Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
It just doesn't speak to me: mid-aged men's reactions to '10,000 Steps a Day'.

ISSUE ADDRESSED The evaluation of an earlier 10,000 Steps community-based intervention program indicated that men were less likely than women to have used a pedometer or increased their physical activity (PA). This study aimed to explore men's reactions to the 10,000 Steps a Day message, the use of pedometers, and other strategies for increasing PA. METHOD Five focus groups were conducted with 39 men aged 45-65 years. RESULTS Although many were familiar with the 10,000 Steps message, the majority of men did not like it. Pedometers were seen as useful for assessing PA in the short term, but not for ongoing use. Participants were generally aware of PA recommendations. Walking was considered a good option for this age group, but there was varying interest in this type of activity. Weight and stress management were commonly identified benefits of PA. Common barriers to PA were lack of time and motivation, health and weight restrictions, cost, and disinterest. Suggestions of how to promote PA to mid-aged men included workplace initiatives, making PA "fun", and creating opportunities for men to do PA with their family or same-aged peers. CONCLUSIONS PA promotion using the 10,000 Steps message, walking, and pedometers may not appeal to mid-aged men.
Omnidirectional antenna based on modulated spoof surface plasmon polaritons waveguide

Spoof surface plasmon polaritons(SSPPs) are kind of highly confined surface waves, which can be supported by corrugated metallic strips at microwave frequencies. In this letter, an omnidirectional antenna utilizing periodically modulated double-edge corrugated metallic strips has been proposed, in which the depths of grooves are designed periodically to modulate wave number. The designed SSPPs antenna radiates at 55° from z-axis at 9.3GHz with the directivity of 12.2dBi. Simulation results show that the radiation beam is omnidirectional in azimuth plane and frequency steerable in elevation plane.
Poriferan paraphyly and its implications for Precambrian palaeobiology

Abstract Well-supported molecular phylogenies, combined with knowledge of modern biology, can lead to new inferences about the sequence of character acquisition in early animal evolution, the taxonomic affinity of enigmatic Precambrian and Cambrian fossils, and the Proterozoic Earth system in general. In this paper we demonstrate, in accordance with previous molecular studies, that sponges are paraphyletic, and that calcisponges are more closely related to eumetazoans than they are to demosponges. In addition, our Bayesian analysis finds the Homoscleromorpha, previously grouped with the demosponges, to be even more closely related to eumetazoans than are the calcisponges. Hence there may be at least three separate extant ‘poriferan’ lineages, each with their own unique skeleton. Because spiculation is convergent within ‘Porifera’, differences between skeletonization processes in enigmatic Cambrian taxa such as Chancelloria and modern sponges does not mean that these Problematica are not organized around a poriferan body plan, namely a benthic, sessile microsuspension feeding organism. The shift from the anoxic and sulphidic deep ocean that characterized the mid-Proterozoic to the well-ventilated Phanerozoic ocean occurs before the evolution of macrozooplanton and nekton, and thus cannot have been caused by the advent of faecal pellets. However, the evolution and ecological dominance of sponges during this time interval provides both a mechanism for the long-term generation of isotopically-light CO2 that would be recorded in carbon isotopic excusions such as the ‘Shuram’ event, and an alternative mechanism for the drawdown and sequestration of dissolved organic carbon within the sediment.
Implementing the monitoring activities component of the COSO framework

The purpose of the study is to examine how the Monitoring Activities component of the COSO Framework can be applied and implemented in a publicly traded company. The purpose of the monitoring component of the COSO Framework is to ensure the effectiveness of internal controls within an organization. This thesis will contribute to the understanding of the practical implications of the implementation of the monitoring activities. The thesis is carried out as a single case study with a constructive research approach in a Finnish based case company operating in both production and retail business. During the case study most important key processes, key control requirements and key controls are identified. The metrics for monitoring the key controls, Key Control Indicators, are developed. The development of the Key Control Indicators is conducted with risk-based approach on the most important control requirements and controls in terms of the company’s financial reporting. Key Control Indicators are developed by utilizing the company’s existing controls and monitoring procedures. This study presents lessons learned from the implementation and suggests a reporting process for monitoring activities in the case company. The case research is analyzed and reflected in the light of the related literature.
The application of multiple modalities to improve home care and reminder systems

Existing home care technology tends to be pre-programmed systems limited to one or two interaction modalities. This can make them inaccessible to people with sensory impairments and unable to cope with a dynamic and heterogeneous environment such as the home. This thesis presents research that considers how home care technology can be improved through employing multiple visual, aural, tactile and even olfactory interaction methods. A wide range of modalities were tested to gather a better insight into their properties and merits. That information was used to design and construct Dyna-Cue, a prototype multimodal reminder system. Dyna-Cue was designed to use multiple modalities and to switch between them in real time to maintain higher levels of effectiveness and acceptability. The Dyna-Cue prototype was evaluated against other models of reminder delivery and was shown to be an effective and appropriate tool that can help people to manage their time and activities.
Vignettes in the two-step arrival of the internet of things and its reshaping of marketing management’s service-dominant logic

ABSTRACT This commentary offers vignettes on the introductions of the ‘internet of things’ (IoT) and their impacts on revising the service-dominant (S-D) logic paradigm in marketing. Except smart phones, most consumer households are not participating now in the IoT revolution – but most product-service radical innovations include a 20+ year low-growth start-up. Because the benefits really are enormous and the technical advances in smart devices are now rapidly improving, expect the IoT revolution to hit hard in all areas of daily life before 2025 similar to the great impacts occurring now in business-to-business applications. This study proposes substantial revisions in the S-D logic due to the upcoming take-off stage of adopting radically new IoT innovations.
Farmers’ Perceptions of Agricultural Land Values in Rural Pakistan

Pakistan’s agriculture sector is crucial because it is responsible for providing food, shelter, and clothing to a massive population of 180 million people which is growing at a rate of 2 percent per annum. Land is a valuable asset and a symbol of prestige for the rural population in Pakistan. According to the recent Pakistan Economic Survey of 201314, the agriculture sector contributes around 21 percent to GDP and provides employment for around 45 percent of the work force, who are primarily based in rural areas. The total geographic area of Pakistan is approximately 79.6 million hectares. Around 27.7 percent of Pakistan’s land is currently under cultivation and the cultivatable waste lands offer good possibilities for crop production. The total cropped area of Pakistan increased from 21.82 million hectares in 1990-91 to 22.72 million hectares in 2010-11 [Agricultural Statistics of Pakistan (2010-11)] and the total population of Pakistan increased from 118 million to 175 million during the same time period. Similarly the tenancy status of land management and land ownership pattern has changed over time. For example, large landowners are shifting their preferences from managing their land on their own towards leasing or sharecropping the land to be managed by others [Agricultural Census (2010)]. Land is a difficult resource to exchange because of certain constraints such as the fact that land is immobile and there may be significant differences in the quality of land. Additionally, appropriate institutions may not exist which allow for costless exchange of land. Land is a finite resource and ideally the market with demand and supply forces should be able to determine the equilibrium price. However, this is not the case in Pakistan where land markets mostly don’t exist at a formal level and the value of land is being priced arbitrarily and without any scientific backing. In some cases the price of land is being influenced by large landowners. Furthermore, in Pakistan, there is no appropriate or historical collection of data on land buying/selling and land revenue
Robust Event Detection From Spoken Content In Consumer Domain Videos

In this paper, we propose an innovative integrated approach to leverage available spoken content while detecting events in consumer-generated multimedia data (i.e., YouTube videos). Spoken content in consumer videos exhibits several challenges. For example, unlike Broadcast News, the spoken audio is typically not labeled. Also, the audio track in consumer videos tends to be noisy and the spoken content is often sporadic. Here, we describe three recent improvements that are specifically targeted at overcoming the challenges in consumer videos: robust data-driven keyword selection, automatic discovery of word-classes for keyword expansion, and a keyword spotting approach for improving recall in noisy conditions. These improvements are integrated into the audio analysis component of the BBN VISER system. The VISER system embodies a state-of-the-art approach as substantiated by its performance on the 2011 TRECVID MED task. Experimental results on the 2011 TRECVID MED task clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the three improvements.
Graphenic Carbon: A Novel Material to Improve the Reliability of Metal-Silicon Contacts

Contact resistance and thermal degradation of metal-silicon contacts are major challenges in nanoscale CMOS as well as in power device applications. Titanium silicide (TiSi) is commonly used to establish low-barrier height contacts to silicon, in state-of-the-art FinFETs or Schottky diodes. But the metal is known to diffuse into the active region under high current stress, as during an electro-static discharge event. This work shows with a Schottky diode as test vehicle that a carbon–silicon (C–Si) contact has the same low Schottky barrier height as a TiSi–Si junction but is over 100 million times more stable against high current pulses. A Schottky barrier height between 0.36 eV and 0.45 eV can be obtained by a variation of the deposition process. This makes C–Si a promising candidate for future high current density and temperature stable contacts and even for applications that require low contact resistances.
Social media in medical and health care: opportunities and challenges

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to outline and discuss the opportunities and challenges of using social media in medical and health care. Design/methodology/approach The paper is predicated on practical rationality and adopts a commentary approach from a professional standpoint that is supported by informed findings from the extant literature and publicly accessible sources of information (e.g. daily news and governmental reports) to deliver the objective of this paper. Findings The paper presents three prospects that social media can offer to medical and health care practices, namely, enhancement in participatory medicine, quality of care, and emergency management and preparedness. Several challenges and risks of social media use in medical and health care are also put forth, including defamation, privacy, accuracy of information, and blurring of professional boundaries. Originality/value The identified benefits should propel an increase in social media adoption to improve the delivery of medical and health care while the highlighted pitfalls can help practitioners to avoid inappropriate use of social media in medical and health care.
Shaping the Marketers of Tomorrow: An Analysis of 25 Years of Marketing Education Review

This article presents a bibliometric analysis of Marketing Education Review from its inception in 1990 until 2014. A brief history of the journal is presented and its content is analyzed. In total, 706 articles were studied in terms of their authorship, manuscript, and content characteristics. Descriptive statistics provide an overview of the research contribution. The findings show a trend toward coauthorship and longer manuscripts. On the basis of a keyword analysis, articles are related to education institutions, teachers, students and curriculum, which is aligned with the journal’s mandate. The conclusion is that Marketing Education Review is achieving what it set out to do.
Spectral linewidth of a free-running continuous-wave single-frequency external-cavity quantum-well InGaAs / AlGaAs diode laser.

The linewidth of a room-temperature free-running 940-nm cw single-frequency 1-mm-long quantum-well InGaAs/AlGaAs diode laser in a 10-cm-long external cavity has been measured as a function of the output power by the heterodyne technique. The power-dependent component of the observed Lorentzian linewidth displays a linewidth–power product of 28 ± 4 kHz mW, which is 2 orders of magnitude larger than that predicted from the spontaneous emission model. The shot-noise model of Welford and Mooradian [Appl. Phys. Lett. 40, 560 (1982)] for the power-independent linewidth has been extended to account for the observed power-dependent linewidth.
Thermal Face Verification based on Scale-invariant Feature Transform and Vocabulary Tree - Application to Biometric Verification Systems

This paper presents a comprehensible performance analysis of a thermal face verification system based on the Scale-Invariant Feature Transform algorithm (SIFT) with a vocabulary tree, providing a verification scheme that scales efficiently to a large number of features. The image database is formed from front-view thermal images, which contain facial temperature distributions of different individuals in 2-dimensional format, containing 1,476 thermal images equally split into two sets of modalities: face and head. The SIFT features are not only invariant to image scale and rotation but also essential for providing a robust matching across changes in illumination or addition of noise. Descriptors extracted from local regions are hierarchically set in a vocabulary tree using the k-means algorithm as clustering method. That provides a larger and more discriminatory vocabulary, which leads to a performance improvement. The verification quality is evaluated through a series of independent experiments with various results, showing the power of the system, which satisfactorily verifies the identity of the database subjects and overcoming limitations such as dependency on illumination conditions and facial expressions. A comparison between head and face verification is made, obtaining success rates of 97.60% with thermal head images in relation to 88.20% in thermal face verification.
Gain tuning of position domain PID control using particle swarm optimization

SUMMARY Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a heuristic optimization algorithm and is commonly used for the tuning of PD/PID-type controllers. In this paper, PSO is applied for control gain tuning of a position domain PID controller in order to improve contour tracking performances of linear and nonlinear contours for a serial multi-DOF robotic manipulator. A new fitness function is proposed for gain tuning based on the statistics of the contour error, and pre-existed fitness functions are also applied for the optimization process, followed by some comparison studies. The PSO tuning technique demonstrated the same effectiveness in position domain controllers as in time domain controllers with the results being quite satisfying with low contour errors for both linear and nonlinear contours, and the proposed fitness function is proved to be on par with the pre-existed fitness functions.
A mixed methods empirical exploration of UK consumer perceptions of trust, risk and usefulness of mobile payments

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore UK consumer perceptions of trust, risk and perceived usefulness of mobile payments through the use of sequential mixed methods. Design/methodology/approach A post-positivist philosophy is used with a social constructionist ontology with a questionnaire as the first survey instrument using an empirical sequential mixed methods approach. Summary quantitative analysis of the questionnaire data is undertaken followed by semi-structured interviews that produce qualitative data on which content analysis is undertaken to assess and explore UK consumer perspectives. The technology acceptance model is used as the underlying framework on which a conceptual model is developed. Findings UK consumers have significant risk and trust concerns with mobile payments, although these concerns can be overcome when clear consumer benefits are identified whilst bank supported mobile payments have an increased level of trust compared to new market entrants and other established companies. Furthermore, perceived trust positively influences perceived usefulness and mitigates perceived risk, whilst perceived risk negatively influences perceived usefulness. In addition, perceived usefulness significantly and positively influences UK consumer attitude which can lead to adoption. Research limitations/implications Whilst 120 completed questionnaire responses are received, only 101 questionnaires are used for analysis. In addition, ten semi-structured interviews are undertaken using a purposeful sample to minimise any imbalance (Oakley, 1981) which increases the reliability of the research findings (Hackley, 2003). This mobile payments research does not have a statistically secure universalisation of the findings, which negates the application of these research findings to other groups and to different social settings (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Practical implications Mobile payment organisations will need to focus on identifying the specific benefits of mobile payments to UK consumers as mitigating risk and increasing trust do not compensate for the absence of usefulness. Social implications UK consumers indicate a lack of awareness of existing contactless payment guarantees provided by UK banks, although these payment guarantees significantly increase UK consumer trust. Originality/value Both quantitative and qualitative empirical data are obtained on UK consumer perspectives of risk, trust and perceived usefulness of mobile payments using sequential mixed methods.
Characterization of Al2O3 optically stimulated luminescence films for 2D dosimetry using a 6 MV photon beam

This work evaluates the dosimetric properties of newly developed optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) films, fabricated with either Al2O3:C or Al2O3:C,Mg, using a prototype laser scanning reader, a developed image reconstruction algorithm, and a 6 MV therapeutic photon beam. Packages containing OSL films (Al2O3:C and Al2O3:C,Mg) and a radiochromic film (Gafchromic EBT3) were irradiated using a 6 MV photon beam using different doses, field sizes, with and without wedge filter. Dependence on film orientation of the OSL system was also tested. Diode-array (MapCHECK) and ionization chamber measurements were performed for comparison. The OSLD film doses agreed with the MapCHECK and ionization chamber data within the experimental uncertainties (<2% at 1.5 Gy). The system background and minimum detectable dose (MDD) were <0.5 mGy, and the dose response was approximately linear from the MDD up to a few grays (the linearity correction was <10% up to ~2–4 Gy), with no saturation up to 30 Gy. The dose profiles agreed with those obtained using EBT3 films (analyzed using the triple channel method) in the high dose regions of the images. In the low dose regions, the dose profiles from the OSLD films were more reproducible than those from the EBT3 films. We also demonstrated that the OSL film data are independent on scan orientation and field size over the investigated range. The results demonstrate the potential of OSLD films for 2D dosimetry, particularly for the characterization of small fields, due to their wide dynamic range, linear response, resolution and dosimetric properties. The negligible background and potential simple calibration make these OSLD films suitable for remote audits. The characterization presented here may motivate further commercial development of a 2D dosimetry system based on the OSL from Al2O3:C or Al2O3:C,Mg.
Efficient adenovirus vector‐mediated PPAR gamma gene transfer into mouse embryoid bodies promotes adipocyte differentiation

Establishment of a transient gene delivery system, such as adenovirus (Ad) vectors, into embryonic stem (ES) cells and their aggregation form, embryoid bodies (EBs), is essential for its application in regenerative medicine because the transgene should not be integrated in the host genome. In this study, we optimized Ad vector‐mediated transduction into EBs, and examined whether Ad vector‐mediated transduction of adipogenesis‐related gene into EBs could promote the adipocyte differentiation.