Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relationship between Perceived and Objective Price-Quality

Four studies were conducted to assess the accuracy with which consumers perceive objective price-quality relationships. Results across four studies indicate that, overall, consumers perceive objective price-quality relationships with only a modest degree of accuracy. However, findings also suggest that the accuracy of consumers’ perceptions is moderated by product type; that is, price-quality perceptions are more accurate for nondurable products than for durable products. The authors conclude that consumers’ price-quality perceptions appear to be a function of general or product-type-specific schemas, rather than independent evaluations of price-quality relationships for individual product categories.
Alveolar dynamics in acute lung injury: Heterogeneous distension rather than cyclic opening and collapse*

Objectives:To analyze alveolar dynamics in healthy and acid-injured lungs of ventilated mice. Protective ventilation is potentially lifesaving in patients with acute lung injury. However, optimization of ventilation strategies is hampered by an incomplete understanding of the effects of mechanical ventilation at the alveolar level. Design:In anesthetized and ventilated Balb/c mice, subpleural alveoli were visualized by darkfield intravital microscopy and optical coherence tomography. Setting:Animal research laboratory. Subjects:Male Balb/c mice. Interventions:Lung injury was induced by intratracheal instillation of hydrochloric acid. In control animals and mice with lung injury, ventilation pressures were varied between 0 and 24 cm H2O at baseline, 60 mins, and 120 mins, and alveolar distension and cyclic opening and collapse of alveolar clusters were analyzed. Measurements and Main Results:In normal lungs, alveolar clusters distend with increasing ventilation pressure in a sigmoid relationship. Although an increase in ventilation pressure from 0 to 24 cm H2O increases alveolar size by 41.5 ± 2.3% in normal lungs, alveolar distension is reduced to 20.6 ± 2.2% 120 mins after induction of lung injury by acid aspiration. Cyclic opening and collapse of alveolar clusters are neither observed in normal nor acid-injured lungs. Alveolar compliance is highest in small and distensible alveolar clusters, which are also most prone to acid-induced injury. Conclusions:Over the applied pressure range, volume changes in control and acid-injured mouse lungs result predominantly from alveolar distension rather than cyclic opening and collapse of alveolar clusters. Preferential loss of compliance in small alveolar clusters redistributes tidal volume to larger alveoli, which increases spatial heterogeneity in alveolar inflation and may promote alveolar overdistension.
Randomization Procedures: The Case for Strong Encryption

Randomization ensures an appropriate allocation of patients in a clinical trial. In practice, however, it is undeniable that there are possible attempts to decipher the randomized allocation sequence. Though, we recognize that a message may get intercepted, and therefore should be encrypted, we do not seem to recognize the importance of allocation concealment. As long as we keep the allocation sequence under lock and key, it is believed that it is impervious to subversion. Of course this is folly, and the precise method of randomization should serve as the mode of encryption. Despite numerous publications that have discredited the permuted blocks procedure on the basis of its excessive vulnerability to prediction of future allocations and, therefore, selection bias, it still remains an industry standard. In this paper, we discuss the three major MTI procedures (the big stick, Chen, and maximal procedures), illustrate the numerous encryption benefits they offer over permuted blocks, and invite readers to then draw their own conclusions based on the evidence.
Irradiation of dystrophic host tissue prior to myoblast transfer therapy enhances initial (but not long-term) survival of donor myoblasts

There is a massive and rapid death of donor myoblasts (<20% surviving) within hours after intramuscular injection in myoblast transfer therapy (MTT), due to host immune cells, especially natural killer (NK) cells. To investigate the role of host immune cells in the dramatic death of donor myoblasts, MTT experiments were performed in irradiated host mice. Cultured normal C57BL/10ScSn male donor myoblasts were injected into muscles of female C57BL/10ScSn-Dmdmdx host mice after one of three treatments: whole body irradiation (WBI) to eliminate all circulating leukocytes, WBI and bone marrow reconstitution (BMR), or local irradiation (or protection) of one limb. Similar experiments were performed in host mice after antibody depletion of NK cells. Numbers of male donor myoblasts were quantified using a Y-chromosome-specific (male) probe following total DNA extraction of injected muscles. WBI prior to MTT resulted in dramatically enhanced survival (∼80%) of donor myoblasts at 1 hour after MTT, supporting a central role for host inflammatory cells in the initial death of donor myoblasts seen in untreated host mice. BMR restored the massive and rapid loss (∼25% surviving) of donor myoblasts at 1 hour after MTT. Local pre-irradiation also resulted in increased donor myoblast numbers (∼35-40%) compared with untreated controls (∼10%) at 3 weeks after MTT. Preirradiation of host muscle with 10 Gy did not significantly stimulate proliferation of the injected donor myoblasts. Serum protein levels of TNFα, IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-12 fluctuated following irradiation treatments. These combined results strongly reinforce a major role for host immune cells in the rapid death of injected cultured donor myoblasts.
Development of a quantum-dot-labelled magnetic immunoassay method for circulating colorectal cancer cell detection.

AIM To detect of colorectal cancer (CRC) circulating tumour cells (CTCs) surface antigens, we present an assay incorporating cadmium selenide quantum dots (QDs) in these paper. METHODS The principle of the assay is the immunomagnetic separation of CTCs from body fluids in conjunction with QDs, using specific antibody biomarkers: epithelial cell adhesion molecule antibody, and monoclonal cytokeratin 19 antibody. The detection signal was acquired from the fluorescence signal of QDs. For the evaluation of the performance, the method under study was used to isolate the human colon adenocarcinoma cell line (DLD-1) and CTCs from CRC patients' peripheral blood. RESULTS The minimum detection limit of the assay was defined to 10 DLD-1 CRC cells/mL as fluorescence was measured with a spectrofluorometer. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting analysis and Real Time RT-PCR, they both have also been used to evaluate the performance of the described method. In conclusion, we developed a simple, sensitive, efficient and of lower cost (than the existing ones) method for the detection of CRC CTCs in human samples. We have accomplished these results by using magnetic bead isolation and subsequent QD fluorescence detection. CONCLUSION The method described here can be easily adjusted for any other protein target of either the CTC or the host.
Social behavior in fission–fusion groups of red uakari monkeys (Cacajao calvus ucayalii)

Primates living in large groups that divide to forage must have social systems compatible with this mode of living. Uakari monkeys (Cacajao spp.) live in large groups and exhibit a form of fission–fusion grouping, but their social organization is poorly understood. We present some of the first data on social behavior for this genus based on a study on Cacajao calvus ucayalii. They traveled in multimale multifemale groups of highly variable sizes, with bachelor units on the periphery. Adult males were affiliative, and adult females associated with more than one adult male. Adult females typically traveled with their dependent offspring and an older juvenile within the group. In parties of two or more males, individuals engaged in previously unreported display behaviors and acted together to aggressively chase other males. Breeding was seasonal, and mating occurred away from other group members. We speculate on the social organization of C. calvus ucayalii, in which dispersal may be bisexual and peripheral males are affiliative with one another. Affiliated males appear to cooperate in fighting and displaying to other males for access to females during the breeding season. Am. J. Primatol. 71:976–987, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Robust Stabilization of a Wheeled Mobile Robot Using Model Predictive Control Based on Neurodynamics Optimization

In this paper, a robust model predictive control (MPC) scheme using neural network-based optimization has been developed to stabilize a physically constrained mobile robot. By applying a state-scaling transformation, the intrinsic controllability of the mobile robot can be regained by incorporation into the control input u1 an additional exponential decaying term. An MPC-based control method is then designed for the robot in the presence of external disturbances. The MPC optimization can be formulated as a convex nonlinear minimization problem and a primal- dual neural network is adopted to solve this optimization problem over a finite receding horizon. The computational efficiency of MPC has been improved by the proposed neurodynamic approach. Experimental studies under various dynamic conditions have been performed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach.
Inter-Comparison of Carbon Content in PM2.5 and PM10 Collected at Five Measurement Sites in Southern Italy

A field campaign was performed simultaneously at five measurement sites, having different characteristics, to characterize the spatial distribution of the carbonaceous content in atmospheric aerosol in Southern Italy during the winter season. Organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) were measured at urban (Naples), suburban (Lecce), coastal/marine (Lamezia Terme and Capo Granitola), and remote (Monte Curcio) locations. OC and EC mass concentrations were quantified by the thermal-optical transmission (TOT) method, in 24-h PM10 and PM2.5 samples collected on quartz fiber filters, from 25 November 2015 to 1 January 2016. The different sites showed marked differences in the average concentrations of both carbonaceous species. Typically, OC average levels (±standard deviation) were higher at the sites of Naples (12.8 ± 5.1 and 11.8 ± 4.6 μg/m3) and Lecce (10.7 ± 5.8 and 9.0 ± 4.7 μg/m3), followed by Lamezia Terme (4.3 ± 2.0 and 4.0 ± 1.9 μg/m3), Capo Granitola (2.3 ± 1.2 and 1.7 ± 1.1 μg/m3), and Monte Curcio (0.9 ± 0.3 and 0.9 ± 0.3 μg/m3) in PM10 and PM2.5, respectively. Similarly, EC average levels (±standard deviation) were higher at the urban sites of Naples (2.3 ± 1.1 and 1.8 ± 0.5 μg/m3) and Lecce (1.5 ± 0.8 and 1.4 ± 0.7 μg/m3), followed by Lamezia Terme (0.6 ± 0.3 and 0.6 ± 0.3 μg/m3), Capo Granitola (0.3 ± 0.3 and 0.3 ± 0.2 μg/m3), and Monte Curcio (0.06 ± 0.04 and 0.05 ± 0.03 μg/m3) in PM10 and PM2.5, respectively. An opposite trend was observed for the OC/EC ratios ranging from 6.4 to 15.9 in PM10 and from 6.4 to 15.5 in PM2.5 with lower values in urban sites compared to remote sites. Different OC-EC correlations, 0.36 < R2 < 0.90, were found in four observation sites. This behavior suggests the contributions of similar sources and common atmospheric processes in both fractions. No correlations were observed between OC and EC at the site of Naples. The average secondary organic carbon (SOC) concentrations, quantified using the minimum OC/EC ratio method, ranged from 0.4 to 7.6 μg/m3 in PM10 and from 0.4 to 7.2 μg/m3 in PM2.5, accounting from 37 to 59% of total OC in PM10 and from 40 to 57% in PM2.5 with higher percentages in the urban and suburban sites of Naples and Lecce.
Joint AOA/RSSI based multi-user location system for military mobile base-station

In this paper, we propose a 2-dimensional multi-user location system based on local tactical military communication network for one mobile base-station (BS). The proposed system estimate a location with joint use of angle of arrival (AOA) and received signal strength indication (RSSI) ranging. The locations of multi-user can be estimated with uplink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) signal. Simulations are performed with IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMAX (WiBro) environment. Simulation results demonstrate that the effectiveness of the proposed location system.
A 1.1V 50mW 2.5GS/s 7b Time-Interleaved C-2C SAR ADC in 45nm LP digital CMOS

High-speed medium-resolution ADCs are widely utilized in high-speed communication systems, such as serial links, UWB, and OFDM-based 60GHz receivers. Due to complex DSP and low-power constraints, digital basebands are designed in low-leakage, high-VT low-power (LP) CMOS processes making the design of high-speed ADCs challenging. Time-Interleaved (TI) Successive-Approximation-Register-based (SAR) ADCs[1] are ideally suited to these applications due to their highly scalable architecture and due to the steady improvement in matching and density of Metal-Finger Capacitors (MFC). This paper presents a TI C-2C SAR ADC that achieves high performance by using: 1) a small-area C-2C SAR architecture with low input capacitance; 2) high-speed boosted switches to overcome high device threshold; 3) background comparator offset calibration and radix calibration; and 4) redundant-ADC-based gain, offset and timing calibration to reduce TI errors.
The environmental value‐attitude‐system model: A framework to guide the understanding of environmentally‐conscious consumer behaviour

Business writers such as Charter in 1992 predict that addressing the environmental consciousness of consumers will be one of the most important issues industry will face in the 1990s, and was seen by Ottmann in 1992 as the marketing trend of the decade. In 1993 Coddington judged much of green consumer potential to be latent as the environmental concern expressed in surveys was not clearly visible in current consumer behaviour. How best to respond to this new challenge and exploit the potential market is still causing confusion amongst marketers. However, it is a practical business concern as consumers may become more explicit in their demand and use their purchase power as an economic vote to effect social and environmental change. It is argued that marketing conclusions can only be drawn from a thorough understanding of the phenomenon. In this paper, the value‐attitude‐system model of Vinson et al. in 1977 is applied and extended to provide an insight into the complex phenomena affecting environmentally‐.
Crime, security, and firms in Latin America

Existing studies show that crime is more rampant in the larger cities and that wealthier individuals are more often targeted. Using enterprise surveys data for 14 Latin American countries, the author find that one- third of the firms surveyed suffer from one or more incident of crime annually, which is roughly similar to the percentage of households affected. Crime- related losses average 2.7 percent of annual sales for all firms in the sample, which is more than the reported amount of bribery, losses due to power outages, and firms' expenditure on research and development. The author also find that the relatively well-off large firms are more likely to be victims of crime than the small firms, but losses due to crime as a percentage of annual sales are bigger for small firms. In short, crime in the region is regressive. Last, larger cities are more prone to crime than the smaller cities. However, the author fine that what matters for crime is the relative size of a city within a country; its absolute size is irrelevant.
Grid-Bank for Distributed Systems Sharing and Integration: A Case Study

A new emergent infrastructure for Internet-based parallel and distributed computing is computational Grids. This is a large scale, heterogeneous collection of autonomous systems, geographically distributed and interconnected by heterogeneous networks. Job sharing (computational burden) is one of the major difficult tasks in a computational grid environment. Many Grid projects have developed technologies that provide many of the services such as security, uniform access, resource management, scheduling, application composition, computational economy, with an exception of accountability. A new infrastructure called GridBank provides services for accounting to overcome this limitation [1]. We have simulated the banking system (accounting and payment services) that provide the information about the consumed resources by the system and also provide the mechanisms for service providers to be paid for authorized use of their resources. We have also simulated the banking system for recording of usage data, secure storage of that data, analysis of that data for purposes of billing and so forth.
Disclosure, Conservatism and their Influence on Cost of Capital of the Companies Accepted by Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE)

This study attempts to examine the relevance of Disclosure, conservatism and their influence on cost of capital of the companies accepted by Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) and Compare the relative information content of them. Based on sampling, 113 firms from Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) were selected and examined during 2003 to 2009. The results support the priority of accounting figures over dividend policy. The results show there is some significant relation between the conservatism rate and cost of capital. The relation between the conservatism and cost of capital is on the basis of the Spence (1973). By virtue of the theory the companies benefit from the conservative accounting policy as a quality sign. When the conservative accounting policy is chosen it indicates a positive qualitative sign. Higher quality indicates the information risk of a company decreases probably; when the information risk of a company decreases the cost of capital decreases, too. Also the results show a significant relation between the disclosure rate and cost of capital namely when the disclosure rate of a company is higher (better) the usual shares cost is lower.
Analysis of TOA localization with heteroscedastic noises

This paper focuses on the problem of source localization using time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements. Differently from the existing studies assuming that TOA measurement noises are independent and identically distributed, we deal with more practical TOA measurements suffering from heteroscedastic noises due to different physical distances between a source and multiple sensors. Consequently, the variance of the heteroscedastic noise is distance-dependent. From the information point of view, the distance-dependent variance contains certain information about the source location, and as such helps to improve localization accuracy. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the impact of the heteroscedastic noises on localization accuracy, and conclude that using the extra information in the distance-dependent variance does not significantly improve the estimation accuracy under low noise levels. Furthermore, considering the fact that TOA measurements are normally accurate, we propose a lightweight localization scheme based on the existing two-stage maximum likelihood (TSML) method. Finally, a simulation analysis confirms our theoretical study, and shows that the accuracy of the proposed localization scheme is comparable to the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) given moderate TOA measurement noises.
Bis(furan-2-ylcarbonyl) diselenide

The title molecule, C10H6O4Se2, lies on a twofold rotation axis. The Se—Se bond length of 2.305 (3) Å is similar to that in diphenyl diselenide [2.3066 (7) and 2.3073 (10) Å for the P and M isomers, respectively] and longer than that in 1,8-diselenonaphthalene [2.0879 (8) Å]. The molecule adopts a gauche conformation with respect to the C=O groups.
The Influence of Music on Perceptions of Brand Personality, Décor, and Service Quality: The Case of Classical Music in a Fine-Dining Restaurant

ABSTRACT Consumers' perceptions of brand personality, décor, and service quality are often regarded as integral drivers of satisfaction judgments and loyalty towards hospitality businesses. Therefore, this study extends existing atmospherics research by testing the influence of music on consumers' perceptions of brand personality, décor and service quality in a laboratory experiment conducted on undergraduate business students in a fine dining restaurant setting. Findings indicate that music does have an influence on perceptions of brand personality and décor, but does not appear to have a significant impact on perceptions of service quality.
VAST 2012 Mini-Challenge 2: Chart- and Matrix-based approach to network operations forensics

We report the approach and results on the VAST 2012 MiniChallenge 2: Bank of Money Regional Office Network Operations Forensics. Using commercial data mining, visualization and database software such as KNIME, Tableau and MySQL as well as a custom-written source vs. destination IP pixel matrix, our team of students identified suspicious IRC traffic, an attack on the firewall, a drop in the firewall connections, an attempt for sensitive information exchange and a possible Distributed Denial-of-Service attack executed partly from a host within the bank network.
Paired pulse facilitation of corticogeniculate EPSCs in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus of the rat investigated in vitro

To investigate paired pulse facilitation of corticogeniculate EPSCs, whole‐cell patch‐clamp recordings were made from principal cells in the rat dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) in vitro. Thalamic slices, oriented so that both corticogeniculate and retinogeniculate axons could be stimulated, were cut from young (16‐ to 37‐day‐old) DA‐HAN rats. Corticogeniculate EPSCs displayed pronounced paired pulse facilitation at stimulus intervals up to 400 ms. The facilitation had a fast and a slow component of decay with time constants of 12 ± 7 and 164 ± 47 ms (means ±s.d.), respectively. Maximum paired pulse ratio (EPSC2× EPSC1−1) was 3.7 ± 1.1 at the 20‐30 ms interval. Similar to other systems, the facilitation was presynaptic. Retinogeniculate EPSCs recorded in the same dLGN cells displayed paired pulse depression at intervals up to at least 700 ms. The two types of EPSCs differed in their calcium response curves. At normal [Ca2+]o, the corticogeniculate synapse functioned over the early rising part of a Hill function, while the retinogeniculate synapse operated over the middle and upper parts of the curve. The paired pulse ratio of corticogeniculate EPSCs was maximal at physiological [Ca2+]o. The facilitation is proposed to have an important role in the function of the corticogeniculate circuit as a neuronal amplifier.
High frequency-selectivity impedance transformer

This paper presents the design of an impedance transformer (IT) with high selectivity and wide out-of-band suppression characteristics. The proposed IT provides two transmission poles in the passband and a sharp frequency selective characteristic. For validation, a 50-to-20 Ω IT has been implemented at a center frequency (f0) of 2.6 GHz. The measurement results show a return loss higher than 20 dB over the passband of 2.2-3 GHz and the insertion loss less than 0.4 dB over the same passband. The out-of-band suppression higher than 17 dB from DC to 1.85 GHz and higher that 11 dB from 3.5 GHz to 7.2 GHz are obtained.
Reconstruction of Printed Image Using Electromagnetic Disturbance from Laser Printer

The electromagnetic disturbance that leaks from ICT (information and communications technology) equipment might contain important information. Our measurements show that the information hidden inside of the electromagnetic disturbance can be monitored. First, we measured the level of the electromagnetic disturbance that leaks from laser printers and collected the waveform in the time domain. Then, we reconstructed the printed image from the data. As a result of our measurements, we found that at points 200 cm away or beyond it is difficult to reconstruct the printed image, and therefore the threat to electromagnetic security is not significant.