Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drivers of training and talent development: insights from oil and gas MNCs in Nigeria

ABSTRACT The paper examines the main drivers, nature and extent of employee training in oil and gas (O&G) multinational companies (MNCs). Using insights from 16 managers in Nigeria O&G industry, we identified three broad levels of factors driving the training provisions and talent development decisions. The study further develops an integrated model of direct and moderating factors of training. The findings suggest that government regulations, health and safety concerns, industry-education outreach programmes and the general level of industry tend to trigger proactive measures in developing relevant training programmes. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that organizations’ strategies, policies, health and safety concerns and technological changes also influence training decision-making. The practical implications of the study as well as implications for training and development research are discussed.
Music–color associations are mediated by emotion

Experimental evidence demonstrates robust cross-modal matches between music and colors that are mediated by emotional associations. US and Mexican participants chose colors that were most/least consistent with 18 selections of classical orchestral music by Bach, Mozart, and Brahms. In both cultures, faster music in the major mode produced color choices that were more saturated, lighter, and yellower whereas slower, minor music produced the opposite pattern (choices that were desaturated, darker, and bluer). There were strong correlations (0.89 < r < 0.99) between the emotional associations of the music and those of the colors chosen to go with the music, supporting an emotional mediation hypothesis in both cultures. Additional experiments showed similarly robust cross-modal matches from emotionally expressive faces to colors and from music to emotionally expressive faces. These results provide further support that music-to-color associations are mediated by common emotional associations.
Pedestrian detection using boosted features over many frames

A scanning window type pedestrian detector is presented that uses both appearance and motion information to find walking people in surveillance video. We extend the work of Viola, Jones and Snow (2005) to use many more frames as input to the detector thus allowing a much more detailed analysis of motion. The resulting detector is about an order of magnitude more accurate than the detector of Viola, Jones and Snow. It is also computationally efficient, processing frames at the rate of 5 Hz on a 3 GHz Pentium processor.
Coordinated Gating of TRP-Dependent Channels in Rhabdomeral Membranes from Drosophila Retinas

Using a newly developed dissociation procedure, we isolated the specialized rhabdomeral membranes from Drosophilaretinal photoreceptors. From these membranes, we have recorded spontaneous active currents in excised patch, voltage-clamp recordings. We observed rapid opening events that closely resembled those ascribed to one class of light-activated channels, TRP. All activity exhibited Ba2+ permeability, little voltage dependence, and sensitivity to La3+ block. Mutational analysis indicated that the spontaneous activity present in these membranes was TRP-dependent. Excised patches from wild-type rhabdomeral membranes exhibited a wide range of conductance amplitudes. In addition, large conductance events exhibited many conductance levels in the open state. Block of activity by La3+ both developed and recovered in a stepwise manner. Our results indicate that TRP-dependent channels have a small unitary conductance and that many channels can be gated coordinately.
Bacterial contamination of computer keyboards and mice, elevator buttons and shopping carts

This study aims at investigating the status of bacterial contamination of four daily used objects, computer keyboards, computer mice, elevator buttons and shopping carts handles. A total of 400 samples were collected from 4 different objects; 100 from each. Samples were collected from different places (offices, internet cafes, homes, buildings and supermarkets) in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 95.5% of the total samples collected were contaminated with mixed bacterial growth. Coagulase-negative staphylococci dominated the isolates. The second most common bacterial growth in all specimens was Gram-positive bacilli. Potential pathogens isolated from all specimens were: Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas spp. and Gram negative bacilli. Results indicate that internet cafe computer keyboards and mice showed 100% contamination in comparison with other objects. The presence of pathogenic and commensal bacteria on the four objects indicates that they might act as environmental vehicles for the transmission of potentially pathogenic bacteria. Key words: Bacterial contamination, computers, public surfaces.
Dynamic Systems Based on Description Logics: Formalization, Verification, and Synthesis

We devise a general framework for formalizing Dynamic Systems centered around a Description Logic knowledge base. Our framework is parametric w.r. t. both the description logic and the progression mechanism. For such kinds of systems, we provide general decidability results for verification and adversarial synthesis of first-order μ-calculus properties under a natural assumption which we call “state-boundedness”. We then apply such results to the case of DL-Lite and ALCQIknowledge bases and a progression mechanism grounded in epistemic first-order queries.
Applicability of the Smart Readiness Indicator for Cold Climate Countries

In the EU’s revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), a smart readiness indicator (SRI) was introduced as an energy efficiency activity to promote smart ready technologies (SRT) in the building sector. The proposed methodology is based on the evaluation of building services and how they contribute on SRT. The purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability of the SRI to cold climate countries in Northern Europe. The Northern European countries are an interesting test environment for the indicator because of their advanced information and communication technology and high building energy consumption profiles. The findings imply that regardless of the SRI’s conceptualization as a system oriented (smart grid) approach, in its current form, it was not able to recognize the specific features of cold climate buildings, specifically those employing advanced district heating (DH) systems. Another, more practical, implication of the study was that due to the subjective nature of the proposed process for selecting SRI relevant building services, the applicability of SRI as a fair rating system across the EU member states is problematic.
An approach for designing reusable, embedded software components for spacecraft flight instruments

Current flight software (FSW) systems embed customized pieces of software to control spacecraft instrumentation. Because spacecraft contain unique hardware components, reusing software device drivers or higher-level FSW subsystems dependent on the drivers across different missions is difficult; and changing instrumentation for an FSW is complicated and time-consuming. This paper outlines an innovative approach to design software components that interact reliably with aerospace instruments and applications while promoting reuse and ease of change. As building blocks for a flight instruments reuse & standardization library (FIRSL), the reusable software drivers are in the form of low-level devices or high-level composite devices for space-based missions. The paper also describes the proof of concept used to verify the results of applying the FIRSL design approach.
Expression of Mast Cell Proteases Correlates with Mast Cell Maturation and Angiogenesis during Tumor Progression

Tumor cells are surrounded by infiltrating inflammatory cells, such as lymphocytes, neutrophils, macrophages, and mast cells. A body of evidence indicates that mast cells are associated with various types of tumors. Although role of mast cells can be directly related to their granule content, their function in angiogenesis and tumor progression remains obscure. This study aims to understand the role of mast cells in these processes. Tumors were chemically induced in BALB/c mice and tumor progression was divided into Phases I, II and III. Phase I tumors exhibited a large number of mast cells, which increased in phase II and remained unchanged in phase III. The expression of mouse mast cell protease (mMCP)-4, mMCP-5, mMCP-6, mMCP-7, and carboxypeptidase A were analyzed at the 3 stages. Our results show that with the exception of mMCP-4 expression of these mast cell chymase (mMCP-5), tryptases (mMCP-6 and 7), and carboxypeptidase A (mMC-CPA) increased during tumor progression. Chymase and tryptase activity increased at all stages of tumor progression whereas the number of mast cells remained constant from phase II to III. The number of new blood vessels increased significantly in phase I, while in phases II and III an enlargement of existing blood vessels occurred. In vitro, mMCP-6 and 7 are able to induce vessel formation. The present study suggests that mast cells are involved in induction of angiogenesis in the early stages of tumor development and in modulating blood vessel growth in the later stages of tumor progression.
Argumentative SOX Compliant and Quality Decision Support Intelligent Expert System over the Suppliers Selection Process

The objective of this paper is to define a decision support system over SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) compatibility and quality of the Suppliers Selection Process based on Artificial Intelligence and Argumentation Theory knowledge and techniques. Thepresent SOX Law, in effect nowadays, was created to improve financial government control over US companies. This law is a factor standard out United States due to several factors like present globalization, expansion of US companies, or key influence of US stock exchange markets worldwide. This paper constitutes a novel approach to this kind of problems due to following elements: (1) it has an optimized structure to look for the solution, (2) it has a dynamic learningmethod to handle court and control gonvernment bodies decisions, (3) it uses fuzzy knowledge to improve its performance, and (4) it uses its past accumulated experience to let the system evolve far beyond its initial state.
Is mere exposure enough? The effects of bilingual environments on infant cognitive development

Bilinguals purportedly outperform monolinguals in non-verbal tasks of cognitive control (the ‘bilingual advantage'). The most common explanation is that managing two languages during language production constantly draws upon, and thus strengthens, domain-general inhibitory mechanisms (Green 1998 Biling. Lang. Cogn. 1, 67–81. (doi:10.1017/S1366728998000133)). However, this theory cannot explain why a bilingual advantage has been found in preverbal infants (Kovacs & Mehler 2009 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 6556–6560. (doi:10.1073/pnas.0811323106)). An alternative explanation is needed. We propose that exposure to more varied, less predictable (language) environments drive infants to sample more by placing less weight on consolidating familiar information in order to orient sooner to (and explore) new stimuli. To confirm the bilingual advantage in infants and test our proposal, we administered four gaze-contingent eye-tracking tasks to seven- to nine-month-old infants who were being raised in either bilingual (n = 51) or monolingual (n = 51) homes. We could not replicate the finding by Kovacs and Mehler that bilingual but not monolingual infants inhibit learned behaviour (experiment 1). However, we found that infants exposed to bilingual environments do indeed explore more than those exposed to monolingual environments, by potentially disengaging attention faster from one stimulus in order to shift attention to another (experiment 3) and by switching attention more frequently between stimuli (experiment 4). These data suggest that experience-driven adaptations may indeed result in infants exposed to bilingual environments switching attention more frequently than infants exposed to a monolingual environment.
DNA Cleavage, Cytotoxic Activities, and Antimicrobial Studies of Ternary Copper(II) Complexes of Isoxazole Schiff Base and Heterocyclic Compounds

Novel mixed ligand bivalent copper complexes [Cu. L. A. ClO 4] and [Cu. L. A] where “L” is Schiff bases, namely 2-((3,4-dimethylisoxazol-5-ylimino)methyl)-4-bromophenol (DMIIMBP)/2-((3,4-dimethylisoxazol-5-ylimino)methyl)-4-chlorophenol (DMIIMCP), and “A” is heterocyclic compound, such as 1,10-phenanthroline (phen)/2,21-bipyridyl (bipy)/8-hydroxyquinoline (oxine)/5-chloro-8-hydroxyquinoline (5-Cl-oxine), have been synthesized. These complexes have been characterized by IR, UV-Vis, ESR, elemental analysis, magnetic moments, TG, and DTA. On the basis of spectral studies and analytical data, five-coordinated square pyramidal/four-coordinated square planar geometry is assigned to all complexes. The ligands and their ternary complexes with Cu(II) have been screened for antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi by paper disc method. The antimicrobial studies of Schiff bases and their metal complexes showed significant activity and further it is observed that the metal complexes showed more activity than corresponding Schiff bases. In vitro antitumor activity of Cu(II) complexes was assayed against human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cancer cells and it was observed that few complexes exhibit good antitumor activity on HeLa cell lines. The DNA cleavage studies have also been carried out on pBR 322 and it is observed that these Cu(II) complexes are capable of cleaving supercoiled plasmid DNA in the presence of H2O2 and UV light.
Integral and local limit theorems for level crossings of diffusions and the Skorohod problem

Using a new technique, based on the regularisation of a cadlag process via the double Skorohod map, we obtain limit theorems for integrated numbers of level crossings of diffusions. This result is related to the recent results on the limit theorems for the truncated variation. We also extend to diffusions the classical result of Kasahara on the "local" limit theorem for the number of crossings of a Wiener process. We establish the correspondence between the truncated variation and the double Skorohod map. Additionally, we prove some auxiliary formulas for the Skorohod map with time-dependent boundaries.
Standardizing the Performance Evaluation of Short-Term Wind Power Prediction Models

Short-term wind power prediction is a primary requirement for efficient large-scale integration of wind generation in power systems and electricity markets. The choice of an appropriate prediction model among the numerous available models is not trivial, and has to be based on an objective evaluation of model performance. This paper proposes a standardized protocol for the evaluation of short-term windpower prediction systems. A number of reference prediction models are also described, and their use for performance comparison is analysed. The use of the protocol is demonstrated, using results from both on-shore and offshore wind farms. The work was developed in the frame of the Anemos project (EU R&D project) where the protocol has been used to evaluate more than 10 prediction systems.
Physical Nature of the Bacterial Cytoplasm

The bacterial cytoplasm is an aqueous environment that is extremely crowded, highly polydisperse in size of constituents and far from thermodynamic equilibrium. How these features affect cytoplasmic dynamics are poorly understood. However, this understanding is paramount as the physical nature of the cytoplasm underlies dynamics of all intracellular processes and thus defines cellular physiology. Both normal and anomalous diffusive motions have been reported for cytoplasmic components, and a unifying picture has yet to emerge.
Up close and personal: social presence in mediated personal relationships

The likes of clarity and efficiency are good communication concepts for designers and evaluators of business communication tools. They make little sense, however, when the design context of an interactive system is the support of a personal relationship. What matters then is that people feel they are 'there' for one another. This paper describes a new way of understanding Social Presence in technologically mediated communication by relating it to a well-established psychological relationship construct: Closeness. We propose a model whereby an individual's long-term feeling of Closeness to others is influenced by communication events that are invested with a sense of Social Presence, as a function of the background level of psychological Closeness. Thus each communicative act, and its associated feeling of Social Presence, has an impact on the feeling of Closeness. We report a three-week-long study during which 18 participants reported daily ratings of Closeness, and communication-event ratings of both Closeness and Social Presence. Our findings are consistent with the model we propose, suggesting that systems for intimate relationships require consideration of both Social Presence and Closeness. We further consider methodological and measurement issues in the realm of personal relationships, and the expanding remit of HCI design as an active contributor to the world of experience and feelings.
NVPsim: A simulator for architecture explorations of nonvolatile processors

Nonvolatile processors (NVPs) preserve run-time information when power failure occurs by utilizing nonvolatile memory technologies. This feature enables NVPs to make forward progress continuously under intermittent power supply in energy harvesting systems. This paper builds a gem5 based NVP simulator named NVPsim, which is validated against measured results of a fabricated prototype with reasonable error rate. Furthermore, to demonstrate the capability of NVPsim for architecture exploration, we evaluated performance and energy consumption of different NVP designs varying in the choice of nonvolatile memory for on-chip caches, the backup strategy and the energy buffer size. Experimental results indicate that nvSRAM outperforms other types of nonvolatile memory as the on-chip cache for energy harvesting systems.
Using Object-Awareness to Optimize Join Processing in the SAP HANA Aggregate Cache

The introduction of columnar in-memory databases, along with hardware evolution, has made the execution of transactional and analytical workloads on a single system both feasible and viable. Yet, doing analytics directly on the transactional data introduces an increasing amount of resourceintensive aggregate queries which can slow down the overall system performance in a multi-user environment. To increase the scalability of a system in the presence of multiple such queries, we propose an aggregate cache in the general delta-main architecture that provides an ecient means to handle costly aggregate queries by applying incremental materialized view maintenance and query compensation techniques. Handling aggregate queries based on joins of multiple tables however is still a challenge as query compensation can be very expensive in the delta-main architecture of columnar in-memory databases. Our analysis of enterprise applications has revealed several data schema and workload patterns that can be leveraged for addressing performance of query processing using the aggregate cache. We contribute by presenting an approach to transport the application object semantics into the database system, becoming object-aware, and optimize the query processing using the aggregate cache by applying partition pruning and predicate pushdown in such general delta-main architecture. Our experimental validation using customer data and workloads confirms that this type of optimizations enables ecient usage of the aggregate cache for an even higher share of aggregate queries as one mean to scale the system.
Microcontroller based systems for peak load reduction

The peaks in energy consumption arise when a number of consumers start to run within a relatively short period of time. In the case of large consumers, this can lead to an overload of the electro-energetic system. In order to avoid such scenarios, the consumers have to pay peak load additionally. The share of this cost in overall costs for electricity can be significant, up to 50% for smaller production plants with discontinuous production. For large consumers, peak load costs usually do not exceed 30% of total costs for electricity. In order to reduce the peak load, it is necessary to provide consistent power consumption that is without major short-term peaks. The paper presents several examples of microcontroller based systems for peak load reduction.
Learning Gaussian Graphical Models with Overlapping Blocks

We propose the GRAB framework (GRaphical models with overlApping Blocks), a novel general framework to explicitly model densely connected sub-networks in a graphical model. The GRAB learning algorithm takes as input a data matrix of p variables and n samples, and jointly learns both a network among p variables and densely connected groups of variables (called ‘blocks’). GRAB has three major novelties to existing methods that incorporate blocks in network learning: 1) GRAB does not require the blocks to be given a priori; 2) Variables can be in multiple blocks (i.e., blocks can overlap); and 3) GRAB can simultaneously learn a network structure and overlapping blocks from data. We show that GRAB reveals the underlying network structure and the blocks substantially better than four state-of-the-art competitors on synthetic data. To demonstrate the need for capturing blocks, we use two real-world data sets – motion capture and cancer gene expression data – and show that GRAB outperforms its competitors. Lastly, we demonstrate GRAB’s ability to reveal known functional gene sets and potential to identify novel genes that drive cancer.
Exploring the Influence of optimum Stimulation Level on Individual Perceptions of IT Innovations

Prior information systems (IS) research has established that individual perceptions of technologies determine their usage behavior, which is a prerequisite for the realization of business value of IT innovations. Hence, it is of critical importance to understand what factors shape individual perceptions of technologies. Perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) derived from TAM (technology acceptance model) have been consistently demonstrated to be two crucial factors impacting individual adoption and use of IT innovations. Moreover, the antecedents of PEOU and PU have received considerable research attention. Among the various antecedents, personal factors especially personality traits play a significant role but yet they have received limited attention. Considering that optimum stimulation level (OSL) as a general personality trait is closely related to the exploration and innovativeness in the adoption of IT innovations, this study builds on OSL theory and explores the impact of OSL on individuals’ PEOU and PU in the context of multi-homing use of social networking site (SNS) services. It was found that OSL has a significant impact on both PEOU and PU, whereby the impact is mediated by personal innovativeness in information technology (PIIT) and computer self-efficacy (CSE). Theoretical and practical implications that follow from the results as well as future directions are discussed.