Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Anatomy of Knowledge Management in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises!: Project 5.1

This paper focuses on Danish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that are trying to put knowledge management on the agenda. The purpose is to offer theoretical insights as to how knowledge management can become an integrated part of the management activities in this type of companies. Furthermore, it is the ambition of the paper to offer a coherent portrayal of knowledge management, based on empirical material, with respect to the status on knowledge management in Danish SMEs today. For a long period, Denmark has been proclaimed as a knowledge society. And it is certain that knowledge has become an important element on management agendas. People talk and write about knowledge like never before. Part of this discussion emphasizes that knowledge is the decisive raw material for society and that without knowledge, or dressed in ignorance, we will not be able to continue the development of our welfare society nor improve the competitiveness of our companies. This is not new information as such since knowledge has always been a cornerstone of our sophisticated society where it is all about doing the right things right – and preferably on the first attempt. However, this presupposes that we know what we need to know and that we know how to develop this knowledge further. Even though the tendency is not a new one, it can be argued that knowledge has been more focused upon in recent years. When knowledge socially as well as in the corporate world has experienced new growth, it is among other things due to the fact that an increasing part of companies' services, production, and activities are knowledge based. Therefore, parts of the virtues of the classical industry society have to be reconsidered in relation to the needs and opportunities of the knowledge society. Communication technology has put time and place out of play and opened up for new opportunities for knowledge transfer. Furthermore, knowledge has become much more common as a commodity just. Also a desire to measure knowledge more explicitly than previously has surfaced. This is based on the idea that knowledge that is inherent in a company is a critical competitive parameter. The quest to make knowledge more tangible is classic thinking although it still constitutes a relevant challenge. And indeed one of the problems that companies often face with knowledge is its intangible nature. Hence, focus on the immaterial side of a company and …
JAVOBS: A Flexible Simulator for OBS Network Architectures

Since the OBS paradigm has become a potential candidate to cope with the needs of the future all optical networks, it has really caught the attention from both academia and industry worldwide. In this direction, OBS networks have been investigated under many different scenarios comprising numerous architectures and strategies. This heterogeneous context encouraged the development of various simulation tools. In this paper we present our novel Java-based OBS network simulator called JAVOBS. We discuss its architecture, study its performance and provide some exemplary results that point out its remarkable flexibility. This flexibility should permit an easy integration of upcoming new network protocol designs but also support changing and evolving research goals.
Simulations and experiments on polarization squeezing in optical fiber

We investigate polarization squeezing of ultrashort pulses in optical fiber, over a wide range of input energies and fiber lengths. Comparisons are made between experimental data and quantum dynamical simulations to find good quantitative agreement. The numerical calculations, performed using both truncated Wigner and exact +P phase-space methods, include nonlinear and stochastic Raman effects, through coupling to phonon variables. The simulations reveal that excess phase noise, such as from depolarizing guided acoustic wave Brillouin scattering, affects squeezing at low input energies, while Raman effects cause a marked deterioration of squeezing at higher energies and longer fiber lengths. We also calculate the optimum fiber length for maximum squeezing.
Inferring internet-scale infections by correlating malware and probing activities

This paper presents a new approach to infer malware-infected machines by solely analyzing their generated probing activities. In contrary to other adopted methods, the proposed approach does not rely on symptoms of infection to detect compromised machines. This allows the inference of malware infection at very early stages of contamination. The approach aims at detecting whether the machines are infected or not as well as pinpointing the exact malware type/family, if the machines were found to be compromised. The latter insights allow network security operators of diverse organizations, Internet service providers and backbone networks to promptly detect their clients' compromised machines in addition to effectively providing them with tailored anti-malware/patch solutions. To achieve the intended goals, the proposed approach exploits the darknet Internet space and employs statistical methods to infer large-scale probing activities. Subsequently, such activities are correlated with malware samples by leveraging fuzzy hashing and entropy based techniques. The proposed approach is empirically evaluated using 60 GB of real darknet traffic and 65 thousand real malware samples. The results concur that the rationale of exploiting probing activities for worldwide early malware infection detection is indeed very promising. Further, the results demonstrate that the extracted inferences exhibit noteworthy accuracy and can generate significant cyber security insights that could be used for effective mitigation.
The social patterns of a biological risk factor for disease: race, gender, socioeconomic position, and C-reactive protein.

OBJECTIVE Understand the links between race and C-reactive protein (CRP), with special attention to gender differences and the role of class and behavioral risk factors as mediators. METHOD This study utilizes the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project data, a nationally representative study of older Americans aged 57-85 to explore two research questions. First, what is the relative strength of socioeconomic versus behavioral risk factors in explaining race differences in CRP levels? Second, what role does gender play in understanding race differences? Does the relative role of socioeconomic and behavioral risk factors in explaining race differences vary when examining men and women separately? RESULTS When examining men and women separately, socioeconomic and behavioral risk factor mediators vary in their importance. Indeed, racial differences in CRP among men aged 57-74 are little changed after adjusting for both socioeconomic and behavioral risk factors with levels 35% higher for black men as compared to white men. For women aged 57-74, however, behavioral risk factors explain 30% of the relationship between race and CRP. DISCUSSION The limited explanatory power of socioeconomic position and, particularly, behavioral risk factors, in elucidating the relationship between race and CRP among men, signals the need for research to examine additional mediators, including more direct measures of stress and discrimination.
Computation and Analysis of Multiple Structural-Change Models

In a recent paper, Bai and Perron (1998) considered theoretical issues related to the limiting distribution of estimators and test statistics in the linear model with multiple structural changes. In this companion paper, we consider practical issues for the empirical applications of the procedures. We first address the problem of estimation of the break dates and present an efficient algorithm to obtain global minimizers of the sum of squared residuals. This algorithm is based on the principle of dynamic programming and requires at most least-squares operations of order O(T 2) for any number of breaks. Our method can be applied to both pure and partial structural-change models. Secondly, we consider the problem of forming confidence intervals for the break dates under various hypotheses about the structure of the data and the errors across segments. Third, we address the issue of testing for structural changes under very general conditions on the data and the errors. Fourth, we address the issue of estimating the number of breaks. We present simulation results pertaining to the behavior of the estimators and tests in finite samples. Finally, a few empirical applications are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the procedures. All methods discussed are implemented in a GAUSS program available upon request for non-profit academic use.
The End is Nigh: Generic Solving of Text-based CAPTCHAs

Over the last decade, it has become well-established that a captcha's ability to withstand automated solving lies in the difficulty of segmenting the image into individual characters. The standard approach to solving captchas automatically has been a sequential process wherein a segmentation algorithm splits the image into segments that contain individual characters, followed by a character recognition step that uses machine learning. While this approach has been effective against particular captcha schemes, its generality is limited by the segmentation step, which is hand-crafted to defeat the distortion at hand. No general algorithm is known for the character collapsing anti-segmentation technique used by most prominent real world captcha schemes. This paper introduces a novel approach to solving captchas in a single step that uses machine learning to attack the segmentation and the recognition problems simultaneously. Performing both operations jointly allows our algorithm to exploit information and context that is not available when they are done sequentially. At the same time, it removes the need for any hand-crafted component, making our approach generalize to new captcha schemes where the previous approach can not. We were able to solve all the real world captcha schemes we evaluated accurately enough to consider the scheme insecure in practice, including Yahoo (5.33%) and ReCaptcha (33.34%), without any adjustments to the algorithm or its parameters. Our success against the Baidu (38.68%) and CNN (51.09%) schemes that use occluding lines as well as character collapsing leads us to believe that our approach is able to defeat occluding lines in an equally general manner. The effectiveness and universality of our results suggests that combining segmentation and recognition is the next evolution of catpcha solving, and that it supersedes the sequential approach used in earlier works. More generally, our approach raises questions about how to develop sufficiently secure captchas in the future.
Evolution of the Hormonal Control of Animal Performance: Insights from the Seaward Migration of Salmon

Synopsis The endocrine system is the key mediator of environmental and developmental (internal) information, and is likely to be involved in altering the performance of animals when selection has favored phenotypic plasticity. The endocrine control of performance should be especially pronounced in animals that undergo a developmental shift in niche, such as occurs in migratory species. By way of example, I review the developmental and environmental control of the preparatory changes for seawater entry of juvenile salmon (known as smolting) and its hormonal regulation. There is a size threshold for smolt development in juvenile Atlantic salmon that results in greater sensitivity of the growth hormone and cortisol axes to changes in daylength. These hormones, in turn, have broad effects on survival, ion homeostasis, growth and swimming performance during entry into seawater. Migratory niche shifts and metamorphic events are extreme examples of the role of hormones in animal performance and represent one end of a continuum. A framework for predicting when hormones will be involved in performance of animals is presented. Endocrine involvement in performance will be more substantial when (1) selection differentials on traits underlying performance are high and temporally discontinuous over an animal's lifetime, (2) the energetic and fitness costs of maintaining performance plasticity are less than those of constant performance, (3) cues for altering performance are reliable indicators of critical environmental conditions, require neurosensory input, and minimize effects of lag, and (4) the need for coordination of organs, tissues and cells to achieve increased performance is greater. By examining these impacts of selection, endocrinologists have an opportunity to contribute to the understanding of performance, phenotypic plasticity, and the evolution of life-history traits. Introduction: hormones as integrators of developmental and environmental change The neuroendocrine system is a key mediator of environmental and developmental information in most complex organisms (Scharrer and Scharrer 1963). It has the capacity to ''sense'' and interpret internal conditions such as energetic state or developmental stage, external changes such as daylength, temperature, or salinity, integrate these cues, and communicate them to all parts of the body to bring about coordinated, tissue-specific responses. The resulting biochemical, physiological, morphological , and behavioral changes can have a profound impact on the performance of animals, and ultimately on the survival and reproductive capacity of an organism. The complex attributes of the endo-crine system and their control of performance have likely been shaped by a long evolutionary history, and unraveling the …
RAF265 Inhibits the Growth of Advanced Human Melanoma Tumors

Purpose: The purpose of this preclinical study was to determine the effectiveness of RAF265, a multikinase inhibitor, for treatment of human metastatic melanoma and to characterize traits associated with drug response. Experimental Design: Advanced metastatic melanoma tumors from 34 patients were orthotopically implanted to nude mice. Tumors that grew in mice (17 of 34) were evaluated for response to RAF265 (40 mg/kg, every day) over 30 days. The relation between patient characteristics, gene mutation profile, global gene expression profile, and RAF265 effects on tumor growth, mitogen-activated protein/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation, proliferation, and apoptosis markers was evaluated. Results: Nine of the 17 tumors that successfully implanted (53%) were mutant BRAF (BRAFV600E/K), whereas eight of 17 (47%) tumors were BRAF wild type (BRAFWT). Tumor implants from 7 of 17 patients (41%) responded to RAF265 treatment with more than 50% reduction in tumor growth. Five of the 7 (71%) responders were BRAFWT, of which 1 carried c-KITL576P and another N-RASQ61R mutation, while only 2 (29%) of the responding tumors were BRAFV600E/K. Gene expression microarray data from nonimplanted tumors revealed that responders exhibited enriched expression of genes involved in cell growth, proliferation, development, cell signaling, gene expression, and cancer pathways. Although response to RAF265 did not correlate with pERK1/2 reduction, RAF265 responders did exhibit reduced pMEK1, reduced proliferation based upon reduced Ki-67, cyclin D1 and polo-like kinase1 levels, and induction of the apoptosis mediator BCL2-like 11. Conclusions: Orthotopic implants of patient tumors in mice may predict prognosis and treatment response for melanoma patients. A subpopulation of human melanoma tumors responds to RAF265 and can be characterized by gene mutation and gene expression profiles. Clin Cancer Res; 18(8); 2184–98. ©2012 AACR.
Double-Blind Comparison of Survival Analysis Models Using a Bespoke Web System

The aim of this study was to carry out a comparison of different linear and non-linear models from different centres on a common dataset in a double-blind manner to eliminate bias. The dataset was shared over the Internet using a secure bespoke environment called geoconda. Models evaluated included: (1) Cox model, (2) Log Normal model, (3) Partial Logistic Spline, (4) Partial Logistic Artificial Neural Network and (5) Radial Basis Function Networks. Graphical analysis of the various models with the Kaplan-Meier values were carried out in 3 survival groups in the test set classified according to the TNM staging system. The discrimination value for each model was determined using the area under the ROC curve. Results showed that the Cox model tended towards optimism whereas the partial logistic Neural Networks showed slight pessimism
The Role of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in the Management of Locally Advanced Cervix Cancer: A Systematic Review

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for patients with locally advanced cervix cancer has comparable benefits to concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT), but with fewer side effects. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of the benefits of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for the management of locally advanced cervix cancer from stage IB2 (tumor >4.0 cm) to IIIB (tumor extending to the pelvic wall and/or hydronephrosis). Our primary objective was to assess benefits in terms of survival. The data source included the USA national library of medicine, Medline search, and the National Cancer Institute PDQ Clinical Protocols. Inclusion criteria for consideration in the current systematic review included studies published between January 1997 and December 2012. In terms of histology, they had to be focused on squamous cell carcinoma, adenosquamous carcinoma, and/or adenocarcinoma. Patients should be either chemotherapy naïve or cervix cancer chemotherapy naïve, and have a performance status ≤2. The search in the above-mentioned scientific websites led to identify 49 publications, 19 of which were excluded, as they did not meet the inclusion criteria of this systematic review. Therefore only 30 studies were deemed eligible. Data was collected from 1760 patients enrolled in the current systematic review study. The mean age was 45.2 years. The mean tumor size was 4.7 cm. The most commonly used chemotherapies were cisplatin doublets. Paclitaxel was the most commonly used chemotherapeutic agent in the doublets. The mean chemotherapy cycles were 2.7. After chemotherapy, patients underwent surgery after a mean time of 2.5 weeks. The standard operation was radical hysterectomy with pelvic lymphadenectomy. Chemotherapy achieved an objective response rate of 84%. The 5-year progression-free survival and overall survival were 61.9% and 72.8% respectively. The treatment protocol was associated with a mild early toxicity profile. Leucopenia and neutropenia were the most common side effects. Late toxicity was also generally mild and mainly associated with bladder dysfunction and vaginal dehiscence. The quality of the studies was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment scale. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy achieved comparable survival results to CCRT, and was associated with less toxicity.
From Factor of Production to Autonomous Industry: The Transformation of Germany's Software Sector

In recent months the German software industry has gained extensive public prominence for manifesting a phenomenon not seen on this scale in Germany for decades: a dire labor shortage. As even the general public has been made aware by the Bundnis fur Arbeit, Germany’s information technology (IT) industries currently suffer a shortfall of about 75,000 software specialists.1 However, the focus of this article is not on the labor problems, but on the comparative characteristics of Germany’s software industry. Difficult though it is to delimit the exact boundaries and segments of the software industry in an age of widespread technological convergence and digitalization, what follows is an attempt to assess the comparative national profile of Germany’s software sector in three ways: first, by looking at the business segments that German software firms specialize in; second, by examining the nature of their various business strategies; and third, by considering the components of Germany’s “national system of innovation” in regard to software: education and training, government policy, and organized interest formations. All three aspects of the German software industry are in a state of rapid transformation, as reflected in the current German high-tech boom and the growth of the Neuer Markt. Hence the following characterization of the German software sector is very much that of an industry in transition. Wenngleich es heutzutage im Zeitalter der technologischen Konvergenz und Digitalisierung schwer ist, die Grenzen der Softwareindustrie genau festzulegen, soll im vorliegenden Beitrag versucht werden, das Profil des deutschen Softwaresektors unter drei verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten zu bestimmen: (1) hinsichtlich der Geschaftsfelder, auf die sich deutsche Softwarefirmen vornehmlich spezialisieren; (2) hinsichtlich der verschiedenen Unternehmensmodelle und -strategien im Softwaresektor, und (3) hinsichtlich der Komponenten des "nationalen Innovationssystems" im Bereich der Softwareproduktion. Diese drei Aspekte der deutschen Softwareindustrie befinden sich in einem rapiden Umwandlungsprozess. Daher beschreibt die folgende Charakterisierung des deutschen Softwaresektors durchaus eine Industrie im Ubergang.
The model companion of the theory of commutative rings without nilpotent elements

We show that the theory of commutative rings without nilpotent elements has a model companion. The model companion is decidable and is the model completion of the theory of commutative regular rings. Recall that a theory K is model-complete if for any model M of K, KUD(M) is complete, where D(M) denotes the diagram of M. A natural generalization of this notion is that of a model completion. We say that K' is a model completion of K if K' extends K and, for any model M of K, K'UD(M) is consistent and complete (see [5]). For example the theory of algebraically closed fields is a model completion of the theory of fields and the theory of real closed fields is a model completion of the theory of ordered fields. A further generalization is the idea of a model companion. We say that K and K' are mutually model consistent if every model of K can be embedded in a model of K' and vice versa. K' is a model companion of K if K and K' are mutually model consistent and K' is model-complete. Model completions and model companions (when they exist) are unique. For this and other elementary properties see [5] and [6]. In everything that follows we shall use the word ring to mean ring with identity. We call a ring R regular (in the sense of von Neumann) if for any x e R there exists y e R such that xyx=x. (A good general reference for the algebra relevant to this paper is [3].) Notice that in any commutative ring the set of idempotents forms a Boolean algebra under the operations euf=e+f-ef, enf=ef. Hence when we say that e is a subidempotent off we mean that ef=e (i.e. enf=e). e is a minimal idempotent if ef=f implies thatf is either e or 0. We shall say that a quantifierfree formula ? p(a1, . , an) holds on an idempotent e of a ring R if the formula obtained from ? p by multiplying every term in ? p by e holds in R. Received by the editors February 25, 1972 and, in revised form, July 28, 1972. AMS (MOS) subject classifications (1970). Primary 02H05, 02H99; Secondary 02G05, 02G20.