Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Marketing’s Profit Impact: Quantifying Online and Offline Funnel Progression

I a smallto medium-sized enterprise in the business-to-business sector, desired a more analytic approach to allocate marketing resources across communication activities and channels. We developed a conceptual framework and econometric model to empirically investigate (1) the marketing communication effects on offline and online purchase funnel metrics and (2) the magnitude and timing of the profit impact of firm-initiated and customer-initiated contacts. We find evidence of many cross-channel effects, in particular, off-line marketing effects on online funnel metrics and online funnel metrics on off-line purchases. Moreover, marketing communication activities directly affect both early and later purchase funnel stages (website visits, online and off-line information, and quote requests). Finally, we find that online customer-initiated contacts have substantially higher profit impact than off-line firm-initiated contacts. Shifting marketing budgets toward these activities in a field experiment yielded net profit increases 14 times larger than those for the status quo allocation.
Group B Streptococcal Pilus Proteins Contribute to Adherence to and Invasion of Brain Microvascular Endothelial Cells

ABSTRACT Surface filamentous structures known as pili have been discovered recently in the gram-positive streptococcal pathogens that cause invasive disease in humans, including group B Streptococcus (GBS). We show that two GBS proteins involved in pilus formation, encoded by pilA and pilB, also facilitate the interaction of this important agent of central nervous system infection with endothelial cells of the human blood-brain barrier.
Disability Distribution Modeling for Universal Product Design

Universal Design can be applied to product design as a means of increasing accessibility and usability of the product by the largest number of users possible. Product designers may tend to consider design attributes of a product line individually; however, it is not uncommon for an individual user to have several impairments affecting the ability to interact with individual product attributes. In fact, disability follows a continuum of severity and spans multiple attributes; two aspects that are particularly difficult to plan for in product design. Thus, we present a theoretical and experimental basis for designing universal products to (1) consider a multi-phased approach to measure the multi-attribute nature of disability for a specific disease population, (2) develop and execute a mathematical model relating disability attributes to product design, and (3) validate the model through product testing.
Sir2 Acts through Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 4 to maintain insulin Signaling and Metabolic Homeostasis in Drosophila

SIRT1 is a member of the sirtuin family of NAD+-dependent deacetylases, which couple cellular metabolism to systemic physiology. Although studies in mouse models have defined a central role for SIRT1 in maintaining metabolic health, the molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Here we show that loss of the Drosophila SIRT1 homolog sir2 leads to the age-progressive onset of hyperglycemia, obesity, glucose intolerance, and insulin resistance. Tissue-specific functional studies show that Sir2 is both necessary and sufficient in the fat body (analogous to the mammalian liver) to maintain glucose homeostasis and peripheral insulin sensitivity. Transcriptional profiling of sir2 mutants by RNA-seq revealed a major overlap with genes regulated by the nuclear receptor Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 4 (HNF4). Consistent with this, Drosophila HNF4 mutants display diabetic phenotypes similar to those of sir2 mutants, and protein levels for dHNF4 are reduced in sir2 mutant animals. We show that Sir2 exerts these effects by deacetylating and stabilizing dHNF4 through protein interactions. Increasing dHNF4 expression in sir2 mutants is sufficient to rescue their insulin signaling defects, defining this nuclear receptor as an important downstream effector of Sir2 signaling. This study demonstrates that the key metabolic activities of SIRT1 have been conserved through evolution, provides a genetic model for functional studies of phenotypes related to type 2 diabetes, and establishes HNF4 as a critical downstream target by which Sir2 maintains metabolic health.
Comparison of classification algorithms in the task of object recognition on radar images of the MSTAR base

The present work is devoted to the analysis of local objects on radar images. In comparison, the following algorithms are used: decision tree; Bayesian classifier for normal distribution; Nearest neighbor method; Support Vector Method (SVM). As preliminary processing of images provided by a synthetic aperture radar. The research is carried out on the objects from the base of radar images MSTAR. The paper presents the results of the conducted studies.
Pipelined Delta Sigma Modulator Analog to Digital Converter

A two stage Pipelined Delta Sigma Modulator ADC is presented for broad band, high resolution applications. The unique architecture incorporates a first order delta sigma modulator in each stage and combines the most significant bits of the first stage with the second stage output to produce 11-13 bit resolution. The input bandwidth is 62.5 MHz and the sampling frequency of 1 GHz results in an over sampling ratio of 8 for the first order modulators. MATLAB simulations for the two stage ADC show 13-15 bit resolution. A transistor level design in 0.18 um CMOS for the two stage ADC was captured and simulated with Cadence show 12 bit resolution with a 50 MHz input. The ADC was fabricated in 0.18 um CMOS technology on a 10 square millimeter die.
Migration, Agency, and the Sex Industry: Practitioners’ Perspectives on Foreign Sex Workers in Turkey

The article presents the political, economic, and sociocultural factors that make Turkey an attractive destination for foreign sex workers, and reviews trends in official statistics of arrested traffickers, rescued victims, and deportation of migrant illegal sex workers. In-depth interviews of 20 law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations staff members, who in the course of their work come into close contact with foreign sex workers, shed light on the statistics. The interview data provide insights into the structure of the Turkish sex market, the factors that bring foreign women to work in this market, and the impact of legal reforms on the circumstances of foreign sex workers. The article concludes with the implications of the findings for public policy.
Effective promotions through social media: A case of Major League Baseball teams

This study examined if the impacts of Facebook promotions on fan engagement were moderated by team performance in the Major League Baseball. Two teams showing the opposite results in the 2015 seasons were selected. Likes, Shares, and Comments were measured as indicators of fan engagement. All posts were categorised in the five promotion types. A two-way MANOVA was carried out to see if there were any differences in Facebook Likes, Shares, and Comments for differing promotion types and team performance. The results revealed that there were statistically significant interaction effects between promotion types and team performance on Likes and Shares. For player/personnel promotion and team information, the numbers of Likes and Shares were significantly higher than the other promotion types for both teams. For Likes and Shares by the two significant promotion types, Royals had significantly higher mean scores than did Phillies.
Exploiting Multiuser Diversity With Imperfect One-Bit Channel State Feedback

It has been well recognized that significant throughput gains can be leveraged in multiuser wireless communication systems by exploiting multiuser diversity with a smart scheduler. This scheduler collects channel state information (CSI) from all users and allocates the resources to the user(s) experiencing favorable channel conditions. However, for a frequency-division-duplex system with a large number of users, how to efficiently collect the required CSI will be a challenging task, especially when the feedback links are of limited capacity. In this paper, we propose a scheduling algorithm to exploit multiuser diversity with possibly imperfect one-bit channel state feedback. The basic idea is to define a threshold lambda and let each user report one-bit information to the scheduler about the comparison between its measured channel fading level and lambda. Correspondingly, the scheduler uses these feedback bits to classify all users into two sets and assigns the channel to one user belonging to the set experiencing favorable channel conditions. Several implementation schemes are developed by attacking the optimization of lambda under different system configurations, covering both the case when the one-bit feedback is perfect and those when the one-bit feedback is imperfect. Computer simulations show that when the user number is large, say, more than ten users, the proposed scheduling supports significantly larger data rate over the round-robin scheduling, while in comparison with the optimum scheduling with complete CSI, the performance loss is limited if the one-bit feedback is of high reliability. In addition, our studies show that we can effectively enhance the robustness against feedback imperfectness by incorporating the feedback reliability into optimization of lambda
A Cross-Sectional Study on the Association between 24-h Urine Osmolality and Weight Status in Older Adults

Data on the association between hydration and body weight in the elderly are scarce. The objective of this work was to quantify the association between 24-h urine osmolality and weight status in the elderly. A cross-sectional study was conducted within the Nutrition UP 65 study. A quota sampling was implemented to achieve a nationally representative sample of Portuguese older adults (≥65 years) according to age, sex, education and region. From a sample size of 1500 participants, 1315 were eligible for the present analysis, 57.3% were women and 23.5% were aged ≥80 years. Participants were grouped using tertiles of 24-h urine osmolality by sex. World Health Organization cutoffs were used to classify participants according to weight status. Multinomial multivariable logistic regression models were conducted to evaluate the association of tertiles of osmolality with weight status, adjusting for confounders. Odds Ratios (OR) and respective 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI) were calculated. Being in the 3rd urine osmolality tertile (highest) was associated with a higher risk of being obese in men, OR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.06, 3.66. No such association was found in women. These results highlight the need for implementing studies in order to clarify the association between hydration and weight status in the elderly.
Gabon health care system: a 20 year analysis

In response to a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS and malaria, the government of Gabon launched the National Insurance and Social Welfare Fund in 2008. It is a national health insurance fund voted by the parliament to extend health-care coverage to the country’s different socioeconomic groups, bringing everyone under one social health insurance roof. Analysis of the WHO, World Bank and available data from 1995 to 2014 to evaluate progress before and after the creation of the universal health coverage. Maternal health is fully covered and the cost of medical care is reimbursed by 80-90%. However, out-of-pocket spending (21.87%) as a percentage of total health care spending is still higher that other Sub-Saharan African countries classified in the upper-middle income countries. The government and policy makers should increase health care system financing and work in partnership with private clinics regarding over-servicing and over billing.
An improved mixed-type data based kernel clustering algorithm

Clustering algorithm is often used to analyze the communication data for network intrusion detection system. However, network communication data are mixed, e.g., numerical and categorical data. So, at first, this paper put forward a method for representing the cluster center (prototype) of mixed-type data. Then respectively in combination with the continuity characteristic of the numerical attributes and the semantic feature of the categorical attributes, the dissimilarity measurement formula was improved by use of the Gauss kernel function, on the base of which, defined the objective function. After that this paper further put forward an Improved Mixed-type Data based Kernel Clustering Algorithm (IKCA-MD), which showed a stable clustering result because the initial cluster centers are obtained by Maximum Density and Distance method (MDD). Finally the feasibility and effectiveness of the method for the network intrusion detection were verified by experiments.
Factors that relate to good and poor handwriting.

OBJECTIVE This study investigated the relationships between specific performance components, eye-hand coordination, visuomotor integration, in-hand manipulation, and handwriting skill. METHOD A sample of 48 typical first grade students were identified as good and poor handwriters by their teachers. Each child completed the Motor Accuracy Test; the Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI); two tests of in-hand manipulation, including a rotation and a translation task; and the Minnesota Handwriting Test (MHT). RESULTS All test scores for the subjects with good handwriting were significantly higher than those of the subjects with poor handwriting. Each performance component test was significantly correlated to MHT scores. Translation, VMI, and rotation scores were significant predictors of MHT scores, accounting for almost 73% of variance. A discriminant analysis using the performance components correctly classified 98% of the students as good or poor handwriters. CONCLUSION In-hand manipulation has significant association to handwriting skill.
Time Until Emergence of HIV Test Reactivity Following Infection With HIV-1: Implications for Interpreting Test Results and Retesting After Exposure

Background. Understanding the period of time between an exposure resulting in infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and when a test can reliably detect the presence of that infection, that is, the test window period, may benefit testing programs and clinicians in counseling patients about when the clinician and the patient can be confident a suspected exposure did not result in HIV infection. Methods. We evaluated the intervals between reactivity of the Aptima HIV-1 RNA test (Aptima) and 20 US Food and Drug Administration-approved HIV immunoassays using 222 longitudinally collected plasma specimens from HIV-1 seroconverters from the United States. Using interval-censored survival and binomial regression approaches a multi-model framework was implemented to estimate the relative emergence of test reactivity, referred to here as an inter-test reactivity interval (ITRI). We then combined ITRI results with simulated data for the eclipse period, the time between exposure and detection of HIV virus by Aptima, to estimate the window period for each test. Results. The estimated ITRIs were shorter with each new class of HIV tests, ranging from 5.9 to 24.8 days. The 99th percentiles of the window period probability distribution ranged from 44 days for laboratory screening tests that detect both antigen and antibody to 65 days for the Western blot test. Conclusions. Our directly comparable estimates of the emergence of reactivity for 20 immunoassays are valuable to testing providers for interpreting negative HIV test results obtained shortly after exposure, and for counseling individuals on when to retest after an exposure.
Public private partnerships for climate change mitigation – An Indian case

Cities are one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change poses serious threat to urban infrastructure, quality of life, and entire urban systems. Cities need to adopt an integrated approach for improvement of city services in order to adapt to climate change and reduce their greenhouse emissions. However, the magnitude of investment required to bridge the widening infrastructure service provision demand-supply gap along with the additional investment to mitigate climate change demands the need to look for innovative financing solutions. Private investments through public private partnership (PPP) route offer an innovative mechanism for meet both the goals of infrastructure development and climate change mitigation. Private parties in PPP, however, focuses on the project economics only though they have the potential to provide innovative technical, financial and managerial solutions. The paper aims to answer the question how to integrate climate change mitigation objective in procurement process of PPP projects. The study has focused only on PPP projects in Municipal Solid Waste Management sector. The integration of climate change mitigation objective has been through design of a modified procurement protocol which promote private sector to devise project structure that fulfil both the objectives of climate change mitigation and provision of quality infrastructure services.
Severe obstructive sleep apnea and long distance truck driving: A case report

Introduction: Untreated sleep disorders can increase driver crash risk by up to 7 fold, and truck drivers have a variety of risk factors for sleep disorders. Measures currently used to identify drivers at risk depend predominantly on the ability of the driver to identify and report themselves as sleepy. Methods: This case report presents a 54 year old long distance truck driver who participated in a case-control study, underwent at home breathing monitoring and was followed up with an in-depth interview. Results: Self-reported measures did not identify this driver as at risk of sleepiness or sleep apnea; yet he was subsequently diagnosed with severe sleep apnea using an at home monitor and polysomnography. Conclusions: Self-assessment of risk factors is insufficient as a screen for sleep apnea. General practitioners are in an ideal position to identify potential sleep apnea sufferers and can initiate the enquiry process that leads to diagnostic testing.
Customers' Perceptions of the Marketing Mix and the Effect on Taiwan Hypermarkets' Brand Equity

Brand equity has increased in importance and created the need to develop more complex measures than are now used. Customer-based brand equity (CBBE) evolved from brand equity and was based on customer's perceptions of brands. Using the marketing mix (price, store image, advertising spending, distribution intensity and price deals) to predict CBBE (brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality and brand association) was an essential goal of this study. Comparing customers' perceptions of the marketing mix, and hypermarket stores (Carrefour, RT-Mart, COSTCO and GBant) effect on CBBE in Taiwan was an additional goal. The study's final purpose was to test the relationship among the marketing mix, hypermarket stores and customer characteristics to determine their influence on CBBE. Two instruments (Marketing Mix Scale and Customer-Based Brand Equity Scale) were combined and used in this study. The Marketing Mix Scale was adapted from Yoo, Donthu, and Lee (2000); and the CBBE Scale was adapted from Pappu and Quester (2006). These two instruments were tested and were found to be reliable and valid measures. Descriptive analysis, t-tests and one-way ANOVA with post hoc comparisons were used to answer the two research questions in this study. In addition, three major hypotheses, each having four sub-hypotheses, were analyzed using stepwise multiple
Enhancing Cluster-based RFID Tag Localization using artificial neural networks and virtual reference tags

Indoor/outdoor localization has gained importance as it has the potential to improve various processes related to the resource management of construction projects and to deliver personalized and location-based services (LBS). Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based systems, have been widely used in different applications in construction and maintenance. This paper investigates the usage of active RFID technology for the localization of movable objects (e.g. material, equipment, tools, and assets) equipped with RFID tags using handheld readers. The method builds on Cluster-based Movable Tag Localization (CMTL) technique which uses k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) algorithm. CMTL uses multidimensional clustering technique that considers signal pattern similarity between target and reference tags together with spatial distribution of reference tags for detecting the region where the target tag is located. This paper proposes applying an irregular bilinear interpolation method to form a grid of virtual reference tags within the selected cluster of real reference tags. Moreover, the proposed method uses artificial neural networks (ANN) for positioning the target tag, as opposed to empirical weighted averaging formulas used in similar k-NN based methods. Comparative analysis is performed to quantify the improvement of the proposed method over similar k-NN-based methods using a simulation environment. A case study is performed to analyze the performance of the proposed method.
Chapter 1 Software Metrics : Measuring

Software metrics have been used in software engineering as a mechanism for assessing code quality and for targeting software development activities, such as testing or refactoring, at areas of a program that will most benefit from them. Haskell [PJ03] has many tools for software engineering, such as testing, debugging and refactoring tools, but software metrics have been neglected. This paper identifies a collection of software metrics for use with Haskell programs. These metrics are subjected to statistical analysis to assess the correlation between their values and the number of bug fixing changes occurring during the development of two case study programs. In addition, the relationships between the metrics are also explored, showing how combinations of metrics can be used to improve their accuracy.