Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Total Quality Management: Empirical, Conceptual, and Practical Issues

In recent years, Total Quality Management has become something of a social movement in the United States. This commentary returns to the writings of the movement's founders--W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and Kaoru Ishikawa--to assess the coherence, distinctiveness, and likely perseverance of this provocative management philosophy. We identify a number of gaps in what is known about TQM processes and outcomes, and explore the congruence between TQM practices and behavioral science knowledge about motivation, learning, and change in social systems. The commentary concludes with a prognosis about the future of TQM--including some speculations about what will be needed if TQM is to take root and prosper in the years to come.
Assessment and examination stress in Key Stage 4

Survey research has identified, using questionnaire approaches, that important assessments are a significant source of stress and worry for students in secondary school. In particular, failing important examinations and the consequences of failing these examinations are rated as more important than a range of other personal and social worries. Qualitative approaches have gone further in exploring the meaning of these stressful events for students concerned, highlighting themes such as an over‐identification with academic success and the perception of GCSE examinations as constituting a crucial moment in determining the future life trajectory of a student. However, this area has been neglected by researchers working on the education–psychology disciplinary boundaries, and a number of important features have yet to be specified regarding the development, antecedents and educational consequences of assessment/examination stress in Key Stage 4 (KS4). The aim of this article is to build on previous work to exp.
Predictive Model for Length of Stay in Intensive Care Unit Based on Preoperative and Perioperative Variables. Four-Year Analysis of Mitral Valve Surgery in One Single Center

Study objective: Assessing length of stay in Intensive Care Units (LOSI) after mitral valve surgery is challenging due to wide spectrum of comorbidities and cardiovascular procedures. The study aim was to elaborate a predictive model in order to identify risk factors and predict the expected resources consumption for better monitoring for caregivers and patients. Design: Retrospective study of prospectively collected data during 2009 and 2013. Setting: University teaching hospital. Patients: We studied all consecutive adult patients (≥ 18 years) who underwent elective mitral valve surgery. We enrolled 212 patients. Measurements: Our outcome variable LOSI. Comorbidities, postoperative morbidity and mortality were collected during the perioperative period. Multivariate analysis was used and data was studied as an additive model to assess the associations between the variables and the presence of correlations between them. Generalized additive model was fitted with least squared means estimated by the additive model due the non linearity of Euroscore I. Histograms of the residuals were examined visually to assess the fit of the models above. The model was selected using the statistical software R version 3.0. 2 (R Foundation, Vienna, Austria). Results: Median of LOSI was 4 days (Interquantile range 2 to 4 days). The model for LOSI includes: infection post surgery (p<0.05), cardiogenic shock (p<0.05), Euroscore I (p<0.05), valvular replacement (p<0.05), double valvular disease (p<0.05) and associated tricuspid valve repair (p<0.05). The adjusted r squared for this model was 0.74, which implies a high predictive value for LOSI. In this model the ponderate weights for the main variables were 36.3% for infection post surgery, 15.2% for aortic clamp time, 6.9% for cardiogenic shock and 5.4% for the Euroscore I. Conclusion: Longer LOSI is strongly affected by post surgery infection and cardiogenic shock in ICU, Euroscore I and mitral and tricuspid replacement. Preemptive measures and early treatment of those complications should be a priority in ICU in order to improve outcomes and quality of care in this population
Segmentation of Airways Based on Gradient Vector Flow

We present an automated approach for the segmentation of airways in CT datasets. The approach utilizes the Gradient Vector Flow and consists of two main processing steps. Initially, airway-like structures are identified and their centerlines are extracted. These centerlines are used in a second step to initialize the actual segmentation of the corresponding airways. An evaluation on 20 clinical datasets shows that our method achieves a good average airway branch count (63.0%) without any major leakage.
The role of memory in the transmission of culture

Abstract Following earlier discussions of the roles played by memory in oral and literate societies, this paper distinguishes between inscribed and incorporated practices in the process of cultural transmission. Instead of adopting the distinction between literate and non‐literate societies, it shows how different modes of cultural transmission can be associated with different kinds of political strategy and with different forms of religious life.
Major approaches for generating and analyzing transgenic mice. An overview.

Over the past decade, the development of gene-transfer technology in whole animals has afforded unprecedented opportunities for investigators to probe complex regulatory systems in vivo. Important advances in our understanding of the mechanisms of gene expression and regulation and the development of animal models of human diseases are but two examples of how this technology has affected medical science. Transgenic animals are defined as animals in which a segment of DNA has been physically integrated into the genome of all cells, including the germ line, so that it can be transmitted to offspring as a simple Mendelian trait. The DNA segment generally consists of a whole cloned gene, cDNA, or a novel gene modified by recombinant DNA methodologies. Whole genomic clones of genes are often used to study tissue- and cell-specific expression and regulation or can be used to overexpress a gene product. Alternatively, the coding region of one gene can be fused to the transcriptional regulatory region of another gene, causing it to be expressed in a new spectrum of tissues and cell types. A number of methods can be used to introduce the DNA segment, including direct microinjection of one-cell fertilized embryos, retroviral-mediated transfer, or gene transfer in embryonic stem cells. The technique most often used to generate transgenic animals and perform "gene addition" experiments is direct microinjection. Alternatively, gene deletions or "knockouts" are performed by gene transfer in embryonic stem cells by specifically targeting the site of integration in the genome. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Combinatorial Neural Codes from a Mathematical Coding Theory Perspective

Shannon's seminal 1948 work gave rise to two distinct areas of research: information theory and mathematical coding theory. While information theory has had a strong influence on theoretical neuroscience, ideas from mathematical coding theory have received considerably less attention. Here we take a new look at combinatorial neural codes from a mathematical coding theory perspective, examining the error correction capabilities of familiar receptive field codes (RF codes). We find, perhaps surprisingly, that the high levels of redundancy present in these codes do not support accurate error correction, although the error-correcting performance of receptive field codes catches up to that of random comparison codes when a small tolerance to error is introduced. However, receptive field codes are good at reflecting distances between represented stimuli, while the random comparison codes are not. We suggest that a compromise in error-correcting capability may be a necessary price to pay for a neural code whose structure serves not only error correction, but must also reflect relationships between stimuli.
A Review of Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

Different from traditional networks, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are highly dependent on specific applications and are severely constrained by energy, storage capacity and computing power. To prolong the lifetime of the whole networks, energy awareness is an essential consideration when we design or analyze routing protocols. In this paper, we present a review of recent routing protocols in WSNs and classify them into three categories based on the network structure in WSNs. Then we describe the existing routing protocols and discuss their advantages and disadvantages of each routing algorithm. Finally we conclude this paper with open research issues and challenges.
Shallow Semantically-Informed PBSMT and HPBSMT

This paper describes shallow semantically-informed Hierarchical Phrase-based SMT (HPBSMT) and Phrase-Based SMT (PBSMT) systems developed at Dublin City University for participation in the translation task between EN-ES and ES-EN at the Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation (WMT 13). The system uses PBSMT and HPBSMT decoders with multiple LMs, but will run only one decoding path decided before starting translation. Therefore the paper does not present a multi-engine system combination. We investigate three types of shallow semantics: (i) Quality Estimation (QE) score, (ii) genre ID, and (iii) context ID derived from context-dependent language models. Our results show that the improvement is 0.8 points absolute (BLEU) for EN-ES and 0.7 points for ES-EN compared to the standard PBSMT system (single best system). It is important to note that we developed this method when the standard (confusion network-based) system combination is ineffective such as in the case when the input is only two.
Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus subgroup strain-specific infection in a murine macrophage-like cell line

We compared infection of a murine macrophage-like cell line, J774-1, with two Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus subgroup strains. The GDVII strain, which is highly virulent and produces acute polioencephalomyelitis in mice, did not actively replicate in J774-1 cells, although there was a significant inhibition in cellular protein synthesis. In contrast, the DA strain, which is less virulent and causes demyelination with a persistent virus infection, productively infected J774-1 cells; however, there was less virus produced than in BHK-21 cells, and there was little if any cellular protein shutoff. These in vitro data may provide some explanation for the biological activities that are observed between both subgroup strains.
Joint space-time clutter and interference covariance estimation for non-chirped radar

We investigate the problem of clutter covariance estimation from multichannel radar data with non-specific waveforms. This differs from other similar algorithms in that they are typically tailored for a specific transmitted waveform, in most cases an LFM chirp. We also consider the possibility that there is interference, within the data, caused by a spatially localized source that is independent of the transmitted signal. We frame the problem of estimating the space-time covariance matrices of both the clutter and interference separately as one of maximum-likelihood estimation, and obtain a solution via the expectation-maximization algorithm. Results with simulated data are presented.
New Canonical Representations by Augmenting OBDDs with Conjunctive Decomposition (Extended Abstract)

We identify two families of canonical knowledge compilation languages. Both families augment ROBDD with conjunctive decomposition bounded by an integer i ranging from 0 to ∞. In the former, the decomposition is finest and the decision respects a chain C of variables, while both the decomposition and decision of the latter respect a tree T of variables. In particular, these two families cover the three existing languages ROBDD, ROBDD with as many implied literals as possible, and AND/OR BDD. We demonstrate that each language in the first family is complete, while each one in the second family is incomplete with expressivity that does not decrease with incremental i. We also demonstrate that the succinctness does not decrease from the i-th language in the second family to the i-th language in the first family, and then to the (i+1)-th language in the first family. For the operating efficiency, on the one hand, we show that the two families of languages support a rich class of tractable logical operations, and particularly the tractability of each language in the second family is not less than that of ROBDD; and on the other hand, we introduce a new time efficiency criterion called rapidity which reflects the idea that exponential operations may be preferable if the language can be exponentially more succinct, and we demonstrate that the rapidity of each operation does not decrease from the i-th language in the second family to the i-th language in the first family, and then to the (i+1)-th language in the first family. Furthermore, we develop a compiler for the last language in the first family (i = ∞). Empirical results show that the compiler significantly advances the compiling efficiency of canonical representations. In fact, its compiling efficiency is comparable with that of the state-of-the-art compilers of non-canonical representations. We also provide a compiler for the i-th language in the first family by translating the last language in the first family into the i-th language (i < ∞). Empirical results show that we can sometimes use the i-th language instead of the last language without any obvious loss of space efficiency.
Performance Evaluation of a Fuzzy-based Handover System for Wireless Cellular Networks

New compounds are disclosed of the formulae or pharmaceutically effective salts thereof, wherein R is hydrogen, C1-12 alkyl, or R is phenyl or phenyl-C1 to C4 alkyl wherein the phenyl can be substituted with 1 to 3 halogen, C1 to C4 alkyl, or C1 to C4 alkoxy substituents; and X1, X2 and X3 are hydrogen, C1 to C6 alkanoyl, or C1 to C6 haloalkanoyl; and where X1 is hydrogen, X2 and X3 are not simultaneously hydrogen. The compounds possess antiphlogistic, analgesic, anticonvulsive, or tranquilizing properties.
Guaranteed ray intersections with implicit surfaces

In this paper, we present a robust and mathematically sound ray-intersection algorithm for implicit surfaces. The algorithm is guaranteed to numerically find the nearest intersection of the surface with a ray, and is guaranteed not to miss fine features of the surface. It does not require fine tuning or human choice of interactive parameters. Instead, it requires two upper bounds: "L" that limits the net rate of change of the implicit surface function f(x,y,z) and "G" that limits the rate of change of the gradient. We refer to an implicit surface with these rate limits as an "LG-implicit surface. "Existing schemes to intersect a ray with an implicit surface have typically been guaranteed to work only for a limited set of implicit functions, such as quadric surfaces or polynomials, or else have been ad-hoc and have not been guaranteed to work. Our technique significantly extends the ability to intersect rays with implicit surfaces in a guaranteed fashion.
POLICE SUSPICION AND DISCRETIONARY DECISION MAKING DURING CITIZEN STOPS

This study examines the influence of racial, demographic and situational variables on types of police suspicion and the ancillary decision to stop and question suspects. Data were drawn from an observational study of police decision making in Savannah, Georgia. Based on the literature, we hypothesized that minority suspects will be more likely to be viewed suspiciously by the police for nonbehavioral reasons. We also hypothesize that minority status will play a significant role in the decision to stop and question suspicious persons. The findings from this study provide partial support for these hypotheses. The results indicate that minority status does influence an officer's decision to form nonbehavioral as opposed to behavioral suspicion, but that minority status does not influence the decision to stop and question suspects. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding race and its role in police decision making.
Transfer Learning in Body Sensor Networks Using Ensembles of Randomized Trees

We investigate the process of transferring the activity recognition models within the nodes of a body sensor network (BSN). In particular, we propose a methodology that supports and makes the transferring possible. Based on a collaborative training strategy, classifier ensembles of randomized trees are used to create activity recognition models that can successfully be transferred within the nodes of the network. The methodology has been applied in scenarios where a node present in the network is replaced by a new node located in the same position (replacement scenario) and relocated to a previously unknown position (relocation scenario). Experimental results show that the transferred recognition models achieve high-recognition performance in the replacement scenario and good-recognition performance are achieved in the relocation scenario. Results have been validated with multiple K-folds cross-validations in order to test the performance of the methodology when different amount of data are shared between nodes.
Local Government at the Nexus?

Abstract The modernisation of local government in the UK, pursued by Labour governments since 1997, has covered many, often conflicting elements. Councils have been encouraged to be both strategic ‘place shapers’ and also involved in the nurturing of democratic engagement. This latter theme of ‘democratic renewal’ has in itself contained paradoxical elements, but has been a consistent focus of attention. This debate around democratic renewal has also taken place in the context of a broader ‘rethinking’ of local governments’ role, in an era of partnerships, governance and new models of service delivery. Normatively and practically new justifications for local government have been sought. One such normative foundation has drawn on a range of theoretical perspectives to reimagine the place of local government in the democratic polity, seeing local authorities and local councilors as facilitators or nurturers of democratic health. In particular, broad theoretical developments in communicative and deliberative democracy, and also, more recently, on work based in ‘second generation’ governance theory, have been drawn upon to place local government at the nexus of state and civil society. This paper will examine the possibilities for such a role, from a normative standpoint, to argue that local government can have only limited success in this role, particularly in the context of New Labour's restructuring of the local state.
Distance aware tag clouds

Distance aware tag clouds add visualization of relations between terms to standard tag clouds. In addition to term importance (which is usually depicted through font size) the placement of terms represents the relation between words in the corpus. These relations are modeled as similarities between words and are visualized via the distance between the corresponding tags in the tag cloud. In this paper a modified multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) approach for tag positioning is presented. Applying standard MDS results in unsatisfying and unusable representations due to two problems. The first problem stems from word overlap which is orthogonal to the second problem: excessive empty space. Both of these shortcomings are addressed by introducing methods for overlap removal and empty space reduction. We show that these two modifications only moderately increase the resulting MDS stress value of the new positioning while they remove most of the overlaps and reduce the amount of white space.
Emulation of a Quantum Spin with a Superconducting Phase Qudit

Higher-Level Quantum Emulation At the heart of a quantum computer is the device on which information is to be encoded. This is typically done with a qubit, a two-level quantum system analogous to the two-level bit that encodes 0 and 1 in classical computers. However, there need not be just two quantum energy levels. There could be three (a qutrit), or more generally, d-levels (a qudit) in the device. Neeley et al. (p. 722; see the Perspective by Nori) demonstrate a five-level quantum device and show that their qudit can be used to emulate the processes involved in manipulating quantum spin. The use of multilevel qudits may also have potential in quantum information processing by simplifying certain computational tasks and simplifying the circuitry required to realize the quantum computer itself. A multilevel superconducting device is used to emulate the manipulation of quantum spin systems. In quantum information processing, qudits (d-level systems) are an extension of qubits that could speed up certain computing tasks. We demonstrate the operation of a superconducting phase qudit with a number of levels d up to d = 5 and show how to manipulate and measure the qudit state, including simultaneous control of multiple transitions. We used the qudit to emulate the dynamics of single spins with principal quantum number s = 1/2, 1, and 3/2, allowing a measurement of Berry’s phase and the even parity of integer spins (and odd parity of half-integer spins) under 2π-rotation. This extension of the two-level qubit to a multilevel qudit holds promise for more-complex quantum computational architectures and for richer simulations of quantum mechanical systems.
A Note on Modeling Consumer Reactions to a Crisis: The Case of the Mad Cow Disease

What drives the behavior of consumers when faced with a product-related crisis, such as that involving food contamination or life-threatening design flaws? For both consumers and companies, these crises have become of increasing importance because of the globalization of markets and an increased coverage by the media. Marketers need to understand why and how consumers react to a crisis. We show that by decoupling risk response behavior of consumers into the separate components of risk perception and risk attitude, a more robust conceptualization and prediction of consumers’ reactions is possible. Such a framework helps provide answers on how marketers can deal with such types of crises. The merits of this conceptualization are illustrated in two field studies that examine the reactions of German, Dutch, and American consumers to the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis. D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Offline Strategies for Online Question Answering: Answering Questions Before They Are Asked

Recent work in Question Answering has focused on web-based systems that extract answers using simple lexico-syntactic patterns. We present an alternative strategy in which patterns are used to extract highly precise relational information offline, creating a data repository that is used to efficiently answer questions. We evaluate our strategy on a challenging subset of questions, i.e. "Who is . " questions, against a state of the art web-based Question Answering system. Results indicate that the extracted relations answer 25% more questions correctly and do so three orders of magnitude faster than the state of the art system.