Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigating the Influence of Characteristics of the New Product Introduction Process on Firm Value: The Case of the Pharmaceutical Industry

Scholars identify several benefits of new product introductions (NPI), yet prior literature largely overlooks how the process of NPI generates marketplace insights and influences subsequent products. Building on the concept of absorptive capacity, the authors argue that the influence of products on firm value depends on process characteristics, namely, the pace, irregularity, and scope of NPI. Using data collected from multiple sources for products introduced by pharmaceutical firms between 1991 and 2015 and robust econometric methods that account for endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity, this study reveals that pace and scope have an inverted U-shaped effect on firm value, whereas irregularity negatively influences firm value. Moreover, strategic emphasis and product complexity negatively moderate the relationship of the irregularity and scope of NPI with firm value. This research documents the importance of adopting a portfolio approach to the sequential introduction of new products and incorporating insights gained from previous product introductions; it cautions managers against evaluating products in isolation. The authors discuss the economic significance of these results and provide actionable guidance for managers.
Overview and current management of computerized adaptive testing in licensing/certification examinations

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) has been implemented in high-stakes examinations such as the National Council Licensure Examination-Registered Nurses in the United States since 1994. Subsequently, the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians in the United States adopted CAT for certifying emergency medical technicians in 2007. This was done with the goal of introducing the implementation of CAT for medical health licensing examinations. Most implementations of CAT are based on item response theory, which hypothesizes that both the examinee and items have their own characteristics that do not change. There are 5 steps for implementing CAT: first, determining whether the CAT approach is feasible for a given testing program; second, establishing an item bank; third, pretesting, calibrating, and linking item parameters via statistical analysis; fourth, determining the specification for the final CAT related to the 5 components of the CAT algorithm; and finally, deploying the final CAT after specifying all the necessary components. The 5 components of the CAT algorithm are as follows: item bank, starting item, item selection rule, scoring procedure, and termination criterion. CAT management includes content balancing, item analysis, item scoring, standard setting, practice analysis, and item bank updates. Remaining issues include the cost of constructing CAT platforms and deploying the computer technology required to build an item bank. In conclusion, in order to ensure more accurate estimations of examinees’ ability, CAT may be a good option for national licensing examinations. Measurement theory can support its implementation for high-stakes examinations.
Early field experience with the Software Reconnaissance technique for program comprehension

Software Reconnaissance is a dynamic analysis technique to help programmers locate code that they need to understand, fix, or enhance in an unfamiliar system. The technique was originally motivated by comments by industrial maintainers about the need for better ways of locating software features in large systems. It was then prototyped in a university setting and an initial tool called RECON was developed. The paper describes four case studies applying Reconnaissance to three different industrial programs of moderate size. Reconnaissance seems to be effective in finding "places to start looking" for maintainers of unfamiliar code. It can also be used to recover a traceability relation between program features and program code that may help identify design patterns. The case studies are the initial phase of an ongoing technology transfer project of the Software Engineering Research Center, to make Software Reconnaissance into a usable industrial technique.
Designing a Customer Experience Management Course

Customer experience is the latest battleground for business. Not only is customer experience management (CXM) one of the most promising approaches to marketing, but some observers also contend it is the future of marketing. While practitioners have embraced CXM for its considerable promise, marketing academicians have lagged in developing and disseminating CXM knowledge. Indeed, considerable evidence suggests that customer experiences are falling far short of company aspirations and customer expectations. To further CXM understanding, we conducted a three-credit undergraduate marketing course on CXM. Given the inherent experiential nature of CXM, we enhanced student learning by including a field immersion component. Specifically, on-campus class sessions were supplemented with a weeklong field immersion at Walt Disney World Resort. Empirical and qualitative evidence indicates that our approach fosters CXM understanding. We conclude by offering potential adaptations to our approach, including teaching CXM within existing coursework, curtailing the field immersion component, and making modifications for a graduate-level course.
Rapid Protection of Gnotobiotic Pigs against Experimental Salmonellosis following Induction of Polymorphonuclear Leukocytes by Avirulent Salmonella enterica

ABSTRACT Oral inoculation of 5-day-old gnotobiotic pigs with Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium strain F98 resulted in severe enteritis and invasive disease. Preinoculation 24 h earlier with an avirulent mutant of Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis (1326/28) completely prevented disease for up to 14 days (when the experiment was terminated). S. enterica serovar Infantis colonized the alimentary tract well, with high bacterial counts in the intestinal lumen but with almost no invasion into the tissues. Unprotected pigs had high S. enterica serovar Typhimurium counts in the intestines, blood, and major nonintestinal organs. Recovery of this strain from the blood and major organs in S. enterica serovar Infantis-protected pigs was substantially reduced despite the fact that intestinal counts were also very high. Protection against disease thus did not involve a colonization exclusion phenomenon. Significant (P < 0.05) infiltration of monocytes/macrophages was observed in the submucosal regions of the intestines of both S. enterica serovar Infantis-protected S. enterica serovar Typhimurium-challenged pigs and unprotected S. enterica serovar Typhimurium-challenged pigs. However, only polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) were observed throughout the villus, where significant (P < 0.05) numbers infiltrated the lamina propria and the subnuclear and supranuclear regions of the epithelia, indicating that PMN induction and positioning following S. enterica serovar Infantis inoculation was consistent with rapid protection against the challenge strain. Similarly, in vitro experiments using a human fetal intestinal epithelial cell line (INT 407) demonstrated that, although significantly (P < 0.05) fewer S. enterica serovar Infantis than S. enterica serovar Typhimurium organisms invaded the monolayers, S. enterica serovar Infantis induced an NF-κB response and significantly (P < 0.05) raised interleukin 8 levels and transmigration of porcine PMN. The results of this study suggest that attenuated Salmonella strains can protect the immature intestine against clinical salmonellosis by PMN induction. They also demonstrate that PMN induction is not necessarily associated with clinical symptoms and/or intestinal pathology.
Editorial: Agility must be good for testing

A number of coverage criteria have been proposed for testing classes and class clusters modeled with state machines. Previous research has revealed their limitations in terms of their capability to detect faults. As these criteria can be considered to execute the control flow structure of the state machine, we are investigating how data flow information can be used to improve them in the context of UML state machines. More specifically, we investigate how such data flow analysis can be used to further refine the selection of a cost-effective test suite among alternative, adequate test suites for a given state machine criterion. This paper presents a comprehensive methodology to perform data flow analysis of UML state machines—with a specific focus on identifying the data flow from OCL guard conditions and operation contracts—and applies it to a widely referenced coverage criterion, the round-trip path (transition tree) criterion. It reports on two case studies whose results show that data flow information can be used to select the best transition tree, in terms of cost effectiveness, when more than one satisfies the transition tree criterion. The results also suggest that different trees are complementary in terms of the data flow that they exercise, thus, leading to the detection of intersecting but distinct subsets of faults. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This paper investigates how data flow information can be defined on UML 2.0 state machines to help select a cost-effective test suite when several alternative test suites exist. The approach is formally defined using a metamodel and OCL rules, and evaluated on two case studies. Results show that indeed data flow information is helpful, and this leads to the definition of an improved test selection criterion for UML 2.0 state machines. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Risk Governance Structure and Firm Performance: An (Exploratory) Empirical Study in Indian Context

The study attempts to explore the relationship between riskgovernance structureand firm performance. In perhaps the first of its kind attempt, a normative framework for risk governance structures is being put forward. Based on the framework, an index indicating strength/quality of risk governance structures is proposed. Then, the impact of risk governance structure on firm performance is gauged. To this end, the study makes use of constituents of S&P CNX500 index and covers a ten year period from April 1, 2005 to March 31, 2015.To control for potential endogeneity among variables of interest, the study makes use of a robust and reliable methodology,‘difference-GMM’. In addition, to ensure completeness of results, the study employs control variables such as recession dummy, firm’s age, size, and growth rate and leverage ratio. The results suggest that robust risk governance structures do not necessarily lead to better firm performance. In fact, risk governance index is negatively related to both ROA and ROE. The relationship is not statistically significant but has wide economic implications. A prominent implication being, mere constitution of risk management committee and appointment of CRO will not improve firm performance; regulators and companies need to ensure that governance structures are not too rigid, excessively risk averse and ineffective and inefficient in decision making. Given the simplicity and reliability of the proposed risk governance index, and the recommendations put forth in the paper, the study is expected to be of immense utility in an important yet neglected area of risk governance.
Chapter 2 Optical Flow and Trajectory Methods in Context

In this chapter we study the related ﬁelds of multi-frame optical ﬂow and trajectories. Since the beginning of modern optical ﬂow estimation methods, multiple frames have been used in an effort to improve the motion computation. We look at why most of these efforts have failed. More recently, researchers have stitched together sequences of optical ﬂow ﬁelds to create trajectories. These trajectories are temporally coherent, a necessary property for virtually every real-world application of optical ﬂow. New methods compute these trajectories directly using variational methods and low-rank constraints. We also identify the need for appropriate data sets and evaluation methods for this nascent ﬁeld.
Gut cancer increases the risk for Drosophila to be preyed upon by hunting spiders

Predators are thought to prey on individuals that are in poor physical condition, although the evidence supporting this is ambiguous. We tested if sick individuals where more predated using Drosophila melanogaster flies as manipulable preys. We asked whether hunting spiders, trapped from the wild, would selectively prey upon flies with compromised health (i.e. chronically infected or cancerous) versus healthy flies under laboratory conditions. Flies chronically infected with the bacterium Providencia rettgeri, a natural Drosophila pathogen, were not selectively preyed upon by jumping spiders. We strengthened and confirmed our finding with another hunting spider species, small wolf spiders. We discuss that this result supports the hypothesis that chronic infection is associated with reduced symptoms notably to avoid the potentially deadly consequences of host predation on pathogens. We then induced colon cancer in some of the flies and asked whether the presence of cancer led to selective predation; there is little evidence for this, even in vertebrates. As the cancer developed, the incidence of predation by jumping spiders on the afflicted flies increased. We conclude that disease can have different lethal consequences through predation, even in invertebrate species, and that cancer is a factor in selective predation. Our results may explain why early tumours, but not metastasized cancers, are commonly detected in organisms in the wild, as cancer bearing individuals are rapidly eliminated due to the strong selective pressure against them.
Failure of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy to Regress after Surgery for Aortic Valve Stenosis

Background: Regression of left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy usually follows surgery for aortic stenosis (AS); however, a significant number of ventricles remain hypertrophied. The extent of this phenomenon, the reasons for failure to regress, and its significance are unclear. Methods: We investigated 43 patients before and after aortic valve surgery and divided them into two groups: 30 patients with regression of LV hypertrophy (Group A) and 13 patients without regression (Group B). Preoperative echocardiographic measurements, clinical status, and operative factors were compared between the two groups. The patients were followed up for 42 ± 22 months for the occurrence of hospitalization for congestive heart failure (CHF) or death. Results: Preoperatively, the two groups were similar except for an excess of patients in New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional Class IV and a greater incidence of old myocardial infarcts in Group B. Postoperatively, Group B patients had larger LVs with decreased systolic function. This was associated with a poor prognosis (23% mortality and 38% CHF vs 0% and 4% for Group A patients, P = 0.0002). Cox regression analysis showed previous myocardial infarction (P < 0.001) and percent mass reduction (P = 0.019) to be independent predictors of CHF or death. Conclusions: Successful regression of LV mass is difficult to predict before surgery; however, its absence is related strongly to a poor long‐term prognosis.
Mobbing-like response to secondary predator cues informs group behaviour in wild meerkats

The assessment of current risk is essential in informing defensive behaviours. Many animals use cues left behind by predators, known as secondary predator cues (SPCs), to assess risk and respond appropriately. However, meerkats, Suricata suricatta, exhibit seemingly unique mobbing-like responses to these cues. The benefit of this high-intensity recruitment response is unclear, as unlike genuine mobbing, it cannot help to drive the predator away. One potential explanation is that mobbing-like responses promote information gathering and collective decision-making by the whole group. To examine this, we investigated (i) how meerkats’ responses to SPCs differ from mobbing live animals and (ii) the subsequent behavioural changes following a SPC encounter. Using a dataset gathered over a 20-year period, we first compared the rate of SPC recruitment versus the rate of animal mobbing. We then investigated changes in behaviour (alarm calling, sentinel bouts, distance travelled and pup provisioning) in the hour before and after a SPC encounter. Abiotic factors did not affect recruitment rate to SPCs or live animals, or influence the change in behavioural responses following a SPC encounter. The presence of pups reduced response rate to SPCs, but had no effect on animal mobbing rate, supporting experimental findings that responses towards SPCs are unlikely to function as a form of teaching. Alarm calling rate increased and the distance travelled by the group decreased following a SPC encounter, and were unaffected by the presence of pups or abiotic conditions. The results indicate group-level behavioural changes following a SPC encounter, and a greater degree of plasticity in recruitment to SPCs than to live animals. This response plasticity may reflect a context-dependent need to gather information to make collective decisions for defensive behaviour according to the level of threat perceived.
Efficient Huffman decoding

Huffman (1952) codes are being widely used in image and video compression. We propose a decoding scheme coding for Huffman codes, which requires only a few computations per codeword, independent of the number of codewords n, the height of the Huffman tree h, or the length of a codeword. The memory requirement for the proposed scheme depends on the Huffman tree, for sparse Huffman trees (JPEG, H.263, MPEG), it is O(n).
Simultaneous Registration of Multiple Corresponding Point Sets

We present a new technique for the simultaneous registration of multiple corresponding point sets with rigid 3D transformations. This class of problems is a generalization of the classic pairwise point set registration task, involving multiple views with multiple correspondences existing between them. The proposed technique requires the computation of a constant matrix which encodes the point correspondence information, followed by an efficient iterative algorithm to compute the optimal rotations. The optimal translations are then recovered directly through the solution of a linear equation system. The algorithm supports weighting of data according to confidence, and we show how it may be incorporated into two robust estimation frameworks to detect and reject outlier data. We have integrated our method into a generalized multiview ICP surface matching system and tested it with synthetic and real data. These tests indicate that the technique is accurate and efficient. The algorithm also compares favorably to another multiview technique from the literature.
Integrating user perception and experience into the technology acceptance model: An empirical investigation of online payment service innovation

This study expands the traditional TAM by considering two mediators between innovation characteristics and the adoption of online payment services: perceived use efficiency and perceived use effectiveness. It also proposes the influential paths from innovation design characteristics to innovation adoption through user perceptions and experience in order to better understand how to design an acceptable innovation and identify the targeted consumer segments. This study developed experimental websites and simulated innovation characteristics to test the hypotheses. The results indicate significant mediating effects of perceived use efficiency and perceived use effectiveness on the relationship between innovation characteristics of the online payment websites and the adoption intention to use the new service. These results of the experiments support the expanded conceptual framework for TAM with two pathways—one innovation characteristics-based and the other user perceptions-based—connecting to the acceptance of new technologies. Collectively, for predicting the adoption of online payment services, the mediating model is more effective than the direct effect model of innovation characteristics in a traditional TAM.
Long-term effects of alprazolam on memory: a 3·5 year follow-up of agoraphobia/panic patients

Background. Benzodiazepines (BZs) can impair explicit memory after a single dose and also when taken repeatedly for treatment of anxiety disorders. A previous study with agoraphobia/panic patients found that the BZ alprazolam impaired memory during an 8-week treatment and residual impairments were still manifest several weeks after drug withdrawal (Curran et al. 1994). The present study followed up the same group of patients 3·5 years after treatment to determine whether those memory impairments persisted. Method. Thirty-one patients, 15 who had originally been treated with alprazolam and 16 with placebo, were assessed on a battery of psychometric tests and self-rating scales. Results. Ex-alprazolam patients performed at the same levels as ex-placebo patients on the memory task and on other objective tests. Performance levels of both groups were similar to pre-treatment baselines, however there were differences in subjective ratings whereby ex-alprazolam patients rated themselves as less attentive and clear headed and more incompetent and clumsy than ex-placebo patients. Conclusions. Explicit memory impairments found while patients were taking alprazolam and weeks after drug withdrawal did not persist 3·5 years later. We suggest that the memory impairments observed in our previous study weeks after withdrawal of alprazolam were not residual effects of alprazolam but rather were due to the drug's interference with practice effects on the tests and habituation of anxiety over repeated exposure to the test situation.
In Vivo Binding of Trimethylpsoralen Detects DNA Structural Alterations Associated with Transcribing Regions in the Human β-Globin Cluster *

In order to increase our knowledge about the mechanisms that regulate expression of human β-like globin genes, we have used a novel technique to analyze the chromatin structure in living cells. This approach allowed us to detect specific DNA regions in vivo where nucleosome folding or unconstrained DNA supercoiling in erythroid cells differs from that in non-erythroid cells. In this method, we use 4,5′,8-trimethylpsoralen (TMP) as a probe capable of detecting altered chromatin conformations. Our results show that TMP binds to DNA with a higher affinity over the regions in the locus that are actively expressed, including both the promoter and the transcribed region. This higher affinity detected when comparing erythroid cells with non-erythroid cells does not extend to other regions inside the β-globin cluster. Our data suggest that the observed effect is likely due to nucleosome displacement. Alternatively, it could result from localized DNA supercoiling, but not from widespread torsional stress across the entire β-like globin locus as hypothesized previously.