Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Consumer Trust in Internet Shopping

India has seen a tremendous growth in the number of Internet users in the last decade. Despite of the increase in the number of Internet users, the penetration rate of Internet shopping in the country remains low. Hence, this article focuses on building a model around the factors that are responsible for lack of trust in Indian consumers on Internet shopping and unveiling their effect on the consumers’ buying intention. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structure equation modelling (SEM) with AMOS 20.0 was used to confirm factor structure and to perform second-order SEM on the 5-point Likert scale proposed model tested empirically on a sample of 549 individuals. Our research indicates that there are various antecedents like brand orientation, website design, prior online purchase experience, quality orientation, perceived risk, perceived security control, perceived privacy control, perceived integrity, perceived competence, third-party integration and legal framework which affects consumer trust in Internet shopping which is positively associated with an intention to buy. However, the purchase intention of Indian consumers is influenced by the trustworthiness dimension of the model which depends on the factors affecting the consumer trust in e-shopping.
Characterization of Internet censorship from multiple perspectives

Internet censorship is rampant, both under the support of nation states and private actors, with important socioeconomic and policy implications. Yet many issues around Internet censorship remain poorly understood because of the lack of adequate approaches to measure the phenomenon at scale. This thesis aims to help fill this gap by developing three methodologies to derive censorship ground truths, that are then applied to real-world datasets to study the effects of Internet censorship. These measurements are given foundation in a comprehensive taxonomy that captures the mechanics, scope, and dynamics of Internet censorship, complemented by a framework that is employed to systematize over 70 censorship resistance systems. The first part of this dissertation analyzes user-side censorship, where a device near the user, such as the local ISP or the national backbone, blocks the user's online communication. This study provides quantified insights into how censorship affects users, content providers, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs); as seen through the lens of traffic datasets captured at an ISP in Pakistan over a period of three years, beginning in 2011. The second part of this dissertation moves to publisher-side censorship. This is a new kind of blocking where the user's request arrives at the Web publisher, but the publisher (or something working on its behalf) refuses to respond based on some property of the user. Publisher-side censorship is explored in two contexts. The first is in the context of an anonymity network, Tor, involving a systematic enumeration and characterization of websites that treat Tor users differently from other users. Continuing on the topic of publisher-side blocking, the second case study examines the Web's differential treatment of users of adblocking software. The rising popularity of adblockers in recent years poses a serious threat to the online advertising industry, prompting publishers to actively detect users of adblockers and subsequently block them or otherwise coerce them to disable the adblocker. This study presents a first characterization of such practices across the Alexa top 5K websites. This dissertation demonstrates how the censor's blocking choices can leave behind a detectable pattern in network communications, that can be leveraged to establish exact mechanisms of censorship. This knowledge facilitates the characterization of censorship from different perspectives; uncovering entities involved in censorship and targets of censorship, and the effects of such practices on stakeholders. More broadly, this study complements efforts to illuminate the nature, scale, and effects of opaque filtering practices; equipping policy-makers …
A Multi-Input Dependency Parser

This paper describes a generic approach to compute dependencies from a variety of input ranging from raw text to syntactic trees. The dependency calculus is incremental and combines topological constraints on sub-tree patterns together with logical constraints de(cid:12)ned as Boolean expressions over the set of dependencies. This formalism has been successfully implemented and tested with a broad coverage grammar for French
BioGPS: The Music for the Chemo‐ and Bioinformatics Walzer

Identifying cross‐relationships among protein binding sites is becoming increasingly important in the chemo‐ and bioinformatics field; indeed, protein structural similarity might provide the right answer to a number of questions including Is a drug repurposable for another target? What is the molecular mechanism of a drug side‐effect? How can we improve the ligand selectivity? The comparison of protein binding sites in terms of their three‐dimensional structure molecular interaction fields can be a useful technique to approach all of these problems. Here, we report a semi‐automated method for comparing and clustering protein pockets, called BioGPS, that combines the GRID Molecular Interactions Fields (MIFs) with FLAP pharmacophoric fingerprints. BioGPS identifies and compares protein binding sites by aligning them each other and directly comparing their MIFs. The strengths of this approach are that it is MIF‐based, and therefore describes molecular interactions from a ligand perspective, and it is independent of protein superposition or sequence alignment. This approach enables protein‐protein virtual screening (drug repurposing, polypharmacology, off‐target effects), and also clustering to relate sequence‐based similarities to structure‐based differences among protein binding sites.
Financial Management: A Step-by-Step Approach

Financial Management: A Step-by-Step Approach contributes significantly to improvement insystematic financial numeracy and literacy as the book takes us through the study of key topics in finance taught in management courses in many major universities and learning centres across the globe. The author says that corporate finance basically addresses the problem of mobilising resources for an organisation and then using them effectively. Aware of the increasing complexity of modern financial system, the author, by this book, attempts to fill the gap in understanding the intricacies of global financial system, markets, instruments, services, products, processes, and institutions, through simple, lucid, crystal-clear learning style. Thus, as the title suggests, the author adopts a step-by-step (SBS)stylein the description of the many technical concepts, financial jargons, combining theory with practical finance throughgradual, progressive stages that the average reader will find relatively easy to follow. Besides thisarguably unique SBS approach, the author hasalso, to a large extent, succeeded in makingmathematical aspects of finance that many students ‘love to hate’,less complicated or even much easier to comprehend especially for a non-mathematically inclined person. While investment management practice these days deploys a good deal of quantitative techniques for optimising portfolios and outperforming competition, the reader is assured that the book does not have any “advanced mathematics” (page 4). Thus, the book’s numerous worked-out illustrations and extensive application of Excel programme for problem-solving should prove useful to the diligent learner.
Automatic breast density segmentation: an integration of different approaches

Mammographic breast density has been found to be a strong risk factor for breast cancer. In most studies, it is assessed with a user-assisted threshold method, which is time consuming and subjective. In this study, we develop a breast density segmentation method that is fully automatic. The method is based on pixel classification in which different approaches known in the literature to segment breast density are integrated and extended. In addition, the method incorporates the knowledge of a trained observer, by using segmentations obtained by the user-assisted threshold method as training data. The method is trained and tested using 1300 digitized film mammographic images acquired with a variety of systems. Results show a high correspondence between the automated method and the user-assisted threshold method. Pearson's correlation coefficient between our method and the user-assisted method is R = 0.911 for percent density and R = 0.895 for dense area, which is substantially higher than the best correlation found in the literature (R = 0.70, R = 0.68). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve obtained when discriminating between fatty and dense pixels is 0.987. A combination of segmentation strategies outperforms the application of single segmentation techniques.
Automatic recognition of facial expressions using hidden markov models and estimation of expression intensity

Facial expressions provide sensitive cues about emotional responses and play a major role in the study of psychological phenomena and the development of nonverbal communication. Facial expressions regulate social behavior, signal communicative intent, and are related to speech production. Most facial expression recognition systems focus on only six basic expressions. In everyday life, however, these six basic expressions occur relatively infrequently, and emotion or intent is more often communicated by subtle changes in one or two discrete features, such as tightening of the lips which may communicate anger. Humans are capable of producing thousands of expressions that vary in complexity, intensity, and meaning. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a computer vision system, including both facial feature extraction and recognition, that automatically discriminates among, subtly different facial expressions based on Facial Action Coding System (FACS) action units (AUs) using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). Three methods are developed to extract facial expression information for automatic recognition. The first method is facial feature point tracking using the coarse-to-fine pyramid method, which can be sensitive to subtle feature motion and is capable to handle large displacements with sub-pixel accuracy. The second is dense flow tracking together with principal component analysis, where the entire facial motion information per frame is compressed to a low-dimensional weight vector for discrimination. And the third is high gradient component (i.e., furrow) analysis in the spatio-temporal domain, which exploits the transient variance associated with the facial expression. Upon extraction of the facial information, non-rigid facial expressions are separated from the rigid head motion components, and the face images are automatically aligned and normalized using an affine transformation. The resulting motion vector sequence is vector quantized to provide input to an HMM-based classifier, which addresses the time warping problem. A method is developed for determining the HMM topology optimal for our recognition system. The system also provides expression intensity estimation, which has significant effect on the actual meaning of the expression. We have studied more than 400 image sequences obtained from 90 subjects. The experimental results of our trained system showed an overall recognition accuracy of 87%, and also 87% in distinguishing among sets of three and six subtly different facial expressions for upper and lower facial regions, respectively.
Relationship of Rated Perceived Exertion to Heart Rate and Workload in Mentally Retarded Young Adults

This study was conducted to determine the predictive ability of rated perceived exertion (RPE) of mentally retarded (MR) young adults with respect to heart rate (HR) and workload (WL). Subjects were a group of 10 mentally retarded adults (M age = 21.20 yrs, M IQ = 50.5) and a control group of 10 nonretarded adults (M age = 21.18 yrs). The procedure involved the performance of a continuous multistage treadmill test using a modified Balke protocol. Rated perceived exertion and heart rate were recorded after each minute. Correlation coefficients for both RPE/HR and RPE/WL were significant for both groups. Tests for differences in RPE/HR and RPE/WL correlation coefficients between the two groups indicated significance for RPE/HR but none for RPE/WL. Regression analysis revealed that variation in RPE could be explained by variations in HR and WL. The association between rated perceived exertion and heart rate and rated perceived exertion and workload suggests the use of the Borg scale with mentally retarded in.
Transcriptional regulation by triiodothyronine requires synergistic action of the thyroid receptor with another trans-acting factor

Human placental lactogen B (hCS-B) promoter activity is strongly stimulated by triiodothyronine (T3) in pituitary GC cells through interaction between the thyroid receptor and a thyroid receptor-binding element (TBE) spanning coordinates -67 to -41. This TBE is adjacent to the binding site for pituitary factor GHF1 (-95 to -68) which seems necessary for T3 stimulation of hCS-B promoter activity (M. L. Voz, B. Peers, A. Belayew, and J. A. Martial, J. Biol. Chem. 266:13397-13404, 1991). We here demonstrate actual synergy between the thyroid receptor and GHF1. Indeed, in placental JEG-3 cells devoid of factor GHF1, hCS promoter activity is barely stimulated by T3, while a strong response is observed in pituitary GC cells. In the latter, furthermore, neither the TBE nor the GHF1-binding site alone is sufficient to render the thymidine kinase promoter responsive to T3, while in combination they promote strong T3 stimulation. Close proximity between these sites is required for optimal synergy: T3 stimulation globally decreases with increased spacing. Furthermore, synergy occurs not only with a GHF1-binding site but also with all other factor recognition sequences tested (Sp1, NF1, CP1, Oct1, and CACCC boxes) and even with two other copies of the TBE. Nor is it specific to hCS TBE, since the palindromic sequence TCAGGTCA TGACCTGA (TREpal) also exhibits cooperativity.
EFFECTS OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT ON PERFORMANCE OF WORLD BANK FUNDED PROJECTS IN KENYA: A CASE OF KPLC PROJECTS.

Organizations are required to use funds wisely for the purpose intended and improve the living standards of the populations meant to benefit. Often, uses of funds are diverted to serve other interest of the organization managers outside the scope and work plans of these projects. This has resulted in surprise audits where misuses of funds are suspected by financiers and in the extreme cases bank accounts have been frozen to minimize the extent. Good financial management practices demand that obvious key management concepts and principles such as sustainability, accountability and transparency which are necessary for institutionalized formal procedures are put in place-administrative efficiency. In Kenya, government agencies have financial sustainability and replicability challenges in their projects. Project performance has become a buzzword within the development circles. The general objective of the research was to determine the effects of financial management on performance of world bank funded projects in Kenya: a case study of KPLC projects. The study targeted 500 employees of Kenya Power in Nairobi. Questionaires were used to collect data for this study. Statistical package for social science was used to analyse data. The findings were presented inform of tables and charts. The four independent variables that were studied, explain 89% of the project performance practices and project performance as represented by the R 2 . This therefore means that other factors not studied in this research contribute 11% of the project performance giving room for further research to investigate the other factors (11%) that affect project performance implementation. The study found that majority of the respondents agreed that Financial planning, financial monitoring, financial evaluation and financial controls contribute to project performance. The study recommends that Policy and practice for project performance should be carefully evaluated and the results of that evaluation fed back into improved approaches. It is important that the evaluation considers the full range of costs and benefits.
Visualization of Multivariate Data with Network Constraints using Multi-Objective Optimization

Dimensionality reduction techniques play a key role in data processing and data visualization. Common dimensionality reduction techniques such as MDS, PCA, etc. do a decent job in projecting high-dimensional data into lower dimensions. But in the case of network data, they simply ignore the relationship between nodes which might result in non-planar graphs with many intersecting edges. In this paper, we have tried to model dimensionality reduction for network data as a multi-objective optimization problem. We have tried to draw graph/network in lower dimensions such that planarity is maximized and stress function is minimized simultaneously. We have used two genetic algorithms namely, NSGA-II and NSGA-III. For them, both objectives are equally important and they optimize them together. These techniques return a set of non-dominated solutions represented by pareto-Optimal front. We observed that genetic algorithms outperformed MDS for some cases. In other cases, genetic algorithms gave solutions with significantly lower number of intersections for slight increase in stress value.
The role of the endogenous antioxidant enzymes and malondialdehyde in essential hypertension.

CONTEXT Oxidative Stress is caused by an imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily detoxify the reactive intermediates. AIMS 1. To compare the levels of Malondialdehyde (MDA), in hypertensive and normotensive subjects. 2. To compare the levels of the antioxidant enzymes, namely, Catalase, Glutathione peroxidase (GPX) and Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) in hypertensive and normotensive subjects. 3. To determine the correlation between the MDA levels and the mean arterial pressure (MAP) among hypertensive subjects. 4. To determine the correlation between the antioxidant enzyme levels and MAP among the hypertensive subjects and to evaluate the effect of 6 months of antihypertensive therapy with a tight blood pressure control on the MDA levels. Materials and Methods : In this cross sectional study, 25 normotensive and 40 hypertensive subjects were recruited. The hypertensive subjects were further subdivided into three subgroups: Prehypertensives, Stage I hypertensives and Stage II hypertensives. All the subjects underwent a blood pressure measurement and the markers of oxidative stress in their sera were estimated. The subjects of Stage I hypertension and Stage II hypertension were given antihypertensive treatment for 6 months and their blood pressures were tightly regulated and brought to the normotensive state. After 6 months, the estimations of the markers of oxidative stress were done again. RESULTS The MDA levels were significantly increased in the stage I and stage II hypertension groups as compared to those of the control group (p<0.05). The antioxidant enzymes (SOD, Catalase and GPX) were significantly decreased (p<0.05) in the prehypertension and in the stage I and stage II hypertension groups as compared to those in the control group. There was a significant increase in the levels of the antioxidant enzymes after 6 months of a tight regulation and bringing of the blood pressure to the normotensive state by giving antihypertensive therapy. CONCLUSION On comparison of the present study with other studies in which the use of antioxidants were found to be ineffective in the blood pressure reduction, it can be concluded that oxidative stress is an effect rather than a cause of essential hypertension.
Age‐related changes in mechanical properties of the Achilles tendon

The stiffness of a tendon, which influences muscular force transfer to the skeleton and increases during childhood, is dependent on its material properties and dimensions, both of which are influenced by chronic loading. The aims of this study were to: (i) determine the independent contributions of body mass, force production capabilities and tendon dimensions to tendon stiffness during childhood; and (ii) descriptively document age‐related changes in tendon mechanical properties and dimensions. Achilles tendon mechanical and material properties were determined in 52 children (5–12 years) and 19 adults. Tendon stiffness and Young’s modulus (YM) were calculated as the slopes of the force–elongation and stress‐strain curves, respectively. Relationships between stiffness vs. age, mass and force, and between YM vs. age, mass and stress were determined by means of polynomial fits and multiple regression analyses. Mass was found to be the best predictor of stiffness, whilst stress was best related to YM (< 75 and 51% explained variance, respectively). Combined, mass and force accounted for up to 78% of stiffness variation. Up to 61% of YM variability could be explained using a combination of mass, stress and age. These results demonstrate that age‐related increases in tendon stiffness are largely attributable to increased tendon loading from weight‐bearing tasks and increased plantarflexor force production, as well as tendon growth. Moreover, our results suggest that chronic increases in tendon loading during childhood result in microstructural changes which increase the tendon’s YM. Regarding the second aim, peak stress increased from childhood to adulthood due to greater increases in strength than tendon cross‐sectional area. Peak strain remained constant as a result of parallel increases in tendon length and peak elongation. The differences in Achilles tendon properties found between adults and children are likely to influence force production, and ultimately movement characteristics, which should be explicitly examined in future research.
Force gestures: augmented touch screen gestures using normal and tangential force

Similar sliding gestures may have different meanings when they are performed with changing intensity. Touch screens, however, fail to properly distinguish those intensities due to their inability to sense variable pressures. Enabled by distinguishing normal and tangential forces, we explore new possibilities for gestures on a touch screen. We have implemented a pressure-sensitive prototype and have designed a set of gestures that utilize alterable forces. The gestures' feasibility has been tested through a simple experiment. Finally, we discuss the new possibility of touch interactions that are sensitive to pressure.
Dynam inancial Contagion : Evidence from Asian Markets

g a dynamic ntries and the d from 1990 to 2003. The empirical results find supportive evidence of a contagion effect. By analyzing the correlation-coefficient series, this paper the Asian crisis. The first phase shows an increase in correlation (contagion) and the second phase shows continued high correlation (herding). Statistical ll as in the variance of the correlation coefficients, casting some doubt on the benefit of international portfolio