Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation therapy as a worksite health promotion program in the automobile assembly line

The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) as part of a Worksite Health Promotion Program on self-perceived stress, anxiety and depression among male automotive assembly-line workers through a quasi-experimental trial. Two assembly plants were chosen with one receiving PMR therapy and the other Pamphlets. Intention-to-treat analysis was conducted to test the effectiveness of the relaxation therapy. Stress, Depression and Anxiety levels were measured using the shortened DASS-21 questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Chi-square, Independent sample t test and Repeated-measures analysis of variance to test the significance of the effects of intervention (time * group) for the measures of Stress, Depression and Anxiety. Significant favourable intervention effects on stress were found in the PMR group (Effect size=0.6) as compared to the Pamphlet group (Effect size=0.2). There was a significant group *time interaction effect (p<0.001) on Stress levels. Depression and Anxiety levels were minimal at baseline in both the groups with mild or no reduction in levels. The improvement in stress levels showed the potential of PMR therapy as a coping strategy at the workplace. Further research in this field is necessary to examine the beneficial effects of coping strategies in the workplace.
O-mannosylation protects mutant alpha-factor precursor from endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation.

Secretory proteins that fail to fold in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) are transported back to the cytosol and degraded by proteasomes. It remains unclear how the cell distinguishes between folding intermediates and misfolded proteins. We asked whether misfolded secretory proteins are covalently modified in the ER before export. We found that a fraction of mutant alpha-factor precursor, but not the wild type, was progressively O-mannosylated in microsomes and in intact yeast cells by protein O-mannosyl transferase 2 (Pmt2p). O-Mannosylation increased significantly in vitro under ER export conditions, i.e., in the presence of ATP and cytosol, and this required export-proficient Sec61p in the ER membrane. Deletion of PMT2, however, did not abrogate mutant alpha-factor precursor degradation but, rather, enhanced its turnover in intact yeast cells. In vitro, O-mannosylated mutant alpha-factor precursor was stable and protease protected, and a fraction was associated with Sec61p in the ER lumen. Thus, prolonged ER residence allows modification of exposed O-mannosyl acceptor sites in misfolded proteins, which abrogates misfolded protein export from the ER at a posttargeting stage. We conclude that there is a limited window of time during which misfolded proteins can be removed from the ER before they acquire inappropriate modifications that can interfere with disposal through the Sec61 channel.
Qualitative v/s Quantitative Forecasting of Yearly Tourist Arrival in Mauritius

This paper considers the judgmental approach to forecasting and three quantitative methods of forecasting; naive, seasonal naive and SARIMA. The quantitative methods are applied on the monthly tourist arrival data and the results are aggregated to obtain yearly forecasts for tourist arrival from 2007 to 2013. The results demonstrate that the qualitative approach to forecasting is accurate but does not implicate prediction intervals where uncertainties can be considered. The SARIMA forecasts are more accurate compared to the naive and seasonal naive methods of forecasting. However, the quantitative methods considered in this paper cannot take into account the changes in the dynamics of the tourism sector compared to the qualitative approach. It is therefore suggested for a forecaster to combine the two methods through a Bayesian approach to forecasting.
Effects of Punica granatum Flowers on Carbohydrate Metabolizing Enzymes, Lipid Peroxidation and Antioxidants Status in Streptozotocin Induced Diabetic Rats

The mechanistic pathway for the antidiabetic efficacy of ethanolic extract of Punica granatum flowers (PgEFet) has been investigated by measuring the status of blood glucose, plasma insulin, carbohydrate metabolizing enzymes, lipid peroxidation and antioxidants as biochemical end points in streptozotocin induced diabetic rats. Diabetes mellitus was induced by single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (50mg/kg b.w) in albino Wistar rats. Oral administration of PgEFet (400mg/kg b.w) by gastric gavage to diabetic animals significantly reduced the level of blood glucose and increased the level of plasma insulin as well as reverted the disturbed activities of carbohydrate metabolizing enzymes to near normal pattern. Also, PgEFet exhibited potent anti-lipid peroxidative and antioxidant function in strepto- zotocin induced diabetic rats. The present study thus concludes that the antidiabetic efficacy of Punica granatum flowers in streptozotocin induced diabetic rats relies on its modulating effect on carbohydrate metabolizing enzymes as well as its anti-lipid peroxidative and antioxidant potential.
Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document : Sea Ice Products

The AMSR-E sea ice standard level 3 products include sea ice concentration, sea ice temperature, and snow depth on sea ice. The AMSR-E standard sea ice concentration product is generated using the enhanced NASA Team (NT2) algorithm described by Markus and Cavalieri (2000), the snow depth is produced from the algorithm described by Markus and Cavalieri (1998) for both hemispheres, but excluding the Arctic perennial ice regions, and the ice temperature is produced from an algorithm similar to the Nimbus 7 Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) sea ice temperature algorithm described by Gloersen et al. (1992). Additionally, the difference between the Bootstrap algorithms (see ATBD by J.C. Comiso) and the NT2 retrieved concentrations (BootstrapNT2) are archived. These products together with AMSR-E calibrated brightness temperatures (TBs) are mapped to the same polar stereographic projection used for SSM/I data to provide the research community consistency and continuity with the existing 28-year Nimbus 7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I sea ice concentration products. The grid resolutions are as follows: (a) TBs for all AMSR-E channels: 25-km, (b) TBs for the 18, 23, 36, and 89 GHz channels: 12.5-km, (c) TBs for the 89 GHz channels: 6.25km, (d) Sea ice concentration: 12.5-km, 25-km, (e) Sea ice temperature: 25-km, (f) Snow depth on sea ice: 12.5 km. All of these products are stored as a composite of (i) dailyaveraged ascending orbits only, (ii) daily-averaged descending orbits only, and (iii) all orbits creating a full daily average.
Mitigating Vulnerability of Adolescent Girls via Innovative Usage of Digital Technologies: Insights from a Field Trial

Adolescents and young adults, between the ages of 10 to 24, comprise approximately 30 percent of India’s population. These youths, 365 million strong, will shape the future of the nation. Although the Government of India has been spending enormous amount of money in a relentless manner over decades and the current cohorts of youth are healthier and better educated than ever before, the fact of the matter is, vulnerabilities still persist for adolescent girls (World Bank, 2014). We argue in this paper that vulnerability of adolescent girls cannot be dealt with by executing verticals programmes in Education, Health, Nutrition and Protection in isolation rather it needs to be handled by running these programmes in a converged manner. The comprehensive reports and analysis of data across these domains would provide a 360-degree view of individual girls, predicting their potential vulnerability well ahead of time, thereby enabling the stakeholders to intervene and prevent untoward incidents like child marriage, child labour, child pregnancy, and trafficking among others. Furthermore, insights generated from analysing the data from the field can be used to identify the areas of improvement for the programme as applicable to decision makers at different levels of societal structure starting with villages to blocks to districts. This paper describes a digital solution called G-Power that comprehensively addresses the above challenges, and shares insights from a field trial carried out in two districts of West Bengal in India. Keywords: mobility, social welfare, vulnerability assessment
Phase Factor Influence on Amplitude Distortion and Aliasing of Pseudo-QMF Banks

The spectral factorization approach to pseudo-QMF design doesn't involve any optimization in order to obtain the prototype filter used in the cosine modulation. In this paper, the initial phase factor influence on amplitude distortion is analyzed and a new expression to design pseudo-QMF bank without restriction on the filter's length is proposed. This filter bank introduces a very small aliasing error at the output when the prototype filter has high stopband attenuation and, when the initial phase factor is appropriately chosen, the amplitude distortion, and therefore the total error on the reconstructed signal, are also reduced. Several examples are included. Key-Words: Spectral factorization approach, phase factor, amplitude distortion, aliasing
The Amount of Control in Offshore Software Development Projects: An Investigation of Twelve Projects

This paper investigates the amount of control, defined as the variety of mechanisms and their intensity of exercise in various offshore software development (OSD) projects. Using a comparative case study approach, we propose ten propositions refining the relationship between influencing factors and the amount of control. Our results confirm existing findings such as the positive relationship between project complexity/size and amount of control, but also contribute with new findings. For example, we were able to identify higher levels of control in strategic important projects and in captive offshore projects. Another finding is the positive relationship between the client or supplier project managers' OSD experience and the introduction of various modes of control. Altogether, our empirical findings lead to a better understanding of the factors influencing the amount of control in OSD and can be seen as theoretical basis for developing a robust model to be tested using further quantitative research.
Finger Vein Feature Extraction Based on Linear Weighting Function Immune Clone Algorithm

To solve the misjudgment of noise and vein information in features extraction from low quality images, a novel method based on LWF (Linear weighting function) immune-clone algorithm is proposed in this paper. The method can produce initial antibody by using adaptive threshold method, obtain weighting function by curve fitting, and denoise and enhance border by linear weighting of the vein area. The function of affinity and concentration of antibodies helps to boost the growth of the vein information and suppress the interference of noise. Simulation results show that compared to other algorithms, finger vein pattern extracted by the algorithm proposed in this paper is more distinct and accurate. In addition, this algorithm, which can effectively retain the details of information, is especially suitable for features extraction from low quality finger vein images.
Improving performance of decision boundary making with support vector machine based outlier detection

Outlier detection is a method to improve performances of machine learning models. In this paper, we use an outlier detection method to improve the performance of our proposed algorithm called decision boundary making (DBM). The primary objective of DBM algorithm is to induce compact and high performance machine learning models. To obtain this model, the DBM reconstructs the performance of support vector machine (SVM) on a simple multilayer perceptron (MLP). If machine learning model has compact and high performance, we can implement the model into mobile application and improve usability of mobile devices, such as smart phones, smart tablets, etc. In our previous research, we obtained high performance and compact models by DBM. However in few cases, the performances are not well. We attempt to use a SVM-based outlier detection method to improve the performance in this paper. We define outlier using the method, and remove these outliers from training data that is generated by DBM algorithm. To avoid deleting normal data, we set a parameter δoutlier, which is used to control the boundary for deciding outlier point. Experimental results using public databases show the performance of DBM without outliers is improved. We investigate and discuss the effectiveness of parameter δoutlier as well.
User-led Innovation and the video game industry

In spite of the recent acknowledgements of “open source development” type of user-led innovation, our understanding is still limited as to its applicability and benefit. Particularly, from the viewpoint of firms making consumer goods, it remains unclear whether they can take advantage of peer-to-peer interaction and collaboration among consumers in the Internet era. Through an analysis of the video game industry, this article highlights its potential and limitations. The current hype of user-led innovation entails the risk of the concept’s being over-applied in terms of its applicability across industries and assumption of benefits. We argue that user-led innovation emerged out of not only technology-specific environment, but also culturally-specific context of industries. Our analysis shows that user-led innovation in its applications is likely to be constrained by the cultural context among other obstacles, thereby limiting its usefulness to a set of industries with particular characteristics.
Allocating fixed costs and budgets by using Data Envelopment Analysis

Fixed costs or common budgets often exist in numerous economic contexts which must be allocated among the entities making up an organization. Let’s say this is the case of a university that has to share a certain amount of money to buy equipment (microscopes, software, etc.) among the different degree courses. The dilemma facing the manager in charge is how to allocate the budget fairly among the entities involved. This problem has already been taken on previously, from the perspective of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Two conceptually different approaches, one having as reference the work of Cook and Kress [8], and the other that of Beasley [3], are until now presented as the sole alternatives in equitable cost allocation using DEA. Within this context we will present a new model with the same objectives as the previous ones, leading to allocations possessing good properties and easy calculations. Our sharing rule will be compared to existing ones, and the differences between them examined using an example taken from literature. Finally, the validity of the new method will be checked by solving an actual allocation problem in a university extracted from Pulido et al. [15].
Comparison of a Humanoid Robot and an On-Screen Agent as Presenters to Audiences

Both on-screen agents and humanoid robots are increasingly used as human-computer interfaces. This study evaluates an on-screen agent and a humanoid robot in the task of one-sided presentations. We compared the participant's subjective impressions of nearly identical presentation contents performed by each presenter. The results derived by the semantic differential (SD) method and the direct questioning show that each presenter has different functional advantages. We infer that on-screen agent and robot can complement each other in presentations
Hermes: an Ontology-Based News Personalization Portal

Nowadays, news feeds provide Web users with access to an unlimited amount of news items, however only a subset of them is relevant. Therefore, users should be able to select the most relevant concepts, about which they want to retrieve news. Although keyword search engines provide users with the ability to filter news items, they lack the power of understanding the domain where the news items reside. The aim of this paper is to propose a solution that provides users with the ability to ask for news items related to specific concepts they are interested in. This is accomplished by creating an ontology, developing a classifying system that populates the ontology by making use of a knowledge base, and providing an innovative graph representation of the ontology to retrieve relevant news items. A characteristic feature of our approach is the consideration of both concepts and concept relationships for the retrieval of user-relevant items.
Stability of flow features for the identification of Internet applications

One important requirement associated with the deployment of large scale classification infrastructures is the portability of classifiers, which allows a small number of pre-trained classifiers to be used on many sites and time periods. The portability can be severely degraded if the flow features used in the classification process lack stability, i.e. if they do not preserve their most relevant statistical properties across different sites and time periods. In this paper we propose a statistical procedure to evaluate the stability of flow features, which resorts to the notion of effect size. The procedure is used challenge the stability of popular flow features, such as the direction and size of the first four packets of a TCP connection. Our results, obtained with three high-quality traffic traces, clearly show that only some applications are portable, when using these features as discriminators. We also provide evidence of these findings based on the operation of the protocols underlying the Internet applications.
The BoxTree: Exact and Fast Collision Detection of Arbitrary Polyhedra

An algorithm for exact collision detection is presented which can handle arbitrary non-convex polyhedra ef-ciently. The approach attains its speed by a hierarchical adaptive space subdivision scheme, the Box-Tree, and an associated divide-and-conquer traversal algorithm, which exploits the very special geometry of boxes. Boxes were chosen, because they ooer much tighter space partitioning than spheres. The traversal algorithm is generic, so it can be endowed with other semantics operating on polyhedra. The algorithm is fairly simple to implement and it is described in great detail in an \ftp-able" appendix to facilitate easy implementation. The construction of the data structures is very simple and fast. Timing results show the eeciency of this approach.
Delay Evaluation of OpenFlow Network Based on Queueing Model

As one of the most popular south-bound protocol of software-defined networking(SDN), OpenFlow decouples the network control from forwarding devices. It offers flexible and scalable functionality for networks. These advantages may cause performance issues since there are performance penalties in terms of packet processing speed. It is important to understand the performance of OpenFlow switches and controllers for its deployments. In this paper we model the packet processing time of OpenFlow switches and controllers. We mainly analyze how the probability of packet-in messages impacts the performance of switches and controllers. Our results show that there is a performance penalty in OpenFlow networks. However, the penalty is not much when probability of packet-in messages is low. This model can be used for a network designer to approximate the performance of her deployments.
The Profiles and the Analysis of the Features on the Typical Landslides in the History of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area

Three Gorges Reservoir is located in the transfer of a mountain gorge area of Sichuan and Hubei province, with high mountains and steep slopes, the developed water system, and deep rivers. The complicated geological structure and the frequent geological disasters had bring a serious impediment to the construction and economic development of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, and catastrophic harm to people's lives and property. As to make a general description and brief analysis of the typical landslides in the history of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, this paper selects four larger representative landslides in the history of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area as the typical instances, which include Xintan landslide, Qianjiangping landslide, Jipazi landslide, Majiaba landslide.
Visualization in Ontology Tools

With a literature study we found an enormous number of ontology visualization tools. Many of them apply graph visualization but there are other approaches as well. We have identified interesting solutions for dealing with the complexity of large ontologies. Ontology engineering, ontology mapping and alignment can benefit from Information Visualization. Our collection is a starting point to demonstrate the usefulness of Information Visualization techniques, however, a detailed evaluation would be the next step to consolidate this research area and help to boost the adoption of ontologies in common Web applications.
Trends and sources of lead ( Pb ) aerosol pollution in the North Pacific rim of North America from 1850 to 2001 are investigated using a high-resolution ( subannual to annual ) ice core record recovered from Eclipse

[1] Trends and sources of lead (Pb) aerosol pollution in the North Pacific rim of North America from 1850 to 2001 are investigated using a high-resolution (subannual to annual) ice core record recovered from Eclipse Icefield (3017 masl; St. Elias Mountains, Canada). Beginning in the early 1940s, increasing Pb concentration at Eclipse Icefield occurs coevally with anthropogenic Pb deposition in central Greenland, suggesting that North American Pb pollution may have been in part or wholly responsible in both regions. Isotopic ratios (Pb/Pb and Pb/Pb) from 1970 to 2001 confirm that a portion of the Pb deposited at Eclipse Icefield is anthropogenic, and that it represents a variable mixture of East Asian (Chinese and Japanese) emissions transported eastward across the Pacific Ocean and a North American component resulting from transient meridional atmospheric flow. Based on comparison with source material Pb isotope ratios, Chinese and North American coal combustion have likely been the primary sources of Eclipse Icefield Pb over the 1970–2001 time period. The Eclipse Icefield Pb isotope composition also implies that the North Pacific mid-troposphere is not directly impacted by transpolar atmospheric flow from Europe. Annually averaged Pb concentrations in the Eclipse Icefield ice core record show no long-term trend during 1970–2001; however, increasing Pb/Pb and decreasing Pb/Pb ratios reflect the progressive East Asian industrialization and increase in Asian pollutant outflow. The post-1970 decrease in North American Pb emissions is likely necessary to explain the Eclipse Icefield Pb concentration time series. When compared with low (lichen) and high (Mt. Logan ice core) elevation Pb data, the Eclipse ice core record suggests a gradual increase in pollutant deposition and stronger trans-Pacific Asian contribution with rising elevation in the mountains of the North Pacific rim.
INFLATION ZONE TARGETING BY ATHANASIOS ORPHANIDES AND VOLKER WIELAND OCTOBER 1999

We study optimal monetary policy design in a simple model that deviates from the linear-quadratic paradigm and provides a rationale for the practice of inflation zone targeting. We show that the presence of either zone-quadratic preferences or a zonelinear relationship between inflation and economic activity provides strong incentives to deviate from conventional linear policies. We calibrate the model based on parameters for the U.S. and the Euro area and employ a numerical dynamic programming algorithm to derive the optimal policies. With this algorithm, we examine the role of uncertainty, model structure and relative preference towards economic stability in determining the width of the implied targeted inflation zone.