Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Upper bounds to error probabilities of coded systems over AWGN and fading channels

A family of upper bounds to error probabilities of coded systems on the additive white Gaussian noise channel was recently proposed by Divsalar (see 1999 IEEE Communication Theory Workshop, Aptos, CA., 1999). Their calculation depends only on the weight spectrum of the code words. We first elaborate upon these bounds to show how they can be further tightened by using numerical integration instead of a Chernoff bound, and by reducing the number of code words to be included in the bound. Next, we extend them to fading channels.
Applying Agile Software Development Methodolgies to Business Process Redesign/ Management (BPRM)

Agile principles are known to improve and speed software development. In this paper we explore the relationship between stakeholders and business process redesign/management (BPRM), how stakeholder involvement affects BPRM, and present a short case study that illustrates how Agile principles and methodologies can be used to enhance the effectiveness of BRPM.
Customer’s satisfaction and loyalty through e-commerce: the case of company X

Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu Tampere University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme In International Business Option Of Financial Management AUTHOR: NGUYEN NOI BINH Customer’s satisfaction and loyalty through e-commerce, the case of Company X Bachelor's thesis 65 pages, appendices 18 pages March 2015 Due to the rapidly increasing number of Internet users, the attractive benefits and spreading popularity of online shopping all over the world and in Viet Nam particularly, more and more Internet vendors have been concerned about how to push sales and grow beneficially in such a fruitful but really competitive e-commerce market. Apart from aggressively focusing on online advertising and exclusive promotional offers, esatisfaction and e-loyalty have been regarded as the determinants of long-term development and sustainable advantages of any Internet vendor. This research seeks to answer the questions of what the influencing factors to e-satisfaction and e-loyalty of online shoppers are and how important they are as well as testing the relationship between e-satisfaction and e-loyalty upon the case study of Company X’s ecommerce website. Upon critical analysis of literature review, the testing model of five elements which may determine e-satisfaction and e-loyalty with site system quality, information quality, usefulness, perceived value and trust was proposed. Survey method with a sample size of 154 respondents who have ever made purchases via the company’s online store http://www.x. com/ was conducted to use for regression analysis, ANOVA analysis and t-test using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science ) version 18.0. In addition, an interview with Company X’s manager was also implemented to collect information about Company X’s ecommerce situation and the company’s beliefs and opinions about e-satisfaction and e-loyalty. As a result, the findings indicated that all of five elements under investigation (i.e. site system quality, information quality, usefulness, perceived value and trust) significantly impact both e-satisfaction and e-loyalty although each of them may consists of different measurement items and not all these measures significantly affect e-satisfaction and eloyalty such as the colour of the website, the operation of linked pages, easy to understand information, etc. The study also revealed that the relationships between demographic factors such as gender or age, e-satisfaction and e-loyalty do exist. Specificially, male customers are more satisfied with and more loyal to Company X’s online store. Besides, the older the customers are, the less satisfied and loyal they are towards shopping at Company X’s ecommerce website. The research indicated that there is a significant and positive relationship between Company X’s online customers’ e-satisfaction and their e-loyalty. The study also drew some helpful implications for Company X and academia as well as identified areas for further research.
Radiofrequency coil design for simultaneous PET/MR systems

Simultaneous positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide both functional and structural information about disease. However, for quantitative PET measurements all sources of scatter and absorption that photons undergo on their trajectory between source and detector must be assessed. In simultaneous PET/MR, this includes the scatter and absorption undergone in MR radio frequency (RF) coils that lie directly in the field of view (FOV). This work quantifies the sensitivity and resolution impact of various coil arrangements in the PET FOV using Monte Carlo simulations for a preclinical system. The sensitivity and resolution impact of five typical RF coils has been simulated by tracking γ-ray scatter locations and by reconstructing 18F and 68Ge sources with activity in the range 0.1MBq to 1MBq. The majority of scattering is found to be from coil support structures, with sensitivity loss up to 25% and spatial resolution loss up to 0.6mm. Subsequently six common supporting polymers were compared for their scattering effect. Typically for 5mm thick material the probability of a true can be reduced by ∼10%. The effect of misaligning a surface coil on scatter location is also demonstrated, and having dense electronic materials between 2mm and 6mm from the source is shown to result in a spatial resolution loss ∼5% and a sensitivity loss up to 17%.
Commentary on the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance

This paper was written in response to the OECD 2014 Review of the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance, which sought to modernize the 2004 Principles. We provide a detailed textual analysis of the draft revised text of the Principles and propose concrete amendments with the aim of managing companies for the long-term, focusing on creating sustainable value for the company, society and the environment.We highlight the Principles’ repeated, legally incorrect, references to shareholders as ‘owners’. We also analyse the way in which the Principles incorporate a number of current regulatory trends and policy debates, including shareholder engagement, say on pay, corporate purpose, board diversity and stakeholder engagement.
Pentingnya Brand Loyalty terhadap Minat Beli Ulang

Brand loyalty provides strategic value to the company if managed properly. For example, the reduction of marketing costs, increase sales and market share, create brand awareness, growing interest in new customers. Including providing opportunities for the company time to anticipate a possible threat from rivals. Thus, marketing is a battle of consumer perception and brand loyalty, not just a battle of products.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of positioning strategy towards brand loyalty. Effect of positioning strategy towards brand loyalty, and brand image. Effect of brand image to brand loyalty. Effect of brand loyalty on repurchase intention. This study uses primary data by accidental sampling technique. Total sample of 130 respondents using a Likert scale. Technical analysis using SEM.The results showed that the positioning strategy is not to create a brand image. Positioning strategy can create brand loyalty. Brand image can not create brand loyalty. Brand loyalty can affect the repurchase intention.
Identification of Sleep Apnea from Single-Lead Electrocardiogram

An automatic sleep apnea detection algorithm is essential not only for alleviating the onus of physicians of analyzing a high volume of data but also for making a portable sleep quality evaluation device feasible. Most prior studies are either multi-lead based or yield poor accuracy which hinder the aforementioned goals. In this work, we propound a statistical and spectral feature based method for automated apnea detection from singlelead electrocardiogram. The efficacy of the selected features is demonstrated by intuitive, graphical and statistical validation. RUSBoost is introduced for sleep apnea classification. Again, most of the existing works focus on the feature extraction part. The effect of various classification models is poorly studied. Besides propounding an automated sleep apnea screening method, we study the performance of eight well-know classifiers for our feature extraction scheme. The optimal choices of parameters for RUSBoost are also inspected. The results of our experiments manifest that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-theart ones in terms of accuracy.
Auction Design in Day-Ahead Electricity Markets

Competition in day-ahead electricity markets has been established through auctions where generators and loads bid prices and quantities. Different approaches have been discussed regarding the market auction design. Multi-round auctions, despite its implementation complexity, allow market participants to adapt their successive bids to market prices considering their operational and economic constraints. However, most of the day-ahead electricity market implementations use noniterative single-round auctions. This paper presents a market simulator to compare both auction models. Different auction alternatives, such as the Spanish single-round auction that takes into account special conditions included in the generator bids, and multi-round auctions with different stopping rules, are analyzed. The results and acquired experience in the simulation of the Spanish market, started in January 1998, are presented. Hourly market prices, average daily price, price/demand correlation and several economic efficiency indicators, such as generator surplus, consumer surplus and social welfare, are compared to derive conclusions regarding the performance of the auction alternatives.
Metaheuristics and Cognitive Models for Autonomous Robot Navigation

Although autonomous mobile robots have become more commonplace, methods for them to navigate in the real-world are not yet perfected. This survey describes two heuristic-based approaches, metaheuristics and cognitive models, that have been used in this domain under separate but concurrent development. Metaheuristics are broadly-applicable, heuristic-based algorithms inspired by natural processes. They use one or more heuristic strategies to search for solutions. Alternatively, studies have shown that people adaptively use one or more strategies during navigation. Cognitive models are used to computationally encode human behaviors. This paper details both approaches, reviews the literature on their application to autonomous robot navigation, and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, to take advantage of algorithmic efficiency and human behaviors, the conclusion proposes the integration of these two approaches.
PENGARUH KOMPETENSI DAN INDEPENDENSI TERHADAP KUALITAS AUDIT DENGAN ETIKA AUDITOR SEBAGAI VARIABEL MODERASI (Studi empiris pada internal auditor BPKP DKI Jakarta)

The objectives of this research to empirically analyze the influence of competency and independency on audit quality, and to the influence of competency and independency to audit quality is moderated by auditor ethics, especially in the internal auditor (APIP) working in BPKP DKI Jakarta. The population in this research are all auditors who worked on the BPKP in DKI Jakarta. Sampling was conducted using a purposive sampling method and number of samples of 82 respondents. Primary data collection method used is questionnaire method. The data are analyzed by using technical analyze Moderate Regression Analyze (MRA). The result showed that the competence have a positive impact on audit quality. This means that the competency of the effect on quality of audit to internal auditors. Value of the coefficient of determination indicates that together the competency, independency, and Auditors Ethics contribute to dependent variable (quality audit) of 71,5% while the remaining 28,5% are influenced by other outside factor model. Keyword: Competency, Independency, Auditors Ethics, Quality of Audit.
Decision-making in information seeking on texts: an eye-fixation-related potentials investigation

Reading on a web page is known to be not linear and people need to make fast decisions about whether they have to stop or not reading. In such context, reading, and decision-making processes are intertwined and this experiment attempts to separate them through electrophysiological patterns provided by the Eye-Fixation-Related Potentials technique (EFRPs). We conducted an experiment in which EFRPs were recorded while participants read blocks of text that were semantically highly related, moderately related, and unrelated to a given goal. Participants had to decide as fast as possible whether the text was related or not to the semantic goal given at a prior stage. Decision making (stopping information search) may occur when the paragraph is highly related to the goal (positive decision) or when it is unrelated to the goal (negative decision). EFRPs were analyzed on and around typical eye fixations: either on words belonging to the goal (target), subjected to a high rate of positive decisions, or on low frequency unrelated words (incongruent), subjected to a high rate of negative decisions. In both cases, we found EFRPs specific patterns (amplitude peaking between 51 to 120 ms after fixation onset) spreading out on the next words following the goal word and the second fixation after an incongruent word, in parietal and occipital areas. We interpreted these results as delayed late components (P3b and N400), reflecting the decision to stop information searching. Indeed, we show a clear spill-over effect showing that the effect on word N spread out on word N + 1 and N + 2.
HPLC METHOD FOR THE SIMULTANEOUUS DETERMINATION OF SECNIDAZOLE , OMEPRAZOLE AND AMOXICILLIN MIXTURE IN PURE FORMS AND PHARMACEUTICAL FORMULATIONS

INTRODUCTION Secnidazole is chemically known as (1-(2-Methyl-5nitroimidazol-1-yl) propan-2-ol). Secnidazole is no t official in any pharmacopoeia. A nitroimidazole anti-infective. Effectiveness in the treatment of dientamoebiasis . Secnidazole is structurally related to the commonly used 5-nitroimidazoles metronidazole and tinidazole. These drugs share a common spectrum of activity against anaerobic micro-organisms and they appear particularly effective in the treatment of amoebiasis, giardiasis, trichomoniasis and bacterial vaginosis. ABSTRACT An isocratic RP-HPLC method has been developed and v li ated for rapid simultaneous separation and determination of mixture of secnidazole, omepra zole and amoxicillin in their pure forms and pharmaceutical preparations. The separation was car ried out on ACE 5 C18 (25 cm x 4.6 mm) column using a mobile phase of acetonitrile: potass ium dihydrogen phosphate buffer (pH 7.5) (60: 40, v/v). The flow rate was 1.5 ml/min and the dete ction was set at 230 nm. The proposed method was successfully applied to the estimation of the c ited drugs in their dosage forms.
A novel total variation model based on kernel functions and its application

The total variation (TV) model and its related variants have already been proposed for image processing in previous literature. In this paper a novel total variation model based on kernel functions is proposed. In this novel model, we first map each pixel value of an image into a Hilbert space by using a nonlinear map, and then define a coupled image of an original image in order to construct a kernel function. Finally, the proposed model is solved in a kernel function space instead of in the projecting space from a nonlinear map. For the proposed model, we theoretically show under what conditions the mapping image is in the space of bounded variation when the original image is in the space of bounded variation. It is also found that the proposed model further extends the generalized TV model and the information from three different channels of color images can be fused by adopting various kernel functions. A series of experiments on some gray and color images are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model.
Nottola di Leisler (Nyctalus leisleri, Chiroptera), regina delle selve castanili. Resoconto dopo 6 anni di monitoraggio di 200 cassette-nido

In Switzerland, 30 bat species have been registered up–to–date; 11 of them are tree dwellers, but little is known about their ecology and roost requirements. In the Canton Ticino (Southern Switzerland), chestnut orchards are a particular forest type that might be used by bats for roosting in ancient large chestnut trees. This particular open forest type originally was maintained by traditional man–activities and is now threatened by abandonment of traditional silvo–pastural activities. In the frame of a restoration program of chestnut orchards in the Alto Malcantone (Southwest Ticino) 200 bat–boxes were hung on large trees in 7 different orchards (5 managed, 2 abandoned) since 1999. The aims of the project were to find out which bat species live in chestnut orchards, to survey roost activities, and to identify the ecological value of chestnut orchards depending on their management. After 6 years of investigation (9124 controls of single bat–boxes in 51 survey campaigns) 1684 individuals from 4 bat species were controlled. Our results show that chestnut orchards in the Alto Malcantone host an important population of Leisler’s bat (Nyctalus leisleri), an endangered species in Switzerland and Europe. This species clearly prefers managed orchards. Environmental and social factors seem to play an important role for the preference of the open orchards by Leisler’s bats. Managed open orchards are in fact well accessible by flight and the mating roosts well visible to females during the mating period. Managed chestnut orchards have a high ecological value and are of international relevance as this species is a migrating bat occupying chestnut orchards in autumn–winter and spring. In the future, management plan of chestnut orchards should be included in action plans for this endangered species.
Effect of n-3 Oral Supplements on the n-6/n-3 Ratio in Young Adults

Epidemiological studies show that n-6/n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) ratios have risen dramatically in Western diets and are associated with numerous chronic inflammation-related diseases. More balanced ratios are linked to less inflammation. This study examines the effects of adding oral supplements containing n-3 eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) to diets of healthy young adults on plasma n-6/n-3 ratios. Thirty volunteers are randomly assigned to one of two groups: experimental group, EPA (1.6 g/day) and DHA (1.2 g/day); and the control group, mineral oil (2.4 ml/day). Plasma fatty acids, nutrients from foods, and anthropometric measures are evaluated at baseline and at the Week 4 endpoint. The mean (±SD) n-6/n-3 ratio for the experimental group is significantly lower (6.3 ± 1.6) than the placebo group (16.8 ± 3.5) by study completion. The results suggest that more balanced n-6/n-3 ratios may be achieved efficiently in healthy, young adults with supplements containing EPA and DHA.
Splitting of the nuclear bag fiber in the course of muscle spindle denervation and reinnervation.

A muscle spindle in the rat typically possesses two nuclear bag and two nuclear chain intrafusal muscle fibers, though occasionally a spindle with a lesser or higher fiber count is encountered. Banks et al. (1) distinguish histochemically and ultrastructurahly two types of nuclear bag fibers, designated bag1 and bag2. Characteristically, only one bag1 fibar is present in a normal spindle. In this histochemical study it is reported that muscle spindles with two or more bag1 fibers occur in the reinnervated rat musculus soleus. In eight young (3-4 weeks old) and two adult Wistar rats the ventral roots U4, U5, U6 on one side were crushed under Nembutal anesthesia (60 mg/ kg) to induce transient motor denervation followed by reinnervation of musculus soleus. In two rats the ventral roots were cut and the stumps retracted to accomplish chronic denervation of musculus soleus. One to six months later the experimental muscle and the contralateral control muscle were removed and quenched in isopentane cooled to 160#{176}Cwith liquid nitrogen. The frozen specimens were sectioned serially on a cryostat at 12 p.m and incubated for “myofibrillar” adenosine triphosphatase (ATPass) at pH 9.4 following alkali (pH 10.4) or acid (pH 4.3) preincubation of alternate sections according to Dubowitz and Brooke (2). Whenever possible, the histochemical profile of the intrafusal fibers was established over their full extent. Three types of intrafusal muscle fibers were present in every muscle spindle examined in control musculus soleus, as described by James (5) and Banks et al. (1). Fibers with low alkali, acid labile ATPase reactivity were recognized as bag1; those
Reconstitution with Bone Marrow Cells is Consistently Defective in the Tibia of Aged Monkeys

Biological aging is associated with a progressive loss of regulation of cellular, tissue and organ interaction, ultimately resulting in senescence. Fat gradually occupies bone cavity with age. Studies of the hematopoietic system using nonhuman primates have provided important information for understanding the mechanism of human hematopoiesis. We previously reported that excellent reconstitution of donor hematopoietic cells in a collagen gel group was observed in the long term in mice. We therefore investigated whether the method would be helpful for reconstituting hematopoiesis in the fatty tibias of monkeys. Nine- to 11-year-old monkeys were used for this study to examine if hematopoiesis could be restored in the fatty marrow of old monkeys. Bone marrow cells were collected from the humerus using the perfusion method, mixed with cultured bone marrow mesenchymalstroma cells in collagen gel, and then injected into the tibia of the same monkey. Clot sections were made from the tibias 1, 2 and 6 weeks after the bone marrow transplantation. However, no bone marrow cells were observed at any of the time points. These results suggested that bone marrow reconstitution is consistently defective in aged monkeys.
Secure communication protocol for preserving E-tendering integrity

This paper presents a secure communication protocol which can be used as the framework for an e-tendering scheme. This protocol is focused on securing the integrity of tendering documents and ensuring that a secure record of document generation is kept. Our protocol provides a mechanism to manage e-tendering contract evidence as a legal record in a unique and effective manner. It is the starting point of reliable record keeping. To a certain extent, it also addresses existing security problems in the traditional tendering processes.
Sex and Ability Differences in Neural Strategy for Piaget’s Water Level Test

To explore brain activation differences between the sexes and between high and low performers on spatial perception performance, 43 college students (20 males and 23 females) performed the Piaget’s Water Level Test (WLT) while their electroencephalogram signals were recorded. A 2 (Sex) × 2 (Group: high performing vs. low performing) × 2 (Hemisphere: left vs. right) × 3 (Region: frontal, parietal, and temporal) mixed analysis of variance on beta power data showed that females more significantly activated the left hemisphere when performing the WLT, suggesting their application of an analytic strategy. In contrast, males showed a bilateral activation pattern, suggesting their use of an analytic- or holistic-combined strategy. Moreover, superior performance on the WLT was associated with enhanced temporal lobe functioning, suggesting that a superior analytic skill is key to successful performance on the WLT. There is likely modulating impact of both cognitive style and specific task properties on spatial perception strategy preferences.