Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Walk Your Talk: An Experimental Investigation of the Relationship Between Word of Mouth and Communicators’ Loyalty

Research provides ample evidence regarding the impact of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication on recipients. Service providers increasingly attempt to harness this power of WOM by introducing referral reward programs and other marketing instruments that aim to stimulate positive WOM. However, scholars have neglected to research the possibility that providing WOM also has consequences for the sender. Building on self-perception theory, this article argues that recommending a service provider improves the current customers’ loyalty to the provider and that positive WOM is not only effective for gaining but also for keeping customers. By conducting experiments in two different service settings, it is demonstrated that providing a recommendation influences the senders’ attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. The effect is found to be stronger for customers with low expertise in the service category and little experience with the provider. This means that encouraging customers in the early stages of their customer life cycle to give recommendations is specifically effective in increasing loyalty to the provider. Managers should consider using positive WOM as a loyalty-enhancing instrument and take the additional value from increased loyalty of their customer base into account for return-on-marketing calculations regarding WOM marketing campaigns, as well as customer equity calculations.
Supply chain partners' trust building process through risk evaluation: the perspectives of UAE packaged food industry

Purpose – This paper seeks to identify the up‐stream supply chain member's (manufacturers, suppliers, supplier's service providers) characteristics, economics, dynamic capabilities, technology and institutional perspectives of risk in relationship to develop a trust building model through risk evaluation and to address the issue: should a supply chain member strive to build the trust or strive to reduce the risk with its members and from which perspectives? Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual framework was developed considering five key perspectives (characteristics, economics, dynamic capabilities, technology and institutions) to evaluate the member's risk in relationship and derived the hypothesis from the framework. A survey was conducted in UAE packaged food industry upstream supply chain covering senior managers of 102 companies. Data were analysed using multiple regression analyses through SPSS. The selected supply chain members of this industry include packaged food products companies as manu.
Action Recognition with Visual Attention on Skeleton Images

Action recognition with 3D skeleton sequences is becoming popular due to its speed and robustness. The recently proposed Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) based methods have shown good performance in learning spatio-temporal representations for skeleton sequences. Despite the good recognition accuracy achieved by previous CNN based methods, there exist two problems that potentially limit the performance. First, previous skeleton representations are generated by chaining joints with a fixed order. The corresponding semantic meaning is unclear and the structural information among the joints is lost. Second, previous models do not have an ability to focus on informative joints. The attention mechanism is important for skeleton based action recognition because there exist spatio-temporal key stages and the joint predictions can be inaccurate. To solve the two problems, we propose a novel CNN based method for skeleton based action recognition. We first redesign the skeleton representations with a depth-first tree traversal order, which enhances the semantic meaning of skeleton images and better preserves the structural information. We then propose the idea of a two-branch attention architecture that focuses on spatio-temporal key stages and filters out unreliable joint predictions. A base attention model with the simplest structure is first introduced to illustrate the two-branch attention architecture. By improving the structures in both branches, we further propose a Global Long-sequence Attention Network (GLAN). Experiment results on the NTU RGB+D dataset and the SBU Kinetic Interaction dataset show that our proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art, as well as the effectiveness of each component.
Load Balancing for Cellular Networks Using Device-to-Device Communications

Load balancing is an effective approach to address the spatial-temporal fluctuation of mobile traffic in cellular networks. However, existing schemes that rely on channel borrowing from neighboring cells cannot be directly applied to current LTE-A systems where all cells are deployed with the same spectrum band. In this paper, we consider a multi-cell OFDMA network, where Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is opted for load balancing without the need of extra spectrum. Specifically, the traffic can be steered from a congested cell to another underutilized cells by D2D communications. The problem is naturally formulated as a joint resource allocation and D2D routing problem that maximizes the system sum-rate. In particular, we formulate the resource allocation as a Monotonic optimization problem and the D2D routing as a complementary Geometric Programming problem. The two subproblems are solved iteratively to obtain the joint resource allocation and D2D routing solution. Simulation results demonstrate that the D2D load balancing can improve the system sum-rate efficiently.
A Multi-stage Compound Real Option Model for Valvetion of Venture Capital Project

This paper applies the real option theory to the valve of venture capital project.Because of staging in venture capital,investment project is regarded as the compound real option formed by a series of European options.A multi-stage compound real option model of the valvetion developed for venture capital project.The corresponding algorithm is proposed and a simple example is provided to illustrate the model and algorithm.
Molecular cloning and nucleotide sequence of the gene encoding the major peptidoglycan hydrolase of Lactococcus lactis, a muramidase needed for cell separation

A gene of Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris MG1363 encoding a peptidoglycan hydrolase was identified in a genomic library of the strain in pUC19 by screening Escherichia coli transformants for cell wall lysis activity on a medium containing autoclaved, lyophilized Micrococcus lysodeikticus cells. In cell extracts of L. lactis MG1363 and several halo-producing E. coli transformants, lytic bands of similar sizes were identified by denaturing sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gels containing L. lactis or M. lysodeikticus cell walls. Of these clearing bands, corresponding to the presence of lytic enzymes with sizes of 46 and 41 kDa, the 41-kDa band was also present in the supernatant of an L. lactis culture. Deletion analysis of one of the recombinant plasmids showed that the information specifying lytic activity was contained within a 2,428-bp EcoRV-Sau3A fragment. Sequencing of part of this fragment revealed a gene (acmA) that could encode a polypeptide of 437 amino acid residues. The calculated molecular mass of AcmA (46,564 Da) corresponded to that of one of the lytic activities detected. Presumably, the enzyme is synthesized as a precursor protein which is processed by cleavage after the Ala at position 57, thus producing a mature protein with a size of 40,264 Da, which would correspond to the size of the enzyme whose lytic activity was present in culture supernatants of L. lactis. The N-terminal region of the mature protein showed 60% identity with the N-terminal region of the mature muramidase-2 of Enterococcus hirae and the autolysin of Streptococcus faecalis. Like the latter two enzymes, AcmA contains C-terminal repeated regions. In AcmA, these three repeats are separated by nonhomologous intervening sequences highly enriched in serine, threonine, and asparagine. Genes specifying identical activities were detected in various strains of L. lactis subsp. lactis and L. lactis subsp. cremoris by the SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis detection assay and PCR experiments. By replacement recombination, an acmA deletion mutant which grew as long chains was constructed, indicating that AcmA is required for cell separation.
A Quantitative Histomorphometric Classifier (QuHbIC) Identifies Aggressive Versus Indolent p16-Positive Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Human papillomavirus–related (p16-positive) oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma patients develop recurrent disease, mostly distant metastasis, in approximately 10% of cases, and the remaining patients, despite cure, can have major morbidity from treatment. Identifying patients with aggressive versus indolent tumors is critical. Hematoxylin and eosin-stained slides of a microarray cohort of p16-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma cases were digitally scanned. A novel cluster cell graph was constructed using the nuclei as vertices to characterize and measure spatial distribution and cell clustering. A series of topological features defined on each node of the subgraph were analyzed, and a random forest decision tree classifier was developed. The classifier (QuHbIC) was validated over 25 runs of 3-fold cross-validation using case subsets for independent training and testing. Nineteen (11.9%) of the 160 patients on the array developed recurrence. QuHbIC correctly predicted outcomes in 140 patients (87.5% accuracy). There were 23 positive patients, of whom 11 developed recurrence (47.8% positive predictive value), and 137 negative patients, of whom only 8 developed recurrence (94.2% negative predictive value). The best other predictive features were stage T4 (18 patients; 83.1% accuracy) and N3 nodal disease (10 patients; 88.6% accuracy). QuHbIC-positive patients had poorer overall, disease-free, and disease-specific survival (P<0.001 for each). In multivariate analysis, QuHbIC-positive patients still showed significantly poorer disease-free and disease-specific survival, independent of all other variables. In summary, using just tiny hematoxylin and eosin punches, a computer-aided histomorphometric classifier (QuHbIC) can strongly predict recurrence risk. With prospective validation, this testing may be useful to stratify patients into different treatment groups.
Cerebral perfusion computed tomography deconvolution via structure tensor total variation regularization.

PURPOSE Cerebral perfusion computed tomography (PCT) imaging as an accurate and fast acute ischemic stroke examination has been widely used in clinic. Meanwhile, a major drawback of PCT imaging is the high radiation dose due to its dynamic scan protocol. The purpose of this work is to develop a robust perfusion deconvolution approach via structure tensor total variation (STV) regularization (PD-STV) for estimating an accurate residue function in PCT imaging with the low-milliampere-seconds (low-mAs) data acquisition. METHODS Besides modeling the spatio-temporal structure information of PCT data, the STV regularization of the present PD-STV approach can utilize the higher order derivatives of the residue function to enhance denoising performance. To minimize the objective function, the authors propose an effective iterative algorithm with a shrinkage/thresholding scheme. A simulation study on a digital brain perfusion phantom and a clinical study on an old infarction patient were conducted to validate and evaluate the performance of the present PD-STV approach. RESULTS In the digital phantom study, visual inspection and quantitative metrics (i.e., the normalized mean square error, the peak signal-to-noise ratio, and the universal quality index) assessments demonstrated that the PD-STV approach outperformed other existing approaches in terms of the performance of noise-induced artifacts reduction and accurate perfusion hemodynamic maps (PHM) estimation. In the patient data study, the present PD-STV approach could yield accurate PHM estimation with several noticeable gains over other existing approaches in terms of visual inspection and correlation analysis. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated the feasibility and efficacy of the present PD-STV approach in utilizing STV regularization to improve the accuracy of residue function estimation of cerebral PCT imaging in the case of low-mAs.
FUNGAL PERITONITIS IN PERITONEAL DIALYSIS PATIENTS: SUCCESSFUL PROPHYLAXIS WITH FLUCONAZOLE, AS DEMONSTRATED BY PROSPECTIVE RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIAL

♦ Objectives: To determine whether oral administration of the antifungal fluconazole during the entire period of treatment of bacterial peritonitis (BP), exit-site infection (ESI), or tunnel infection (TI) prevents later appearance of fungal peritonitis (called secondary) in patients with chronic kidney disease stage 5 in a peritoneal dialysis (PD) program. ♦ Patients and Methods: All patients treated in the PD program in RTS Ltda Sucursal Caldas, during the period 1 June 2004 to 30 October 2007 were screened. Patients that had infectious bacterial complications (BP, ESI, TI) were included in a prospective randomized trial to receive or not receive oral fluconazole (200 mg every 48 hours) throughout the time period required by the administration of therapeutic antibiotics via any route. It was evaluated whether the fungal peritonitis complication appeared within 30 – 150 days following the end of antibacterial treatment. Based on local results, the sample size necessary to obtain statistically significant results was determined to be 434 episodes of peritonitis. ♦ Results: The 434 episodes of peritonitis presented between the previously specified dates and during this same period there were 174 ESI or TI, of which only 52 received oral antibiotic treatment. Information in relation to consumption of antibiotics for purposes other than BP, ESI, and TI was not reliable and thus this variable was excluded. Among the episodes of peritonitis, 402 (92.6%) were of bacterial origin and 32 (7.3%) were mycotic, mainly Candida species [30 (93.75%)]. Of the fungal peritonitis, 14 (43.73%) were primary (without prior use of antibiotics) and 18 (56.25%) were secondary. In the group of patients that received prophylaxis with fluconazole (210 for BP and 26 for ESI or TI), only 3 occurrences of fungal peritonitis were observed within 30 – 150 days of its administration, which is opposite to the group without prophylaxis (210 for BP and 26 for ESI or TI), in which 15 occurrences of fungal peritonitis were detected. Statistical analysis of the group of patients with BP found comparisons of the proportions of those receiving fluconazole (0.92%) or not (6.45%) presented a highly significant difference in favor of prophylaxis (p = 0.0051, Z = 2.8021). Given that only 1 patient in each group with ESI or TI, with or without prophylaxis, presented the complication fungal peritonitis, it was concluded that this result was not statistically significant. During laparoscopic surgery attempting reintroduction of the peritoneal catheter, it was found that 11 patients had severe adhesions or peritoneal fibrosis leading to obliteration of the peritoneal cavity. In 19 patients, reintroduction of the catheter was possible and the patients returned to PD without consequence. ♦ Conclusion: In patients with bacterial peritonitis, administration of prophylactic oral fluconazole throughout the time they received antibiotics significantly prevented the appearance of secondary fungal peritonitis.
Increasing Risk of 5% or Greater Unintentional Weight Loss in a Cohort of HIV-Infected Patients, 1995 to 2003

Although the incidence of most AIDS-defining opportunistic infections, including HIV wasting syndrome, has dramatically decreased since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), previous studies have shown that weight loss and wasting are still common in HIV-infected persons. We examined the 6-month risk and determinants of ≥5% weight loss during the period when the use of combination antiretroviral therapy and HAART was commonplace among 713 participants enrolled in the Nutrition for Healthy Living cohort in Boston, Massachusetts between 1995 and 2003. There was a significant 50% increase in the 6-month risk of ≥5% weight loss in the later HAART years (1998-2003) compared with the early HAART years (1995-1997) among most of the participants who reported they were not trying to lose weight (P = 0.002). In addition to calendar time, several other variables were significantly independently associated with risk of ≥5% weight loss, including use of injection drugs; living below the federal poverty level; higher body mass index (BMI; ≥25 kg/m2); lower CD4+ cell count; higher HIV viral load; and presence of diarrhea, nausea, or fever. The characteristics of weight loss in the later HAART years did not differ from the early HAART years with respect to initial body composition (eg, weight, BMI, triceps skinfold thickness) or changes in body composition during the periods of weight loss. In summary, we have found that the risk of ≥5% unintentional weight loss over 6-month intervals is on the rise in our cohort of HIV-infected participants, despite better control of HIV infection in recent years. Although we still do not know the exact cause of this increase, the fact that it exists indicates the need for clinicians who take care of HIV-infected patients to continue to pay attention to weight loss among particular segments of their patient population. This is particularly important because recent studies have shown that even a 5% weight loss in 6 months markedly increases the risk of death.
Performance of the Optimum Receiver for Pulse-Position Modulation Signals With Avalanche Photodiode Statistics

Statistical modeling of the avalanche photodiode electron output is discussed. The exact McIntyre{Conradi density function for the output electron count is reviewed, along with the Webb and Gaussian approximations. In addition, the maximum-likelihood decision statistic for detection of pulse-position-modulation (PPM) signals is derived using the more accurate Webb density rather than the Poisson or Gaussian approximations that have been used previously. It is shown that for Webb-distributed output electrons, the maximum-likelihood rule is to choose the PPM word corresponding to the slot with the maximum electron count. Error probabilities for 256-ary PPM signals are calculated using the maximum-electron-count decision rule in the absence of thermal noise. The detection of weak optical signals is hampered by the presence of additive thermal noise, generated by resistors in the electrical circuit, in the measurement. This problem can be overcome by the use of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) or avalanche photodiodes (APDs), both of which amplify the electrical current generated by absorbed photons. PMTs have very high gain and, hence, can be used to detect individual photons. However, the spectral response of these devices is limited to visible wavelengths. APDs provide less gain but remain useful over a wider range of wavelengths for overcoming thermal noise.
Nature of compensating luminescence centers in Te-diffused and -doped GaSb

Diffusion of tellurium in undoped p‐GaSb has been carried out. Using the cathodoluminescence and photoluminescence techniques, the luminescence centers in Te‐diffused samples have been identified and compared with the Te‐doped bulk GaSb. Fundamental differences in the radiative levels are observed between the diffused and the as‐grown doped samples. Evidence for self‐compensating acceptor complexes are seen in diffused samples. With short and moderate diffusion times, a compensating acceptor complex VGaGaSbTeSb is observed. For long diffusion times, the dominant acceptor center has been attributed to the antisite defect GaSb or related complex. The reasons for the formation of various acceptor centers have been discussed.
Achieving high directivity-bandwidth through flat GRIN superstrates in Fabry-Perot cavity antennas

The use of flat dielectric surfaces having a radial gradient of permittivity is investigated for use as superstrates in Fabry-Perot cavity (FPC) antennas. The use of such surfaces results in a varied reflectivity within the FPC and makes the boresight emissions spatially coherent. This results in a significantly enhanced gain-bandwidth product of a FPC antenna using only a single feed. The key advantage of such GRIN surfaces is their all-dielectric, flat and thin nature. A prototype FPC antenna is numerically investigated to study the feasibility of this concept. Half power directivity-bandwidth as high as 51% is recorded with peak directivity of 17.6 dBi.
Isolation and characterization of transposon-induced mutants of Pseudomonas aeruginosa deficient in production of exoenzyme S

Exoenzyme S is an extracellular product of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This enzyme catalyzes the transfer of ADP-ribose from NAD to a number of as yet unidentified eucaryotic proteins, but it is distinct from toxin A. To evaluate the role of exoenzyme S in the pathogenicity of P. aeruginosa, we isolated transposon-induced mutants of strain 388, a clinical isolate that produces exoenzyme S but no toxin A. The transposon Tn1 was introduced by using a temperature-sensitive derivative of plasmid RP1. A Tn1-induced mutant was found which had no detectable exoenzyme S activity or antigen in culture supernatants or in cell lysates. Except for its lack of exoenzyme S and resistance to carbenicillin, this mutant was indistinguishable from the parent strain. When tested in an experimental mouse burn infection model, this Tn1-induced mutant was reduced in virulence by at least 2,000-fold, suggesting a role for exoenzyme S in the virulence of this strain.
The CEO Horizon Problem and Managerial Slack in China

ABSTRACT This study investigates how CEO behavior and incentives change during the CEO's final years in office, known as the horizon problem. We examine how the horizon problem alters managerial slack, a measure of operational inefficiency and managerial value diversion. Using data on Chinese publicly traded firms between 2003 and 2011, we find that managerial slack increases in the last two years of CEO tenure compared to earlier years. We also show that the increase in managerial slack in CEO final years in office is smaller in privately controlled firms than in state-owned enterprises, smaller in firms with CEO equity ownership and more independent boards compared to those without. We conclude that higher quality corporate governance mechanisms ameliorate the perverse incentives associated with the CEO horizon problem, and reduce CEOs’ tendency to increase managerial slack during their final years in office.
Semi-parametric statistical analysis of high-resolution SAR images based on generalized Gamma distribution

The accurate statistical modeling of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is a crucial problem in the context of effective SAR image processing, interpretation and applications. In terms of the heavy-tailed or bi-/ multi-modal characteristics of histograms, it is difficult to apply a single parametric model to accurately describe the statistics of high-resolution SAR images. From the perspective of semi-parametric approach, we choose generalized Gamma distribution (GΓD) as the component of finite mixture model, then exploit generalized Gamma mixture model (GΓMM) to implement an effective statistical analysis of high-resolution SAR images in this paper. And we derive an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for estimating the corresponding parameters of GΓMM. Finally, experimental results, carried out on the actual high-resolution SAR images with single — and bi-modal histograms, demonstrate the validity of GΓMM.