Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Zyman Institute of Brand Science ZIBS Technical Report Asymmetric New Product Development Alliance : Are the Gains Symmetric Across the Partners ?

Interorganizational alliances are widely recognized as critical to product innovation, particularly in high technology markets. Many new product development (NPD) alliances tend to be asymmetric, that is, they are formed between a larger firm and a smaller firm. These asymmetric alliances typically result in changes in the shareholder values of the partner firms. Are the changes in shareholder values of partner firms significant? Is the NPD alliance a win-win or win-lose partnership? Are they symmetric for the larger and smaller partner firms? What factors drive the changes in shareholder values of the partner firms? These important questions remain unexplored as there is little empirical research on the effect of NPD alliance on shareholder value and on the apportionment of this value between the partner firms. We develop and empirically test a model of short-term changes in shareholder values of larger and smaller firms involved in NPD alliances, using the event study methodology on data covering 167 asymmetric alliances in the information technology and communication industries. In this model, we examine alliance, firm, and partner characteristics as potential determinants of the changes in shareholder values of the partner firms due to a NPD alliance announcement. Our model accounts for selection correction, potential cross-correlation across the residuals from the models of firm value changes for the larger and smaller firms, and unobserved heterogeneity. The results suggest that both the partners experience significant short-term financial gains, but there are considerable asymmetries between the larger and smaller firms with regard to the effects of alliance, partner and firm characteristics on the gains of the partner firms. The results relating to alliance characteristics suggest that while a broad scope alliance enhances the financial gains for the larger firm, a scale R&D alliance (relative to a link alliance) contributes positively to the financial gains for the smaller firm. With regard to partner characteristics, while partner alliance experience positively influences the financial gains for the larger firm, it has no significant effect on the financial returns for the smaller firm. Further, partner innovativeness is positively associated with the financial gains for the larger firm, but partner reputation is unrelated to the financial gains of the smaller firm. As regard firm characteristics, the magnitude of the financial gains accruing from a firm’s own alliance experience is considerably higher for the smaller firm than it is for the larger firm. We outline the implications of the research findings for management practice.
Composing and decomposing data types: a closed type families implementation of data types à la carte

Wouter Swierstra's data types à la carte is a technique to modularise data type definitions in Haskell. We give an alternative implementation of data types à la carte that offers more flexibility in composing and decomposing data types. To achieve this, we refine the subtyping constraint, which is at the centre of data types à la carte. On the one hand this refinement is more general, allowing subtypings that intuitively should hold but were not derivable beforehand. This aspect of our implementation removes previous restrictions on how data types can be combined. On the other hand our refinement is more restrictive, disallowing subtypings that lead to more than one possible injection and should therefore be considered programming errors. Furthermore, from this refined subtyping constraint we derive a new constraint to express type isomorphism. We show how this isomorphism constraint allows us to decompose data types and to define extensible functions on data types in an ad hoc manner. The implementation makes essential use of closed type families in Haskell. The use of closed type families instead of type classes comes with a set of trade-offs, which we review in detail. Finally, we show that our technique can be used for other similar problem domains.
Polygonal Meshing for 3D Stereo Video Sensor Data

Many visually-guided robotic systems rely on stereo video data streams to obtain surface models of environmental structure. However stereo video-based 3D point clouds are noisier than those produced from laser-based scanners and are subject to areas of sparse point information corresponding to textureless or specular surfaces. This complicates the process of constructing polygonal meshes from these point-clouds. This paper develops an approach to meshing for stereo video surface reconstruction that addresses these issues and, by exploiting the known ego motion of the sensor, obtains surface normal and texture rendering information. This widens the range of applications for which stereo video reconstruction can be applied and opens the possibility of using stereo video to generate models for real-time rendering applications.
Association of single nucleotide polymorphism at position −308 of the tumor necrosis factor-alpha gene with ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis

In this study, we analyzed the putative association between the −308 G/A polymorphism in the promoter region of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) α gene (rs1800629) and chronic inflammatory arthritis in the Bulgarian population. A case-control study was carried out on 58 patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), 108 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and 177 healthy subjects. −308 G/A TNF-α genotypes of patients and controls were determined by restriction fragment length polymorphism polymerase chain reaction (RFLP-PCR). No significant association between the rs1800629 polymorphism and RA risk in the study cohort was observed. However, there were significant differences in the genotype and allele frequencies of the −308 G/A TNF-α polymorphism between AS patients and the healthy subjects. In logistic regression analysis, the presence of the TNF-α −308A allele in the genotype (AA + AG vs. GG) was associated with a 3.298 times lower risk of developing AS. In addition, in AS, there were associations for age at disease onset (<29 years; odds ratio (OR) = 0.222), disease severity (Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) score > 4; OR = 0.152) and response to anti-TNF treatment (OR = 2.25) under a dominant model (AA + AG vs. GG). In conclusion, our results suggested that the promoter polymorphism −308 G/A in the TNF-α gene had no significant effect on RA development, but could play a role in AS development and in determining the age of disease onset, disease severity and therapeutic outcome of AS in the Bulgarian patients who participated in our study.
Putting LTE Security Functions to the Test: A Framework to Evaluate Implementation Correctness

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the most recent generation of mobile communications promising increased transfer rates and enhanced security features. It is todays communication technology for mobile Internet as well as considered for the use in critical infrastructure, making it an attractive target to a wide range of attacks. We evaluate the implementation correctness of LTE security functions that should protect personal data from compromise. In this paper, we focus on two security aspects: user data encryption and network authentication. We develop a framework to analyze various LTE devices with respect to the implementations of their security-related functions. Using our framework, we identify several security flaws partially violating the LTE specification. In particular, we show that i) an LTE network can enforce to use no encryption and ii) none of the tested devices informs the user when user data is sent unencrypted. Furthermore, we present iii) a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack against an LTE device that does not fulfill the network authentication requirements. The discovered security flaws undermine the data protection objective of LTE and represent a threat to the users of mobile communication. We outline several countermeasures to cope with these vulnerabilities and make proposals for a long-term solution.
Identification and Characterization of Cell Type–Specific and Ubiquitous Chromatin Regulatory Structures in the Human Genome

The identification of regulatory elements from different cell types is necessary for understanding the mechanisms controlling cell type–specific and housekeeping gene expression. Mapping DNaseI hypersensitive (HS) sites is an accurate method for identifying the location of functional regulatory elements. We used a high throughput method called DNase-chip to identify 3,904 DNaseI HS sites from six cell types across 1% of the human genome. A significant number (22%) of DNaseI HS sites from each cell type are ubiquitously present among all cell types studied. Surprisingly, nearly all of these ubiquitous DNaseI HS sites correspond to either promoters or insulator elements: 86% of them are located near annotated transcription start sites and 10% are bound by CTCF, a protein with known enhancer-blocking insulator activity. We also identified a large number of DNaseI HS sites that are cell type specific (only present in one cell type); these regions are enriched for enhancer elements and correlate with cell type–specific gene expression as well as cell type–specific histone modifications. Finally, we found that approximately 8% of the genome overlaps a DNaseI HS site in at least one the six cell lines studied, indicating that a significant percentage of the genome is potentially functional.
Genetic Mouse Models: Targeting New Genes in Regeneration

Although tissue regeneration in mammals is rare, some mouse strains possess the ability to heal tissues even into adulthood. These authors have previously demonstrated a negative genetic correlation between tissue healing and osteoarthritis susceptibility. In this study, they analyze knee joints from healer and non-healer strains and identified genes common to both ear wound and knee cartilage healing. Specific sequence differences between healer and non-healer parental strains were identified as potential causal polymorphisms. Mapping genetic variations that give rise to differences in diverse healing responses may reveal healing processes in pursuit of new therapeutic targets designed regenerate tissues and offer protection from osteoarthritis.
Simultaneous analysis of phytohormones, phytotoxins, and volatile organic compounds in plants

Phytohormones regulate the protective responses of plants against both biotic and abiotic stresses by means of synergistic or antagonistic actions referred to as signaling crosstalk. A bottleneck in crosstalk research is the quantification of numerous interacting phytohormones and regulators. The chemical analysis of salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, indole-3-acetic acid, and abscisic acid is typically achieved by using separate and complex methodologies. Moreover, pathogen-produced phytohormone mimics, such as the phytotoxin coronatine (COR), have not been directly quantified in plant tissues. We address these problems by using a simple preparation and a GC-MS-based metabolic profiling approach. Plant tissue is extracted in aqueous 1-propanol and mixed with dichloromethane. Carboxylic acids present in the organic layer are methylated by using trimethylsilyldiazomethane; analytes are volatilized under heat, collected on a polymeric absorbent, and eluted with solvent into a sample vial. Analytes are separated by using gas chromatography and quantified by using chemical-ionization mass spectrometry that produces predominantly [M+H]+ parent ions. We use this technique to examine levels of COR, phytohormones, and volatile organic compounds in model systems, including Arabidopsis thaliana during infection with Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000, corn (Zea mays) under herbivory by corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea), tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) after mechanical damage, and tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) during drought stress. Numerous complex changes induced by pathogen infection, including the accumulation of COR, salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, indole-3-acetic acid, and abscisic acid illustrate the potential and simplicity of this approach in quantifying signaling crosstalk interactions that occur at the level of synthesis and accumulation.
PCA and LDA as dimension reduction for individuality of handwriting in writer verification

Principal Component Analysis and Linear Discriminant Analysis are the most popular approach used in statistical data analysis. Both of these approaches are usually implemented as traditional linear technique for Dimension reduction approach. Dimension reduction is useful approach in data analysis application. The concept of dimension reduction will help the process of identifying the most important features in handwritten data which also called as individuality of the handwriting. Where, this individuality will help the verification process in order to verify the handwritten document. The purposed of this paper is to perform both techniques above in writer verification process in order to acquire the individuality of the handwriting. Classification process will be use to evaluate the effectiveness of both approach performance in form of classification accuracy.
Asymptotic analysis of a GLRT test for detection with large sensor arrays

This paper addresses the behaviour of a classical multi-antenna GLRT test that allows to detect the presence of a known signal corrupted by a multi-path propagation channel and by an additive white Gaussian noise with unknown spatial covariance matrix. The paper is focused on the case where the number of sensors M is large, and of the same order of magnitude as the sample size N, a context which is modeled by the large system asymptotic regime M goes to infinity, N goes to infinity in such a way that M/N goes to c for c in (0, infinity). The purpose of this paper is to study the behaviour of a GLRT test statistics in this regime, and to show that the corresponding theoretical analysis allows to accurately predict the performance of the test when M and N are of the same order of magnitude.
Leveraging Customer Knowledge and IT Resources to Enhance Service Expertise and Service Quality

This study examines determinants of the service expertise and service quality of customer service representatives (CSRs) working for call centers which have become a firm’s typical service encounter. More specifically, as such determinants, the study proposes customer knowledge accumulated in electronic knowledge repositories (EKRs) as a digital knowledge source along with expertise location as a human knowledge source. Moreover, the study considers technological IT resources (TIR) as another determinant of CSRs’ service expertise and service quality. Finally, the study examines the relationship of service expertise and service quality. A total of 292 responses were collected from CSRs working at call centers and were used for the analysis. The key findings are as follows: first, customer knowledge in EKRs, expert location and TIR considerably increased CSRs’ service expertise. Second, customer knowledge in EKRs and expert location were positively associated with service quality, but TIR had no significant effect on service quality. Finally, CSRs’ service expertise greatly enhanced service quality. The results imply that CSRs’ service expertise and service quality depend on knowledge sources and IT resources provided by the call center.
Navigating the unbeaten track from digital literacy to digital citizenship: A case of university students in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province

Unlike the millennials from the industrialised world who were raised amidst an increasingly online and socially networked society, their South African counterparts at previously disadvantaged universities have some weaknesses similar to those of digital migrants. These weaknesses are caused by the limited exposure millennials in South Africa have to digital devices and Internet connectivity. In spite of these impediments, their future careers in an increasingly globalised world require them to behave like, transact and engage with full-fledged digital citizens from the global north. Digital citizenship is the ability to use technology safely, responsibly, critically, productively and civically. This raises intellectual curiosity about the extent to which the African millennial is prepared for a world that expects them to be digital citizens. This article, therefore, investigates the challenges faced by the South African millennial as they navigate an unusual route to digital citizenship. We adopted the activity theory for a mixed-methods study that consists of a survey of 148 questionnaires and 15 in-depth interviews. The findings show that while university-going millennials acquire digital literacy, their development of digital citizenship is affected by lack of mentors and access (i.e. connectivity and devices) at home and lack of soft skills training (i.e. online safety, digital etiquette and inadequate information literacy) at the university.
High quality mesostructure acquisition using specularities

We propose a technique for cheap and efficient acquisition of mesostructure normal maps from specularities, which only requires a simple LCD monitor and a digital camera. Coded illumination enables us to capture subtle surface details with only a handful of images. In addition, our method can deal with heterogeneous surfaces, and high albedo materials. We are able to recover highly detailed mesostructures, which was previously only possible with an expensive hardware setup.
A Multi-Scale Hierarchical Codebook Method for Human Action Recognition in Videos Using a Single Example

This paper presents a novel action matching method based on a hierarchical codebook of local spatio-temporal video volumes (STVs). Given a single example of an activity as a query video, the proposed method finds similar videos to the query in a video dataset. It is based on the bag of video words (BOV) representation and does not require prior knowledge about actions, background subtraction, motion estimation or tracking. It is also robust to spatial and temporal scale changes, as well as some deformations. The hierarchical algorithm yields a compact subset of salient code words of STVs for the query video, and then the likelihood of similarity between the query video and all STVs in the target video is measured using a probabilistic inference mechanism. This hierarchy is achieved by initially constructing a codebook of STVs, while considering the uncertainty in the codebook construction, which is always ignored in current versions of the BOV approach. At the second level of the hierarchy, a large contextual region containing many STVs (Ensemble of STVs) is considered in order to construct a probabilistic model of STVs and their spatio-temporal compositions. At the third level of the hierarchy a codebook is formed for the ensembles of STVs based on their contextual similarities. The latter are the proposed labels (code words) for the actions being exhibited in the video. Finally, at the highest level of the hierarchy, the salient labels for the actions are selected by analyzing the high level code words assigned to each image pixel as a function of time. The algorithm was applied to three available video datasets for action recognition with different complexities (KTH, Weizmann, and MSR II) and the results were superior to other approaches, especially in the cases of a single training example and cross-dataset action recognition.
Grammar Based Unit Testing for Parsers Master ’ s Thesis

White box unit testing is the use of test inputs, derived from source code, to drive test coverage of a metric on that source code. While approaches based on control flow analysis exist for generating unit test inputs, these approaches are not readily applied to code that embeds control flow as static data. One specific example of such codes are the state machines built by parser generators. Control flow in these machine abstractions is based on static data that encodes a set of state transition rules. However, these rules also correspond to the recognition of productions in the grammar input to the parser generator. It is therefore feasible to develop white box tests for a parser based on an analysis of the input grammar. Using the structure of grammars, a methodology for white box unit testing a parser has been developed and will be presented in this thesis. Furthermore, a tool set that assists in automation of test generation will be described. This tool set is based on the use of a language grammar to create grammatical strings in that language. It will be shown how the set of strings in a language may be navigated in a principled fashion for the purpose of spanning the set of all language productions, and heuristics developed for resolving nonterminal symbols into strings of terminal symbols. A demonstration of how these tools were used to test a simple parser for the C programming language will also be given. Advisor: David Beazley
The concurrent validity of an isiZulu Bournemouth Questionnaire in comparison to its English original

Aim The aim of this study was to determine the concurrent validity of an isiZulu Bournemouth Questionnaire in comparison to its English counterpart. Methodology This quantitative correlational study compared the isiZulu version of the Bournemouth Questionnaire to its English counterpart, (consisting of three sections: back, neck and musculoskeletal). The study employed a design where subjects were compared to themselves. A sample of 120 volunteers over the age of 18 years, who were literate in both English and isiZulu took part in the study. Whether the participant was symptomatic or asymptomatic was not of concern. Using a randomised list, the participants were administered one of the two versions of the questionnaire to be completed first, the second and alternate questionnaire was administered after an interval of at least 20 minutes. Results Of 120 paired questionnaires, 107 completed pairs were returned, resulting in a response rate of 89.2%. Results, using Cronbach-α (α= 0.05) with subsequent testing using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity, revealed that the questionnaires, in toto, had high levels of correlation. The relationship between the isiZulu and the English questions revealed a positive and high correlation using Kendall’s tau-b which was statistically significant (τb > 0.55, p = 0.000), although there were isolated instances of statistical difference between individual pairs of questions in respect to age, gender, site, primary language and level of education. Conclusions The study found that the isiZulu version of the Bournemouth Questionnaire showed concurrent validity with its English counterpart, and recommendations were made for the clinical application of the isiZulu version as a means of refining the interpretation of disjunct question pairs.