Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implementing Lean Tools to Streamline Banking Operations: A Case Study of a Small Lebanese Bank

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the benefits generated from the application of lean tools in banking services. We will highlight on challenges, advantages, and principal success factors for lean implementation. As financial markets are experiencing changes so it’s mandatory to create a streamlined bank to meet the new expectations in a timely manner while continuing to lower operational costs. The methodology used is a case study research based on a participant observation, in which we describe and analyze the implementation of VSM lean tool in a real banking environment. The main findings illustrate the great potential and capabilities of the lean tools when implemented. VSM is a very helpful Lean tool for banks to embrace disruptive technologies and create better experiences for customers and employees. We argue that to maintain and realize a sustainable achievement, lean practices must be adjusted and become a characteristic of bank culture.
Isfahan Healthy Heart Programme: a comprehensive integrated community-based programme for cardiovascular disease prevention and control. Design, methods and initial experience

The Isfahan Healthy Heart Programme (IHHP) is a five to six year comprehensive integrated community-based programme for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) prevention and control via reducing CVD risk factors and improvement of cardiovascular healthy behaviour in a target population. IHHP started late in 1999 and will be finished in 2005-2006. A primary survey was done to collect baseline data from interventional (Isfahan and Najaf-Abad) and reference (Arak) communities. In a two-stage sampling method, we randomly selected 5 to 10 percent of households from randomly selected clusters.Then individuals aged ≥19 years were selected for the survey.This way, data from 12,600 individuals (6300 in interventional counties and 6300 in the reference county) was collected and stratified according to living area (urban vs. rural) and different age and sex groups. The samples underwent a 30-minute interview to complete validated questionnaires containing questions on demography, socioeconomic status, smoking behaviour, physical activity, nutritional habits and other behaviour regarding CVD. Blood pressure and body mass index (BMI) measurements were done and fasting blood samples were taken for two hours post load plasma glucose (2 hpp), serum (total, HDL and LDL) cholesterol and triglyceride levels.A twelve-lead electrocardiogram was recorded in all persons above 35 years of age.Community-wide surveillance of deaths, hospital discharges, myocardial infarction and stroke registry was carried out in the intervention and control areas. Four to five years of interventions based on different categories such as mass media, community partnerships, health system involvement and policy and legislation have started in the intervention area while Arak will be followed without intervention. Considering the results of the baseline surveys. (assessments needed, the objectives, existing resources and the possibility of national implementation) the interventions were planned.They were set based on specific target groups like school children, women, work-site, health personnel, high-risk persons, and community leaders were actively engaged as decision makers.A series of teams was arranged for planning and implementation of the intervention strategies. Monitoring will be done on small samples to assess the effect of different interventions in the intervention area.While four periodic surveys will be conducted on independent samples to assess health behaviours related to CVD risk factors in the intervention and reference areas, the original pre-intervention subjects aged more than 35 years will be followed in both areas to assess the individual effect of interventions and outcomes like sudden death, fatal and nonfatal MI and stroke. The whole baseline survey will be repeated on the original and an independent sample in both communities at the end of the study.
Pathological pelvic fracture following long-term bisphosphonate use in a 63-year-old woman

A 63-year-old woman presented with a low energy pelvic fracture, which showed no signs of healing. Initial fractures were to the right hemipelvis, later followed by a right fractured neck of femur. We present a complicated patient journey, management dilemmas and highlight the growing concern with long-term bisphosphonate treatment.
The efficacy of the neck and tail of miniature dinosaur-like robot TITRUS-III

In this paper the fundamental concepts of the dinosaur-like robot called TITRUS and the mechanism design of the miniature prototype robot TITRUS-III are explained. TITRUS is based on the concept to realize a practical mobile working platform. ne explanation addresses its availability with two physical models: a particle system and a rigid body system The features of TITRUS are (1) realizing high dynamic stability by using a neck and a tail as an active dumper when the robot walks, (2) standing with the tail to compose a stable supporting triangle so that the robot can work stably and (3) enabling it to do various tasks by applying a manipulator to the neck. Finally, the fundamental walking experiments to examine usability of the neck and tail on TITRUS-III are reported.
Regularization for Neural Networks

Research into regularization techniques is motivated by the tendency of neural networks to to learn the specifics of the dataset it was trained on rather than learning general features that are applicable to unseen data. This is known as overfitting. The goal of any supervised machine learning task is to approximate a function that maps inputs to outputs, given a dataset of examples and labels. An important assumption is that models are trained on datasets which are representative of the true distribution of the data and the target function to be approximated. However, almost all data is noisy and contains some random deviations from the true distribution. Given this fact, approximating the function represented by the training data very precisely is undesirable. The algorithm will learn the noise in the training dataset and will be unlikely to perform well when applied to unseen data. Regularizing neural networks helps them to learn the true function and ignore the noise.
Role of Decision Making in Predicting Health Behavior

The annual healthcare expenditure of United States is increasing at a tremendous rate. The decisions made by people concerning their health enforces the government’s involvement in encouraging better health behavior through predefined strategies. The poor health behavior often leads to an unhealthy community which further leads to a poor health nation. The CDC administers Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey annually. This paper aims to curb the poor decision making in health behavior utilizing 2016 SMART BRFSS data. Using data mining approach, predictive model is developed by analyzing the pattern of decision making of an individual and how it affects the health behavior. This model can aid future BRFSS surveys in better understanding the responses and provide an insight into the factors affecting these decisions. Further, the model will help in targeting poor decision makers to focus on their health behavior and prevent these decisions leading to major illnesses.
Fluorescence‐Tagged Gold Nanoparticles for Rapidly Characterizing the Size‐Dependent Biodistribution in Tumor Models

Nanoparticle vehicles may improve the delivery of contrast agents and therapeutics to diseased tissues, but their rational design is currently impeded by a lack of robust technologies to characterize their in vivo behavior in real‐time. This study demonstrates that fluorescent‐labeled gold nanoparticles can be optimized for in vivo detection, perform pharmacokinetic analysis of nanoparticle designs, analyze tumor extravasation, and clearance kinetics in tumor‐bearing animals. This optical imaging approach is non‐invasive and high‐throughput. Interestingly, these fluorescent gold nanoparticles can be used for multispectral imaging to compare several nanoparticle designs simultaneously within the same animal and eliminates the host‐dependent variabilities across measured data. Together these results describe a novel platform for evaluating the performance of tumor‐targeting nanoparticles, and provide new insights for the design of future nanotherapeutics.
2-[(Propan-2-yloxy)carbonyl]quinolin-1-ium tetrachlorido(quinoline-2-carboxylato-κ2 N,O)stannate(IV)

In the title salt, (C13H14NO2)[Sn(C10H6NO2)Cl4], the SnIV cation is N,O-chelated by the quinolincarboxylate unit and further coordinated by four Cl− anions in a distorted octahedral geometry. In the crystal, the 2-[(propan-2-yloxy)carbonyl]quinolin-1-ium cation is linked to the Sn complex anion by an N—H⋯O hydrogen bond.
On electromagnetic radiation in nonlocal environments—Steps toward a theory of near field engineering

We study the antenna radiation field when the surrounding medium is spatially responsive. The Green's function of such nonlocal or spatially dispersive media is derived and a spectral expansion is obtained. It is shown that the antenna can launch both backward and forward wave modes into the far zone, and that this occurs also in a natural way in the near zone. We also demonstrate that the medium can localize the field around the antenna, giving rise to a wide range of potentials for future near field engineering.
Torsional vibration monitoring using induction machine electromagnetic torque estimation

The heavy duty drives need a continuous monitoring to avoid sudden loss of operation. In these systems, the mechanical anomalies like load troubles, great torque dynamic variations and torsional oscillations, result in the fatigue of the shaft driving electrical machine and other mechanical parts as bearings and gearboxes. Then, the permanent on-site mechanical performance has to be evaluated to predict the residual life time of each mechanical part on the base of combined mechanical loads affecting them. In this way, this paper proposes an electromagnetic torque estimation using non invasive measuring as a mean for mechanical monitoring of torsional stresses. Different electromagnetic torque estimations can be obtained from the induction machine mathematical representation and the simplest one in term of implementation is proposed for grid or inverter-fed machines. A test-bed based on a 5.5 kW squirrel-cage connected to a wound-rotor 4 kW induction machine via a gearbox has been used to validate the proposed method.
Glucosinolates and their breakdown products in food and food plants.

This review surveys the occurrence, analysis, and properties of glucosinolates and derived compounds in plants and products intended for humans and animal consumption. The paper, which includes references published in 1981, is also intended to compliment existing reviews on the chemistry of these sulfur‐containing natural products. Particular emphasis is placed upon members of the Brassica family because of their importance as vegetables, condiments, oilseeds, and animal feedingstuffs. Since much of the work considered here relates to glucosinolate decomposition products, biochemical information concerning the nature, occurrence, and properties of the glucosinolate‐degrading enzyme, myrosinase, is considered in Section III. The methods available for the chemical analysis of glucosinolates and their various breakdown products are discussed critically. Factors affecting the glucosinolate content of plants and plant products arc outlined in Section VII. Particular emphasis is placed upon the effect of proces.
Camera Calibration of a NintendoWii Remote using PA-10 Robotic Arms

The Remote control unit for the Nintendo Wii computer games console features an infrared camera capable of detecting up to 4 infrared lights. As such, it is possible to calibrate this device using normal camera calibration techniques so that it can be used for tracking or human interfacing in a virtual environment. Camera calibration is an active area of research and there is a wealth of software available to perform the calibration e.g. ArToolKit and Matlab. Camera calibration typically requires at least five images which contain multiple grid points from which a matrix of camera parameters can be estimated. This paper proposes a method of calibrating the Wii Remote's IR camera by building up 24 calibration points from the 4 viewed infrared LEDs for a single viewpoint of the IR camera. This is done by moving the 4 LEDs in a known sequence using highly accurate PA-10 robotic arms. The camera calibration matrix parameters obtained from this method are presented.
A multi-agent based model for urban demand-responsive passenger transport services

Multi-agent simulation has been looked as an efficient tool for urban dynamic traffic services. However, the main problem is how to build an agent-based model for it. This research presents a multi-agent based demand responsive transport (DRT) services model, which adopts a practical multi-agents planning approach for urban DRT services control that satisfies the main constraints: minimize total slack time, travel time, waiting time, clientpsilas special requests, and using minimum number of vehicle. In this paper, we propose an agent based multi-layer distributed hybrid planning model for the real-time problem which can solve this question. In the proposed method, an agent for each vehicle finds a set of routes by its local search, and selects a route by cooperation with other agents in its planning domain. By computational experiments, we examine the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Profiling experienced quality factors of audiovisual 3D perception

Experienced multimodal quality is often assessed using quantitative experiments disregarding participants' experienced quality factors. The goal of this paper is to explore multimodal quality by using both quantitative methods as well as qualitative methods. Monoscopic and stereoscopic visual presentation modes and related room acoustic simulations for small and large spaces were varied. The experiments were conducted using a 15″ autostereoscopic display and a 4.0 loudspeaker setup. Experienced quality was measured using both quantitative evaluation and Free-Choice Profiling with 20 naive participants. The results show that participants were qualitatively able to differentiate variables, although no quantitative excellence of stimuli was identified. The results also show that individual sensorial preferences are part of any multimodal quality evaluation. Therefore, we recommend using mixed methods to help in understanding heterogeneous multimodal quality. Individual sensorial preferences need to be further examined to improve multimodal quality evaluation experiments.
A HLAR and Key Exchange Protocol based Secure VANET with Low Routing Overhead

In vehicular Ad hoc Networks, the privacy protection is one of the major requirements. Since there are huge number of vehicles on our highways and city roads there must be possibility of attacks. To protect the privacy of vehicles, one solution is to hide the vehicle’s identity with the use of pseudonym keys (i.e, temporary identities). Each vehicle uses its pseudonym key to communicate with other vehicles and road side units. The main effort of this work is to provide a solution towards privacy protection in vehicular Ad hoc Networks. Initially, we view vehicular ad hoc networks having nonoverlapping sub networks referred to be a cell. Each cell with small geographic area having a pseudonym server which generates a list of pseudonyms using capacity planning algorithm. The Diffie Hellman Key Exchange scheme is also used to increase privacy protection. Our another effort is to reduce the routing overhead by using Hybrid Location based Ad hoc Routing (HLAR) protocol for routing pseudonyms and further communication. The accurate results are obtained and the performance is compared with reactive by detailed simulations.
Hyper-personalization – fashion sustainability through digital clienteling

Purpose This study aims to find the model fit to understand the consumer behavior in context to the hyper-personalization through digital clienteling by using structural equation modeling. The traditional method of customer passive observance has been transformed to dominance, where, the fundamental challenge for companies is to understand consumer behavior, work on cost-efficiency and implement sustainable innovation. Design/methodology/approach To investigate this emerging issue, this study aims to find the model fit via applying “Technology Acceptance Model” (TAM) and “Theory of Reasoned Action” (TRA) in context to the hyper-personalization through digital clienteling with special reference to women ethnic fashion wear. Findings The study findings depict the perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) of technology, attitude toward clienteling and subjective norm toward customization impact on customer intensions. The findings posited that perceived usefulness is having the strong relationship with purchase intention as compare to other variables. So, the analysis postulated that customer considered hyper-personalization is having perceived usefulness for customer and it also helps customer in getting the information about the product on the Web page. Research limitations/implications Because of lack of availability of resources, a specified sampling method has been used for this study. A new research, which will cover the fashion apparel from all the categories with a detailed study from the branded and non-branded point of view, will provide better description on this topic. Practical implications By having personalized Web page through big data analytics, customer will have positive experience and positive association with the company. The other parameters also play an important role toward the customer behavioral intention. The current study approaches new way of understanding the participative management of the personalization and tool to guide the work of strategy professionals and management of fashion e-commerce sector internationally and even in the other sectors also. Social implications Because of advancement of technology, the usage of online media is increasing day by day and this change is having high impact on the society, though we can innovate in any field or industry. Hyper-personalization has an impact on the online consumer buying behavior, which will affect the methods of searching information for consumers. Originality/value This new area of research is having large scope of future research from the fashion industry point of view. This paper is working as one of the element in the area of hyper-personalization through digital clienteling to gain sustainable results in the fashion industry.
GENETIC VARIATION IN HIF SIGNALING UNDERLIES QUANTITATIVE VARIATION IN PHYSIOLOGICAL AND LIFE‐HISTORY TRAITS WITHIN LOWLAND BUTTERFLY POPULATIONS

Oxygen conductance to the tissues determines aerobic metabolic performance in most eukaryotes but has cost/benefit tradeoffs. Here we examine in lowland populations of a butterfly a genetic polymorphism affecting oxygen conductance via the hypoxia‐inducible factor (HIF) pathway, which senses intracellular oxygen and controls the development of oxygen delivery networks. Genetically distinct clades of Glanville fritillary (Melitaea cinxia) across a continental scale maintain, at intermediate frequencies, alleles in a metabolic enzyme (succinate dehydrogenase, SDH) that regulates HIF‐1α. One Sdhd allele was associated with reduced SDH activity rate, twofold greater cross‐sectional area of tracheoles in flight muscle, and better flight performance. Butterflies with less tracheal development had greater post‐flight hypoxia signaling, swollen & disrupted mitochondria, and accelerated aging of flight metabolic performance. Allelic associations with metabolic and aging phenotypes were replicated in samples from different clades. Experimentally elevated succinate in pupae increased the abundance of HIF‐1α and expression of genes responsive to HIF activation, including tracheal morphogenesis genes. These results indicate that the hypoxia inducible pathway, even in lowland populations, can be an important axis for genetic variation underlying intraspecific differences in oxygen delivery, physiological performance, and life history.
Is Romania a Sustainable Developed Country? An Analysis of Ecological Footprint (EF) in Correlation with Human Development Index (HDI)

The paper aims to answer the question if Romania is a sustainable developed country, using the analysis of Ecological Footprint (EF) in correlation with Human Development Index (HDI). EF expresses the ecological goods and services that people need to meet their needs within a given space. It comprises biocapacity, defined as a biological production area, necessary for crops, meadows, built areas, fishing areas and forestry products and the amount of forest required to absorb the excess of carbon dioxide emissions beyond the ocean's absorption capacity. HDI measures national average for longevity, education and living standards. A value that exceeds 0.7 indicates "high human development". Romania has an HDI value of 0.8, an EF per person of 2.63 gha, entering the category of High Human Development Countries. The conclusion of the study is that the ecological reserve of Romania is due to the decline of the industrial sector and not to an efficient management in the field of sustainable development. How to cite: Bostan, I. , Clipa, F. , Clipa, R.I. (2017). Is Romania a Sustainable Developed Country? An Analysis of Ecological Footprint (EF) in Correlation with Human Development Index (HDI). Logos Universality Mentality Education Novelty, Section: Economy and Administrative Sciences, 3 (1), 5-14. https://doi.org/10.18662/lumeneas/01
Improving Performance for Decentralized Execution of Composite Web Services

Decentralized orchestration of composite web services offers performance improvements in terms of increased throughput and lower response time. However, most relevant research literature in decentralizing service composition omit the step of selecting component services, the locations of which have major impact on the amount of dataflow messages and the volume of network traffic during decentralized execution. In order to reduce the network traffic generated by data flow messages thus to improve the performance of the decentralized orchestration, this paper presents an approach to component service selection using data dependency graphs. The performance evaluation concludes that a substantial decrease in network traffic by use of our service selection approach results in a reduction of approximately 30% in execution time on average.
Disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis

4 Abbreviations 7 List of papers 9 Introduction 1. Rheumatoid arthritis 11 2. Disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis 13 3. Pro-inflammatory cytokines 15 4. Monocyte activation 18 5. Acute phase markers 21 6. Glucocorticoids 27 7. Physical disability 31 Aims of the investigation 37 Materials and methods 1. Laboratory methods 38 2. Clinical methods 39 Present investigations 44 Discussion 52 Conclusions 59 Acknowledgements 60 Sammanfattning på svenska 62 References 66