Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk-Mitigating Technologies: The Case of Radiation Diagnostic Devices

We study the impact of consumers’ risk perception on firm innovation. Our analysis exploits a major surge in the perceived risk of radiation diagnostic devices following extensive media coverage of a set of overradiation accidents involving computed tomography (CT) scanners in late 2009. Using data on radiation diagnostic device patents and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) product clearances, we find that the increased perception of radiation risk spurred the development of new technologies that mitigated such risk and led to a greater number of new products. Using CT scanners as a case study, we provide an in-depth characterization of two different types of risk-mitigating technologies that firms developed after the shock. Firm-level analysis shows that, although firms were similarly responsive in their patenting activities, large incumbents were significantly more responsive than smaller firms in terms of new product introductions, and, in the case of CT scanners, large incumbents were also significantly more responsive in terms of the more radical type of risk-mitigating technologies. We also provide qualitative evidence and describe patterns of equipment usage and upgrade that are consistent with increased risk perception and, consequently, a greater willingness to pay for safety. Overall, our findings suggest that changes in risk perception can be an important driver of innovation, can shape the direction of technological progress, and can impact market structure. This paper was accepted by Ashish Arora, entrepreneurship and innovation.
The Strategic Display of Emotions

The emotion that someone expresses has consequences for how that person is treated. We study whether people display emotions strategically. In two laboratory experiments, participants play task delegation games in which managers assign a task to one of two workers. When assigning the task, managers see pictures of the workers and we vary whether getting the task is desirable or not. We find that workers strategically adapt their emotional expressions to the incentives they face, and that it indeed pays off to do so. Yet, workers do not exploit the full potential of the strategic display of emotions.
Symmetric analysis of EEG and fMRI using nonlinear models: a Simulation Study

In this paper, we introduce a new method of symmetric analysis of Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. We consider each signal as a projection of the real neural activations to find spatial sources and their related temporal sources. We use the sparsity of activated voxels as a constraint for solving the localization problem. Simulation results illustrate superiority of our method compared to the previous methods.
Outcome of Intracavitary Electrocardiogram Guidance in PICC Tip Placement in Preterm Infants: A Single-center Experience of 327 Cases

A tertiary neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in China has carried out a study investigating the safety and accuracy of intracavitary electrocardiogram (IC-ECG) guidance in PICC tip placement in preterm infants. From October 2015 to September 2018, IC-ECG-guidance was applied in 327 preterm infants in our NICU. The positioning of the PICC was performed under ECG-guidance and subsequently assessed by chest X-ray. The frequency of correct ECG-guided PICC-placement in one single attempt, premature infants gender, weight, weeks’ gestational age at PICC insertion was recorded. 327preterm infants（207 male and 120 female）were included in the study with a gestation of 31.3 weeks (25.3 to 36.8) and birth weight of 1498 g (600 to 2560). 327 PICCs tip placement was guided with IC-ECG, all concordant with chest X-ray. 313 (95.7%) were correctly positioned, 228 (72.3%) were correctly positioned on the ﬁrst attempt, 5 were incorrectly identiﬁed to have a short line and 9 were malpositioned. The most commonly punctured vein was the basilic vein (n=228), followed by the superﬁcial temporal vein (n = 31), the axillary vein (n = 25). For 3 years IC-ECG method has proved to be a simple, safe, quick method to assess the correct positioning of the PICC in preterm infants. This is a reliable technique, performing real-time manipulation without any complications.
Review of Middle East Paleozoic Plate Tectonics

The Paleozoic Middle East terranes, neighboring the present-day Arabian and Levant plates, are shown by most authors to consist of ten major tectonic units: (1 and 2) the Helmand and Farah terranes of Afghanistan, southwest Pakistan and southeast Turkmenistan; (3 to 6) the Alborz, Central Iran (Lut, Yazd and Tabas) and Sanandaj-Sirjan terranes of Iran, and Northwest Iran (possibly extending into eastern Turkey); (7 and 8) the Pontides and Taurides terranes of Turkey; and (9 and 10) the Greater and Lesser Caucasus terranes between the Caspian and Black seas (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and southwest Russia). Published plate-tectonic reconstructions indicate that all ten terranes may have broken off from either: (1) the Gondwana Supercontinent in the mid-Silurian as part of the Hun Superterrane; or (2) the Pangea Supercontinent during the mid-Permian - Triassic as part of the Cimmeria Superterrane. To the north of Gondwana and Pangea, three successively younger Tethyan oceans evolved: (1) Proto-Tethys (Cambrian - Devonian); (2) Paleo-Tethys (mid-Silurian - Mesozoic); and (3) Neo-Tethys (mid-Permian - Cenozoic). Two regional Paleozoic unconformities in the Arabian Plate are generally linked to major regional-scale structural events, and commonly correlated to the Caledonian and Hercynian orogenies. These orogenies took place many thousands of kilometers away from the Arabian Plate and are considered unlikely causes for these unconformities. Instead, the breakaway of the Hun and Cimmeria superterranes are considered as alternative near-field tectonic sources. The older unconformity (middle Paleozoic event), represented by a mid-Silurian to Middle Devonian hiatus in North Arabia (Iraq and Syria), reflects an episode of epeirogenic uplift, which might be related to the mid-Silurian rift of the Hun Superterrane. The younger mid-Carboniferous Arabia-wide angular unconformity involved compressional faulting and epeirogenic uplift, and might be related to the earliest phase of subduction by the Paleo-Tethyan crust beneath Cimmeria (Sanandaj-Sirjan and nearby regions) before it broke off. Based on our review and regional considerations, we assign the Helmand, Farah, Central Iran, Alborz, Sanandaj-Sirjan, Northwest Iran, Lesser Caucasus, Taurides and Pontides to Cimmeria, whereas the Greater Caucasus is considered Hunic.
The Influence of Internal Corporate Governance on Bank Credit Risk: An Empirical Analysis for Tunisia

Bank governance has received special attention after the financial crises of 2008 that have occurred. Nevertheless, the literature presents seemingly conflicting evidence on the implications of governance for bank credit risk quality. The purpose of this article is to examine the impact of corporate governance variables of board size, board composition and board gender diversity on credit risk. Panel data regression analysis is applied to a sample of listed banks from the Tunisia during the 2000–2014 period. We improve the robustness of our results by employing four measures of credit risk commonly used in the literature as the dependent variable in our study. Our results show that the higher the number of board members, the lower the quality of credit is and, consequently, the credit risk increases. The concentration of power within the board of directors may increase bank risks when the cumulative functions of CEO and chairman negatively affect the weight of the board and make it less effective. Also, our findings highlight the importance of board independence and the presence of foreign directors in enhancing credit quality. Nevertheless, we document that the NPLs ratio increases and NPL coverage ratio decreases in the presence of state directors. Finally, we find evidence that the presence of a woman on board influences credit risk, as it is argued that female directors may differ from male directors with regard to their risk attitude, and this, in turn, may influence board’s monitoring ability and its decision-making process. Therefore, this evidence provides beneficial information for supervising authorities, stakeholders and academics, and banks should take this into account during the composition of their board of directors.
Consensus Building in Distributed Technical Discussions

The issue management systems in open source software projects contain different categories of discussions, but they all share the goal of reaching consensus on solution proposals. In this paper, we examine the consensus building process in distributed discussions of technical issues in one mature open source software community. Our analysis shows that providing a concrete solution in the form of a patch implementation is most predictive of reaching consensus in technical discussions. This is in sharp contrast to prior work on consensus building in distributed UI design discussions which showed that having participants with more experiences and prior interaction histories are more predictive of reaching consensus. Our results highlight that consensus building depends on the nature of the issue. In technical issues that tend to be more driven by objective evaluations providing more patches promotes consensus. However, in UI design issues that tend to be more driven by subjective evaluations, having more experience participants helps discussions to reach consensus. Author
A Study to Verify the Material Surface Concept of Water Table by Examining Analytical and Numerical Models.

A Study to Verify the Material Surface Concept of Water Table by Examining Analytical and Numerical Models. (August 2010) Sireesh Kumar Dadi, B.Tech, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati Co-Chairs of Advisory Committee: Dr. Hong-Bin Zhan Dr. David Sparks The highly nonlinear nature of unsaturated flow results in different ways to approximate the delayed or instantaneous movement of the water table. In nearly all the approaches, the water table is conceptually treated as a “material surface”. This term defines the water table as having two simultaneous properties: 1) the pressure along the surface is atmospheric pressure, and 2) the water table is fixed to the material, i.e., a set of water particles. This article makes an attempt to explain that the water table, defined as the surface at atmospheric pressure, is not a material boundary, and the water table can move independent of the water particles. Velocity of the water table and velocity of drainage are compared with three analytical models: the Neuman model, which assumes instantaneous drainage from the unsaturated zone; the Moench model, which considered gradual drainage from the unsaturated zone using a series of exponential terms in the water table boundary condition; and the Mathias-Butler model, which obtained a new drainage function based on a linearized Richard’s equation but limited the variation of soil moisture and hydraulic conductivity in the unsaturated zone to exponential functions. Numerical
Fuzzy-ART Based Adaptive Digital

In this paper, a novel transform domain digital wa- termarking scheme that uses visually meaningful binary image as watermark has been developed. The method embeds the water- mark information adaptively with localized embedding strength according to the noise sensitivity level of the host image. Fuzzy adaptive resonance theory (Fuzzy-ART) classification is used to identify appropriate locations for watermark insertion and its con- trol parameters add agility to the clustering results to thwart coun- terfeiting attacks. The scalability of visually recognizable water- mark is exploited to devise a robust weighted recovery method with composite watermark. The proposed watermarking schemes can also be employed for oblivious detection. Unlike most oblivious wa- termarking schemes, our methods allow the use of visually mean- ingful image as watermark. For automation friendly verification, a normalized correlation metric that suits well with the statistical property of our methods is used. The experimental results show that the proposed techniques can survive several kinds of image processing attacks and the JPEG lossy compression.
Algorithms and Methods for Received Signal Strength Based Wireless Localization

In the era of wireless communications, the demand for localization and localizationbased services has been continuously growing, as increasingly smarter wireless devices have emerged to the market. Besides the already available satellite-based localization systems, such as the GPS and GLONASS, also other localization approaches are needed to complement the existing solutions. Finding different types of low-cost localization methods, especially for indoors, has become one of the most important research topics in recent years. One of the most used approaches in localization is based on Received Signal Strength (RSS) information. Specific fingerprints about RSS are collected and stored and positioning can be done through pattern or feature matching algorithms or through statistical inference. A great and immediate advantage of the RSS-based localization is its ability to exploit the already existing infrastructure of different communications networks without the need to install additional system hardware. Furthermore, due to the evident connection between the RSS level and the quality of a communications signal, the RSS is usually inherently included in the network measurements. This favors the availability of the RSS measurements in the current and future wireless communications systems. In this thesis, we study the suitability of RSS for localization in various communications systems including cellular networks, wireless local area networks, personal area networks, such as WiFi, Bluetooth and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Based on substantial real-life measurement campaigns, we study different characteristics of RSS measurements and propose several Path Loss (PL) models to capture the essential behavior of the RSS levels in 2D outdoor and 3D indoor environments. By using the PL models, we show that it is possible to attain similar performance to fingerprinting with a database size of only 1-2% of the database size needed in fingerprinting. In addition, we study the effect of different error sources, such as database calibration errors, on the localization accuracy. Moreover, we propose a novel method for studying how coverage gaps in the fingerprint database affect the localization performance. Here, by using various interpolation and extrapolation methods, we improve the localization accuracy with imperfect fingerprint databases, such as those including substantial coverage gaps due to inaccessible parts of the buildings.
Evaluation of Foreign Accent Using Synthetic Speech (Perception).

viii Chapter I. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Second Language Learning. 1 Prosody.9 Models of Speech Perception. 48 English versus Spanish Rhythm. 55 English versus Spansih Intonation. 70 Segmental Differences in Spanish and English. 89 Synthetic and Natural Speech in Perception Studies. 114 II. METHODOLOGY Pilot Study. 139
PERCEIVED SERVICE QUALITY AND TRUST ON SATISFACTION: CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVES IN THE BANKING SECTOR

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between service quality, trust and satisfaction in the banking sector. Specifically, the dimensions of service quality were modeled to have direct influence on both satisfaction and trust. An empirical analysis was carried out in which the service performance scale was adapted to the study. 160 out of 200 questionnaires were valid for data analysis. The data was obtained by using a structured questionnaire to bank customers. Structural equations model using Partial least Squares (PLS) was applied to analyze the proposed model. The findings partly confirmed the relationship between service quality dimensions on trust since tangible dimension was not significant. However, all service quality dimensions were significant in predicting satisfaction. Practically, the findings suggest that banks could create satisfaction through service quality and trust. Therefore, all staffs should establish and maintain confidence in providing service quality and building trust for customers. Theoretically, besides adding trust in the service quality and satisfaction relationship, the study was conducted in developing countries. This will enhance the generalization of service quality measures and validate the model in the wider area.
Defossilization of Fossilized Pragmatic Routines: Corpus-Driven Input-Based and Output-Based Instruction

Mainstream L2 pragmatic research has shown that pragmatic fossilization is quite common among L2 learners at almost all levels of proficiency. This study examined the defossilizing effect of corpus-driven activities on 10 situationally-based pragmatic routines under two instructional conditions, i.e. input-based and output-based treatments. Participants were 33 advanced EFL learners in two classes in a private English language center. They received instruction in four sessions across two weeks. Before and after the treatment, a WDCT was administered for pretest and posttest purposes. The results of paired-samples and Independent Samples t-tests showed that input-enhancement and output-based instructions were effective in defossilization pragmatic routines which had a strong fossilization tendency among learners. Both treatment tasks led to significant increases in learners’ comprehension and production of the routines. The output-based group; however, significantly outperformed the input-based group in the production of the routines. The findings indicate that pragmatic instruction can debilitate the fossilization tendencies of pragmatic routines and that different instructional tasks have differential effects on the production and comprehension of pragmatic routines. The pedagogical implication of this study is that a combination of instructionally supported corpus-based tasks would be effective for enhancing EFL learners’ ability to comprehend and use routines appropriately in context.
Scalable network emulation

Network emulation provides a testing environment where real network protocols and applications running on real network hosts can interact under controlled and repeatable network conditions. One approach to emulation involves simulating a network model, called the virtual network, with a real-time network simulator and providing an I/O interface that enables interaction between real hosts and the virtual network. To reflect the behavior of large networks such as the Internet it is important that the emulation environment be scalable. The virtual network must be able to scale in size and in traffic volume and the I/O interface must be able to scale in the number of real hosts and in real traffic volume. This thesis focuses on addressing scalability of the virtual network through the use of various simulation techniques. Parallel simulation techniques are employed in both shared memory and distributed memory environments. A simulation abstraction technique is also introduced that allows for the interaction of packet-based traffic flows and fluid-based traffic flows. With only parallel simulation techniques employed, real-time emulation performance of nearly 50 million packet transmissions per second is achieved on 128 processors for a network model consisting of about 20,000 nodes. With all simulation techniques employed, real-time emulation performance of nearly 500 million packet transmissions per second is achieved on 128 processors for a network model consisting of about 200,000 nodes.
The Behavior of Government Vendor Project in Using E-Procurement System A Case Study of Construction Project Vendors in West Nusa Tenggara

E-procurement system is a procurement of goods/services implemented by using information systems and electronic transactions conducted by LPSE as an organizer and vendor as provider of goods /services. This study aims to predict and explain the determinants of interest in the behavior and behavior of users in using e-procurement by employees at construction companies that are suppliers for West Nusa Tenggara Provincial Government in the procurement system of goods/services. The research method used is quantitative method by distributing questionnaires to 114 respondents who work and have position as manager, assistant manager, supervisior and staff. This research develops Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Techonology (UTAUT) and Information System Success Model, then data is processed using Partial Least Square (PLS). The result of this research shows that performance expectancy, Effort expectation, system quality act as determinat interest behavior with value of R² 0.441 while conditions that facilitate and interest behavior as determinant of behavior of usage with value R² 0,277. Meanwhile, the results of the UTAUT model development and information success model in this study can explain and predict the uncertainty that often arises when individuals transact electronically through the E-procurement system.
On the syntax of applicative and causative constructions

This dissertation investigates the argument structure of verb phrases by identifying the syntactic roles and locations of the functional heads it consists of. Since the early 1990s, it has been widely accepted that the basic verb phrase consists of two distinct projections of a functional layer v/VoiceP, and a lexical layer √/VP (Chomsky 1995, Hale & Keyser 1993, Harley 1995; 2008a, Kratzer 1996, Marantz 1997). Recent developments in generative grammar, however, suggest that it may comprise of three projections (Pylkkanen 2002; 2008, Cuervo 2003, Collins 2005, Alexiadou et al. 2006, Harley 2013a, Merchant 2013): two functional projections – Voice, which introduces the external argument and licenses accusative Case; verbalizing v, which marks the eventuality type be/do/become/cause – and an acategorial lexical root (Cuervo 2003, Harley 2013a). In this dissertation, I explore the consequences of adopting the tripartite theory of verb phrases with two particular foci: (i) the structure of applicative and causative constructions and the interactions between the two; (ii) languages where the applicative and causative constructions are formed by attaching affixes to the verbal root. The main proposal of this dissertation is that various morpho-syntactic behaviors of applicatives and causatives and their cross-linguistic variation can be captured with two tools: (i) the hypothesis of the tripartite verb structure; and (ii) an understanding of the selectional criteria of the functional heads – Voice, Appl, and v – and their head-specific properties. The tripartite assumption solves for us some empirical puzzles and raises some new questions. I show that the three major achievements of the tripartite hypothesis are that it provides a syntactic account of the constraints on applicative and causative affix