Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards More Energy Efficient Domestic Appliances? Measuring the Perception of Households on Smart Appliances

Efficient use of energy is high on the agenda. Research has already demonstrated that active feedback on energy use can be effective to encourage households to take energy saving measures. In this perspective, smart grids, smart meters and smart domestic appliances will be of main importance in the near future. There are many stakeholders in this matter, but one that is often neglected is the user, or in this case, the households. Therefore, this article employs a user centric perspective. A quantitative survey was held with 500 households in Flanders. The research aimed to make a segmentation based on the households' perception towards smart domestic appliances. Four segments with significantly different perceptions could be distinguished in the sample. These segments were labelled “Advocates”, “Supporters”, “Doubters” and “Refusers”. A further profiling revealed significant differences between the segments.
Empirical Estimates of Beta When Investors Face Estimation Risk

The authors examine empirical implications of models of differential information that formalize the following intuition: securities for which there is relatively little information are perceived as relatively more risky because of the greater uncertainty surrounding the exact parameters of their return distributions. The implication that beta risk for low information firms should decline as information increases is confirmed with several data sets. The authors find such a decline over the first several periods subsequent to initial public offerings and initial listings. There is also an abrupt risk decline at the first annual earnings announcement. Copyright 1990 by American Finance Association.
A Dual Circularly Polarized Waveguide Antenna With Bidirectional Radiations of the Same Sense

A dual circularly polarized waveguide antenna with bidirectional radiations of the same sense is proposed in this communication. Bidirectional circular polarization (Bi-CP) of the same sense was obtained by two identical rectangular metal slices installed on one lateral side of the waveguide with an intersection angle of 45°. These two metal slices were horizontally perpendicular to each other and vertically spaced by a quarter guided wavelength. A rat-race coupler was employed to excite the two metal slices with the same amplitude, but with a 0° or 180° phase difference depending on the selection of two inputs. One sense of Bi-CP was realized when the two metal slices were fed in phase and the opposite sense of Bi-CP could be obtained when they were fed out of phase. A prototype for 2.4-GHz WLAN application was tested to verify our design. The measured common bandwidth for 10-dB return loss and 3-dB axial ratio at the two feed ports was 230 MHz (9.6%, 2.29-2.52 GHz) and 210 MHz (8.6%, 2.35-2.56 GHz), respectively. The measured isolation between the two feed ports was better than 30 dB over the whole operating band.
Advances in global optimisation for generation expansion planning

The paper brings together several important and practically relevant aspects of generation expansion planning in the context of restructuring and changing emphasis in the electricity supply industry. Expert planning judgements, consumer shortage cost differentials resulting in a need for different classes of service and price formation, and consumer price elasticity, are given consideration in the planning programme described. Effects of these factors on the final, or global, optimum are explored.
Sensitivity of RADARSAT-2 quad polarimetric and simulated compact polarimetric parameters to soil moisture and freeze/thaw state in southwest Ontario

This study assesses the potential of RADARSAT-2 quad polarimetric and compact polarimetric (CP) parameters to monitor soil moisture and freeze/thaw state. The paper presents a preliminary analysis of the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) parameters derived from 14 RADARSAT-2 fine quad-pol images acquired from October 2013 to May 2014 over an agricultural field in Waterloo-Guelph, Ontario. Results indicate sensitivity of CP parameters to soil moisture and their potential usefulness of discerning frozen/unfrozen soils. This suggests that the CP mode can be an alternative data source for large scale soil moisture studies. Further investigation of using CP parameters in soil moisture applications is required to better support the Canadian RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM).
Managing Customer Participation and Customer Interactions in Service Delivery: the Case of Museums and Educational Services

Abstract Background and Purpose – In this study we investigate determinants of customers’ quality perceptions in service processes which involve customer participation and customer to customer interaction (CCI). Building on existing multidimensional approaches to service quality we explore relevant quality aspects for related to the performance customer participation and CCI. Design/Methodology/Approach – The study builds on focus groups conduct with employees and customers of a leading provider of educational and science services, which offered a portfolio of service activities requiring very diverse levels of customer participation and CCI, to characterize service quality dimensions. Results – The study distinguishes three dimensions of service delivery quality: a dimension related to the providers’ direct performance; a second dimension relative to the performance of customers’ own participation in service activities, and a third dimension relative to the interaction with other customers. The work extends service quality literature by identifying new dimensions which affect service quality in service settings with active customer involvement. Conclusion – Service providers have been developing very diverse delivery processes, frequently inviting customers to have active roles in service production. Often, customers also interact with other costumers in service delivery. The paper provides a contribution to foster the debate about service quality frameworks, and aims to inform the design and the management of services where customer participation and CCI have a key role.
Extra-Group Sexual Consortship in the Tana River Red Colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus) ?

Sexual consortship in primates was originally defined by Carpenter [1942] as an adult male and an ovulating female forming an association with a high degree of reciprocal interaction and rapport, embedded in a multi-male, multi-female primate group. Subsequently, it has been recognized that some species, notably chimpanzee [Goodall, 1986] and muriquis
The Cost of Equity Capital and a Generalisation of the Dividend Growth Model

Abstract In this paper a generalisation of the dividend growth model is developed. This model relates the growth in dividends to a company's earnings and asset base. The resulting model involves the solution of an eigenvalue system of equations. It is shown how a closed form approximation to this system exists. The econometric procedures that might be used to parameterise the model are considered, and the methodology is illustrated using five UK Companies.
Tour Booking: Do Travelers Respond to Tourism Accreditation and Codes of Ethics Initiatives?

ABSTRACT Tourism and hospitality organizations are spending more time and money on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, but at the same time not fully understanding how such initiatives enhance travelers’ responses. This study investigates the impact of two CSR initiatives that have been widely adopted by many travel organizations: tourism accreditation and codes of ethics. A large-scale survey collected data on how potential travelers responded to an online tour brochure. The results showed that both accreditation and code of ethics information in a brochure have significant but varying impacts on perceived tour value, trust, and tour booking intention.
Approaches for FACTS optimization problem in power systems

This paper discusses thoroughly about different methods for solution of flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) optimization problem in power systems. First, it explains the requirements of an ideal solution for FACTS optimization problem, then classifies the methods used by researchers in four main groups as classical methods, technical methods, heuristics and mixed methods, and discusses thoroughly about characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of each group of methods. Finally, some tips are offered for future research on this area.
Higher Order Properties of Gmm and Generalized Empirical Likelihood Estimators

In an effort to improve the small sample properties of generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators, a number of alternative estimators have been suggested. These include empirical likelihood (EL), continuous updating, and exponential tilting estimators. We show that these estimators share a common structure, being members of a class of generalized empirical likelihood (GEL) estimators. We use this structure to compare their higher order asymptotic properties. We find that GEL has no asymptotic bias due to correlation of the moment functions with their Jacobian, eliminating an important source of bias for GMM in models with endogeneity. We also find that EL has no asymptotic bias from estimating the optimal weight matrix, eliminating a further important source of bias for GMM in panel data models. We give bias corrected GMM and GEL estimators. We also show that bias corrected EL inherits the higher order property of maximum likelihood, that it is higher order asymptotically effcient relative to the other bias corrected estimators.
Consequences of Debt Capitalization : Property Ownership and Debt versus Tax Choice

Public debts capitalize into property prices. Thus, they are a burden to the present generation who owns the devalued property. This largely neglected fact has important consequences for the tax versus debt choice. Property owners suffer more from the debt burden and, thus, have a stronger preference for tax financing of government spending than tenants. As a consequence of the resulting democratic struggle between property owners and tenants, higher property ownership rates in a jurisdiction lead to less debt financing. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis by analyzing a cross section of the 171 communities in the Swiss Canton of Zurich in the year 2000.
Study on Representation of Time Series Based on Subsection Polynomial Fitting

This paper studied the representation of time series. The signal and the noise separated by wavelet analysis, the whole data sampling was divided into many continuous intervals, in which the signal was monotone. Each interval was fitted by n-degree polynomial and its eigenvector was made up of the coefficients of the polynomial, its width and signal noise ratio (SNR). The eigenvectors of continuous intervals constituted an eigenvector sequence, which could represent the whole sampling. We analyzed respiratory intensity slice of Chinese astronaut, built the eigenvector sequence and finally found the similar intervals by means of cosine distance of eigenvectors.
LLR-Based Bit-Loading Algorithm for the Turbo Coded HomePlug AV

In this paper a new bit-loading algorithm for the OFDM-based turbo coded HomePlug AV system is proposed. To better exploit the error correction capabilities of the turbo code, this algorithm tries to maximize the throughput while guaranteeing a target BER over a set of sub-carriers using a new metric based on the LLRs. The performance of the considered system, in terms of throughput and BER, is evaluated, using a realistic power-line channel model. Furthermore, data- aided channel and SNR estimates are investigated and their performance compared with the ideal case.
An Intelligent Clustering Algorithm for High Dimensional and Highly Overlapped Photo-Thermal Infrared Imaging Data

This paper analyzes the noise-free but highly overlapped photo-thermal infrared imaging data set involving four analytes and two substrates. We developed an effective algorithm which combines the principal component analysis and k-mean clustering to classify the materials into six classes. We conducted a dimension reduction by applying the principal component analysis (PCA) on the data to transform the original data to the principal component 1 (PC1) and principal component 2 (PC2) feature space. The data were revealed in PC1-PC2 space and formed into clusters. Then we used the K-mean clustering algorithm to classify them into six classes including RDX, TNT, AN, Sucrose, Paint, and Glass. The prototype of the predominant analytes in each cluster will determine the class. After that, we conducted the performance evaluation by calculating the probability of detection (POD), false alarm rate (FAR), accuracy, precision, and recall based on true positive (TP), false negative (FN), false positive (FP), and true negative (TN). The results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm effectively reduced dimension and accurately determined the classes of those analytes and substrates.
Metromorphosis: Documenting Change1

ABSTRACT: This study examines a community development process for achieving revitalization in urban neighborhoods. It reports on a study conducted for a St. Louis-based intermediary organization that supports the creation and maintenance of community gardens. Community gardens purport to have a wide range of beneficial impacts on their surrounding neighborhoods. There has been scant empirical investigation of these claims, although there is a preponderance of anecdotal evidence in the popular press. The study focused on a series of variables that estimate the well-being of the neighborhoods in general and Garden Impact Areas in particular. The study applied GIS software to collect data from the 1990 and 2000 Census for 3-block radii around the study gardens. Using difference of differences to measure change, the findings record Garden Impact Areas improved in indicators of resident quality of life and neighborhood conditions.
Reporting on sustainable operations by third sector organizations: A signalling approach

Abstract Awareness of (un)sustainable operations is increasingly researched in the for-profit and government sectors, but little is known about the third sector. Still, these not-for-profit organizations are challenged by progressive accountability requirements and increasingly they seem to be responding to these demands through sustainability reporting. In this paper, we explore sustainability reporting by third sector organizations (TSOs) in the context of signalling theory; a useful theoretical lens to explore organizational reports as a signal to stakeholders. Using a document analysis, we explore twenty-three TSOs to discover what they are signalling, to whom, and whether different organizations send different messages.
Peer-to-Peer Privacy Preserving Reputation Inquiry: An Agent Assistant Approach

This research presents a privacy preserving peer-to-peer communication mechanism that allows peers using their personal agents to obtain reputation information of each other through a pair of trustworthy mediator proxies. A mediator proxy is considered trustworthy, if even when it is compromised, it can guarantee three conditions: (1) the anonymity of the identity of the responders and the target being inquired, (2) the privacy of the content in an inquiry and a response, and (3) the boundary limit of the reputation summary with no possibility of combining the response of multiple inquiries to reverse engineer the reputation rating of an individual responder.
The OS Faces a Brave New World

Increasingly popular approaches such as virtualization, cloud computing, and application development frameworks are changing the importance of the traditional operating system. Virtualization lets a single server host slices of multiple operating systems, each of which can run different applications within virtual machines. This makes the installation of any single full-featured OS instance a choice rather than a necessity. Cloud computing features applications that run on servers spread across the Internet. Cloud providers push these applications to users' browsers. Users of cloud based software thus don't need an OS to do more than run the browser. Developers are increasingly using frameworks that enable the faster building of applications that work with multiple OSs, again making the use of a specific operating system less important. The just enough operating system (JeOS, pronounced "juice") movement focuses on packaging an application with only the parts of an OS necessary for it to work. Over time, these developments could affect what constitutes an operating system, what its roles and responsibilities will be, and how it will be installed and used.
Design and Development of a Mobile Sensor Based the Blind Assistance Wayfinding System

The blind and visually impaired people are facing a number of challenges in their daily life. One of the major challenges is finding their way both indoor and outdoor. For this reason, routing and navigation independently, especially in urban areas are important for the blind. Most of the blind undertake route finding and navigation with the help of a guide. In addition, other tools such as a cane, guide dog or electronic aids are used by the blind. However, in some cases these aids are not efficient enough in a wayfinding around obstacles and dangerous areas for the blind. As a result, the need to develop effective methods as decision support using a non-visual media is leading to improve quality of life for the blind through their increased mobility and independence. In this study, we designed and implemented an outdoor mobile sensor-based wayfinding system for the blind. The objectives of this study are to guide the blind for the obstacle recognition and the design and implementation of a wayfinding and navigation mobile sensor system for them. In this study an ultrasonic sensor is used to detect obstacles and GPS is employed for positioning and navigation in the wayfinding. This type of ultrasonic sensor measures the interval between sending waves and receiving the echo signals with respect to the speed of sound in the environment to estimate the distance to the obstacles. In this study the coordinates and characteristics of all the obstacles in the study area are already stored in a GIS database. All of these obstacles were labeled on the map. The ultrasonic sensor designed and constructed in this study has the ability to detect the obstacles in a distance of 2cm to 400cm. The implementation and the results obtained from the interview of a number of blind persons who employed the sensor verified that the designed mobile sensor system for wayfinding was very satisfactory.
Eco-labelling scheme, environmental protection, and protectionism

In this paper a model of international duopoly is developed involving competition in both prices and levels of environmental friendliness, and the implications of government policies are studied. It is shown that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, a regulatory increase in the minimum required level of environmental friendliness of imported goods may harm the home firm and may result in a rise in the volume of imported goods. Whether consumers lose or gain from such a regulatory increase depends on consumption spillover effects. We also show that, under certain conditions, the duopoly's equilibrium choice of levels of environmental friendliness is socially optimal.
Examining the Relationship between IT Governance Software, Processes, and Business Value: A Quantitative Research Approach

What is the impact of information technology (IT) governance software on the actual processes of IT governance and through that on realizing the business value of IT? This article examines the conceptual foundations underlying this question and analyzes the available evidence based on a quantitative research approach. Using global survey-data from 41 companies that have implemented IT governance software we investigate both whether this is linked to better IT governance practices and, in a second link, to improved business value outcome. Examining each of the IT governance tool modules and considering the request, prioritize, fund, monitor, enforce, and realign processes comprising IT governance, our analysis shows that this reaction chain indeed exists. We also found that this can only be effective under certain conditions; implementation factors play a vital role, both in the improvement of IT governance processes, as well as in business value creation.
Functional Screen for Secreted Proteins by Monoclonal Antibody Library and Identification of Mac-2 Binding Protein (Mac-2BP) as a Potential Therapeutic Target and Biomarker for Lung Cancer*

Identification of secreted proteins of lung cancer could provide new candidates of serum biomarkers for cancer diagnosis or targets for therapeutic intervention. In this study, we developed a novel strategy that combined functional monoclonal antibody library screening technique and mass spectrometry to identify functional secreted proteins. BALB/c mice were immunized with cancer cells isolated from fresh human lung cancer tissues. The monoclonal antibody library containing 1160 mAbs was established with the mouse spleen cells, whose serum had most anti-proliferative effect on lung cancer cells. Monoclonal antibodies were subjected to an immunoreactive and functional screen and monoclonal antibodies that reacted strongly with secreted proteins in condition medium and lung cancer tissues with high inhibotion of cell proliferation were selected. Antigens that recognized by antibodies were obtained by immunoprecipitation and then identified by mass spectrometry. Mac-2-binding protein (Mac-2BP), the antigen of 13H3 antibody, was identified using this approach. Functional studies demonstrated that the 13H3 antibody suppressed lung cancer cell lines ANIP-973 and A549 proliferation in vitro and inhibit ANIP973 xenograft tumors growth in vivo by inducing cell-cycle arrest at G1 phase, with up-regulation of p27 and down-regulation of cyclin D1. Moreover, the serum level of Mac-2BP was significantly higher in lung cancer patients than healthy controls. At a cutoff value of 6 μg/ml, Mac-2BP might be a diagnostic biomarker of lung cancer, especially for SCLC. Mac-2BP concentrations of 6 μg/ml or higher was associated with poor overall survival in univariate analysis, and was an independent predictor in the multivariate COX analysis. Together, these results firstly demonstrated that Mac-2BP can be used as a therapeutic target and potential biomarker for lung cancer. Our strategy is feasible, which may facilitate the identification of novel secreted biomarkers of lung cancer.
Effective use of computational resources in multicore distributed systems

In the last decades, many kinds of task execution models such as grid and cloud computing have been developed. In such distributed systems, each task is processed by respective processor in multicored computers e.g., household PCs which we can easily harness in recent years. If there is one policy to automatically decide the “best” combination and the number of processors (and computers), we effectively utilize those computational resources, thereby large number of jobs can be executed in parallel. In this paper, we propose a method for mapping of execution units for such environments. The method adopts a remapping technology after processor-execution unit mapping[6] is finished. Experimental comparisons by a simulation show the advantages of the proposed method.