Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toward E-Knowledge Based Complaint Management

Service failure and recovery is a well-established area of services research. Research has shown that service recovery is critically important from a managerial perspective in terms of maintaining customer relationships. Yet few firms excel at handling service failures. There is a growing number of managers who claim that customers tend to be dissatisfied with their service recovery effort. Their employees cannot improve service processes when they experience recovery situations and their companies still do not learn from service failure. [19] attribute the service recovery ineffectiveness to the competing interests of managing employees, customers and processes. We agree with their contention that to address these criticisms, complaint management must acknowledge and find new approaches to achieve consistency and to correct the misalignment of interests that can exist between the actions of the organisation and the needs of its customers and employees. We believe that search in the customer knowledge management literature represents one effective means to enhance a firm ability to implement a cohesive service recovery strategy. A comprehensive based knowledge creation system framework where the Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization (SECI) modes, and various ‘ba’ proposed by Nonaka and Konno are introduced for complaint management. Empirical research, involving a case study is presented to illustrate the proposed framework. This framework is believed to pave the way for e-knowledge based complaint management.
Conditional Associative Memory for Musical Stimuli in Nonmusicians: Implications for Absolute Pitch

A previous positron emission tomography (PET) study of musicians with and without absolute pitch put forth the hypothesis that the posterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in the conditional associative aspect of the identification of a pitch. In the work presented here, we tested this hypothesis by training eight nonmusicians to associate each of four different complex musical sounds (triad chords) with an arbitrary number in a task designed to have limited analogy to absolute-pitch identification. Each subject under-went a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning procedure both before and after training. Active condition (identification of chords)- control condition (amplitude-matched noise bursts) comparisons for the pretraining scan showed no significant activation maxima. The same comparison for the posttraining scan revealed significant peaks of activation in posterior dorsolateral prefrontal, ventrolateral prefrontal, and parietal areas. A conjunction analysis was performed to show that the posterior dorsolateral prefrontal activity in this study is similar to that observed in the aforementioned PET study. We conclude that the posterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is selectively involved in the conditional association aspect of our task, as it is in the attribution of a verbal label to a note by absolute-pitch musicians.
Western Pacific Tropical Cyclogenesis Precursors

The basic ingredients for tropical cyclogenesis have been well established: a sufficiently deep warm ocean layer, low-level cyclonic vorticity, weak vertical wind shear, and deep moist convection (e. et al. 2008) have attributed cyclogenesis to a variety of low-level precursor systems that enhance one or more of these ingredients. These studies have traditionally focused on features such as the monsoon trough, monsoon gyres, Rossby dispersion from preexisting tropical cyclones, and tropical depression (TD)-type disturbances, sometimes referred to as easterly waves. Recently, significant research has been focused on convectively coupled equatorial waves (Kiladis et al. 2009). These waves include mixed Rossby–gravity (MRG) waves, equatorial Rossby (ER) waves, Kelvin waves, and the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO; Zhang 2005). For simplicity, the MJO will also be referred to as an equatorial wave because it consists of forced equatorial waves (Gill 1980). Equatorial waves appear to play a major role in modulating tropical weather, including influencing fraction of western Pacific tropical cyclones that may be attributed to equatorial waves has not been established. These traditional and equatorial wave approaches to western Pacific tropical cyclogenesis have largely ignored one another. For example, studies using the traditional approach indicated that the monsoon trough is responsible for roughly 70% of western but equatorial wave studies rarely discussed the monsoon trough. On the other hand, studies using the traditional approach barely mentioned the MJO, which was found to significantly modulate cyclogenesis in the equatorial wave studies (e.g., Liebmann et al. 1994). The proposed research will systematically determine which storms may be attributed to equatorial waves and then compare these results to traditional cyclogenesis attribution studies (e.g., Ritchie and Holland 1999; Fu et al. 2007; Lee et al. 2008). The 2 ultimate goal is to develop a more complete understanding of tropical cyclogenesis in the western Pacific by comparing both approaches and searching for common ground. a. Traditional precursors Gray (1968) identified the western Pacific monsoon trough as a climatologically favorable location for cyclogenesis because it provides low-level cyclonic vorticity and weak vertical shear. The eastern end of the monsoon trough is particularly favorable for cyclogenesis because the confluence of monsoon westerlies with trade easterlies can induce wave accumulation (Holland 1995; Sobel and Bretherton 1999). Westward propagating disturbances from the central Pacific can grow in the confluence region to form tropical cyclones. Tropical cyclogenesis in the monsoon confluence region may be modulated by easterly waves (Ritchie and Holland 1999), and …
Private Wage Returns to Schooling in Nigeria: 1996-1999

In the last two decades, primary and secondary school enrollment rates have declined in Nigeria while enrollment rates in post-secondary school have increased. This paper estimates from the General Household Survey for Nigeria the private returns to schooling associated with levels of educational attainment for wage and self-employed workers. The estimates for both men and women are small at primary and secondary levels, 2 to 4 percent, but are substantial at post-secondary education level, 10-15 percent. These schooling return estimates may account for the recent trends in enrollments. Thus, increasing public investment to encourage increased attendance in basic education is not justifiable on grounds of private efficiency, unless investments to increase school quality have higher private returns. With high private returns to post-secondary schooling, students at this level should pay tuition, to recoup more of the public costs of schooling, which may be redistributed to poor families through scholarships.
Imagery May Arise from Associations Formed through Sensory Experience: A Network of Spiking Neurons Controlling a Robot Learns Visual Sequences in Order to Perform a Mental Rotation Task

Mental imagery occurs “when a representation of the type created during the initial phases of perception is present but the stimulus is not actually being perceived. ” How does the capability to perform mental imagery arise? Extending the idea that imagery arises from learned associations, we propose that mental rotation, a specific form of imagery, could arise through the mechanism of sequence learning–that is, by learning to regenerate the sequence of mental images perceived while passively observing a rotating object. To demonstrate the feasibility of this proposal, we constructed a simulated nervous system and embedded it within a behaving humanoid robot. By observing a rotating object, the system learns the sequence of neural activity patterns generated by the visual system in response to the object. After learning, it can internally regenerate a similar sequence of neural activations upon briefly viewing the static object. This system learns to perform a mental rotation task in which the subject must determine whether two objects are identical despite differences in orientation. As with human subjects, the time taken to respond is proportional to the angular difference between the two stimuli. Moreover, as reported in humans, the system fills in intermediate angles during the task, and this putative mental rotation activates the same pathways that are activated when the system views physical rotation. This work supports the proposal that mental rotation arises through sequence learning and the idea that mental imagery aids perception through learned associations, and suggests testable predictions for biological experiments.
Modulation of adult-born neurons in the inflamed hippocampus

Throughout life new neurons are continuously added to the hippocampal circuitry involved with spatial learning and memory. These new cells originate from neural precursors in the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus, migrate into the granule cell layer, and integrate into neural networks encoding spatial and contextual information. This process can be influenced by several environmental and endogenous factors and is modified in different animal models of neurological disorders. Neuroinflammation, as defined by the presence of activated microglia, is a common key factor to the progression of neurological disorders. Analysis of the literature shows that microglial activation impacts not only the production, but also the migration and the recruitment of new neurons. The impact of microglia on adult-born neurons appears much more multifaceted than ever envisioned before, combining both supportive and detrimental effects that are dependent upon the activation phenotype and the factors being released. The development of strategies aimed to change microglia toward states that promote functional neurogenesis could therefore offer novel therapeutic opportunities against neurological disorders associated with cognitive deficits and neuroinflammation. The present review summarizes the current knowledge on how production, distribution, and recruitment of new neurons into behaviorally relevant neural networks are modified in the inflamed hippocampus.
Factors influencing foreign direct investment and international joint ventures: A comparative study of Northern Ireland and Bahrain

Inward foreign direct investment (FDI) is regarded as an important means of employment and knowledge creation in many economies. This study investigates the motivations and satisfaction levels associated with FDI in two economies that are increasingly recognising the benefits of inward investment: Northern Ireland and Bahrain. Although different in may respects, these two regions share similar economic and political characteristics and this study compares the perceptions of the managing directors of foreign companies who have chosen to invest in either of the two regions. It reports that many expected findings were borne out by the study but also highlights pertinent findings that were not anticipated and accordingly that may be of interest to government bodies charged with the responsibility of attracting inward investment.
Estimation and Inference under Weak IdentiÂ cation and Persistence: An Application on Forecast-Based Monetary Policy Reaction Function

The reaction coefficients of expected inflations and output gaps in the forecast-based monetary policy reaction function may be merely weakly Â identified when the smoothing coefficient is close to unity and the nominal interest rates are highly persistent. In this paper we modify the method of Andrews and Cheng (2012, Econometrica)on inference under weak / semi-strong identification to accommodate the persistence issue. Our modification involves the employment of asymptotic theories for near unit root processes and novel drifting sequence approaches. Large sample properties with a desired smooth transition with respect to the true values of parameters are developed for the nonlinear least squares (NLS) estimator and its corresponding t / Wald statistics of a general class of models. Despite the not-consistent-estimability, the conservative confidence sets of weakly-identified parameters of interest can be obtained by inverting the t / Wald tests. We show that the null-imposed least-favorable confidence sets will have correct asymptotic sizes, and the projection-based method may lead to asymptotic over-coverage. Our empirical application suggests that the NLS estimates for the reaction coefficients in U.S.Âs forecast-based monetary policy reaction function for 1987:3Â2007:4 are not accurate sufficiently to rule out the possibility of indeterminacy.
Misfolded Proteins Are Competent to Mediate a Subset of the Responses to Heat Shock in Saccharomyces cerevisiae * 210

Cells may sense heat shock via the accumulation of thermally misfolded proteins. To explore this possibility, we determined the effect of protein misfolding on gene expression in the absence of temperature changes. The imino acid analog azetidine-2-carboxylic acid (AZC) is incorporated into protein competitively with proline and causes reduced thermal stability or misfolding. We found that adding AZC to yeast at sublethal concentrations sufficient to arrest proliferation selectively induced expression of heat shock factor-regulated genes to a maximum of 27-fold and that these inductions were dependent on heat shock factor. AZC treatment also selectively repressed expression of the ribosomal protein genes, another heat shock factor-dependent process, to a maximum of 20-fold. AZC treatment thus strongly and selectively activates heat shock factor. AZC treatment causes this activation by misfolding proteins. Induction of HSP42 by AZC treatment required protein synthesis; treatment with ethanol, which can also misfold proteins, activated heat shock factor, but treatment with canavanine, an arginine analog less potent than AZC at misfolding proteins, did not. However, misfolded proteins did not strongly induce the stress response element regulon. We conclude that misfolded proteins are competent to specifically trigger activation of heat shock factor in response to heat shock.
Lipid Self-Assemblies and Nanostructured Emulsions for Cosmetic Formulations

A majority of cosmetic products that we encounter on daily basis contain lipid constituents in solubilized or insolubilized forms. Due to their amphiphilic nature, the lipid molecules spontaneously self-assemble into a remarkable range of nanostructures when mixed with water. This review illustrates the formation and finely tunable properties of self-assembled lipid nanostructures and their hierarchically organized derivatives, as well as their relevance to the development of cosmetic formulations. These lipid systems can be modulated into various physical forms suitable for topical administration including fluids, gels, creams, pastes and dehydrated films. Moreover, they are capable of encapsulating hydrophilic, hydrophobic as well as amphiphilic active ingredients owing to their special morphological characters. Nano-hybrid materials with more elegant properties can be designed by combining nanostructured lipid systems with other nanomaterials including a hydrogelator, silica nanoparticles, clays and carbon nanomaterials. The smart materials reviewed here may well be the future of innovative cosmetic applications.
Towards Self-Aware Performance and Resource Management in Modern Service-Oriented Systems

Modern service-oriented systems have increasingly complex loosely-coupled architectures that often exhibit poor performance and resource efficiency and have high operating costs. This is due to the inability to predict at run-time the effect of dynamic changes in the system environment (e.g., varying service workloads) and adapt the system configuration accordingly. In this paper, we describe a long-term vision and approach for designing systems with built-in self-aware performance and resource management capabilities. We advocate the use of architecture-level performance models extracted dynamically from the evolving system configuration and maintained automatically during operation. The models will be exploited at run-time to adapt the system to changes in the environment ensuring that resources are utilized efficiently and performance requirements are continuously satisfied.
Retrospective Analysis of 234 Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients with Distant Metastasis at Initial Diagnosis: Therapeutic Approaches and Prognostic Factors

Purpose The purpose of this retrospective study was to identify the independent prognostic factors and optimize the treatment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients with distant metastasis at initial diagnosis. Methods A total of 234 patients referred between January 2001 and December 2010 were retrospectively analyzed. Among the 234 patients, 94 patients received chemotherapy alone (CT), and 140 patients received chemoradiotherapy (CRT). Clinical features, laboratory parameters and treatment modality were examined with univariate and multivariate analyses. Results The median overall survival (OS) time was 22 months (range, 2-125 months), and the 1-year, 2-year, 3-year overall survival rates were 82.2%, 51.3% and 34.1%. The overall response and disease control rates of metastatic lesions after chemotherapy were 56.0% and 89.8%. The factors associated with poor response were karnofsky performance score (KPS) <80, liver metastasis, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)>245 IU/L, and number of chemotherapy cycles <4. The 3-year OS of patients receiving CRT was higher than those receiving CT alone (48.2% vs. 12.4%, p<0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that significantly improved survival was also achieved by radiotherapy of the primary tumor in patients who achieved complete remission (CR)/partial remission (PR) or stable disease (SD) of metastatic lesions after chemotherapy. Significant independent prognostic factors of OS were KPS, liver metastasis, levels of LDH, and multiple metastases. Treatment modality, response to chemotherapy and chemotherapy cycles were also associated with OS. Conclusion A combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy seems to have survival benefits for selected patients with distant metastases at initial diagnosis. Clinical and laboratory characteristics can help to guide treatment selection. Prospective randomized studies are needed to confirm the result.
Definition Modeling: Learning to Define Word Embeddings in Natural Language

Distributed representations of words have been shown to capture lexical semantics, based on their effectiveness in word similarity and analogical relation tasks. But, these tasks only evaluate lexical semantics indirectly. In this paper, we study whether it is possible to utilize distributed representations to generate dictionary definitions of words, as a more direct and transparent representation of the embeddings' semantics. We introduce definition modeling, the task of generating a definition for a given word and its embedding. We present different definition model architectures based on recurrent neural networks, and experiment with the models over multiple data sets. Our results show that a model that controls dependencies between the word being defined and the definition words performs significantly better, and that a character-level convolution layer that leverages morphology can complement word-level embeddings. Our analysis reveals which components of our models contribute to accuracy. Finally, the errors made by a definition model may provide insight into the shortcomings of word embeddings.
Acceptance of travel demand management measures. : Differences between households, politicians, and bureaucrats

Several countries want to reduce carbon emissions by reducing private car use through travelemand management (TDM) measures. Citizens' acceptance of these, and its predictors are welldddocumented, but the same cannot be said for politicians' and bureaucrats' acceptance. This studylooked at households, politicians, and bureaucrats in Sweden. A questionnaire assessed theiracceptance of three TDM measures, as well as the influence of the measures' perceivede ect veness and fairness on acceptance. Bureaucrats perceived push (coercive) measures as moreeffffffectiiive, fair, and acceptable than the other groups did. Bureaucrats were also less influenced bytheir perception of push measures' fairness when evaluating push measures' acceptability. Goingforward, policy makers need to make sure that TDM measures are perceived as fair by all groups ifthe measures are to be successful.
Insulin pump therapy for 1-6 year old children with type 1 diabetes.

BACKGROUND The management of diabetes in preschool children poses unique difficulties for both the families and the medical team. OBJECTIVE To test the feasibility and safety of insulin pump therapy in the 1-6 year age group in order to improve quality of life and metabolic control. METHODS The study group comprised 15 type 1 diabetic children aged 1-6 years old (mean +/- SD, 3.8 +/- 1.2 years) from three diabetes centers. Insulin pump therapy was applied for 12 months. Data, including insulin dose, hemoglobin A1c, hypoglycemic events, as well as scores on the Diabetes Quality of Life Measure Questionnaire and the Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire, were collected and compared with the multiple daily injection treatment prior to entry into the study, RESULTS HbA1c was measured at the beginning of the study and at 2, 4, 8 and 12 months later; the respective levels (mean +/- SD) were 8.82 +/- 0.98, 8.45 +/- 1.05, 8.37 +/- 0.85, 8.32 +/- 0.71, 8.18 +/- 0.90%. HbA1c measurements after 12 months were significantly lower than at the beginning of the study (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences in insulin dose and the total number of hypoglycemic events. In both the DQOL and DTSQ scales there were significant differences in scores in favor of the insulin pump period (43.7 +/- 8.0 versus 33.7 +/- 7.9, P < 0.001; and 10.9 +/- 2.3 versus 14.5 +/- 2.3, P < 0.001), respectively. CONCLUSIONS For very young diabetic children, insulin pump therapy improves quality of life and is feasible and safe. It should be considered as an optional mode of therapy for this age group.
Incorporating Scaffolding and Tutor Context into Bayesian Knowledge Tracing to Predict Inquiry Skill Acquisition

In this paper, we incorporate scaffolding and change of tutor context within the Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT) framework to track students’ developing inquiry skills. These skills are demonstrated as students experiment within interactive simulations for two science topics. Our aim is twofold. First, we desire to improve the models’ predictive performance by adding these factors. Second, we aim to interpret these extended models to reveal if our scaffolding approach is effective, and if inquiry skills transfer across the topics. We found that incorporating scaffolding yielded better predictions of individual students’ performance over the classic BKT model. By interpreting our models, we found that scaffolding appears to be effective at helping students acquire these skills, and that the skills transfer across topics.