar outcomes when faced with the significant negative effects of tribalism within engineering asset intensive firms.
Absolutely Continuous Laws of Jump-Diffusions in Finite and Infinite Dimensions with Applications to Mathematical Finance

In mathematical Finance calculating the Greeks by Malliavin weights has proved to be a numerically satisfactory procedure for finite-dimensional It\^{o}-diffusions. The existence of Malliavin weights relies on absolute continuity of laws of the projected diffusion process and a sufficiently regular density. In this article we first prove results on absolute continuity for laws of projected jump-diffusion processes in finite and infinite dimensions, and a general result on the existence of Malliavin weights in finite dimension. In both cases we assume H\"ormander conditions and hypotheses on the invertibility of the so-called linkage operators. The purpose of this article is to show that for the construction of numerical procedures for the calculation of the Greeks in fairly general jump-diffusion cases one can proceed as in a pure diffusion case. We also show how the given results apply to infinite dimensional questions in mathematical Finance. There we start from the Vasi\v{c}ek model, and add -- by pertaining no arbitrage -- a jump diffusion component. We prove that we can obtain in this case an interest rate model, where the law of any projection is absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure on $\mathbb{R}^M $.
A new inter-node priority access enhancement scheme for IEEE_802.11 WLANs

Because of their wide proliferation, IEEE 802.11 WLANs are expected to support multimedia applications such as voice and broadband video transmissions, which normally have strict bounded transmission delay or minimum link rate requirement. Service differentiation can be applied to media traffic transmitted by the same node using the 802.11e EDCA (Enhanced Distributed Channel Access) protocol. However, the EDCA mode does not offer user differentiation, which can be viewed as a deficiency in multi-access wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a new inter-node priority access scheme for IEEE 802.11e networks which is compatible with the EDCA scheme. The proposed scheme deploys inter-node priority for channel access to complement the existing EDCA inter-frame priority. This provides true QoS control across multiple users within the same coverage area of an access point. We provide performance evaluations to compare the proposed access model with the basic EDCA 802.11 MAC protocol mode to elucidate the quality improvement achieved for multimedia communication over 802.11 WLANs.
FORMATION OF DISK GALAXIES. I. FROM A HOT GASEOUS ENVELOPE

The problem of the formation of a disk galaxy from a spherical, rotating, hot, gaseous envelope is solved by the means of a 2-D hydrodynamic code. Thermal instability and formation of clouds, cloud evaporation due to the hot surroundings and ram pressure, dynamical interaction between the gas and the clouds, energy dissipation by cloud-cloud collisions and radiation cooling of the intercloud gas are taken into account. Thermal conductivity is ignored. The most important of the results obtained are as follows: 1. At the time of the formation of the disk, the phase transitions lead to angular momentum transfer from the outer to the inner regions. If the temperature initially is independent of the distance from the center, the most important factor of the angular momentum transfer is the evaporation of the clouds. If initially the temperature is smaller at the outer regions, the most important factor of the angular momentum transfer is cloud-cloud collisions. 2. The observed exponential profiles can be understood as the result of angular momentum transfer due to the viscosity, which becomes important after the violent stage of the formation of the gaseous disk. 3. The model can explain the origin of the HI clouds located at large distances from the axis of spiral galaxies. Owing to the complicated mathematics, the gas–cloud dynamical interactions and the numerical method are presented only in the on-line version of the paper.
BEWARE OF BLACK SWANS AND DO NOT IGNORE WHITE ONES

Uncertainty pervades most aspects of life. From selecting a new technology to choosing a career, decision makers often ignore the outcomes of their decisions. In the last decade a new paradigm has emerged in behavioral decision research in which decisions are “experienced” rather than “described”, as in standard decision theory. The dominant finding from studies using the experience-based paradigm is that decisions from experience exhibit "black swan effect", i.e. the tendency to neglect rare events. Under prospect theory, this results in an experience-description gap. We show that several tentative conclusions can be drawn from our interdisciplinary examination of the putative experience-description gap in decision under uncertainty. Several insights are discussed. First, while the major source of under-weighting of rare events may be sampling error, it is argued that a robust experience-description gap remains when these factors are not at play. Second, the residual experience-description gap is not only about experience per se, but also about the way in which information concerning the probability distribution over possible outcomes is learned.Additional econometric and empirical work might be required to fully flech out these tentative conclusions. However, there was a consensus that an initially polemical literature turns out to be constructive in drawing researcher towards greater rapprochements.
Customer relationship management for brand commitment and brand loyalty

This article examined the impact of customer relationship management strategy on customers brand commitment and brand loyalty in the Nigeria financial sector. Methodology: the positivist quantitative survey approach was used to collect primary for this research. Simple random sampling was used to select 250 customers of Nigerian deposit accepting banks. Findings: the study found that CRM strategy impacts positively on banks’customers brand commitment and loyalty behaviours. However, continuance loyalty weighted highly positive on customer advocacy behaviour than affective loyalty. Conclusions: the study concluded that customer relationship management strategy helps in winning customers brand commitment and loyalty. Thus, continuance factors are suitable for predicting advocacy intentions of customers of Nigerian banks. Recommendations: the study recommended for strategic policy makers in the Nigeria financial sector to improve on their firms’ CRM infrastructure in order to continually meet customers’ expectations. KEYWORDS: Customer relationship management, customer advocacy, brand commitment, loyalty
Parallel Sparse LU Factorization with Partial Pivotingon Distributed Memory

Gaussian elimination based sparse LU factorization with partial pivoting is important to many scientiic applications, but it is still an open problem to develop a high performance sparse LU code on distributed memory machines. The main diiculty is that partial pivoting operations make structures of L and U factors unpredictable beforehand. This paper presents an approach called S for parallelizing this problem on distributed memory machines. The S approach adopts static symbolic factorization to avoid run-time control overhead, incorporates 2-D L/U supernode partitioning and amalgamation strategies to improve caching performance, and exploits irregular task parallelism embedded in sparse LU using asynchronous computation scheduling. The paper discusses and compares the algorithms using 1-D and 2-D data mapping schemes, and presents experimental studies on Cray-T3D and T3E. The performance results for a set of nonsymmetric benchmark matrices are very encouraging and S has achieved up to 6.878 GFLOPS on 128 T3E nodes.
Binding of the Fkh1 Forkhead Associated Domain to a Phosphopeptide within the Mph1 DNA Helicase Regulates Mating-Type Switching in Budding Yeast

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae Fkh1 protein has roles in cell-cycle regulated transcription as well as a transcription-independent role in recombination donor preference during mating-type switching. The conserved FHA domain of Fkh1 regulates donor preference by juxtaposing two distant regions on chromosome III to promote their recombination. A model posits that this Fkh1-mediated long-range chromosomal juxtaposition requires an interaction between the FHA domain and a partner protein(s), but to date no relevant partner has been described. In this study, we used structural modeling, 2-hybrid assays, and mutational analyses to show that the predicted phosphothreonine-binding FHA domain of Fkh1 interacted with multiple partner proteins. The Fkh1 FHA domain was important for its role in cell-cycle regulation, but no single interaction partner could account for this role. In contrast, Fkh1’s interaction with the Mph1 DNA repair helicase regulated donor preference during mating-type switching. Using 2-hybrid assays, co-immunoprecipitation, and fluorescence anisotropy, we mapped a discrete peptide within the regulatory Mph1 C-terminus required for this interaction and identified two threonines that were particularly important. In vitro binding experiments indicated that at least one of these threonines had to be phosphorylated for efficient Fkh1 binding. Substitution of these two threonines with alanines (mph1-2TA) specifically abolished the Fkh1-Mph1 interaction in vivo and altered donor preference during mating-type switching to the same degree as mph1Δ. Notably, the mph1-2TA allele maintained other functions of Mph1 in genome stability. Deletion of a second Fkh1-interacting protein encoded by YMR144W also resulted in a change in Fkh1-FHA-dependent donor preference. We have named this gene FDO1 for Forkhead one interacting protein involved in donor preference. We conclude that a phosphothreonine-mediated protein-protein interface between Fkh1-FHA and Mph1 contributes to a specific long-range chromosomal interaction required for mating-type switching, but that Fkh1-FHA must also interact with several other proteins to achieve full functionality in this process.
Ultraviolet and Multiwavelength Variability of the Blazar 3c 279: Evidence for Thermal Emission

The γ-ray blazar 3C 279 was monitored on a nearly daily basis with IUE, ROSAT and EGRET for three weeks between December 1992 and January 1993. During this period, the blazar was at a historical minimum at all wavelengths. Here we present the UV data obtained during the above multiwavelength campaign. A maximum UV variation of ∼50% is detected, while during the same period the X-ray flux varied by no more than 13%. At the lowest UV flux level the average spectrum in the 1230-2700Å interval is unusually flat for this object (α U V ∼ 1). The flattening could represent the – 2 – lowest energy tail of the inverse Compton component responsible for the X-ray emission, or could be due to the presence of a thermal component at ∼20000 K possibly associated with an accretion disk. The presence of an accretion disk in this blazar object, likely observable only in very low states and otherwise hidden by the beamed, variable synchrotron component, would be consistent with the scenario in which the seed photons for the inverse Compton mechanism producing the γ-rays are external to the relativistic jet. We further discuss the long term correlation of the UV flux with the X-ray and γ-ray fluxes obtained at various epochs. All UV archival data are included in the analysis. Both the X-and γ-ray fluxes are generally well correlated with the UV flux, approximately with square root and quadratic dependences, respectively.
A Floyd-like algorithm for optimization of mix-valued logical control networks

The optimization of mix-valued logical dynamic networks is considered. Using the input-state incidence matrix of mix-valued logical control networks and some known properties of optimal control of such networks, a Floyd-like algorithm is proposed. Compared with existing methods, new algorithm can largely reduce the computational complexity in finding optimal control. Both theoretical analysis and numerical example are presented. The result has also been extended to higher order mix-valued control networks.
Regulation of the High Affinity IgE Receptor (FcεRI) in Human Neutrophils: Role of Seasonal Allergen Exposure and Th-2 Cytokines

The high affinity IgE receptor, FcεRI, plays a key role in the immunological pathways involved in allergic asthma. Previously we have demonstrated that human neutrophils isolated from allergic asthmatics express a functional FcεRI, and therefore it was of importance to examine the factors regulating its expression. In this study, we found that neutrophils from allergic asthmatics showed increased expression of FcεRI-α chain surface protein, total protein and mRNA compared with those from allergic non asthmatics and healthy donors (p<0.001). Interestingly, in neutrophils isolated from allergic asthmatics, FcεRI-α chain surface protein and mRNA expression were significantly greater during the pollen season than outside the pollen season (n = 9, P = 0.001), an effect which was not observed either in the allergic non asthmatic group or the healthy donors (p>0.05). Allergen exposure did not affect other surface markers of neutrophils such as CD16/FcγRIII or IL-17R. In contrast to stimulation with IgE, neutrophils incubated with TH2 cytokines IL-9, GM-CSF, and IL-4, showed enhanced FcεRI-α chain surface expression. In conclusion, these results suggest that enhanced FcεRI expression in human neutrophils from allergic asthmatics during the pollen season can make them more susceptible to the biological effects of IgE, providing a possible new mechanism by which neutrophils contribute to allergic asthma.
Evaluation of vital parameter response to load changes using an ergometer system in a group of healthy subjects

Exercising plays an important role in maintaining a healthy life. For patients who have undergone cardiac surgery exercise may help to restore physical condition and decrease the recovery time. Doctors perform on patients endurance tests such as the VO2 max using an ergometer to evaluate their condition, these tests however are very intense and cannot be used for exercising as a regular basis. This paper presents a system that can be used for the evaluation of the response of vital parameters to physical activity without exhausting the patient and can motivate them to do exercise. A small study consisting on 14 healthy subjects is presented to show the usability of the proposed system.
Coherency calculations in the presence of structural dip

We have used crosscorrelation, semblance, and eigenstructure algorithms to estimate coherency. The first two algorithms calculate coherency over a multiplicity of trial time lags or dips, with the dip having the highest coherency corresponding to the local dip of the reflector. Partially because of its greater computational cost, our original eigenstructure algorithm calculated coherency along an implicitly flat horizon. Although generalizing the eigenstructure algorithm to search over a range of test dips allowed us to image coherency in the presence of steeply dipping structures, we were somewhat surprised that this generalization concomitantly degenerated the quality of the fault images in flatter dip areas. Because it is a local estimation of reflector dip (including as few as five traces), the multidip coherency estimate provides an algorithmically correct, but interpretationally undesirable, estimate of the best apparent dip that explained the offset reflectors across a fault. We ameliorate this problem using two methods, both of which require the smoothing of a locally inaccurate estimate of regional dip. We then calculate our eigenstructure estimate of coherency only along the dip of the reflector, thereby providing maximum lateral resolution of reflector discontinuities. We are thus both better able to explain the superior results obtained by our earliest eigenstructure analysis along interpreted horizon slices, yet able to extend this resolution to steeply dipping reflectors on uninterpreted cubes of seismic data.
The rs225017 Polymorphism in the 3′UTR of the Human DIO2 Gene Is Associated with Increased Insulin Resistance

The Thr92Ala (rs225014) polymorphism in the type 2 deiodinase (DIO2) gene has been associated with insulin resistance (IR) and decreased enzyme activity in human tissues but kinetic studies failed to detect changes in the mutant enzyme, suggesting that this variant might be a marker of abnormal DIO2 expression. Thus, we aimed to investigate whether other DIO2 polymorphisms, individually or in combination with the Thr92Ala, may contribute to IR. The entire coding-region of DIO2 gene was sequenced in 12 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Potentially informative variants were evaluated in 1077 T2DM patients and 516 nondiabetic subjects. IR was evaluated using the homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR) index. DIO2 gene sequencing revealed no new mutation but 5 previously described single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We observed that all T2DM patients displaying high HOMA-IR index (n = 6) were homozygous for the rs225017 (T/A) polymorphism. Further analysis showed that the median fasting plasma insulin and HOMA-IR of T2DM patients carrying the T/T genotype were higher than in patients carrying the A allele (P = 0.013 and P = 0.002, respectively). These associations were magnified in the presence of the Ala92Ala genotype of the Thr92Ala polymorphism. Moreover, the rs225017 and the Thr92Ala polymorphisms were in partial linkage disequilibrium (|D′| = 0.811; r 2 = 0.365). In conclusion, the rs225017 polymorphism is associated with greater IR in T2DM and it seems to interact with the Thr92Ala polymorphism in the modulation of IR.
Dilation for Sets of Probabilities

Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici? sici=0090-5364%28199309%2921%3A3%3C1139%3ADFSOP%3E2.0. CO%3B2-VThe Annals of Statistics is currently published by Institute of Mathematical Statistics.Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtainedprior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/ims.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academicjournals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. http://www.jstor.orgTue Mar 4 10:39:53 2008
Using Naïve Bayesian method for plant leaf classification based on shape and texture features

As an initial step in protecting different plant species from extinction, establishment of database for plant becomes necessary in order to catalogue various plant diversities. Therefore, automatic and accurate recognition and classification system of plants is important. Thus, the research aims to study plant classification using naïve Bayes (NB) method. Leaf shape and texture serves as input features to the model classifier. The test result shows that the classification accuracy of the model is high. The ROC curve area is 0.981. It indicates that the true positive rating is excellent and the weighted average of the false positive rating is 0.09%, which is considered very minimal and acceptable.
Sex differences in developmental plasticity and canalization shape population divergence in mate preferences

Sexual selection of high-quality mates can conflict with species recognition if traits that govern intraspecific mate preferences also influence interspecific recognition. This conflict might be resolved by developmental plasticity and learned mate preferences, which could drive preference divergence in populations that differ in local species composition. We integrate field and laboratory experiments on two calopterygid damselfly species with population genetic data to investigate how sex differences in developmental plasticity affect population divergence in the face of gene flow. Whereas male species recognition is fixed at emergence, females instead learn to recognize heterospecifics. Females are therefore more plastic in their mate preferences than males. We suggest that this results from sex differences in the balance between sexual selection for high-quality mates and selection for species recognition. As a result of these sex differences, females develop more pronounced population divergence in their mate preferences compared with males. Local ecological community context and presence of heterospecifics in combination with sex differences in plasticity and canalization therefore shape population divergence in mate preferences. As ongoing environmental change and habitat fragmentation bring formerly allopatric species into secondary contact, developmental plasticity of mate preferences in either or both sexes might facilitate coexistence and prevent local species extinction.
The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons

When should a government provide a service inhouse and when should it contract out provision? We develop a model in which the provider can invest in improving the quality of service or reducing cost. If contracts are incomplete, the private provider has a stronger incentive to engage in both quality improvement and cost reduction than a government employee. However, the private contractor's incentive to engage in cost reduction is typically too strong because he ignores the adverse effect on non-contractible quality. The model is applied to understanding the costs and benefits of prison privatization.