Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Intelligent Framework for Predicting Shifts in the Workloads of Autonomic Database Management Systems

Autonomic computing systems are intelligent systems that manage their own performance. An important characteristic of these systems is an awareness of their environment, particularly their workloads. For a complex system such as the database management system (DBMS) to be self-managing, it should be adaptive to the type of the workload put upon it. Identifying the workload type is key to tuning a DBMS and adjusting its resource allocation. We previously proposed a workload classification methodology that automatically recognizes the workload type and assesses each type's concentration. Since a DBMS may experience changes in the type of workload it handles during its normal processing cycle, it is not enough for autonomic DBMSs to identify the current type of the workload, but also to predict when a change in the workload type will occur. We could simply keep the workload classifier activated and monitor the system constantly to detect significant shifts in the type of workloads. However, this approach imposes undesirable overhead. In this paper, we propose the Psychic- Skeptic Prediction framework (PSP) that allows the DBMS to forecast major shifts in the workload by combining off-line and on-line prediction methods. Experimental results show that the PSP outperforms other possible operation modes. Furthermore, our approach is generic and can be applied to other similar prediction problems. identification methodology that automatically identifies the workload type and assesses each type's concentration using data mining classification techniques �1)�2). We build a workload classifier by analyzing a number of resource- oriented performance measures collected from the DBMS. This workload classifier can be used to identify any workload sample collected over a small time interval. The primary output of the classifier is the DSSness index, which is the percentage of the DSS type vs. the OLTP type in the workload. A DSSness of 80% means that 80% of the workload is classified as DSS and 20% as OLTP. Identifying the type of the workload, however, is just the beginning. A DBMS may experience changes in the type of workload it handles during its normal processing cycle. For example, a bank may experience an OLTP-like of short debit/credit transactions for most of the month, while in the last few days of the month, the workload becomes more DSS- like with the need to produce financial reports and run long executive queries to produce summaries. In the money market, it also has been observed that traders may exhibit some daily pattern as they access the information systems of their brokers
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES COMPETING WITH COSTCO AND SAM'S CLUB: WAREHOUSE CLUB ENTRY AND GROCERY PRICES

Prior research shows grocery stores reduce prices to compete with Walmart Supercenters. This study finds evidence that the competitive effects of two other big box retailers – Costco and Walmart-owned Sam's Club – are quite different. Using city-level panel grocery price data matched with a unique data set on Walmart and warehouse club locations, we find that Costco entry is associated with higher grocery prices at incumbent retailers, and that the effect is strongest in cities with small populations and high grocery store densities. This could be explained by a segmented-market model, or by incumbents competing with Costco along non-price dimensions such as product quality or quality of the shopping experience. We find no evidence that Sam’s Club entry affects grocery stores’ prices, consistent with Sam’s Club’s focus on small businesses instead of consumers. Charles J. Courtemanche Georgia State University Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Department of Economics P.O. Box 3992 Atlanta, GA 30302-3992 and NBER ccourtemanche@gsu.edu Art Carden Department of Economics and Business Rhodes College 2000 N. Parkway Memphis TN 38112 cardena@rhodes.edu
The Bayesian stance: Equations for ‘as-if’ sensorimotor agency

The verb ‘to do’ plays a vital part in our understanding of the world, and it goes hand-in-hand with words such as active, action and agent. But the physical sciences describe only mechanical happenings, not acts. Their theoretical language is, in essence, a strict mathematical formalism applied to the description of variables (usually quantitative ones) that can – at least in principle – be measured by mechanical instruments. In such a language, what is the definition of an agent? Of an act? In contrast to previous approaches, which attempt to discriminate between agent and non-agent systems, we pursue a more Dennettian approach that attempts only to characterise the explanatory logic of intentional (agentive) interpretations of a physical system; we wish to do so purely in terms of the formal relations that hold between variables in a dynamical system or stochastic process. Our approach is straightforward: we use Pearl’s causal formalism to identify physical variables at the causal boundary between ‘agent’ and ‘environment’, and identify these with variables in Bayesian decision theory; this provides a rigorous bridge between mathematical models of physics and mathematical models of rational decision-making.
Customer perception towards relationship marketing practices in Takaful industry

In certain business organization, acknowledging public perception towards their business practices may give a positive impact towards the future business performance. Similarly, to ensure the sustainable of Takaful industry as an alternative Islamic insurance, getting customers’ perception towards their marketing practice is important. It is so because without effective marketing practices, the Takaful products could not reach the public with the sole purpose as was planned in the earlier stage. This research thus proposes three constructs of relationship marketing and investigates the customers’ perception regarding the Takaful agents’ relationship marketing practices. It includes their Islamic ethical behaviour, product knowledge, and information communication. To achieve these objectives, this research adopted self-administered survey questionnaire and distributed it to the Takaful customers in Klang Valley area. Result from data analysis based on SPSS version 19 regards that the public particularly Muslim in rural area not totally agreed with the relationship marketing practices of their Takaful agent. This research contributes to strengthen the Takaful industry in reaching the same level with the conventional insurance particularly their effective marketing channel.
Augmented Hydrolysis of Diisopropyl Fluorophosphate in Engineered Mutants of Phosphotriesterase*

The phosphotriesterase from Pseudomonas diminuta hydrolyzes a wide variety of organophosphate insecticides and acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. The rate of hydrolysis depends on the substrate and can range from 6000 s−1 for paraoxon to 0.03 s−1 for the slower substrates such as diethylphenylphosphate. Increases in the reactivity of phosphotriesterase toward the slower substrates were attempted by the placement of a potential proton donor group at the active site. Distances from active site residues in the wild type protein to a bound substrate analog were measured, and Trp131, Phe132, and Phe306 were found to be located within 5.0 Å of the oxygen atom of the leaving group. Eleven mutants were created using site-directed mutagenesis and purified to homogeneity. Phe132 and Phe306 were replaced by tyrosine and/or histidine to generate all combinations of single and double mutants at these two sites. The single mutants W131K, F306K, and F306E were also constructed. Kinetic constants were measured for all of the mutants with the substrates paraoxon, diethylphenylphosphate, acephate, and diisopropylfluorophosphate. V maxvalues for the mutant enzymes with the substrate paraoxon varied from near wild type values to a 4-order of magnitude decrease for the W131K mutant. There were significant increases in the K m for paraoxon for all mutants except F132H. V maxvalues measured using diethylphenylphosphate decreased for all mutants except for F132H and F132Y, whereas K m values ranged from near wild type levels to increases of 25-fold.V max values for acephate hydrolysis ranged from near wild type values to a 103-fold decrease for W131K.K m values for acephate ranged from near wild type to a 5-fold increase. V max values for the mutants tested with the substrate diisopropylfluorophosphate showed an increase in all cases except for the W131K, F306K, and F306E mutants. The V max value for the F132H/F306H mutant was increased to 3100 s−1. These studies demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to significantly enhance the ability of the native phosphotriesterase to hydrolyze phosphorus-fluorine bonds at rates that rival the hydrolysis of paraoxon.
How perceived social support relates to suicidal ideation: A Japanese social resident survey

Background: The loss of social support is one of the major risk factors for suicide. However, there are few empirical studies that have examined how a person’s suicide ideation relates to their social support. Aims: To examine the relationship between social support and suicidal ideation. Methods: Self-report questionnaires were sent to 2,200 randomly selected adults in Japan. The questionnaire inquired the participants about the severity of suicidal ideation, the details of current perceived social support and their degree of satisfaction with this social support. Social support and related indicators were compared among three groups of participants that varied in severity of suicidal ideation. Results: People in the group that had suicide ideation during their lives reported receiving significantly less support from their family and had greater feelings of dissatisfaction with that support than those in the other groups. Furthermore, people who had suicide ideation during the month immediately preceding the survey reported providing less support to their family, relatives or friends, as well as receiving less support from family than other groups, and having stronger feelings of dissatisfaction with social support. Conclusion: Our study identified a strong relationship between the severity of suicidal ideation and perceived social support.
Private equity fund investing : investment strategies, entry order and performance

Private equity investing (PE) has experienced rapid growth on a global scale over the last few decades to become a significant industry. While scholars have devoted considerable effort to studying the area of risk capital investing into businesses, research about private equity as an asset class is surprisingly scarce. This dissertation addresses this gap by enhancing understanding of PE fund investing in general, and specifically about how heterogeneity in investor-specific characteristics and entry order strategies may impact performance. Based on a comprehensive set of interviews with PE fund investors, in-dept insights about variances in motives for investing in the asset class, ways of working, and investment strategies across investors were acquired; findings that are elaborated upon in the dissertation. In addition, to facilitate a thorough investigation of the links between organizational characteristics, entry order and performance, hypotheses were tested through the statistical analysis of unique data covering PE funds raised in Sweden over a twenty-year period. Among several novel results, this study indicates that the level of environmental uncertainty has a clear impact on which organization-specific factors explain entry order, as well as which factors impact the ability of an organization to take advantage of a chosen entry order. Furthermore, the study points at organizational reputation as an especially valuable asset in situations of uncertainty. While a good reputation does not directly lead to superior performance, it may be used in exchange for favorable entry order positions.
Effects of Microwave Irradiation Pre-Treatment of Egg White Proteins on Ant Oxidative Activity of Their Hydrolysates Prepared with Pepsin

The effects of Conventional Heating (CH) and Microwave Irradiation (MWI) pre-treatment of Egg White Proteins (EWPs) on antioxidative activity of their hydrolysates prepared with pepsin were investigated. MWI pre- treatment of EWPs resulted in a higher degree of hydrolysis (DH) and the highest hydroxyl radical scavenging activity (40.67±1.30%), superoxide anion scavenging activity (75.53±2.79%), inhibitory activity of tea oil autoxidation (67.68±2.50%) and reducing power (0.34±0.01) of Egg White Proteins Hydrolysates (EWPHs) in comparison with CH pre-treatment, although there was no significant difference in DPPH radical scavenging activity between the EWPHs originated from the proteins pre-treated by CH and MWI (p>0.05). According to the experimental results, MWI pre-treatment could improve the antioxidant activities of EWPHs compared with CH treatment.
Personality Facets and All-Cause Mortality Among Medicare Patients Aged 66 to 102 Years: A Follow-on Study of Weiss and Costa (2005)

Objective To investigate associations between personality facets and survival during an 8-year follow-up. Methods In 597 Medicare recipients (age, 66–102 years) followed up for approximately 8 years, personality domains and facets were assessed using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). This study builds on a previous study which used proportional hazards regression to test whether the NEO-PI-R factor and selected facet scores were associated with mortality risk. That study revealed that the neuroticism facet impulsiveness, agreeableness facet straightforwardness, and conscientiousness facet self-discipline were related to lower risk during 4 years of follow-up. We extended the follow-up period by 4 years, examined all 30 facets, and used accelerated failure time modeling as an additional analytic approach. Unlike proportional hazards regression, accelerated failure time modeling permits inferences about the median survival length conferred by predictors. Each facet was tested in a model that included health-related covariates and NEO-PI-R factor scores for dimensions that did not include that facet. Results Over the 8-year follow-up period, impulsiveness was not significant, each standard deviation of straightforwardness was associated with an 11% increase in median survival time and, when dichotomized, higher self-discipline was associated with a 34% increase in median survival time. Each standard deviation of altruism, compliance, tender-mindedness, and openness to fantasy was associated with a 9% to 11% increase in median survival time. Conclusions After extending the follow-up period from 4 to 8 years, self-discipline remained a powerful predictor of survival and facets associated with imagination, generosity, and higher-quality interpersonal interactions become increasingly important.
Matching of Energy Provisions in Multihop Wireless Infra-Structures

Recently there have been large advances in energy technologies for battery-operated systems, including green energy resources and high capacity batteries. The effective use of battery energy resources in wireless infrastructure networks to improve the versatility and reliability of wireless communications is an important issue. Emerging applications of smart cities, Internet of Things (IoT), and emergency responses highly rely on the basic communication network infrastructures that enable ubiquitous network connections. However, energy consumption by nodes in a wireless infrastructure network depends on the transmissions of other nodes in the network. Considering this inter-dependence is necessary to achieve efficient provision of energy in wireless networks. This paper studies the issue of energy provision for wireless relay nodes in Wireless Multihop Infrastructures (WMI) assuming constraints on the total energy provision. We introduce a scheme of Energy Provision Matching (Matching-EP) for WMI which optimizes energy provision based on matching of energy provision with estimates of differentiated position-dependent energy consumption by wireless nodes distributed in the network. The evaluation results show that Matching-EP with 4%–34% improvement in energy matching degree enables 10%–40% improvement of the network lifetime, and 5%–40% improvement of packet delivery compared with conventional WMI networks.
Semliki Forest virus as an expression vector in insect cell lines

Studies were undertaken to determine if replication‐deficient Semliki Forest virus expression vectors could be successfully used to express foreign gene constructs in insect cell lines. Using green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a marker we recorded infection levels of nearly 100% in the Aedes albopictus cell lines C6/36 and Aa23T, as well as in the Ae. aegypti cell line MOS20. The virus was capable of infecting an Anopheles gambiae cell line MOS55. The amount of GFP protein produced in each cell line was quantified. Northern analysis of viral transcription revealed the presence of novel transcripts in Aa23T, C6/36, and MOS55 cell lines, but not in the BHK or MOS20. The initial characterization of these transcripts is described.
Exploration of the impact of a voice activated decision support system (VADSS) with video on resuscitation performance by lay rescuers during simulated cardiopulmonary arrest

Aim To assess whether access to a voice activated decision support system (VADSS) containing video clips demonstrating resuscitation manoeuvres was associated with increased compliance with American Heart Association Basic Life Support (AHA BLS) guidelines. Methods This was a prospective, randomised controlled trial. Subjects with no recent clinical experience were randomised to the VADSS or control group and participated in a 5-min simulated out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest with another ‘bystander’. Data on performance for predefined outcome measures based on the AHA BLS guidelines were abstracted from videos and the simulator log. Results 31 subjects were enrolled (VADSS 16 vs control 15), with no significant differences in baseline characteristics. Study subjects in the VADSS were more likely to direct the bystander to: (1) perform compressions to ventilations at the correct ratio of 30:2 (VADSS 15/16 (94%) vs control 4/15 (27%), p=<0.001) and (2) insist the bystander switch compressor versus ventilator roles after 2 min (VADSS 12/16 (75%) vs control 2/15 (13%), p=0.001). The VADSS group took longer to initiate chest compressions than the control group: VADSS 159.5 (±53) s versus control 78.2 (±20) s, p<0.001. Mean no-flow fractions were very high in both groups: VADSS 72.2% (±0.1) versus control 75.4 (±8.0), p=0.35. Conclusions The use of an audio and video assisted decision support system during a simulated out-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest prompted lay rescuers to follow cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) guidelines but was also associated with an unacceptable delay to starting chest compressions. Future studies should explore: (1) if video is synergistic to audio prompts, (2) how mobile technologies may be leveraged to spread CPR decision support and (3) usability testing to avoid unintended consequences.
Fluoxetine and Adult Suicidality Revisited: An Updated Meta-Analysis Using Expanded Data Sources From Placebo-Controlled Trials

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor treatments have been suggested by some to induce emergence of suicidality (ideation and behaviors). The objective of this study was to assess suicidality emergence by adverse event and rating scale data in the largest available, adult, major depression, double-blind, placebo-controlled, fluoxetine trial database (18 trials). Adverse event reports and comments for patients (fluoxetine, n = 2200; placebo, n = 1551) were searched for suicide-related events that were then classified into Food and Drug Administration categories. For 16 trials, suicidality was also examined by Hamilton Depression Scale item 3 (suicide) scores, and these data were analyzed along with the combination of event-based data and scale-based data. Comparisons between treatments were made for various estimates of worsening (risk) and improvement (benefit) of suicidality. Fluoxetine treatment did not result in greater worsening but was associated with greater improvement and faster resolution of ideation (P ≤ 0.05 vs placebo). Data sources were differentially sensitive in detecting changes in suicidal ideation and behaviors. Fluoxetine treatment led to greater benefit rather than risk for suicidality.
The semantic problems of psychiatry

Medical problems are commonly discussed in terms of' diseases'; and although important decisions may be made, especially in emergency situations, without the use of this terminology, it is unlikely that a medical language that dispenses with it will be elaborated. Names of diseases have widely varying factual implications; i.e. the types of observation that are required to test diagnostic statements that use them vary widely. If they are to be used in statements purporting to be scientific, it is essential that these varying implications should be made explicit. Analysis of medical usages of the names of diseases, both in my own speciality of respiratory disease (Scadding, 1959, 1963, 1981) and more generally (Scadding, 1967, 1972, 1975; Campbell et al. 1979), has led me to propose the following statement which aims to do this. In medical discourse, the name of a disease refers to the sum of the abnormal phenomena displayed by a group of living organisms in association with a specified common characteristic, or set of characteristics, by which they differ from the norm for their species in such a way as to place them at a biological disadvantage. This statement does not aspire to be a definition of'disease-in-general', which Taylor (1980) and Hafner (1987), among others, have sought. Popper (1945) pointed out many years ago that ' essentialist' definitions of this sort, attempting the impossible task of revealing the essence of the definiendum, have no place in science; my statement is methodologically nominalist, with the limited objective of making explicit the factual implications of current medical usages of the names of diseases, accepting their logical heterogeneity. I have recently outlined some of the consequences of acceptance of this, which I shall call 'the general statement' (Scadding, 1988). Here, I propose to consider its possible relevance to problems of nosology and classification in psychiatry of which even outsiders to this speciality must be aware, and of which my awareness has been sharpened by two previous invitations to contribute to this journal (Scadding, 1980, 1982).