Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sorry, the World is not Flat: A Global View of Organizational Information Systems Issues

Information systems (IS) research paradigms, models, and findings are largely developed in the context of the U.S. and Western Europe; therefore, they are applicable primarily to the Western context and have limited relevance elsewhere. In response to this incomplete view and potential bias, the World Information Technology (IT) Project was launched more than five years ago to examine many topics, including the nature of organizational IS issues in various parts of the world. Using a common survey instrument, data were collected from IT employees in 37 countries. These 37 countries provide a good representation of the world as they exhibit different economic, cultural, political, religious, and regional differences. Results demonstrate the fallacy of the Western views and reveal that the globe does not always follow them. While there are a few common issues among the 37 countries, namely: IT reliability and efficiency, and security and privacy; more significantly, there are important differences. A cluster analysis of the country data corroborates the findings and divides countries into two groups: those with strategic issues and those with tactical and operational issues. Overall, the study underscores the importance of visioning beyond ethnocentric views and expanding our horizons to the global IT landscape. Particularly, business and IT executives need to address country and regional differences when pursuing international endeavors.
Artificial neural network for behavior learning from meso-scale simulations, application to multi-scale multimaterial flows

Artificial neural network for behavior learning from meso-scale simulations, application to multi-scale multimaterial flows. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor Professor H.S. Udaykumar for his help and guidance. I also would like to thank my lab mates for providing me answers to countless questions which saved me hundreds of hours of literature search. I need to express my gratitude to my parents and friends who have provided comfort and encouragement throughout my education. They have stood beside me aiding my academic and personal growth as well as encouraging me to pursue and attain goals I would have otherwise been unable to reach. Research Laboratory for supplying the materials and resources to make this possible. iii ABSTRACT This thesis attempts to develop a framework to affect such a coupling of scales by ―learning‖ from selected computational experiments at the meso-scale and transmitting the ―learned‖ behavior to the macro-scale. The ―learning‖ is performed by means of an artificial neural network that is trained using data extracted from the meso-scale direct numerical simulations. In particular, this thesis describes the use of an Artificial Neural Network (hereafter abbreviated to ANN), to learn and predict the transient forces on a particle in a compressible flow field to produce an accurate model for shocked particulate-laden flows. In the multi-scale sense, the ANN learns meso-scale information of particle-fluid interactions requiring expensive computations; once the behavior is learnt, the ANN can be interrogated to obtain information by a macro-scale model to accurately produce results without continuing to perform expensive computations in direct numerical simulations. Particle data is collected from a compressible Eulerian-Lagrangian solver and provided to the ANN for a range of control parameters, such as Mach number, particle radii, particle-fluid density ratio, position, and volume fraction. Beginning with a simple single stationary particle case and progressing to moving particle laden clouds, the ANN is able to evolve and reproduce correlations between the control parameters and particle dynamics. The trained ANN is then used in computing the macro-scale flow behavior in a model of shocked dusty gas advection. The model predicts particle motion and other macro-scale phenomena in agreement with experimental observations and with a very large reduction in time and computational expense.
Acupuncture affects different ways for migraineurs of long- and short- courses on the efficiency of structural brain network

Background: To study the impact of acupuncture treatment on structural brain network for patients with different courses of migraine without aura based on fMRI. Methods: A total of ten patients with a long course (>5 years) of migraine without aura (MWoA), ten patients with a short course (<5 years) of MWoA, and ten healthy volunteers were recruited in this trail. All patients received acupuncture treatment three times per week for four weeks. The changes in the topology properties of structural brain regions were observed via fMRI. The clinical symptom scores were adopted for evaluating the therapeutic effect. Results: 1) The small-world property on the group with a long course was decreased significantly (p<0.01) after treatment, while the group with a short course increased (p<0.01). 2) The clustering coefficient or nodal local efficiency of brain nodes (including the pontine crossing tract, left corticospinal tract, right medial lemniscus, left posterior limb of the internal capsule, right cingulum hippocampus, left fornix, left superior longitudinal fasciculus and right tapetum) showed significant changes (p<0.001) with an opposite tendency on the two groups after treatment. 3) The left posterior limb of the internal capsule (p<0.001, R=-0.73) and right tapetum (p<0.05, R=-0.54) had a strong relationship with migraine courses. Conclusions: The two unequal ways of acupuncture on the structural brain network of migraineurs with different disease courses were revealed. Acupuncture could regulate the central sensitization of chronic migraines, differently with the early stage. The nodal efficiency of the left posterior limb of the internal capsule and right tapetum would be symbols to discriminate against the process of MWoA.
Linear viscoelastic characteristics of Michigan asphalt mixtures and the effect of sample size on material properties

LINEAR VISCOELASTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF MICHIGAN ASPHALT MIXTURES AND THE EFFECT OF SAMPLE SIZE ON MATERIAL PROPERTIES By Anas Jamrah The Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (M-E PDG) is becoming the stateof-the-practice in both newly constructed and rehabilitated pavement designs. A number of different material inputs are required by the M-E PDG, and accurate measurement of these inputs is crucial for the accuracy of the distress predictions. The main objective of the research study presented in this thesis was to investigate linear viscoelastic characteristics of asphalt mixtures and binders commonly used in Michigan. This is important for implementation of the M-E PDG in Michigan and for accurate prediction of flexible pavement distresses. The second objective was to develop analytical models in efforts to provide improved |E*| predictions of asphalt mixtures used in the State of Michigan. For this, the Modified Witczak model was locally calibrated. In addition, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was developed and trained for Michigan asphalt mixtures. Another objective of this study was to investigate the Representative Volume Element (RVE) requirement for complex (dynamic) modulus (|E*|) of asphalt mixtures. Small thin mixture beam (TBM) specimens (0.5”x0.25”x4.5”) were tested using the Bending Beam Rheometer (BBR) testing machine to obtain the Creep Compliance (D(t)). This study showed that there is a trend in D(t) values obtained from the BBR, but on the other hand; the factor between |E*|-based and TBM-based D(t) values was not consistent and ranged between 1.5 and 4 factors.
The Relationship between Customer Brand Engagement and Brand Loyalty for Local Car Brands in Malaysia

Brand loyalty has become a primary goal for a company in today's business environment due to intense market competition. This paper aims to examine the relationship between customer brand engagement and brand loyalty for local car brands in Malaysia. Brand loyalty is vital for local car manufacturers to ensure that customers remember their brands and will not switch to competing foreign brands. Therefore, companies need to engage with customers, resulting in brand loyalty and helping companies create a loyal customer— nevertheless, research confirming the main contribution of customer brand engagement to brand loyalty is still lacking. This paper has conducted a quantitative survey using online. 279 data were collected from the user of Malaysian local car brands; Proton and Perodua, and the data then were analysed using Smart PLS. The findings of this paper have indicated that customer brand engagement positively influences brand loyalty. Hence, brand loyalty has become an essential factor in sustaining market share, and it is much more cost-effective to retain the existing customer than attracting a new customer.
A Survey of Reverberation times in 50 European venues presenting pop & rock concerts

In the fall of 2010 more than 50 halls around Europe were measured in order to determine their reverberation times as a function of frequency as well as other objective acoustic parameters. Many of the measured halls had a capacity of more than 2000 audiences and this paper is primarily an attempt as to look into what is actually achievable and what may through future subjective studies turn out to be recommendable in terms of i.e. T30 in this type of larger venues at pop and rock concerts. Also possibly acceptable spectral tolerances around recommendable T30 are investigated. Often pop and rock concerts take place in multipurpose venues that also host classical music or even sports games. This paper furthermore introduces an affordable variable and mobile absorption product that also absorbs the important low frequency sound energy.
Managing Information and Knowledge in the Public Sector

From the Publisher: In this book Eileen Milner introduces the reader to the concepts of information and knowledge and explores a variety of tools and techniques which may be usefully adopted in actively managing and developing these resources. Wherever possible, real-life public sector cases and examples are used to illustrate good practice, as well as some of the pitfalls of poor application.
Innovative Events: Product launches, innovation and firm performance

In this paper, we shed new light on the links between firm-level innovation and growth. We introduce data that capture a difficult-to-observe aspect of firms' innovative activity – new product/service launches – at scale. We show that our novel measures complement existing innovation metrics. We build a simple framework covering firm-level innovation, launches and revenue productivity. Then, we show positive linkages between past patenting and launches and between launches and performance for a large panel of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. We go on to explore the roles of age, size, industry and product/service quality in these relationships. A subset of SMEs with high-quality launches explains our results.
Reflection and Diffraction Around Breakwaters

Diffraction diagrams are frequently utilized by engineers within the feasibility and early design phases of a project. These helpful graphics, based on directional spreading and wavelength, can be used for a number of layouts and angles of incidence. In spite of the tendency to design breakwaters for the fullest dissipation of wave energy, current diffraction diagrams in use are for full reflection. They have a very strict view of the breakwaters themselves; solely an infinitely thin, fully reflecting, vertical breakwater without any transmission or overtopping. This study focuses on the changes to the diffraction patterns once construction aspects related to breakwater reflection are considered. The alteration to diffraction coefficients due to wave spectra variations, both directional and frequency, is examined through the use of theory and advanced modeling systems. It is found that the directional spectrum causes large changes while frequency variation is negligible. This primary driving component is than related to breakwater layout and incident angles. A study of literature related to breakwater reflection is used in advanced computer models to determine where and how much this characteristic contributes to the diffraction pattern. Two separate types of models, phase-resolving and phase-averaging, are used to test breakwater reflection in diffraction modeling. This comparison confirms theoretical assumptions, finds possible faults in current diffraction diagrams, and creates new questions about breakwater tip physics. The full analysis shows that breakwater reflectivity causes little change to the diffraction pattern beyond the area closest to the breakwater. The areas of greatest influence are located at the breakwater tips, which can be associated with reflection off the breakwater’s front face, and along the leeside of the breakwater, which can be attributed to the absorption of the leeside’s reduced reflectivity. Therefore, the need for new, updated diffraction diagrams based on reflectivity is unnecessary. As a secondary objective of this study, the usefulness of using the SWAN modeling program for diffraction studies was examined. This topic is of importance as SWAN is an efficient alternative to more computationally intensive modeling programs. In addition, it is a free software which is universally available. Believed to be incapable of computing rapidly changing wave environments near breakwaters or in harbor situations, SWAN performed diffraction remarkably well for broad directional waves. More narrow directionally spread waves had good accuracy throughout with only minor scaling differences. SWAN, within this study, was unable to replicate the effects of reflection on both sides of a breakwater and therefore was not used for the primary objective.
Mixing Under Transcritical Flow Conditions

Abstract : The project focused on the mixing behavior of fluids under transcritical flow conditions. This topic is relevant to rocket propulsion applications and it is also applicable to other high pressure systems such as gas turbine combustors. Extensive work in this general area of propulsion has been performed at the EM2C (Energetique, Moleculaire, Macroscopique et Combustion) laboratory at Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP) which has suitable complemented the experimental work that has been recently conducted at the Air Force Research Lab at Edwards Air Force Base. The report, which is divided in three major parts, encompasses the results of modeling efforts, further analysis of experimental data, and comparisons between the two. The first part deals with the Large-Eddy Simulation of nonreactive shear coaxial jets, the second part expands on the area of spectral analysis and the final part presents the work performed using an in-house code developed by the Numerical Combustion Group of the EM2C laboratory. This code is based on the Direct Numerical Simulation technique.
Chemical Diversity of Essential Oils from Pinus Nigra Arn. Subspecies Growing in Tunisia

Background: The aim of this study was the determination of chemical diversity of Pinus nigra Arn essential oils. The work was conducted on needles collected from eighteen provenances of Black pine grown in common garden located in West-Northern Tunisia and belonging to four different subspecies (P. nigra subsp. nigra, P. nigra subsp. salzmannii, P. nigra subsp. pallasiana and P. nigra subsp. laricio). The GC analysis was carried out with a Gas Chromatograph coupled to a mass spectrometry. Results: Oil yields ranged from 0.19% to 0.68%. Twenty-three constituents accounting about 98% of total oil composition were identified. The essential oil compositions appeared to be very different in the different provenances. There appear to be five basic essential oil chemotypes in P. nigra plants investigated: caryophllene oxide, camphene, β caryophyllene, α amorphene and Germacrene D. Oils from nigra subsp. were the richest in α-pinene.Conclusions: this study showed that the analyzed oils belonged to five different chemotypes. Caryophyllene oxide was the main component of almost studied oils.
Security Vulnerability Trends Related to Electric Power Supplied at Military Installations

Abstract : The United States (U.S.) electric grid is considered one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century, yet it become apparent over the past few decades that it is not without its own set of problems. The deregulation of the U.S. electric system in the late 1990s eliminated monopolies and resulted in the nation's generation, transmission, and distribution systems becoming separate entities owned and operated by multiple companies. This created a market economy in which many electric companies failed to plan for the future, did not invest in maintenance and upgrades, and began to push the aggregate system to its maximum capacity. A number of cascading power outages in the late 1990s, culminated by the complete blackout of the northeastern U.S. in 2003, have subsequently caused the federal government to question the reliability of the nation's deregulated electric grid and take action to remedy current issues. Therefore, the objective of this study was to leverage the trend and spatial analysis capabilities embedded in typical geographic information system (GIS) platforms to examine power outage data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Utilizing the industry standard for GIS, ArcGIS, interpolation using the inverse distance weighted approach was used to calculate preliminary vulnerability levels at military installations based on EIA? s power outage database from 2000 to 2009. The results of the study offer insight that will help key stakeholders better understand the state of the nation's electric grid and identify areas of concern. This allows stakeholders to be in a better position to address associated vulnerabilities by making appropriate plans for either system upgrades or mitigation efforts.
Lyapunov methods for safe intelligent agent design

In the many successful applications of artificial intelligence (AI) methods to real-world problems in domains such as medicine, commerce, and manufacturing, the AI system usually plays an advisory or monitoring role. That is, the AI system provides information to a human decision-maker, who has the final say. However, for applications ranging from space exploration, to e-commerce, to search and rescue missions, there is an increasing need and desire for AI systems that display a much greater degree of autonomy. In designing autonomous AI systems, or agents, issues concerning safety, reliability, and robustness become critical. Does the agent observe appropriate safety constraints? Can we provide performance or goal-achievement guarantees? Does the agent deliberate and/or learn efficiently and in real time? In this dissertation, we address some of these issues by developing an approach to agent design that integrates control-theoretic techniques, primarily methods based on Lyapunov functions, with planning and learning techniques from AI. Our main approach is to use control-theoretic domain knowledge to formulate, or restrict, the ways in which the agent can interact with its environment. This approach allows one to construct agents that enjoy provable safety and performance guarantees, and that reason and act in real-time or anytime fashion. Because the guarantees are established based on restrictions on the agent's behavior, specialized “safety-oriented” decision-making algorithms are not necessary. Agents can reason using standard AI algorithms; we discuss state-space search and reinforcement learning agents in detail. To a limited degree, we also show that the control-theoretic domain knowledge needed to ensure safe agent behavior can itself be learned by the agent, and need not be known a priori. We demonstrate our theory with simulation experiments on standard problems from robotics and control.
Seismic Stabilization of Historic Adobe Structures: Final Report of the Getty Seismic Adobe Project

A description of the design, experimental procedures and results of the Getty Seismic Adobe Project, which set out to identify and evaluate methods for the seismic protection of historical and culturally significant Adobe structures. The book identifies typical failure modes of adobe structures and outlines retrofitting techniques applicable to minimize these failures. Photographic documentation illustrates the effects of retrofitting on the models tested.
AMATEUR BOXER BIOMECHANICS AND PUNCH FORCE

The current study investigates the correlation between punch biomechanics and punch force in amateur male boxers (n=39). A Hybrid III 50th percentile male dummy was used to gather punch force values. TrackEye Motion Analysis (TEMA) was used to measure the velocity of each boxer’s punch. Lower body force values were determined using the Functional Assessment of Biomechanics (FAB) system. Two types of punches, hooks and straights, were analyzed. It was determined that punch forces correlated more strongly to hand velocity than to lower body forces. Punch force correlated to hand velocity with R2 values of 0.380 and 0.391 for hook and straight punches, respectively (p<0.001). Punch force correlated to lower body forces with R2 values of 0.103 and 0.099, respectively (p<0.05).
Finite-Element Analysis of Complex Panel Response to Random Loads.

Abstract : The report describes and demonstrates a computerized analysis method for development of sonic-fatigue-resistant structure. Finite-element matrix methods are used to calculate elastic response of complex structure subjected to random pressure loads with random dependence on both space and time. A cross-power spectral density loading function is developed for laboratory noise sources. The methods are demonstrated by comparing computed random response and fatigue failure location of skin-stringer and honeycomb sandwich panels with multipanel measurements taken in a sonic test laboratory. The comparisons include natural frequencies, normal modes, rms and PSD deflection and stress, and prediction of fatigue failure location. An extension is required to account for nonlinear response in order to realize the full potential of finite element methods when applied to development of sonic fatigue resistant structure. (Author)
Interlocking Directorates: An Interorganizational Review.

Abstract : This paper reviews the literature on interlocking directorates for coordinating organizations which are horizontally (competitors) and vertically (buyers and sellers) interdependent. The review develops and interorganizational framework, specifies relevant dimensions of interlocking directorages (e.g. directionality, strength, directness and simultaneity) and scrutinizes available literature on the relationships between interdependence, interlocking directorates and organizational effectiveness. The literature reveals inconsistent but generally weak relationships between these aspects. Several hypotheses are developed to provide more specific answers on the relationship between interlocking directorates and organizational effectiveness, that currently are being tested empirically. (Author)