Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dominant Ideologies, Strategic Change, and Sustained Performance

Strategies for organizational change which are successful in one business era, and in one culture, may not necessarily be successful in another. Yet the evidence is that powerful espoused ideologies about how best to effect change often live on within organizations, well beyond their capacity to help sustain positive performance. The espoused ideal approach to change becomes a myth which clouds the ability of managers to analyze their environment incisively and to move against the prevailing logic of change in the organization. It is suggested in this paper that often the best moves in organizational change may be countercyclical-against the preferred ideologies of change in the organization. Managers therefore need good contingency maps and models of change, rather than fixed ideologies and recipes, and the courage to move against the trend. This is made all the more difficult by researchers and management writers, who describe, espouse, and normalize dominant, preferred "best practice" ideas of change without adequate reference to the changing business environment of the organization, or to the cultural specificity of their theories. It is a case of when "best espoused practice" may be worst practice.
ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF GALIUM APARINE L. FROM PUNJAB, PAKISTAN

The petroleum ether, chloroform, methanol and aqueous extracts of Galium aparine were screened for their antioxidant activity. DPPH radical scavenging ability and total phenolic contents of the plant were determined. The percentage yield, colour and texture of the plant extracts were also determined. Methanol extract of the selected plant had the highest antioxidant for reducing DPPH (84.33%) while its water extract exhibited least antioxidant activity for reducing DPPH (8.77%). These results were compared with the standards i.e., α-Tocopherol and BHT. Methanol extract of the plant had highest amount of total phenols (124.8 μg of Gallic acid equivalent to one gm of extract) which correlates with the DPPH radical scavenging assay. The study exposed that the utilization of these plants would exert several valuable effects by virtue of their antioxidant activity.
Power estimation techniques for FPGAs

The dynamic power consumed by a digital CMOS circuit is directly proportional to both switching activity and interconnect capacitance. In this paper, we consider early prediction of net activity and interconnect capacitance in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) designs. We develop empirical prediction models for these parameters, suitable for use in power-aware layout synthesis, early power estimation/planning, and other applications. We examine how switching activity on a net changes when delays are zero (zero delay activity) versus when logic delays are considered (logic delay activity) versus when both logic and routing delays are considered (routed delay activity). We then describe a novel approach for prelayout activity prediction that estimates a net's routed delay activity using only zero or logic delay activity values, along with structural and functional circuit properties. For capacitance prediction, we show that prediction accuracy is improved by considering aspects of the FPGA interconnect architecture in addition to generic parameters, such as net fanout and bounding box perimeter length. We also demonstrate that there is an inherent variability (noise) in the switching activity and capacitance of nets that limits the accuracy attainable in prediction. Experimental results show the proposed prediction models work well given the noise limitations.
Implementation of whole genome massively parallel sequencing for noninvasive prenatal testing in laboratories

Noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for fetal aneuploidies using cell-free fetal DNA in maternal plasma has revolutionized the field of prenatal care and methods using massively parallel sequencing are now being implemented almost worldwide. Substantial progress has been made from initially testing for (an)euploidies of chromosomes 13, 18 and 21, to testing for sex chromosome (an)euploidies, additional autosomal aneuploidies as well as partial deletions and duplications genome-wide. Although NIPT is associated with significantly reduced risks for the fetus in comparison to existing invasive prenatal diagnostic methods, it presents several implementation challenges. Here, we review key issues potentially influencing NIPT and illustrate them using both data from literature and in-house data.
Word of Mouth and Critical Reviews for the Motion Picture Industry in South Korea: On Mainstream and Non-Mainstream Movies

The purpose of this study is to figure out how WOM and critical reviews impact weekly box office revenues, and how the impact is different on mainstream and non-mainstream movies. The data of this study is from the motion picture industry of South Korea. 118 movies data was collected and movies were categorized into two groups by their distributors. The results show that the volume of WOM was positively significant to box office revenue, while the valence of WOM had no significant effect. The number and attitude of critical reviews had no consistent significances to weekly box office revenue, but the number of critical reviews was statically significant to the aggregate box office revenue. The effects of WOM were not statistically different between mainstream and non-mainstream movies. The effects of critical reviews, however, were different between mainstream and non-mainstream movies.
Yet another acoustic representation of speech sounds

This paper proposes yet another representation of speech sounds. The proposed speech modeling can remove both multiplicative and linear transformational distortion from speech theoretically. It means that speech sounds are represented without being affected by any static distortion inevitably involved in production, encoding, transmission, decoding, and hearing processes, such as differences in vocal tract length, gender, age, microphone, room, line, auditory characteristics, and so on. The method acoustically models not individual phones but their entire system, where only acoustic interrelation embedded in all the kinds of phones is focused. Since the method provides us with no absolute acoustic properties of phones, it cannot recognize or synthesize even a single phone. On the contrary, the proposed method is shown to be able to be applied to pronunciation assessment effectively and reliably, where the proficiency of pronunciation is estimated without using acoustic models of the individual phones directly in the matching.
Teachers’ Verbal Cues That Cause Students to Feel Various Emotions

Abstract This study aims to determine which statements of teachers cause the students to feel which kinds of emotions. For this purpose, a total of 122 primary school students were interviewed through a semi-structured interview form comprising of the twenty emotions in the Panas scale. According to the results, teachers’ statements including humiliation, insult, rebuke, menace and accusation cause their students to feel negative emotions. However, teachers’ statements including compliment, appreciation and encouragement cause their students to feel positive emotions. While all types of examinations cause the students to feel as interested, distressed, scared and irritable, teachers’ acts of addressing as they declare the results of the exams cause the students to feel various positive and negative emotions. While some positive statements of teachers cause the students to feel negative emotions, some negative statements cause them to feel positive emotions. Results are discussed for school psychology.
Real-Time Dispatchability of Bulk Power Systems With Volatile Renewable Generations

The limited predictability and high variability of renewable generations has brought significant challenges on the real-time operation of bulk power systems. This paper proposes the concept of real-time dispatchability (RTDA) of power systems with variable energy resources, which focuses on investigating the impact of operating constraints and the cost of corrective actions on the flexibility of real-time dispatch. RTDA is the largest region in the uncertainty space, such that all the elements in it will not cause infeasibility while deploying a corrective action. This paper proposes a closed polyhedral form of RTDA. Moreover, an adaptive constraint generation algorithm is proposed to compute the boundaries of RTDA. Three potential applications are suggested. Case studies on the IEEE 118-bus system illustrate the RTDA concept and demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the proposed method in practical applications.
Smooth Shape‐Aware Functions with Controlled Extrema

Functions that optimize Laplacian‐based energies have become popular in geometry processing, e.g. for shape deformation, smoothing, multiscale kernel construction and interpolation. Minimizers of Dirichlet energies, or solutions of Laplace equations, are harmonic functions that enjoy the maximum principle, ensuring no spurious local extrema in the interior of the solved domain occur. However, these functions are only C0 at the constrained points, which often causes smoothness problems. For this reason, many applications optimize higher‐order Laplacian energies such as biharmonic or triharmonic. Their minimizers exhibit increasing orders of continuity but lose the maximum principle and show oscillations. In this work, we identify characteristic artifacts caused by spurious local extrema, and provide a framework for minimizing quadratic energies on manifolds while constraining the solution to obey the maximum principle in the solved region. Our framework allows the user to specify locations and values of desired local maxima and minima, while preventing any other local extrema. We demonstrate our method on the smoothness energies corresponding to popular polyharmonic functions and show its usefulness for fast handle‐based shape deformation, controllable color diffusion, and topologically‐constrained data smoothing.
Real-time implementation of DVFS enhanced LEON3 MPSoC on FPGA

In the field of embedded system there exists a trade off between power/performance optimization, hence many heuristics and techniques were presented at various development levels such as hardware software co-design, schedulers and optimal code compilation. This paper presents an enhanced version of LEON3 architecture which includes support for run-time management of supply voltage and processor operating frequency. This enhancement can be useful to implement various DVFS driving algorithms in LEON3 architecture aiming to leverage power consumption and throughput. Frequency scaling on the fly is based on dynamically reconfigurable clock synthesis feature available in Xilinx FPGA Virtex-4 or higher. The implementation of DVFS in LEON3 architecture is driven and controlled by general-purpose I/O port attached to advanced peripheral bus (APB) to change processor frequency on the fly during the execution of application programs. The work is implemented as a prototype on a Xilinx FPGA platform and incurs very small hardware overheads.
Have we illuminated the dark? Shifting perspectives on ‘dark’ tourism

It is almost 20 years since the idea of dark tourism was introduced into tourism studies, which was still predominantly viewed as a fun-based activity with a potential for a beneficent cross-cultural understanding. The suggestion that it could have dark attributes was both novel and shocking. Once introduced, the idea offered new insights into the tourist experience. It promised to open up new connections with many facets of human sensation and behaviour and also an intellectual framework to assist the management of multi-used tourism sites. This paper will examine the promise of the idea as it evolved through the work of numerous scholars who developed and refined the concept and discovered new applications for it and will explain how the focus, which initially was to identify and catalogue dark sites, has shifted towards the motivation, subsequent experience and consequent behaviour of the tourist in relation to the sites.
A System Infrastructure for Strongly Consistent Transactions on Globally-Replicated Data

Global-scale data management (GSDM) empowers systems by providing higher levels of fault-tolerance, read availability, and efﬁciency in utilizing cloud resources. This has led to the emergence of global-scale data management and event processing. However, the Wide-Area Network (WAN) latency sep-arating datacenters is orders of magnitude larger than typical network latencies, and this requires a reevaluation of many of the traditional design trade-offs of data management systems. Therefore, data management problems must be revisited to account for the new design space. In this paper, we revisit the problem of supporting strongly-consistent transaction processing for GSDM. This includes providing an understanding of the limits imposed by the WAN latency on transaction latency in addition to a design of a system framework that aims to reduce response time and increase scalability. This infrastructure includes a transaction processing component, a fault-tolerance component, a communication component, and a placement component. Finally, we discuss the current challenges and future directions of transaction processing in GSDM.
NONLINEAR EVOLUTION GOVERNED BY ACCRETIVE OPERATORS IN BANACH SPACES:: ERROR CONTROL AND APPLICATIONS

Nonlinear evolution equations governed by m-accretive operators in Banach spaces are discretized via the backward or forward Euler methods with variable stepsize. Computable a posteriori error estimates are derived in terms of the discrete solution and data, and shown to converge with optimal order . Applications to scalar conservation laws and degenerate parabolic equations (with or without hysteresis) in L1, as well as to Hamilton–Jacobi equations in C0 are given. The error analysis relies on a comparison principle, for the novel notion of relaxed solutions, which combines and simplifies techniques of Benilan and Kružkov. Our results provide a unified framework for existence, uniqueness and error analysis, and yield a new proof of the celebrated Crandall–Liggett error estimate.
Tolerability and effectiveness of liquid nitrogen spray cryotherapy with very short freeze times in the treatment of xanthelasma palpebrarum

Xanthelasma are cholesterol‐filled, soft, yellow plaques that usually appear on the medial aspects of the eyelids bilaterally. They are always benign lesions so therapy is usually undertaken only for cosmetic reasons. Surgical excision, chemical peeling with tricholoroacetic acid, and laser ablation are commonly used treatments. Liquid nitrogen cryotherapy is a potentially effective but rarely used treatment due to the risk of intense eyelid swelling. We report on our experience with four of our patients, and propose an explanation for the effectiveness of gentle liquid nitrogen spray cryotherapy in xanthelasma. We consider that gentle liquid nitrogen cryotherapy should be used in the treatment of xanthelasma due to the ease of application and low risk of adverse effects.
A Fast Congestion-Aware Flow Control Mechanism for ID-Based Networks-on-Chip with Best-Effort Communication

Today industry is moving towards Multi-Processor Systems on Chip (MPSoCs) to take advantage of available parallelism. But common bus architectures for MPSoCs are not suitable as communication infrastructures, due to significant reduction in system throughput. To solve this problem, many Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) architectures have been proposed and analyzed extensively with respect to latency, area and power. The congestion control in NoCs for best-effort communication has gained importance among designers because of the increasing traffic load demand. This paper presents a fast congestion-aware flow control mechanism for ID-Based NoCs with best-effort communication. The proposed method utilizes the combination of local and global control mechanisms, i.e. congestion information at the local node, where the congestion occurs, provides expected injection rates to the corresponding traffic sources. The experimental results indicate that this method can achieve approximately the same network throughput for different traffic scenarios (Hot Spot, Bit Complement and All2One). This method is at least 76% faster than the standard back-pressure mechanism in informing the sending source about the congestion problem in the network (Congestion-Aware Time). The method also shows at least 35% latency improvement (depending upon traffic scenarios) compared to standard back-pressure mechanism.
Diagnosing the Iranian L2 Writing Ability Using Self-Assessment and Level Specific Approaches

The objectives of this study were (a) to examine the writing performance of L2 learners on the level-specific tasks based on Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and (b) to study the likely difference between students' self-assessed level of writing and those reported by raters. The study was conducted with 138 Iranian students at BA and MA levels in Alborz Institute of Higher Education. The participants' majors were Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), English Literature, and Translation Studies. DIALANG writing self-assessment grid, CEFR writing self-assessment grid, and three writing tasks at B1 (i.e., intermediate), B2 (i.e., upper intermediate), and C1 (i.e., advanced) levels were administered. Descriptive statistics and chi-square test were run to determine each student's writing level based on their performance on the writing tasks and the self-assessment grids. The results showed that (a) no one in the BA group was placed at the C1 level, and only 17.3% of MA students could reach this level; (b) students of both groups rated their writing ability higher on the CEFR grid, whereas they rated themselves lower on the DIALANG grid; and (c) the learners' self-assessment did not correspond closely with their performance on the writing tasks, and only one-third of them were accurate in assessing their writing ability. Writing teachers are suggested to implement self-assessment and introduce CEFR and DIALANG statements as part of the language instruction and to train students to conduct self-assessment based on the can do statements.
A densitometric approach to web page segmentation

Web Page segmentation is a crucial step for many applications in Information Retrieval, such as text classification, de-duplication and full-text search. In this paper we describe a new approach to segment HTML pages, building on methods from Quantitative Linguistics and strategies borrowed from the area of Computer Vision. We utilize the notion of text-density as a measure to identify the individual text segments of a web page, reducing the problem to solving a 1D-partitioning task. The distribution of segment-level text density seems to follow a negative hypergeometric distribution, described by Frumkina's Law. Our extensive evaluation confirms the validity and quality of our approach and its applicability to the Web.
Seize the opportunity

Two years ago, Krishnamurthy presented a comprehensive review on the applications of molecular techniques to fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy samples, noting ‘‘the excellent potential of using material procured from FNAB for almost any type of molecular test. ’’ She further observed that ‘whereas few of these tests alone are used for patient care, some of them have the potential for clinical use in the near future’’ and ‘‘most of the molecular tests using FNAB specimens are currently investigational. ’’ This article will provide an update on the current utilization of FNA-based tests to inform targeted cancer therapy decisions, making the case that FNAs are underutilized for such testing. The emphasis will be on solid tumors rather than sarcomas or lymphoma. Some of the major impediments to the widespread clinical utilization of FNAs for molecular tests will also be identified and possible solutions will be presented.
Comments on ‘Current issues in non‐inferiority trials’ by Thomas R. Fleming, Statistics in Medicine, DOI: 10.1002/sim.2855

In this regard, (ii) expresses the ‘higher standards regarding quality of study conduct required with NI trials’ in terms of the minimization of ‘bias resulting from non-adherence, withdrawals from therapy, missing data, violations in entry criteria, or other deviations in the protocol. ’ For situations where such sufficient conditions are applicable, the paper considers the ‘imputed placebo’ and ‘margin’-based approaches as criteria for establishing efficacy (or supporting safety) through the corresponding inferential confidence interval contradicting (or ruling out) that the EXP is unacceptably worse than the STD. Several examples in the paper provide helpful insights on how uncertainty can arise for the interpretation of evidence for efficacy (or safety) from NI trials when there are noteworthy limitations for the previously stated sufficient conditions or the specified criteria for their inferential confidence intervals. Unfortunately, the scope of the paper does not seem to include any example of an NI trial with clearly interpretable evidence of efficacy (or safety) through the previously stated sufficient conditions being reasonably applicable and the criterion for their inferential confidence interval being appropriate; however, this omission might suggest that such scientifically sound NI trials are very rare entities, and hence a major contribution of the paper by Fleming [1] is its insightful advice for enabling such NI trials to become more prevalent.
Group Hierarchies With Decentralized User Assignment In Windows Nt

The notion of groups in Windows NT is much like that in other operating systems. Rather than set user and le rights individually for each and every user, the administrator can give rights to various groups, then place users within those groups. In this paper we describe an experiment to extend the Windows NT group mechanism in two signi cant ways that are useful in managing group-based access control in large-scale systems. The goal of our experiment is to demonstrate how group hierarchies (where groups include other groups) and decentralized user-group assignment (where administrators are selectively delegated authority to assign certain users to certain groups) can be implemented by means of Microsoft remote procedure call (RPC) programs. In both respects the experimental goal is to implement previously published models (RBAC96 for group hierarchies and URA97 for decentralized usergroup assignment). Our results indicate that Windows NT has adequate exibility to accommodate sophisticated access control models to some extent.
Accelerators of Osteogenesis by Recombinant Human Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2

Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) appears to be one of the most promising cytokine and for clinical use in reconstructive surgery for bony defects and augmentation. To evaluate the effect of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), FK506, elcatonin, and hyperbaric oxygenation (HBO) on osteoinduction by recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2), 2 or 5 μg of rhBMP-2 was implanted into intramuscular sites of rats. At 21 days after implantation, the osteoinductive activity in the treatment group and control group was compared radiographically, biochemically, and histologically. The amount of new bone in the treatment group was significantly greater than that in the control group. The alkaline phosphatase activity and calcium content in the treatment group were significantly higher than those in the control group. These results suggest that bFGF, FK506, elcatonin, and HBO accelerated the activity and rate of osteoinduction by rhBMP2. These results may be useful when BMP is applied clinically in near future.