Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toward a Unified View of Customer Relationship Management

Competitions in the new economy have caused major changes in business strategies from internal product focus to value creation along the demand and supply chains. Companies are extending their operational and decision structures to include those of their customers, suppliers, distributors, and alliance partners. Product-centric strategies are replaced by customer-centric strategies that facilitate value creation. Focuses on transactional efficiency are replaced by new requirements to integrate and optimize the value chains between the customer, the firm and its extended enterprise. Disparate business processes and systems, compounded by the proliferation of customer contact points and channels, have created incompatible and disconnected views of customers. The inability to synchronize information and processes across various customer touch points may result in negative customer experience and lost opportunities for the firm. Disconnections between CRM operations and CRM analytics can negatively impact marketing effectiveness, customer retention and loyalty. Lessons learned from past CRM implementations have provided guidance pointing to integrated strategies that not only include technologies, but also include business processes, information and organizations. Forward looking CRM strategies can leverage customer intelligence created by CRM analytics that enhances CRM operations, and conversely, CRM operations collect critical customer data for CRM analytics. To attain optimization of CRM performance, metrics need to be defined across the enterprise driven by customer-centric goals. For customer relationship management to take to the new level of value creation, businesses require a strategy that creates a unified view of customers from the perspectives of operations, analytics and collaboration along the entire customer relationship management value chain. This paper proposes an integrated framework for CRM through the construct of the enterprise model.
23 High Redshift Supernovae from the IfA Deep Survey: Doubling the SN Sample at z>0.7

We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of 23 high redshift supernovae spanning a range of z=0.34-1.03, 9 of which are unambiguously classified as Type Ia. These supernovae were discovered during the IfA Deep Survey, which began in September 2001 and observed a total of 2.5 square degrees to a depth of approximately m=25-26 in RIZ over 9-17 visits, typically every 1-3 weeks for nearly 5 months, with additional observations continuing until April 2002. We give a brief description of the survey motivations, observational strategy, and reduction process. This sample of 23 high-redshift supernovae includes 15 at z>0.7, doubling the published number of objects at these redshifts, and indicates that the evidence for acceleration of the universe is not due to a systematic effect proportional to redshift. In combination with the recent compilation of Tonry et al. (2003), we calculate cosmological parameter density contours which are consistent with the flat universe indicated by the CMB (Spergel et al. 2003). Adopting the constraint that Omega_total = 1.0, we obtain best-fit values of (Omega_m, Omega_Lambda)=(0.33, 0.67) using 22 SNe from this survey augmented by the literature compilation. We show that using the empty-beam model for gravitational lensing does not eliminate the need for Omega_Lambda > 0. Experience from this survey indicates great potential for similar large-scale surveys while also revealing the limitations of performing surveys for z>1 SNe from the ground.
Exchange Rate Behaviour of East European Transitional Economies

Eastern European countries, which are candidates for accord into the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and the eventual move towards Euro, fi nd exchange rate management a tedious challenge. This paper examines the underlying factors that move exchange rates and helps us to contribute towards streamlining policies and strategies in moving these countries forward. The new fi ndings on exchange rate determinants for this group of transitional economies are based on parity factors as well as non-parity factor effects. The evidence that emerges from this paper is that non-parity factors including economic growth rate, current account and capital fl ows are signifi cantly correlated with exchange rates. The results are robust whichever data set is used, high-frequency and low-frequency data sets.
CoFold: an RNA secondary structure prediction method that takes co-transcriptional folding into account

Existing state-of-the-art methods that take a single RNA sequence and predict the corresponding RNA secondary structure are thermodynamic methods. These aim to predict the most stable RNA structure. There exists by now ample experimental and theoretical evidence that the process of structure formation matters and that sequences in vivo fold while they are being transcribed. None of the thermodynamic methods, however, consider the process of structure formation. Here, we present a conceptually new method for predicting RNA secondary structure, called CoFold, that takes effects of co-transcriptional folding explicitly into account. Our method significantly improves the state-of-art in terms of prediction accuracy, especially for long sequences of >1000 nt in length.
Exchange Rate Movements in a Dollarized Economy: The Case of Cambodia

There has been an ongoing debate on whether dollarization helps stabilize exchange rates for emerging economies. This paper discusses this issue in a highly dollarized country, Cambodia, by empirically examining the relationship between dollarization and exchange rate movements. The GARCH analysis suggests that dollarization induces the depreciation of the Cambodian riel as well as intensifies exchange rate variability. The result is consistent with the argument that dollarization is one of the crucial causes of exchange rate instability. Dollarization in Cambodia could be a constraint on poverty reduction since it tends to affect the living standard of the poor who earn the income in the riel through the depreciation of the currency and intensified volatility of exchange rates.
ÖĞRETMENLERİN ÖĞRENCİ KONTROL İDEOLOJİLERİ

The student control strategies of principal and teachers determine the tone of the quality of life in schools. The purpose of this study was to examine the classroom teachers? student control ideology as perceived by teachers in Turkish public elementary schools. Data were collected from 300 teachers in 30 Turkish public elementary schools via questionnaires and demographical information forms. Frequency tables and t-test technique were employed to analyze the data. The result of the study indicate that teachers? student control strategies differ in terms of their gender, year of teaching, the school which they graduated, professional seniority and the number of students in their classroom. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that teachers use the humanist or custodial control ideology depending on their student behavior characteristics. The paper concludes some recommendations for further study and practice.
Export Destinations and Learning-by-Exporting: Evidence from Belgium

This paper evaluates the causal effects of exports to different destination countries using a comprehensive dataset on Belgian manufacturing firms from 1998 to 2005. Initial evidence suggests that, before export market entry, exporters to more developed economies have superior productivity levels than non-exporters and firms exporting to less developed countries. Moreover, they seem to experience higher productivity growth rates in the post-entry period, suggesting learning-by-exporting effects. However, applying matching methodology to formally evaluate the causal effects of export market entry on productivity reveals no such impact. Thus, the productivity advantage of firms exporting to developed countries appears to be driven solely by self-selection.
Dehumanization: An Integrative Review

The concept of dehumanization lacks a systematic theoretical basis, and research that addresses it has yet to be integrated. Manifestations and theories of dehumanization are reviewed, and a new model is developed. Two forms of dehumanization are proposed, involving the denial to others of 2 distinct senses of humanness: characteristics that are uniquely human and those that constitute human nature. Denying uniquely human attributes to others represents them as animal-like, and denying human nature to others represents them as objects or automata. Cognitive underpinnings of the “animalistic” and “mechanistic” forms of dehumanization are proposed. An expanded sense of dehumanization emerges, in which the phenomenon is not unitary, is not restricted to the intergroup context, and does not occur only under conditions of conflict or extreme negative evaluation. Instead, dehumanization becomes an everyday social phenomenon, rooted in ordinary social-cognitive processes.
Optimized coupled band-pass filters

In this paper we compare two versions of fourth-order band-pass (BP) filter section realized as coupled structure, having negative feedback around two Biquadratic sections in cascade, usually designated as Biquartic section (i.e. it is the fourth-order band-pass section). The frequency response of a filter is subject to vary from the nominal values due to the effects of aging, changing working conditions, the fabrication tolerances of passive and active elements, etc. In order to maintain the filter's characteristics inside given specifications at the time of manufacture, and as long as possible, the main requirement is to design filters with reduced sensitivity to component tolerances. The Biquartic section has significantly reduced sensitivities to the changes of passive element values, particularly within the pass band, in comparison to common cascade design. For that purpose this structure is very suitable for use as a building block of narrow band, high order BP filters. The sensitivities are further reduced by using three-amplifier biquadratic block instead of more sensitive single-amplifier block. We investigated the sensitivities of two versions of biquartic section with two extreme combinations of second-order sections q-factor values, using Schoeffler's measure, the dynamic range, and output thermal noise using analysis in PSpice. Biquartic sections used throughout the examples are realized as reduced amplifier version retaining the low sensitivities of biquartic design. They also possess simple tuning features and simple design; design equations are given.
Different gDNA Content in the Subpopulations of Prostate Cancer Extracellular Vesicles: Apoptotic Bodies, Microvesicles, and Exosomes

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell‐derived membrane vesicles. EVs contain several RNAs such as mRNA, microRNAs, and ncRNAs, but less is known of their genomic DNA (gDNA) content. It is also unknown whether the DNA cargo is randomly sorted or if it is systematically packed into specific EV subpopulations. The aim of this study was to analyze whether different prostate cancer (PCa) cell‐derived EV subpopulations (apoptotic bodies, microvesicles, and exosomes) carry different gDNA fragments.
Assessment in secondary schools : the new teacher's guide to monitoring, assessment, recording, reporting and accountability

IntroductionPart one: Assessment and learning:the classroom contextThe role of assessment in teaching and learningAssessment and planningAssessment in the classroomWays of responding to pupils' written and practical workPart two: Managing assessment:the school contextSchool policies and proceduresRecord keeping and reportingPart three: Assessment:the wider contextAssessment, accountability and standardsRecent developments in testing and examinationsReferencesIndex.
Endogenous Growth with a Limited Fossil Fuel Extraction Capacity

Campbell (1980) and following authors have discussed a limited resource extraction capacity as an augmentation of the well-known Hotelling model. We integrate a limited extraction capacity and related investments in the endogenous growth model of Tsur and Zemel (2005) to study its effect on economic development. The capacity constraint gives rise to three effects. On the one hand, higher energy costs and the reallocation of production towards capacity investments decrease production available for consumption, research and/or capital investments (energy costs and reallocation effect). On the other hand, research investments may increase, which boosts available production (research effect). Depending on the capital endowment and the strength of the effects, long-run consumption may be boosted or depressed. In particular, the capacity constraint may render everlasting consumption growth non-optimal in a resource-rich economy. Furthermore, we find that capacity investments may be postponed to later points in time if the capital endowment is high.
Not All Events are Attended Equally: Toward a Middle-Range Theory of Industry Attention to External Events

This paper builds on prior theory and research on attention and identity to examine whether and how industries publicly attend to external events. Events are critical triggers of institutional transformation and industry evolution. However, they must first become the focus of public attention to have this effect. We draw on a paired case comparison of media coverage of eight nonroutine events affecting the natural environment and the U.S. chemical industry. We employ both deductive and inductive analysis to develop a model and hypotheses to explain two research questions. First, what determines the initial public attention to an event? Second, when and why do certain events attain high and sustained levels of industry attention? A key inference is that whether an event receives industry-level attention depends on either outsiders holding the industry accountable for the event, or insiders' internal concerns with the industry image. We further infer that an event can be transformed into a critical issue for an industry, warranting sustained attention, if there is contestation with outsiders over the accountability for the event and its enactment, and internal contradictions and challenges to the industry's identity.
Efficient Margin Adaptive Scheduling for MIMO-OFDMA Systems

In this paper we address the problem of margin adaptive scheduling in the downlink of an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. Optimal resource allocation in MIMO systems requires the joint optimization of: a) linear transmit and receive spatial filters, b) channel assignment and c) power allocation. This problem is not convex and its complexity becomes thus intractable already for small sets of users and subcarriers. To reduce the complexity of the problem at hand, we propose a novel heuristic strategy that partitions the users in different groups according to their average channel quality and addresses the original problem by solving a succession of lower-complexity allocation problems. The spatial dimension is employed to prevent multiple access interference from hindering the performance of the sequential allocation. To further reduce the complexity burden we introduce a linear programming formulation in combination with a waterfilling-based strategy to allocate channels and power to the groups of users. Numerical results and evaluation of the computational complexity show that, though suboptimal, in most cases the proposed algorithm manages to exploit in an original way the inherent multi-user diversity of multi-carrier systems to ease the task of resource allocation with a very limited performance loss from the theoretic optimum.
Rapid Color Grading for Fruit Quality Evaluation Using Direct Color Mapping

Color grading is a crucial step in the processing of fruits and vegetables that directly affects profitability, because the quality of agricultural products is often associated with their color. Most existing automatic color grading systems determine color quality either by directly comparing product color against a predefined and fixed set of reference colors or by using a set of color separating parameters, often in three-dimensional color spaces. Using these methods, it is not convenient for the user to adjust color preferences or grading parameters. In this paper, we present an effective and user-friendly color mapping concept for automated color grading that is well suited for commercial production. User friendliness is often viewed by the industry as a very important factor to the acceptance and success of automation equipment. This color mapping method uses preselected colors of interest specific to a given application to calculate a unique set of coefficients for color space conversion. The three-dimensional RGB color space is converted into a small set of color indices unique to the application. In contrast with more complex color grading techniques, the proposed method makes it easy for a human operator to specify and adjust color-preference settings Tomato and date maturity evaluation and date surface defect detection are used to demonstrate the performance of this novel color mapping concept.
Title : Neocortical inhibitory activities and long-range afferents contribute to the synchronous 1 onset of silent states of the neocortical slow oscillation 2 Abbreviated title : Inhibitory activities in the silent state onset 3 Authors :

13 During slow-wave sleep, neurons of the thalamocortical network are engaged in a slow 14 oscillation (<1 Hz), which consists of an alternation between the active and the silent states. 15 Several studies have provided insights on the transition from the silent, which are essentially 16 periods of disfacilitation, to the active states. However, the conditions leading to the synchronous 17 onset of the silent state remain elusive. We hypothesized that a synchronous input to local 18 inhibitory neurons could contribute to the transition to the silent state in the cat suprasylvian 19 gyrus during natural sleep and under ketamine-xylazine anesthesia. After partial and complete 20 deafferentation of the cortex, we found that the silent state onset was more variable among 21 remote sites. We found that the transition to the silent state was preceded by a reduction in 22 excitatory postsynaptic potentials and firing probability in cortical neurons. We tested the impact 23 of chloride-mediated inhibition in the silent state onset. We uncovered a long duration (100-300 24 ms) inhibitory barrage occurring about 250 ms prior to the silent state onset in 3-6% of neurons 25 during anesthesia and in 12-15% of cases during natural sleep. This inhibitory activities caused a 26 decrease in cortical firing that reduced the excitatory drive in the neocortical network. That chain 27 reaction of disfacilitation ends up on the silent state. Electrical stimuli could trigger a network 28 silent state with a maximal efficacy in deep cortical layers. We conclude that long-range 29 afferents to the neocortex and chloride-mediated inhibition plays a role in the initiation of the 30 silent state.
Extremely Low-Frequency Magnetic Exposure Appears to Have No Effect on Pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease in Aluminum-Overloaded Rat

Objective Extremely low-frequency magnetic field (ELF-MF) has been reported to be of potential pathogenetic relevance to Alzheimer's disease (AD) for years. However, evidence confirming this function remains inconclusive. Chronic Al treatment has been identified as a contributing factor to cognitive function impairment in AD. This study aims to examine whether or not ELF-MF and Al have synergistic effects toward AD pathogenesis by investigating the effects of ELF-MF with or without chronic Al treatment on SD rats. Methods Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were subjected one of the following treatments: sham (control group), oral Al (Al group), ELF-MF (100 µT at 50 Hz) with oral Al (MF+Al group), or ELF-MF (100 µT at 50 Hz) without oral Al (MF group). Results After 12 wk of treatment, oral Al treatment groups (Al and MF+Al groups) showed learning and memory impairment as well as morphological hallmarks, including neuronal cell loss and high density of amyloid-β (Aβ) in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex. ELF-MF without Al treatment showed no significant effect on AD pathogenesis. ELF-MF+Al treatment induced no more damage than Al treatment did. Conclusions Our results showed no evidence of any association between ELF-MF exposure (100 µT at 50 Hz) and AD, and ELF-MF exposure does not influence the pathogenesis of AD induced by Al overload.
A Study of Special Preparation and Training Needs of Middle School Teachers

An abstract of the dissertation of Marilyn Seger for the Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership: Administration and Supervision presented May 1, 1995. Title: A Study of Special Preparation and Training Needs of Middle School Teachers The concept of middle level schooling has existed in the United States since the early 1900s. During the early 1960s, middle level schools were organized to meet the unique developmental needs of early adolescents. Yet, special training, preparation and/or certification for aspiring teachers who wish to work at this level is not available in the majority of states. Many state licensing agencies p~ovide either elementary or secondary certification, which historically was believed to be adequate for middle level teaching. This study investigates the special preparation and training needs of middle level teachers as perceived by teachers and administrators in a suburban school district which was involved for several years in the implementation of innovative practices for middle schools. Middle level educators in this district had received inservice training and were engaged in considerable discussions on research related to effective middle schools. Thirty teachers and 10 administrators were surveyed about their own levels of preparation and their concepts of the elements of model preparation programs for middle school teachers. In a follow-up interview process, including a sample of the survey respondents, interviewees discussed in-depth their district's middle school programs; the impact of a state grant focusing on middle school organizational and instructional issues; and their perceptions about staff development needs of middle school personnel that were not being addressed. The data obtained through survey responses, interviews, and examination of district documents showed that the majority of the sample personnel received their training in middle school concept areas through formal inservice opportunities and/or on the job experience. Furthermore, a majority of the participants endorsed and expressed a need for the following: a special preparation program for middle school teachers containing field experience at the middle level; training in the unique developmental needs of the early adolescent; and, special training in a variety of instructional strategies. Results also indicated that the sample personnel were not aware of the school district'R own studies on middle level schooling and were dissatisfied with the current programs, which they felt had suffered as a result of a lack of effective leadership at the district and building levels.