Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative Quality Analysis of Scientific Software - Case Study

Scientific software is usually of multidisciplinary nature solving the problems in various fields by applying computational practices. In this paper, we analyze the quality of scientific software for calculating ECG-derived heart rate and respiratory rate. The aim of this software is to aid the triage process in the emergency medicine which is crucial for ranging the priority of the injured victims in mass casualty situations [Hogan and Brown 2014], whether they are man-made, natural or hybrid disasters. An efficient triage process takes less than 30 seconds when performed manually and the challenge is to reduce this time and the medical persons needed in order to optimize the process when there are hundreds of injured people. This optimization can be achieved by using the benefits of the biosensor technologies to extract the vital signs needed for the triage. Following this idea, we developed scientific application that extracts heart rate and respiratory rate from ECG signal. The accuracy of the results was crucial whereas the optimization and parallelization of the code was not of our concern, meaning we prioritized the quality of the algorithm before the quality of the code. Therefore, in this paper we perform quantitative quality evaluation of the application by using formal methods and software engineering practices. This is an important step if we want improve the quality and to integrate the application as a part of a larger medical system. The method for quality assessment relies on quantitative method for evaluating the well-known metrics and attributes, providing an easy comparison with other similar applications. In [Adewumi et al. 2016], the authors made a review of 19 open-source software quality assessment models. A special attention is put on the quality models for computation-dominant software. A model for evaluating the quality of scientific software that checks only the critical modules and it satisfies
Has oxygen-ozonetherapy a future in medicine? -

This review aims to focus attention on the bio-oxidative therapy from the very beginning to date. While ultraviolet blood irradiation is now hardly performed, oxygen-ozone therapy, after an empirical stage, has grown to be precise and safe. Meantime, there is a renewed interest in the infusion of a dilute solution of hydrogen peroxide in infectious diseases antibiotic-resistant. On a parallel line of research, hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been already accepted by official medicine for the treatment of specific diseases. Meantime it is unfortunate that, owing to quacks’ interest in using ozonated physiologic saline and in claiming to “cure” type-2 diabetes in 20 days with the unprecise rectal ozone administration, ozone therapy is losing hope to be acknowledged as a valid therapeutic approach.
The Power of Innovativeness in Manufacturer–Retailer Relationships

ABSTRACT Purpose: Retailers often challenge manufacturers through aggressive store brand policies and severe listing constraints. This study investigates manufacturer innovativeness as a managerial lever to shift the power balance between manufacturers and retailers. Methodology/approach: Using data from 277 senior managers of Swiss and German consumer goods manufacturers and analyzing these data with structural equation modelling, the authors test hypotheses about the impact of manufacturer innovativeness on manufacturer–retailer relationship characteristics (i.e., retailer dependency, store brand aggressiveness, and listing constraints). Findings: The study demonstrates that manufacturer innovativeness enhances retailer dependency, which in turn positively affects overall manufacturer performance. This relationship can be explained further: By increasing retailer dependency, manufacturers suppress retailers’ store brand aggressiveness and attenuate retailers’ listing constraints. Store brand aggressiveness affects overall manufacturer performance through listing constraints. Research implications: Identifying levers such as innovativeness that assist manufacturers in fostering their power over retailers provides a new mode for understanding how manufacturers can influence the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. The study provides support for the approach/inhibition theory of power on the inter-organizational level. Organizations with increased power are assumed to have approach-related tendencies and act in goal-consistent manner, whereas organizations with reduced power are assumed to develop the tendency to pursue inhibition-related actions, e.g., attending to threats. Furthermore, this study identifies channel relationship characteristics such as retailer dependency as a mediating path between manufacturer innovativeness and performance. Practical implications: Managers need to strengthen the firm’s innovative capacity to enhance the performance of their companies. By developing the capability to provide radical innovations, manufacturers are able to enhance their performance not only directly but also indirectly by strengthening the manufacturer’s position with regard to retailers. This study underscores the relevance of innovativeness for strengthening the manufacturer’s position in its relationship with retailers that avoids problems with aggressive store brands and constrained listing conditions. Originality/value/contribution: This study proposes manufacturer innovativeness as a managerial lever to shift the power balance between manufacturers and retailers.
Determinants of South African Women's Labour Force Participation, 1995-2004

A striking feature of labour supply in South Africa is the phenomenal expansion in the labour force participation of women from 38 percent in 1995 to 46 percent in 2004. Even so, their participation has been persistently lower than that of men whose participation rates were 58 percent and 62 percent respectively. Furthermore, analyses of women's participation rates by race show that the rates for historically disadvantaged groups such as Africans are still lower than those of Whites. For instance, in 1995 African women had a participation rate of 34 percent and it increased to 43 percent in 2004 while the corresponding rates for White women were 52 percent and 59 percent. In light of these disparities, this paper uses survey data to examine the determinants of the low level and also of the changes in African women's labour force participation, during the first decade of democracy (1995-2004). By focussing on a ten year period, this research substantially differs from earlier studies which were preoccupied with short periods such as one year. A longer period is analytically advantageous because it allows the capturing of the changes and the robustness of the key determinants of female labour force participation in South Africa. Such information is important not only for reviewing existing policies but also for the formulation of new ones to increase female labour force participation which is a prerequisite for economic development. The study utilises a decomposition technique devised by Even and Macpherson (1990). The findings exhibit that female participation responded positively to education which has been the prime factor. Non-labour income, marriage, fertility and geographical variations in economic development persistently stifled participation. It is argued that the perceived change in participation is due to emigration and changes in human capital and financial endowments. Another important discovery is that -9 percent of the observed shifts in the participation rates from 1995-2004 is due to disparities in characteristics while differences in coefficients account for 109 percent of the shifts.
Studies of medium scale travelling ionospheric disturbances using TIGER SuperDARN radar sea echo observations

Seasonal and diurnal variations in the direction of propagation of medium-scale travelling ionospheric distur- bances (MSTIDs) have been investigated by analyzing sea echo returns detected by the TIGER SuperDARN radar lo- cated in Tasmania (43.4 S, 147.2 E geographic; 54.6 3). A strong dependency on local time was found, as well as significant seasonal variations. Generally, the propagation direction has a northward (i.e. equatorward) component. In the early morning hours the direction of propagation is quite variable throughout the year. It then becomes predominantly northwest and changes to northeast around 09:00 LT. In late fall and winter it changes back to north/northwest around 15:00 LT. During the other seasons, northward propagation is very obvious near dawn and dusk, but no significant north- ward propagation is observed at noon. It is suggested that the variable propagation direction in the morning is related to irregular magnetic disturbances that occur at this local time. The changes in the MSTID propaga- tion directions near dawn and dusk are generally consistent with changes in ionospheric electric fields occurring at these times and is consistent with dayside MSTIDs being gener- ated by the Lorentz force.
Are the Smart Kids More Rational?

We conducted an experiment to collect data on consumption decisions made by children of different age categories. In particular, our experiment involves unsophisticated discrete consumption choices,and we present a rationality test that is specially designed for the resulting choice data. Our firstconclusion is that, in general, the observed children's consumption behavior is largely irrational. Next, we also investigate the relationship between the degree of rationality and the children's characteristics.Specically, we use teacher based assessments on several personal characteristics to investigate whether and to what extent smart children tend to behave more rational. Here, our main conclusion is that it is important to recognize the multidimensional nature of intelligence to obtain a balanced insight into the effect of intelligence on rationality.
Fallout: Nuclear Diplomacy in an Age of Global Fracture

Many Baby Boomers still recall crouching under their grade-school desks in frequent bomb drills during the Cuban Missile Crisis - a clear representation of how terrified the United States was of nuclear war. Thus far, we have succeeded in preventing such catastrophe, and this is partly due to the various treaties signed in the 1960s forswearing the use of nuclear technology for military purposes. In Fallout, Gregoire Mallard seeks to understand why some nations agreed to these limitations of their sovereign will - and why others decidedly did not. He builds his investigation around the 1968 signing of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which, though binding in nature, wasn't adhered to consistently by all signatory nations. Mallard looks at Europe's observance of treaty rules in contrast to the three holdouts in the global nonproliferation regime: Israel, India, and Pakistan. He seeks to find reasons for these discrepancies, and makes the compelling case that who wrote the treaty and how the rules were written - whether transparently, ambiguously, or opaquely - had major significance in how the rules were interpreted and whether they were then followed or dismissed as regimes changed. In honing in on this important piece of the story, Mallard not only provides a new perspective on our diplomatic history, but, more significantly, draws important conclusions about potential conditions that could facilitate the inclusion of the remaining NPT holdouts. Fallout is an important and timely book sure to be of interest to policy makers, activists, and concerned citizens alike.
Organized versus Unorganized Manufacturing Performance in India in the Post-Reform Period

This paper analyses the productivity performance of the Indian manufacturing sector using unit level data, which is aggregated at four-digit industry level for the period 1994-95 to 2004-05 for 15 major states. The study focuses on both the organized and unorganized segments of the manufacturing sector. Both partial and total factor productivity (TFP) measures have been employed to trace the productivity performance of formal and informal manufacturing sector. TFP is estimated using Cobb-Douglas production functions at the four-digit industry level. The estimation is carried out by employing the Levinsohn-Petrin method, which uses intermediate inputs as the proxy to address the potential simultaneity bias in production function estimations. Our analysis reveals that labour productivity has increased for the organized sector over time whereas both labour productivity and capital intensity growth have slowed down in the unorganized sector during the 2000-01 to 2004-05 period. The production function analysis shows that capital has played a more significant role in the production process in both the sectors. TFP growth accelerated in the organized manufacturing sector during 2001-05 over 1995-2001 while the TFP decline that started in the first period (1995-2001) continued unabated even in the second period (2001-2005) in the unorganized manufacturing sector. We also find that output growth in both the sectors is productivity driven and not input driven. The improvement in TFPG of organized manufacturing in the post-2000 period as compared to the second half the 1990s across most states in India and that output growth was mostly productivity driven are important positive features of manufacturing performance in the post-reform period. However, the declining total factor productivity on one hand and increasing capital intensity of the unorganized sector is a cause of worry and raises several important questions.
Influences of a submerged macrophyte on colony formation and growth of a green alga

The effects of the submerged macrophyte Ceratophyllum demersum on the growth and morphology of the green alga Scenedesmus obliquus were assessed by conducting co-culture laboratory experiments (15 and 25 degrees C, presence/absence of 3 g fresh wt of C. demersum per litre of water in S. obliquus culture). Growth rate, photosynthetic pigment-based growth, photo synthetic activity and colony formation of S. obliquus increased in the presence of C. demersum. The proportion of 4-celled colonies of S. obliquus increased from 36 to 76% at 25 degrees C, and from 51 to 71% at 15 degrees C in the presence of C. demersum. The induced morphological shift from unicells to colonies in S. obliquus promoted sedimentation to the bottom-water region, thereby providing a competitive advantage for the submerged macrophyte.
Author ' s personal copy Facial asymmetry and aggression in Spanish adolescents

Intrasexual competition is often characterized by the struggle for sexual partners. Men’s competitive behavior typically includes physically aggressive acts or anger, whereas women tend to disgrace their rivals via derogation. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), a measure of developmental instability and health, has been reported to negatively correlate with physical aggression in boys and young adults. In this study, we investigated the relationship between facial FA and different forms of aggression in a sample of 296 Spanish adolescents (148 men and 148 women) aged 14–19 years. Geometric morphometrics was used to assess facial FA and the buss and perry aggression questionnaire (BPAQ) was administered to collect self-reports of physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger and hostility. Our results showed a negative association between facial FA and anger in male adolescents and with hostility only in older adolescent women (17–19 years). No significant association was detected between physical aggression and facial FA in either sex. We discuss our results with reference to the recalibrational theory of anger (in men) and in terms of competitor derogation (in women). 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Implementing MPI _ Barrier with the NetFPGA

Parallel programs written using the standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) frequently depend upon the ability to synchronize execution using a barrier. Barrier synchronization operations can be very time consuming. As a consequence, there have been investigations of custom interconnects and protocols for accelerating this operation and other collective operations in parallel MPI programs. In this paper, we explore the use of hardware programmable network interface cards utilizing standard media access protocols as an alternative to fully custom synchronization networks. Our work is based upon the NetFPGA – a programmable network interface with an on-board Virtex FPGA and four Ethernet interfaces. We have implemented a network-level barrier operation using the NetFPGA for use in MPI environments. This paper compares the performance of this implementation with MPI over Ethernet for a small
Image Processing Filters Based on Image Analogies

This paper presents a method to develop a single image processing filter that can restore images subject to multiple distortions. Often medical images originated by alternative sources like ultra-sound or xrays or images from cameras on remote locations are subject to multiple distortions like damaged optics, undesirable movements or natural noise. Information about exact sources of distortions and their parameters are usually not available. Proposed method is based on image analogies and it requires one correct image before distortions and one image of the same object under distortions. The feedforward architecture of neural networks and the resilient propagation learning algorithm are used to generate a single filter that successfully reverses all distortions and can be applied to all images from the same distorted source. On different test examples our method achieved very good results so it can be considered a promising tool for such corrections. Key-words: Image processing, Image analogies, Neural networks, Filters
JJC Ab Initio Investigations of Some 1 , 2-Diols Rearrangement Via G 3 Calculations

Conformational analysis of protonated of 1,2-ethanediol, 1,2-propanediol and 2-methyl1,2-propanediol had been studied and the resulting rotational transition states had been determined. The transition states that result from the proton transfer from 2and 3-OH groups (M1) to 1-OH group (M2) had been also determined. It had been found that the equilibrium favors M1 formation. This result is agreeable with the published data. The possible mechanisms for the rearrangement of M1 to the corresponding aldehyde had been discussed. The obtained G3 results had been compared with the published theoretical and experimental results. It had been found that G3 method excludes the two-steps mechanism in contrast to other calculations with lower level. The possibility of formation of epoxides as by-products had been also discussed.
An Equilibrium Model of User Generated Content

This paper considers the joint creation and consumption of content on user generated content platforms (e.g., reviews or articles, chat, videos, etc.). On these platforms, users' utilities depend upon the participation of others; hence, users' expectations regarding the participation of others on the site becomes germane to their own involvement levels. Yet these beliefs are often assumed to be fixed. Accordingly, we develop a dynamic rational expectations equilibrium model of joint consumption and generation of information. We estimate the model on a novel data set from a large Internet forum site and use the model to offer recommendations regarding site strategy. Results indicate that beliefs play a major role in UGC, ignoring these beliefs leads to erroneous inferences about consumer behavior, and that these beliefs have an important implications for the marketing strategy of UGC sites.We find that user and site generated content can be either strategic complements or substitutes depending on whether the competition for existing readers exceeds the potential to attract new ones. In our data, the competitive effect substantially dilutes the market expansion effect of site generated content. Likewise, past and current content can also be either strategic substitutes or complements. Results indicate more durable content increases overall site participation, suggesting that the site should invest in making past information easier to find (via better search or page design). Third, because content consumption and generation interact, it is unclear which factor dominates in network growth. We find that decreasing content consumption costs (perhaps by changing site design or via search tools) enhances site engagement more than decreasing content generating costs. Overall, enhancing content durability and reducing content consumption cost appear to be the most effective strategies for increasing site visitation.
Comparing the Performance of Market-Based and Accounting-Based Bankruptcy Prediction Models

Recently developed corporate bankruptcy prediction models adopt a contingent-claims valuation approach. However, despite their theoretical appeal, tests of their performance compared with traditional simple accounting-ratio-based approaches are limited in the literature. We find the two approaches capture different aspects of bankruptcy risk, and while there is little difference in their predictive ability in the UK, the z-score approach leads to significantly greater bank profitability in conditions of differential decision error costs and competitive pricing regime.
Fibrinolytic effects of Matricaria chamomila in preventing peritoneal adhesions

Abdominal wall surgeries usually result in a common consequence which is peritoneal adhesion. Matrica chamomilla (MC) is a remedial herb with anti-inflammatory biologically active compounds which are effective in prevention of post-surgical adhesions. In this prospective study, 50 female rats were divided into 5 groups which received normal saline, chamomile extracts of 100mg/kg 200mg/kg 400 mg/kg and a control group. Intra-peritoneal ketamine 30 mg/kgwas administered for anesthesia. After surgical preparation of the abdomen, several scratches were made in the peritoneum and the abdominal wall was closed. Repeated laparotomy was performed 2 weeks later, and the peritoneum was biopsied for histo-pathological examination and grading of the adhesions. Data were analyzed with SPSS 13. Analysis was done using student’s t-test, chi square, Kruskal- Wallis and Mann- Whitney U tests. If the value of p≤ 0.05 the results were considered significant. The results show that adhesion, fibrosis, inflammation, and post-surgical vascularization was significantly less in chamomile group compared to rats receiving normal saline or the control group (p≤0.001). Chamomile has protective anti-inflammatory effects proved by significant restraining of the post-surgical adhesions. (Abstract truncated at 185 words)
Assessing wind profile effects on the global atmospheric torque

The impact of a new approach to the evaluation of surface gravity wave drag (GWD) is assessed. This approach uses linear theory, but incorporates the effects of wind profile shear and curvature, by means of a second‐order WKB approximation. While the theory predicts the possibility of either drag enhancement or reduction, depending on the wind profile, results obtained with the ERA‐40 reanalysis data clearly indicate the predominance of local drag enhancement. However, the global impact of shear on the atmospheric axial GWD torque comes mostly from regions with predominantly easterly flow, contributing to a slight reduction of the bias found in different studies of the global angular momentum budget. The relative correction due to shear on linear GWD is found not to depend too strongly on the levels chosen for the computation of the low‐level wind derivatives. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society