Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Version Effect of Information Technology Investments on Customer Satisfaction : An Empirical Analysis

In this paper, we study the effect of information-technology (IT) investments on firms’ customer-satisfaction performance. Although much of the prior work on the business value of IT at the firm level focused on financial and accounting measures, this paper explores the effect of IT investments on more qualitative outputs, such as improved customization, product variety and customer convenience, as reflected in the overall customer satisfaction for a firm. Our analysis of 125 panel observations on fifty firms for multiple years indicates a positive association between aggregate IT investments and customer satisfaction. Our results also indicate that the effect of IT investments on customer satisfaction may differ across manufacturing and service companies. Besides studying the effect of aggregate IT investments, we also study the effect of customer interfacing IT applications such as customer relationship management systems on customer satisfaction. Our analysis of archival data collected for a broad cross section of firms in the US shows a positive effect of customer interfacing CRM systems on customer knowledge and customer satisfaction. Our results suggest that CRM systems help firms in improving their customer knowledge that in turn leads to more targeted customer experiences thus improving customer satisfaction.
Exploiting Location and Time for Photo Search and Storytelling in MyLifeBits

Location information can be used as an additional metadata to time in order to organize photos. Moreover, we believe location information derived from GPS tracks may be useful to look at and visualize for certain tasks. In this paper, we explore ways to organize images and location information, visualize them, and provide interactive operations such as filtering and replaying. Filtering over long ranges and visualizing while filtering as well as what is being filtered were problems we encountered. Our solution to these was a widget we developed called DoubleAlphaSlider, which is capable of filtering over long ranges, supports zoom together with an overview widget that displays the representation of the data and recent contexts that were zoomed from. In addition, we focused on how to help the user understand several derived properties of the data such as direction, adjacency in terms of time and place of subgroups of the data, which are called “trips” in our case.
Extending the RiPLE-DE process with quality attribute variability realization

Software product lines engineering is a viable way to achieve the productivity gains desired by companies. Product line architecture must benefit from commonalities among products in the family and enable the variability among them. The aspect of variability in quality attributes has been neglected or ignored by most of the researchers as attention has been mainly put in functional variability. This paper describes an architecture and design process for software product lines that can properly deal with quality attribute variability. The proposed approach enhances the RiPLE-DE process for software product line engineering with activities and guidelines for quality attribute variability. An initial experimental study is presented to characterize and evaluate the proposed process enhancements.
Improving Churn Resistance of P2P Data Stores Based on the Hypercube

P2P data stores excel if availability of inserted data items must be guaranteed. Their inherent mechanisms to counter peer population dynamics make them suitable for a wide range of application domains. This paper presents and analyzes the fusion maintenance operation. It aims at reorganizing parts of our P2P data store in case the peer population shrinks so much that data availability is threatened. To this end, we present a formal cost model that peers use to estimate the optimal invocation point of a fusion. Finally, we present experimental results that validate our cost model by simulating various network conditions
Developing Applications with Networking Capabilities via End-to-End SDN (DANCES)

The Developing Applications with Networking Capabilities via End-to-End SDN (DANCES) project [1] is a collaboration between The University of Tennessee's National Institute for Computational Sciences (UT-NICS), Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), and Internet2 to investigate and develop the ability to add network bandwidth scheduling via software-defined networking (SDN) programmability to selected cyberinfrastructure services and applications. DANCES, funded by the National Science Foundation's Campus Cyberinfrastructure -- Network Infrastructure and Engineering (CC-NIE) program award numbers 1341005, 1340953, and 1340981, has field tested five vendor network devices in order to determine which implements the DANCES requirements of the OpenFlow 1.3 standard to provide the network reservation and rate-limiting capability desired to implement the goals of DANCES. Another key device selection criterion was sufficient packet buffering to handle wide area network flows without excessive packet loss. After selection of the network device a test environment was setup between UT-NICS and PSC to perform SDN tests in a simulated supercomputer center compute and data transfer resource environment. This paper describes the DANCES project, the DANCES OpenFlow 1.3 specification requirements, the determination and acquiring of a sufficient OpenFlow 1.3 network device, the provisioning of a test environment, and the test plan and results obtained so far by the DANCES team.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN BY CONNECTING NEURONS IN A NANODEVICE ? A short overview and some proposals

A brief overview of examples selected from the literature and concerning structural and functional properties of neurons explored by systematic use of nanodevices is provided, in the aim to show that: i) the native clustering ability of isolated neurons can be controlled and induced to form clusters of interconnected functional units on appropriately engineered nanodevices; ii) the initiation of Synchronized Bursting Events (SBE) by local chemical stimulation can be evidentiated in cultured neurons using Micro Electrode Arrays (MEA); iii) the interactions among different cell types (cocultures) can be studied in compartimentalized microfluidic platforms where different microenvironments are separated and let communicate through microchannels. Over and above their intrinsic value, such exemplary cases inspired our own research projects on cocultures of electrically excitable cells. Our main target are the mechanisms of axon-localized neuronal damage, as arising in some rare neurodegenerative pathologies as well as in Amiothrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). In this frame, clarifying the sequence of events initiating the formation of structural interactions between neurons and miocytes is mandatory, and even mimicking the Neuromuscolar junctions appears feasible. Proceedings of a C.I. S.B. Minisymposium June 2010
3D Mesh Skeleton Extraction Based on Feature Points

A novel efficient skeleton extraction algorithm is proposed, which is based on feature points extraction and Reeb graph theories. Because of the topological facility of feature points, a model can be divided into several branches according to them. One feature point can present one branch. So we just extract the other point of the branch – that could be skeleton point, connect these points with their corresponding feature points, then we can get all branch skeletons. Finally, connecting branch skeletons through connecting skeleton points according the topological relationship of each skeleton point preserving, then 3D model’s skeleton can be extracted.Without pre-processing stages and without input parameters, this algorithm can automatically extract the skeleton of 3D models. Theoretical analyses and experimental results show that our method has a lower computing complexity, and meets the requirement of extracting nice-looking and affine-invariant skeletons efficiently.
Financing Labor * Financing Labor

Financial market imperfections can have significant impact on employment decisions of firms. We illustrate the economic importance of this channel by showing that employment decisions are constrained by firms’ financial health and liquidity. Our main analysis uses a collage of three ‘quasiexperiments’ to trace the effects of finance on employment. The results suggest that financial constraints and the availability of credit play an important role in firm-level employment decisions, as well as aggregate unemployment outcomes. JEL classification:
Psychological Well-Being and Physical Health: Associations, Mechanisms, and Future Directions

A paradigm shift in public health and medicine has broadened the field from a singular focus on the ill effects of negative states and psychopathology to an expanded view that examines protective psychological assets that may promote improved physical health and longevity. We summarize recent evidence of the link between psychological well-being (including positive affect, optimism, life meaning and purpose, and life satisfaction) and physical health, with particular attention to outcomes of mortality and chronic disease incidence and progression. Within this evolving discipline there remain controversies and lessons to be learned. We discuss measurement-related challenges, concerns about the quality of the evidence, and other shortcomings in the field, along with a brief discussion of hypothesized biobehavioral mechanisms involved. Finally, we suggest next steps to move the field forward.
Analysis of Angle Based Opportunistic Routing Protocol for Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

Random movement of vehicles and ad-hoc nature of network between vehicles makes Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) a dynamic network. Routing in VANET is a challenging task but to make these networks a reality it has to be improved. Angular approach tries to minimize the deviation of path between source and destination but it does not take into account the link quality. Whereas opportunistic approach selects not just one node but n number of nodes providing additional back up links to make certain that data reaches the destination. In this research work, a new routing scheme Angle based Opportunistic Routing (AOR) which is combination of angular and opportunistic approach has been proposed. AOR takes the advantages of the two protocols i.e. with angular approach it moves in the direction of destination and with opportunistic approach it adds additional back up links and in exchange they counter each other's shortcomings. The proposed scheme AOR has been compared with Link State aware Geographic Opportunistic (LSGO) routing scheme in terms of throughput and packet drop rate. All the simulations have been performed in MATLAB.
An Improved Moving-Window Method for Shot Boundary Detection

Shot Boundary Detection is an important phase in the process of video retrieval, thus an automatic way to do this work is imperative. In this paper, we present an improved moving- window approach which can tackle this problem effectively. In our method, an existing concept of moving window is adopted. Then the Manhattan distance of histograms in RGB color space and the Laplace transform of each frame are calculated as the measurement of similarity. And finally each frame is examined through several classifiers to determine whether it is a component of a transition. The innovation of this paper is to apply Laplace transform as a supplementation of current features, and to propose a flexible video-dependent threshold, which leads to a higher precision. Experiments show that our approach can generate preferable results in most cases compared with two previous methods.
Serotonin Enhances Central Olfactory Neuron Responses to Female Sex Pheromone in the Male Sphinx Moth Manduca sexta

In the brain of the sphinx moth Manduca sexta, sex-pheromonal information is processed in a prominent male-specific area of the antennal lobe called the macroglomerular complex (MGC). Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings from identified projection (output) neurons in the MGC have shown that serotonin [5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)] increases both the excitability of MGC projection neurons and their responses to stimulation with pheromone. At least two types of voltage-activated potassium currents in these cells are modulated by 5-HT. 5-HT decreases the maximal conductance of a transient potassium current (IA) and shifts its voltage for half-maximal inactivation to more negative potentials without affecting the half-maximal voltage for activation. This reduces the “window current” between the voltage activation and inactivation curves, decreasing the tonically activeIA near the resting potential and causing the cell to depolarize. 5-HT’s effect in this case is to decrease both the transient and resting K+ conductance by modulating the same channel (IA ). 5-HT also decreases the maximal conductance of a sustained potassium current [IK(V) ] without affecting its voltage dependence. Using HPLC, we show also that levels of 5-HT in the antennal lobes fluctuate significantly over a 24 hr period. Interestingly, 5-HT levels are highest at times when the moths are most active. We suggest that by controlling the responsiveness of antennal-lobe projection neurons to olfactory stimuli, 5-HT will have significant impact on the performance of odor-dependent behaviors.
The Effect of Ethanol on the Release of Opioids from Oral Prolonged-Release Preparations

Recent experience has prompted the US FDA to consider whether ethanol ingestion may modify the release characteristics of prolonged-release formulations, where dose dumping may be an issue for patient safety. The influence of ethanol on the in vitro release of opioid drugs from some prolonged-release formulations utilizing different release technologies was examined. Results indicated that the prolonged-release mechanisms remained intact under the testing conditions, although one product showed initial sensitivity to ethanol in its release characteristics. Nevertheless, in this case, extrapolation of the findings to likely outcome in vivo indicated no risk of dose-dumping. It is proposed that prolonged-release medicinal products should be tested during development to ensure robustness to the effects of ethanol on drug release.
Network graph transformation providing fast calculation of paths for resilient routing

Protection of transmission against failures can be appropriately dealt with by alternative paths. However, common schemes (e.g., Bhandari's scheme) are characterized by a remarkable delay while determining the transmission paths. This in turn may have a serious impact on serving dynamic demands (characterized by relatively short duration time). As a remedy to this problem, we introduce an approach to pre-compute the sets of disjoint paths in advance to be able to start serving the demands once they have arrived. In particular, since the issue of establishing a set of node-disjoint paths is equivalent to the problem of determining the cheapest cycle in the network topology traversing the demand end nodes, we propose a generalization of this scheme assuming that any pair of node-disjoint paths can be obtained by means of merging a number of basic cycles defined for a network topology. The main contribution of this paper is the BCMP method of cheapest end-to-end cycles formation based on basic cycles, which, as verified for real network topologies, reduces up to 70% the time needed to establish node-disjoint paths in comparison with results obtained for the reference Bhandari's scheme.
Original Paper

Introduction Since Roux and Mayo, who were the first to remove the adrenal gland eighty years ago, adrenalec-tomy has changed significantly [1]. Pioneers in adre-nal surgery did not know the pathophysiology of the glands they operated on. This translated into a relatively high mortality rate [1]. As time went by, the approach changed in terms of preparation for surgery, perioperative care and, obviously, surgical technique [1–3]. Currently, the gold standard is laparoscopic adrenalectomy in cases of benign adrenal tumors [4, 5]. Improved access to the surgical area, less surgical trauma, less pain, fewer complications, shorter length of hospital stay and faster recovery, are all wel-established advantages of laparoscopy [6–8]. Pheochromocytomas, in 80–85% of cases derived from the chromaffin cells of the medulla, are the sec-Laparoscopic adrenalectomy for pheochromocytoma is more difficult compared to other adrenal tumors A b s t r a c t Introduction: Laparoscopic adrenalectomy is the gold standard for the treatment of benign adrenal tumors. However, some authors raise the problem of differences in surgery for pheochromocytoma in comparison to other lesions. Aim: To compare laparoscopic adrenalectomy for pheochromocytoma and for other tumors. Material and methods: Four hundred and thirty-seven patients with adrenal tumors were included in the retrospective analysis. Patients were divided into two groups: 1 (124 patients treated for pheochromocytoma) and 2 (313 patients with other types of tumor). The two groups were compared with respect to mean operative time, intraoperative blood loss, conversion rate, complication rate and the relationship of tumor size with operative time. Results: The mean operative time in group 1 was 91 min, and in group 2 it was 82 min (p = 0.016). In both groups 1 and 2, tumor size correlated with operative time (p < 0.0001 and p = 0.0003, respectively). The mean blood loss in groups 1 and 2 was 117 ml and 54 ml, respectively (p = 0.0011). The complication rate in groups 1 and 2 was 4% and 4.2%, respectively (p = 0.9542). In groups 1 and 2, conversion was necessary in 2 (1.6%) and 5 (1.6%) cases, respectively (p = 0.9925). Conclusions: Longer operative time and higher blood loss after laparoscopic adrenalectomy for pheochromocytoma indicate its greater difficulty. However, despite these drawbacks, minimally invasive surgery still seems to be an effective and safe method.
Decolonising International Relations and Its Theory: A Critical Conceptual Meditation

ABSTRACT One of the main implications of the push for transition from the monoculture of Eurocentric scientific knowledge towards the ecology of knowledge is to force us to pose the question: what does a decolonial turn in International Relations (IR) entail? This article grapples with this question in light of growing demands for a decolonial turn in knowledge and power. The aim is to meditate on this question with a view to open up new avenues for a structured conversation on decolonising IR and its theory. This imperative to decolonise is linked to the question of epistemic justice with implications for the epistemological structure underpinning IR, methodological frameworks for the study of IR, theoretical outlines and the teaching of the discipline. Epistemic justice is a necessity alongside historical justice for those on the margins of a world system constructed with the help of imperialism, systematic enslavement and colonialism. This article discusses the question of the decolonial turn in IR in the hope of stimulating debates on the views of the margins regarding the present state and the future of this area of knowledge, and thus move us closer to an ecology of knowledge and power.
Condom Negotiations among Female Sex Workers in the Philippines: Environmental Influences

Background Social and structural influences of condom negotiation among female sex workers (FSWs) remain understudied. This study assesses environmental and individual factors associated with condom negotiation among FSWs at high risk for acquiring HIV in a large urban setting of Metro Manila, Philippines. Methods Female bar/spa workers (N = 498), aged 18 and over, underwent interview-led surveys examining their sexual health practices in the context of their risk environments. Data were collected from April 2009-January 2010 from 54 venues. Multiple logistic regressions were conducted to assess socio-behavioral factors (e.g., age, education, length of time employed as an entertainer, and alcohol/drug use) and socio-structural factors (e.g., venue-level peer/manager support, condom rule/availability, and sex trafficking) associated with condom negotiation, adjusting for individuals nested within venues. Results Of 142 FSWs who traded sex in the previous 6 months (included in the analysis), 24% did not typically negotiate condom use with venue patrons. Factors in the physical environment - trafficked/coerced into work (AOR = 12.92, 95% CI = 3.34–49.90), economic environment - sex without a condom to make more money (AOR = 1.52, 95% CI 1.01–2.30), policy environment - sex without a condom because none was available (AOR = 2.58, 95% CI = 1.49–4.48), and individual risk - substance use (AOR = 2.36, 95% CI = 1.28–4.35) were independently associated with FSWs' lack of condom negotiation with venue patrons. Conclusions Factors in the physical, economic, and policy environments, over individual (excepting substance use) and social level factors, were significantly associated with these FSWs' condom negotiations in the Philippines. Drawing upon Rhodes' risk environment framework, these results highlight the need for policies that support safer sex negotiations among sex workers in the context of their risk environments. Interventions should reduce barriers to condom negotiation for FSWs trafficked/coerced into their work, substance using, and impacted by economic conditions and policies that do not support condom availability.
Intrusion-Tolerant Dissemination in Large-Scale Systems

With the growth of the Internet and increased demand for Web Services has come a heightened need for scalable wide-area group communication systems. The need for trust in such systems and the vulnerability of such systems to attack provide motivation to develop protocols that are intrusion-tolerant and able to provide critical services even during an attack or in the presence of arbitrary faults, errors, and accidents. We present StarblabIT, a new gossip-based group communication system that is scalable and resilient to process and communication failures, including arbitrary (Byzantine) faults and malicious attack. We employ a modular approach to the design, and build on prior work that generalizes the transformation of crash-tolerant protocols to Byzantinetolerant protocols. The StarblabIT protocol avoids the need for signatures on most messages by making use of message digests embedded in a single signed message to achieve efficient and secure message delivery.
Learning vocal tract variables with multi-task kernels

The problem of acoustic-to-articulatory speech inversion continues to be a challenging research problem which significantly impacts automatic speech recognition robustness and accuracy. This paper presents a multi-task kernel based method aimed at learning Vocal Tract (VT) variables from the Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs). Unlike usual speech inversion techniques based on individual estimation of each tract variable, the key idea here is to consider all the target variables simultaneously to take advantage of the relationships among them and then improve learning performance. The proposed method is evaluated using synthetic speech dataset and corresponding tract variables created by the TAsk Dynamics Application (TADA) model and compared to the hierarchical ε-SVR speech inversion technique.