Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Value of Measuring Customer Satisfaction Jihoon

A growing number of service firms now collect customer satisfaction ratings, along with objective service performance measures, for each service transaction. However, little is known about whether these two types of data are substitutes or complements, from both a conceptual and an applied point of view. This paper answers this question via the use of unique data consisting of individual-level cross-sectional and time-series measures of objective service performance, customer satisfaction, and purchase behavior. Using theory from the customer satisfaction literature, the data are applied to a two stage model of customer satisfaction and interpurchase time. The results suggest that the two sources of data provide complementary insights. In other words, customer satisfaction data provide information on business outcomes over and above that obtained from objective service performance data. The benefit of using and the cost of collecting these data are also quantified. The results are consistent across two different quick service restaurant and auto rental service industries, suggesting that they may be generalizable.
Finite Sample Evidence Suggesting a Heavy Tail Problem of the Generalized Empirical Likelihood Estimator

Comprehensive Monte Carlo evidence is provided that compares the finite sample properties of generalized empirical likelihood (GEL) estimators to the ones of k-class estimators in the linear instrumental variables (IV) model. We focus on sample median, mean, mean squared error, and on the coverage probability and length of confidence intervals obtained from inverting a t-statistic based on the various estimators. The results indicate that in terms of the above criteria, all the GEL estimators and the limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) estimator behave very similarly. This suggests that GEL estimators might also share the “no-moment” problem of LIML. At sample sizes as in our Monte Carlo study, there is no systematic bias advantage of GEL estimators over k-class estimators. On the other hand, the standard deviation of GEL estimators is pronouncedly higher than for some of the k-class estimators. Therefore, if mean squared error is used as the underlying loss function, our study suggests the use of computationally simple estimators, such as two-stage least squares, in the linear IV model rather than GEL. Based on the properties of confidence intervals, we cannot recommend the use of GEL estimators either in the linear IV model.
Centralized Resource Allocation for Time-Slotted OBS Networks

This paper proposes a centralized control architecture and a time-slot assignment procedure for time-slotted optical burst switched (OBS) networks in which ingress OBS nodes request time-slots necessary to transmit optical bursts, and a centralized control node makes a reply according to the slot-competition result. Our scheme attempts to improve burst contention resolution and optical channel utilization. Analysis and simulation results show that the channel utilization of the time-slotted OBS network is improved markedly at the expense of ingress buffering delay
Comparing SVM, Gaussian Process and Random Forest Surrogate Models for the CMA-ES

In practical optimization tasks, it is more and more frequent that the objective function is black-box which means that it cannot be described mathematically. Such functions can be evaluated only empirically, usually through some costly or time-consuming measurement, nu- merical simulation or experimental testing. Therefore, an important direction of research is the approximation of these objective functions with a suitable regression model, also called surrogate model of the objective functions. This paper evaluates two different approaches to the con- tinuous black-box optimization which both integrates sur- rogate models with the state-of-the-art optimizer CMA- ES. The first Ranking SVM surrogate model estimates the ordering of the sampled points as the CMA-ES utilizes only the ranking of the fitness values. However, we show that continuous Gaussian processes model provides in the early states of the optimization comparable results.
The Effect of the Density Ratio on the Nonlinear Dynamics of the Unstable Fluid Interface

Abstract : When a light fluid accelerates a heavy fluid, the misalignment of the pressure and density gradients gives rise to the instability of the interface, and produces eventually the turbulent mixing of the fluids (Rayleigh 1892; Davies & Taylor 1950; Richtmyer 1960; Meshkov 1969). This phenomenon is called the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) if the acceleration is sustained, and the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI) if the acceleration is driven by a shock or if it is impulsive. The RT/RM turbulent mixing is of extreme importance in astrophysics, inertial confinement fusion, and many other applications (Sharp 1984). To obtain a reliable description of the mixing process, the evolution of a largescale coherent structure, the dynamics of small-scale structures, and the cascades of energy should be understood.
A study of equilibrium states of homogeneous turbulence submitted to an inclined shear

The aim of this work is to compare the prediction of several second order models in the results of direct numerical simulations of Jacobitz [1]. The second order models retained for this work are the classic models of Launder, Reece and Rodi (LRR) [2], Craft and Launder (CL) [3,4], Shih and Lumley (SL) [5] and the Speziale, Sarkar and Gatski (SSG) model [6]. The main objective is the prediction of the equilibrium states of dimensionless parameters characterizing the homogeneous flows considered and for a turbulence submitted to an inclined shear ( 4 /    ). A non dimensional form of the evolution equations have been obtained after modelling and introducing kinematics and scalars dimensionless parameters. A fourth order Runge–Kutta method is used for the integration of the modeled differential equations sumitted to the initial conditions of the results of direct numerical simulations of Jacobitz. A general tendency to asymptotic equilibrium states for the dimensionless parameters has been observed.
Proteomic Evidences for Rex Regulation of Metabolism in Toxin-Producing Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579

The facultative anaerobe, Bacillus cereus, causes diarrheal diseases in humans. Its ability to deal with oxygen availability is recognized to be critical for pathogenesis. The B. cereus genome comprises a gene encoding a protein with high similarities to the redox regulator, Rex, which is a central regulator of anaerobic metabolism in Bacillus subtilis and other Gram-positive bacteria. Here, we showed that B. cereus rex is monocistronic and down-regulated in the absence of oxygen. The protein encoded by rex is an authentic Rex transcriptional factor since its DNA binding activity depends on the NADH/NAD+ ratio. Rex deletion compromised the ability of B. cereus to cope with external oxidative stress under anaerobiosis while increasing B. cereus resistance against such stress under aerobiosis. The deletion of rex affects anaerobic fermentative and aerobic respiratory metabolism of B. cereus by decreasing and increasing, respectively, the carbon flux through the NADH-recycling lactate pathway. We compared both the cellular proteome and exoproteome of the wild-type and Δrex cells using a high throughput shotgun label-free quantitation approach and identified proteins that are under control of Rex-mediated regulation. Proteomics data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD000886. The data suggest that Rex regulates both the cross-talk between metabolic pathways that produce NADH and NADPH and toxinogenesis, especially in oxic conditions.
A hybrid envelope modulator using feedforward control for OFDM WLAN polar transmitter

This paper presents a feedforward control for hybrid envelope modulator for applications in 802.11g OFDM WLAN polar transmitter. The feedforward control is constituted by hysteresis comparator and duplicate-linear amplifier that possess low power dissipation. For achieving high speed and high efficiency, the hybrid envelope modulator combines with a linear amplifier and a switch amplifier. Operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) and class-AB output stage are designed for linear amplifier as well as the buck converter is designed for switch amplifier. The chip has been fabricated in 0. 35µm SiGe process and occupies an area of 2 mm2 including I/O pads. The die is packaged in LQFP and measurement results show that the output voltage range is from 0 to 3V under 3.8V power supply and drives a 5Ω load up to 1.8W of maximum output power with 95% of maximum efficiency.
Mining User's Behaviors in Intelligent Educational Games: Prime Climb a Case Study

This paper presents work on applying clustering and association rule mining techniques to mine users’ behavior in interacting with an intelligent educational game, Prime Climb. Through such behavior discovery, frequent patterns of interactions which characterize different groups of students with similar interaction styles are identified. The relation between the extracted patterns and the average domain knowledge of students in each group is investigated. The results show that the students with significantly higher prior knowledge about the domain behave differently from those with lower prior knowledge as they play the game and that pattern could be identified early during the interactions.
Real-time object tracking in video pictures based on self-organizing map and image segmentation

In this paper, a new method is presented for visual tracking of objects in video sequences. The developed method combines self-organizing map neural network, mean shift segmentation and similarity measurement. The self-organizing map quantizes the image samples into a topological space, it compresses information while preserving the most important topological and metric relationships of the primary features. The mean shift will generate segmentation based on the output of the self-organizing map. Then, according to the segmentation results of the new frame and the first frame, a similarity measurement is used to get the most similar image sample to the specified object in the first frame and thus object position in new frame is found. We apply the developed method to track objects in the real-world environment of surveillance videos. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations indicate that the proposed approach present better results than those obtained by a direct method approach.
Two methods for estimating noise amplitude spectral in non-stationary environments

Estimating the amplitude spectral of noise signal is a very important part in many noise reduction systems. The conventional voice activity detection (VAD)-based method updates the amplitude spectral estimate only in speech absence areas and fails to deal with non-stationary noise. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes two methods to estimate the noise amplitude spectral for non-stationary environments: One is an indirect method, which obtains the estimate of noise amplitude spectral using its relationship with noise power spectral, while the other is the minimum mean-square error (MMSE)-based estimator. The proposed estimators are based on that the speech and noise are both Gaussian distributed and can update the estimate of noise amplitude spectral during speech activity as well as absence periods. Objective evaluations using several measures show that the proposed two estimators for noise amplitude spectral performed significantly better than the VAD-based method in all the tested non-stationary noise conditions.
The RBV in International Business Studies: A bibliometric study of Barney?s (1991) contribution to the field

Jay Barney? s contribution to the current status of the Resource-Based View (RBV) is well accepted, in particular his 1991 article on ? Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage? has been acknowledged as one of the most significant contributions to developing the RBV. The RBV has since evolved to become one of the central theoretical perspectives in international business studies and research, and several other business disciplines. In this paper we examine the impact of Barney? s (1991) work on firms? resources for International Business research over the past twenty years. Methodologically we do a bibliometric study of the articles published in the leading IB journal - Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS), from 1991 to 2010, examining citations, co-citations, networks of co-authorship and major themes. Our analyses show that the RBV has been having an important impact on the majority of IB research themes.
Interplay of cell dynamics and epithelial tension during morphogenesis of the Drosophila pupal wing

How tissue shape emerges from the collective mechanical properties and behavior of individual cells is not understood. We combine experiment and theory to study this problem in the developing wing epithelium of Drosophila. At pupal stages, the wing-hinge contraction contributes to anisotropic tissue flows that reshape the wing blade. Here, we quantitatively account for this wing-blade shape change on the basis of cell divisions, cell rearrangements and cell shape changes. We show that cells both generate and respond to epithelial stresses during this process, and that the nature of this interplay specifies the pattern of junctional network remodeling that changes wing shape. We show that patterned constraints exerted on the tissue by the extracellular matrix are key to force the tissue into the right shape. We present a continuum mechanical model that quantitatively describes the relationship between epithelial stresses and cell dynamics, and how their interplay reshapes the wing. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.07090. 001
Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm setup for feature subset selection in clustering

Feature selection is a major preprocessing step in areas related to data mining, pattern recognition or machine learning. Finding a most favorable subset of features, among available combinations is a NP-Complete problem. Despite lots of research in this domain, feature selection for clustering is far from solved. The paper is first of its kind in applying multi objective Genetic Algorithm (GA), for feature selection in clustering for a filter method. The optimization objectives are: (i) Maximizing the Laplacian Score and (ii) Minimizing the inter-attribute correlation. Empirical study has been conducted over 21 datasets and results look promising in terms of amount of feature set reduction achieved. In terms of cluster validity also in more than half of the datasets, the proposed method achieves equivalent or better result.
Rem2 Is an Activity-Dependent Negative Regulator of Dendritic Complexity In Vivo

A key feature of the CNS is structural plasticity, the ability of neurons to alter their morphology and connectivity in response to sensory experience and other changes in the environment. How this structural plasticity is achieved at the molecular level is not well understood. We provide evidence that changes in sensory experience simultaneously trigger multiple signaling pathways that either promote or restrict growth of the dendritic arbor; structural plasticity is achieved through a balance of these opposing signals. Specifically, we have uncovered a novel, activity-dependent signaling pathway that restricts dendritic arborization. We demonstrate that the GTPase Rem2 is regulated at the transcriptional level by calcium influx through L-VGCCs and inhibits dendritic arborization in cultured rat cortical neurons and in the Xenopus laevis tadpole visual system. Thus, our results demonstrate that changes in neuronal activity initiate competing signaling pathways that positively and negatively regulate the growth of the dendritic arbor. It is the balance of these opposing signals that leads to proper dendritic morphology.
APOE Gene Polymorphism and Risk of Coronary Stenosis in Pakistani Population

Genetic variation in lipid regulatory genes, particularly APOE, significantly influences the risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). This study aimed to assess the association between APOE polymorphism and angiographically assessed coronary stenosis in Pakistani population. A total of 695 subjects (22.3% female, mean age = 54 ± 11 years) presenting with chest pain were enrolled after obtaining written informed consent. CAD stenosis/extent was assessed by angiography. Patients were classified as having severe stenosis (≥70%), moderate stenosis (30–69%), and mild stenosis (<30%). CAD patients with ≥70% stenosis (n = 491) were further categorized based on possessing one, two, or three vessel diseases to assess the disease extent. Genomic DNA from leukocytes was isolated with DNA purification kit (Qiagen) and APOE polymorphisms (E2/E3/E4) were determined using TaqMan assays. Six hundred and seventy-two of 695 subjects were successfully genotyped. The frequency of APOE∗4 carriers (3/4 and 4/4 genotypes) was significantly higher in severe stenosis group (≥70%) as compared to mild group (<30%) (22.8% versus 13.01%; P = 0.01). In multiple regression, the odds ratio for APOE∗4 carriers to develop ≥70% stenosis was 2.16 (95% CI: 1.29–3.79; P < 0.005). In conclusion, the presence of APOE∗4 allele is a significant risk factor to develop severe coronary stenosis (>70%) among Pakistanis.
An improved method of statistical model for text segmentation

Every document contains multiple topics, and the task of text segmentation is to segment a text into several parts that each part represents one topic. On the base of statistical model of Masao Utiyama whose experiment showed that the method was more accurate than or at least as accurate as a state-of-art text segmentation system, this paper proposes an improvement suggestion trying to improve the existing problem. The experiment results showed that the improved algorithm improved both the efficiency and the accuracy.
ISRobotCar: The autonomous electric vehicle project

The video shows an overview of the ISRobotCar, an experimental autonomous electric vehicle that integrates the robot operating system (ROS.org) and several sensors such as an IBEO laser scanner, inertial measurement units (IMU), RTK-GPS, vision cameras, and magnet detectors for magnetic guidance. The main purpose of this vehicle is to serve as a platform for experimental testing of algorithms required for autonomous navigation and cooperative navigation in urban environments. In the video, we present the ISRobotCar moving autonomously in a parking-like area as well as its main hardware and control modules.
Bridging Languages by SuperSense Entity Tagging

This paper explores a very basic linguistic phenomenon in multilingualism: the lexicalizations of entities are very often identical within different languages while concepts are usually lexicalized differently. Since entities are commonly referred to by proper names in natural language, we measured their distribution in the lexical overlap of the terminologies extracted from comparable corpora. Results show that the lexical overlap is mostly composed by unambiguous words, which can be regarded as anchors to bridge languages: most of terms having the same spelling refer exactly to the same entities. Thanks to this important feature of Named Entities, we developed a multilingual super sense tagging system capable to distinguish between concepts and individuals. Individuals adopted for training have been extracted both by YAGO and by a heuristic procedure. The general F1 of the English tagger is over 76%, which is in line with the state of the art on super sense tagging while augmenting the number of classes. Performances for Italian are slightly lower, while ensuring a reasonable accuracy level which is capable to show effective results for knowledge acquisition.
The N-Terminal, Polybasic Region of PrPC Dictates the Efficiency of Prion Propagation by Binding to PrPSc

Prion propagation involves a templating reaction in which the infectious form of the prion protein (PrPSc) binds to the cellular form (PrPC), generating additional molecules of PrPSc. While several regions of the PrPC molecule have been suggested to play a role in PrPSc formation based on in vitro studies, the contribution of these regions in vivo is unclear. Here, we report that mice expressing PrP deleted for a short, polybasic region at the N terminus (residues 23–31) display a dramatically reduced susceptibility to prion infection and accumulate greatly reduced levels of PrPSc. These results, in combination with biochemical data, demonstrate that residues 23–31 represent a critical site on PrPC that binds to PrPSc and is essential for efficient prion propagation. It may be possible to specifically target this region for treatment of prion diseases as well as other neurodegenerative disorders due to β-sheet-rich oligomers that bind to PrPC.
Fast and compact visual codebook for large-scale object retrieval

In this paper, we propose a novel method for learning a compact codebook in large-scale image dataset. In the past few years, bag-of-visual-words model has been proven to be effective and efficient in multiple multimedia tasks including object retrieval, object detection and scene classification. The existing codebook constructing methods, like k-means or approximate k-means, suffer from information loss in vector quantization, and limit the retrieval performance. We try to improve the existing methods in both time efficiency and retrieval accuracy. By performing principal component analysis in initialization, clustering can start with a quasi-optimal solution. A leader clustering scheme is also proposed to reduce quantization loss, which leads to a compact and discriminative codebook. Our experiment showed that, the proposed method requires less training time and yields better performance in large-scale object retrieval.
Towards a Secure, RFID / Sensor Based Telecardiology System

Cardiovascular diseases are the single largest cause of morbidity and mortality in the U.S. and Western world. Tele- cardiology through RFID-based wireless sensor networks can provide anytime cardiac patient monitoring in large nursing homes. Wireless medical sensors and PDA devices can provide continuous transmission of patients' cardiac data (such as ECG, blood pressure, SpO2, etc.). However, the radio broadcasting nature has the risk of losing confidentiality (i.e. "privacy") of patients' data. This paper discusses our research on a secure RFID/sensor based tele-cardiology system. It is based on the light-weight encryption and key management algorithms. The RFID helps trace the mobility of patients and manage medical facilities in nursing homes.
A new approach to alloy compensation in a thickness measurement of high-tensile steel

In on-line manufacturing iron-making process, several kinds of element are mixed in iron in order to meet the required quality for a final product. In this paper, the results show that the alloy compensation method is needed to improve accuracy required at thickness gauge, that is, ±0.5% at the target thickness. In addition, the alloy compensation method in measurement will be proposed in the form of correction function of each element weight percentage to be alloyed using the analyzed result of MCNP simulation program. Finally, an automatic thickness compensation method applied to the high-tensile steel product during manufacturing is introduced.