Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual Bundling with Quantity Discounts: When Low Purchase Price Does Not Lead to Smart‐Shopper Feelings

Previous research has shown that promotional techniques influence both the smart-shopper feeling and the consumption level at home through a direct mechanism (lower perceived cost) and an indirect consequence of promotions (larger supply). The development in France of virtual bundles with quantity discounts raises questions regarding a consumer's cognitive and affective appreciation of the deal, and therefore promotional efficiency. Four experiments on French consumers confirm the effect of price and supply on declared consumption, but only for “vice” products. In Experiment 2, virtual bundles with quantity discounts lead to the lowest perceived unit price and consequently to the highest level of consumption. Additionally, when compared with more traditional promotional techniques (e.g., physical bundles), virtual bundles with quantity discounts reduce the evaluation of a “good deal” and the smart-shopper feeling (Experiments 3 and 4). To summarize, such promotional techniques, which might have seemed appealing at first (“buy more to save more”), are preferred less by consumers than more traditional promotional techniques. These preliminary results could be enriched by field studies that go beyond declared consumption and observe consumers evolving in their natural environment across time.
Accounting for intangible assets: current requirements, key players and future directions

This article provides an international (cross-country) review of current accounting requirements for intangible assets, identifies the key trend setters and considers potential future directions in the area of accounting for intangible assets. Accounting for intangible assets is one of the least developed areas of accounting theory and regulation. This article makes up part of the special forum devoted to furthering debate on accounting for intangible assets.
Universal network representation for heterogeneous information networks

Network representation aims to represent the nodes in a network as continuous and compact vectors, and has attracted much attention in recent years due to its ability to capture complex structure relationships inside networks. However, existing network representation methods are commonly designed for homogeneous information networks where all the nodes (entities) of a network are of the same type, e.g., papers in a citation network. In this paper, we propose a universal network representation approach (UNRA), that represents different types of nodes in heterogeneous information networks in a continuous and common vector space. The UNRA is built on our latest mutually updated neural language module, which simultaneously captures inter-relationship among homogeneous nodes and node-content correlation. Relationships between different types of nodes are also assembled and learned in a unified framework. Experiments validate that the UNRA achieves outstanding performance, compared to six other state-of-the-art algorithms, in node representation, node classification, and network visualization. In node classification, the UNRA achieves a 3% to 132% performance improvement in terms of accuracy.
Computational Efficiency and Accuracy In the Valuation of Basket Options

The complexity involved in the pricing of American style basket options requires careful consideration of both computational efficiency and accuracy. The conventional assumption of lognormal distribution for the value of a basket is the key for the trade-off. This paper examines the mispricing errors of Bermudan basket options based on the assumption. The mispricing error is measured by the price differences between the price resulting from the assumption of lognormal distribution and the "true" option price. The "true" option prices are obtained from simulation based on procedure described in Longstaff and Schwartz (2001). The effects on the maturities, the volatilities, the correlations, the dividend payments for the underlying assets, number of underlying assets in the basket and the "moneyness" on mispricing are addressed.
New Edge Detection Approach by Using Linear Filtering

This paper proposed a new method for edge detection based on the diffused images that are obtained by diffusing the source image with different parameters of filter, respectively. The edge map is determined by checking the varying of the pixel value on the diffused images, and multiscale edge detection can be achieved by using different filter parameters. Unlike previous approaches, the new method is robust to the varying of some parameters of images such as contrast, brightness, etc. Also it is computationally very efficient; in particular when the linear diffusion methods like four-points averaging algorithm is applied. Furthermore because the edges or contours of the image is located in the edge map based on the principle of level set-based segmentation algorithms, therefore the detected result is the same with that in the segmentation algorithms. The key to this algorithm is the determination of the filter parameters, and it can be tried and determined in advanced for a specified application. The proposed algorithm has been validated with some numerical results.
Tool Support for Live Formal Verification

Despite an increasing interest from industry (e.g., DO333 standard [1]), formal verification is still not widely used in production for safety critical systems. This has been recognized for a while and various causes have been identified, one of them being the lack for scalable and cost effective tools. Many such tools exist for formal verification, but few of them are userfriendly: using formal verification generally still requires such an effort that the time spent on the tool prevents the integration of the method in an industrial setting. This paper presents a tool prototype aiming at supporting non-experts in using formal verification. The tooling approach is meant to be cost effective and change-supportive: user-friendliness is designed not only for the non-expert, but also to require minimum effort so that formal verification is triggered even for the non-enthusiast who is not willing to push a button. To do so, we trigger, in a background task, pre-defined formal verification checks at (almost) every change of the model. We only display error messages in case of problem: the user is not disturbed if no problem is detected. To prevent checks to be triggered all the time, we decide to consider only local analyses (i.e., only checks which do not require knowledge of elements in a remote position in the model). This restricts the sort of formal verification that we support, but this is a conscious choice: our motto is ”Let us first make basic techniques very user-friendly; more powerful ones will be considered only when at least the basic techniques have proven to be accepted. ”
Multiple approaches to assessing the effects of delays for hip fracture patients in the United States and Canada.

OBJECTIVE To examine the determinants of postsurgery length of stay (LOS) and inpatient mortality in the United States (California and Massachusetts) and Canada (Manitoba and Quebec). DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING Patient discharge abstracts from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research Nationwide Inpatient Sample and from provincial health ministries. STUDY DESIGN Descriptive statistics by state or province, pooled competing risks hazards models (which control for censoring of LOS and inpatient mortality data), and instrumental variables (which control for confounding in observational data) were used to analyze the effect of wait time for hip fracture surgery on postsurgery outcomes. DATA EXTRACTIONS: Data were extracted for patients admitted to an acute care hospital with a primary diagnosis of hip fracture who received hip fracture surgery, were admitted from home or the emergency room, were age 45 or older, stayed in the hospital 365 days or less, and were not trauma patients. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The descriptive data indicate that wait times for surgery are longer in the two Canadian provinces than in the two U.S. states. Canadians also have longer postsurgery LOS and higher inpatient mortality. Yet the competing risks hazards model indicates that the effect of wait time on postsurgery LOS is small in magnitude. Instrumental variables analysis reveals that wait time for surgery is not a significant predictor of postsurgery length of stay. The hazards model reveals significant differences in mortality across regions. However, both the regressions and the instrumental variables indicate that these differences are not attributable to wait time for surgery. CONCLUSIONS Statistical models that account for censoring and confounding yield conclusions that differ from those implied by descriptive statistics in administrative data. Longer wait time for hip fracture surgery does not explain the difference in postsurgery outcomes across countries.
Optical characterization of cutaneous transilluminators for eye safety

Cutaneous transilluminators are light-emitting devices used to localize blood vessels for various medical procedures. They are often used in populations that may be at increased risk for skin burns, such as neonates and the elderly. While there is a known potential for skin burns, little is known about the ophthalmic risk from the use of these devices. This paper will report on the laboratory evaluation of the potential ocular hazards from transilluminators (TIs). Our results indicate that transilluminators which incorporate white-light LEDs have emissions that have the potential for producing injury to the retina, especially in patients who may have a reduced aversion response.
Texture analysis of collagen second-harmonic generation images based on local difference local binary pattern and wavelets differentiates human skin abnormal scars from normal scars

Abstract. Quantitative methods for noninvasive diagnosis of scars are a challenging issue in medicine. This work aims to implement a texture analysis method for quantitatively discriminating abnormal scars from normal scars based on second-harmonic generation (SHG) images. A local difference local binary pattern (LD-LBP) operator combined with a wavelet transform was explored to extract diagnosis features from scar SHG images that were related to the alteration in collagen morphology. Based on the quantitative parameters including the homogeneity, directional and coarse features in SHG images, the scar collagen SHG images were classified into normal or abnormal scars by a support vector machine classifier in a leave-one-out cross-validation procedure. Our experiments and data analyses demonstrated apparent differences between normal and abnormal scars in terms of their morphological structure of collagen. By comparing with gray level co-occurrence matrix, wavelet transform, and combined basic local binary pattern and wavelet transform with respect to the accuracy and receiver operating characteristic analysis, the method proposed herein was demonstrated to achieve higher accuracy and more reliable classification of SHG images. This result indicated that the extracted texture features with the proposed method were effective in the classification of scars. It could provide assistance for physicians in the diagnostic process.
The profile of manufacturing performance in multinational company of emerging country: Obstacles and opportunities

Multinational companies need to achieve high performance in productivity and quality regardless if the plant is located on developed or on emerging countries. And sometimes, the same kind of obstacles and opportunities are available on both sites, mainly when the technology is transferred from one place to the other. This paper researched 30 manufacturing cells from an automotive multinational company established in Brazil, identifying characteristics used in operation of equipments under a lean production system and observing its efficiency. Additionally, the effectiveness of particular equipment was compared with a similar installation, in place at the company home country, manufacturing the same component, with the same quality requirements. The conclusion was that the solution in place in the emerging country presented better results than the solution in the home country, not aligned with common sense.
Does aggregate income influence satisfaction with the standard of living

Sociologists have been arguing whether aggregate income enhances subjective well-being and, more specifically, satisfaction with the standard of living. The empirical results were mixed. This article suggests that aggregate income affects standard-of-living satisfaction not only directly but also indirectly. Using path analysis and a dataset from Germany, this study finds that absolute income, short-term income fluctuations, and income inequality do not have direct impacts on standard-of-living satisfaction. However, they have indirect impacts mediated by income satisfaction, aggregate customer satisfaction, and satisfaction with the household role. Hence, public policy can rely on economic growth to enhance standard-of-living satisfaction. Government must ensure that economic growth translates into more satisfactory consumption experiences and that growing economic activity rather strengthens than divides families. Future sociological research should account for mediated effects of aggregate income on subjective well-being and no longer ignore the role of customer satisfaction.
Effect of Fed's Discount Rate Changes on Foreign Stock Indices - Event Study on Morocco and Denmark

The paper is divided into 8 chapters: Introduction, Background, Theoretical Framework,Methodology & Data Sampling, Results, Analysis, Discussion and finally Conclusion and Proposals for Further Research. The introduction chapter in brief discuses theory of decoupling suggests that emerging markets can be unaffected by crisis in developed economies, while theory of financial integration states that globalization made economies intertwined to each other. In the methodology chapter, in order to test whether the theory of financial integration or the theory of decoupling stands, we are performing a standard event study. The purpose is to test for any abnormal returns on the Danish and Moroccan stock indices. The main outcomes of the event study research can be briefed into four points. First, the Danish market is partially integrated relative to the US economy, with the existence of a diversification prospects. Second, although the Moroccan market shows some signs of financial integration, it is still a segmented market. Third, the Danish market seems to react more to the release of surprise events in relation to anticipated macroeconomic releases. Finally, the Moroccan market appears to respond spuriously to surprise events relative to the expected announcements.
On the Role of Partners in a Multi-Disciplinary Business Network: A Knowledge Management Perspective

Creating a successful offering in a knowledge-intensive industry often requires access to knowledge that complements the core technological knowledge of a firm. However, this complementary knowledge is often tacit and hence costly to acquire. In this paper, we investigate how a firm can acquire the necessary complementary knowledge by leveraging partners in its business network. Based on a multiple case study of four Finnish enterprise software firms, we find that engaging partners who possess both core and complementary knowledge improves the efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge transfer between the focal firm and its customers. In addition, using partners for this purpose allows the focal firm to concentrate on developing its core competences, which ultimately is the source of competitive advantage and superior market and financial performance. Our findings constitute a step towards moving from dyadic to networked knowledge acquisition models and understanding their impact on firm performance.
The reproducibility of dietary intake data assessed with the cross-check dietary history method.

The reproducibility of food intake data from elderly men in the Zutphen Study (Zutphen, The Netherlands) was investigated in repeated dietary surveys carried out three (n = 115) and 12 (n = 145) months after the initial survey (April 1985). The differences in the reproducibility estimations for the two different time periods were generally small. The ratios of the interindividual and intraindividual variance were large for carbohydrates (2.6 and 2.7 for three months and 12 months, respectively) and small for vitamin A (1.1 and 0.4 for three months and 12 months, respectively). The larger this ratio, the higher the probability of detecting an existing relation. Information about inter- and intraindividual variation was used to calculate the attenuation factor. For most nutrients, the attenuation factor was about 0.8. This implies that a simple correlation between a nutrient and a risk factor will be only slightly lowered because of measurement error and the temporal variability of the dietary measurement when the cross-check dietary history method is applied once (e.g., a "real" correlation of 0.40 would be expected to be lowered to 0.32).
Movements In And Out Of Poverty In The Philippines

Chronic and transient poverty basically aims to assess how shocks such as the Asian financial crisis and abnormal weather phenomenon affect the poverty situation in the Philippines. This kind of analysis has not been possible to make on a nationwide scale due to the absence of panel data. Fortunately, a set of panel data of 17,896 households has been made available by the National Statistics Office (NSO) through the samples of the 1998 and 1999 Annual Poverty Indicator Survey (APIS), which are subsamples of the 1997 Family Income and Expenditures Survey. From the matched observations in the survey, poverty incidence estimates were obtained. Based on these estimates 31.4 percent of the Filipino families in 1997 were poor (this is very close to the 31.8 percent poverty incidence using the full sample). In 1998, 38.8 percent of the families were estimated to be poor can be defined. Chronic ones are defined as those who were poor throughout the three years while transient ones are defined as those who became poor for at least one year. From this definition, eight combinations of poverty status were derived and incidences in each of these were estimated: PPP, 20.8; PPN,4.0; PNP, 3.5; PNN, 3.2; NPP, 7.8; NPN, 6.4; NNP, 7.0; and NNN, 47.5. The chronic poor comprise almost half of the families who were somehow non-vulnerable (NNN) and also almost half of the poverty incidence in 1998 and 1999. Hence, interest arises in finding out who recover easily from shocks, i.e., NPN, PPN, and who stay long to recover, i.e., NPP. Another groups, which are worth tracking, are those who are able to take advantage of the situation, i.e., PNN and those who are able to protect themselves, i.e., NNN. In short, there has been a great deal in finding out how poor and non-poor families were moving in and out of poverty due to shocks. The estimated chronic poverty incidence, or track of the poor families from 1997 to 1999 suggests that poor families are truly vulnerable to shocks. It is important to distinguish between chronic and transient poor sicne different policies are needed to address each type of poverty. Furthermore, profiles of these families suggest that poverty monitoring should be done carefully to answer the problem of targeting as one of the major challenges faced by the government.
Common Shocks and Relative Compensation Schemes

This paper studies qualitative properties of an optimal contract in a multi-agent setting in which agents are subject to a common shock. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the optimal reward of an agent to be a decreasing (increasing) function of the outputs of the other agents, under the assumption that the agents' outputs are informative signals of the value of the common shock. The condition is that the likelihood ratio of a given outcome with high versus low effort be a decreasing (increasing) function of the common shock. We derive conditions on the way the common shock affects the marginal product of effort under which the likelihood ratio is decreasing for all output levels, or increasing for some output levels and decreasing for others.
Guarding Rectangular Partitions

A rectangular partition is a partition of a rectangle into non-overlapping rectangles, such that no four rectangles meet at a common point. A vertex guard is a guard located at a vertex of the partition (i.e., at a corner of a rectangle); it guards the rectangles that meet at this vertex. An edge guard is a guard that patrols along an edge of the partition, and is thus equivalent to two adjacent vertex guards. We consider the problem of finding a minimum-cardinality guarding set for the rectangles of the partition. For vertex guards, we prove that guarding a given subset of the rectangles is NP-hard. For edge guards, we prove that guarding all rectangles, where guards are restricted to a given subset of the edges, is NP-hard. For both results we show a reduction from vertex cover in non-bipartite 3-connected cubic planar graphs of girth greater than three. For the second NP-hardness result, we obtain a graph-theoretic result which establishes a connection between the set of faces of a plane graph of vertex degree at most three and a vertex cover for this graph. More precisely, we prove that one can assign to each internal face a distinct vertex of the cover, which lies on the face's boundary. We show that the vertices of a rectangular partition can be colored red, green, or black, such that each rectangle has all three colors on its boundary. We conjecture that the above is also true for four colors. Finally, we obtain a worst-case upper bound on the number of edge guards that are sufficient for guarding rectangular partitions with some restrictions on their structure.
Discovery, Synthesis, and in vitro Evaluation of West Nile Virus Protease Inhibitors Based on the 9,10‐Dihydro‐3H,4aH‐1,3,9,10a‐tetraazaphenanthren‐4‐one Scaffold

West Nile virus (WNV), a member of the Flaviviridae family, is a mosquito‐borne pathogen that causes a great number of human infections each year. Neither vaccines nor antiviral therapies are currently available for human use. In this study, a WNV NS2B–NS3 protease inhibitor with a 9,10‐dihydro‐3H,4aH‐1,3,9,10a‐tetraazaphenanthren‐4‐one scaffold was identified by screening a small library of non‐peptidic compounds. This initial hit was optimized by solution‐phase synthesis and screening of a focused library of compounds bearing this scaffold. This led to the identification of a novel, uncompetitive inhibitor (1a40, IC50=5.41±0.45 μM) of WNV NS2B–NS3 protease. Molecular docking of this chiral compound onto the WNV protease indicates that the S enantiomer of 1a40 appears to interfere with the productive interactions between the NS2B cofactor and the NS3 protease domain; (S)‐1a40 is a preferred isomer for inhibition of WNV NS3 protease.
Low-density parity-check code for high-speed fibre-optic communication and its experimental verification

Although low-density parity-check (LDPC) code has been proved as a powerful forward error correction code for fibre optic communication, its soft-decoding requires high quantisation resolution which is difficult to achieve for high-speed fibre-optic communication systems. A modification to LDPC decoding algorithms is proposed to effectively improve the performance at quantisation resolution as low as two-bit or one-bit. The good decoding performance of LDPC code for error correction is confirmed by experiment. Compared with the RS(255, 239) code commonly used in optical fibre communication, a Q-factor improvement of 2-dB is obtained in the experiment for an LDPC code with quasi-cyclic structure at the same redundancy as the RS code. Furthermore, the impacts of sampling phase and channel estimation using real data over the decoding performance are analysed.