Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Justifying The Judgmental Sampling Matrix Organization in Outsourcing Industry

Sampling is the technique which helps to select portion of people from the total population. Though the percentage of the sample size is comparatively smaller than the target population, however the small numbers of respondents are representing the entire population. In general, people believe that the sampling techniques comes under probability sampling that are representative sampling and the techniques which come under non-probability techniques are not representing the total population. But conceptually the negative thought on non-probability technique is wrong and in some cases researchers have to use only the technique comes under non probability sampling such as convenience sampling, judgmental sampling and snow ball sampling due to the nature of the study being conducted by the researcher, that is the reason the non-probability technique exist in the industry and in use by the practitioners. In this paper we attempt to justify (Beyond the doubt) the sample size we choose is truly representing the ITO industry's total population and justify the reason for choosing the authoritative sampling technique as our sampling technique due to various challenges &amp; requirements such as the industry we study and the people we interact for the research survey.
Longitudinal designs to study neighbourhood effects on the development of obesity: a scoping review protocol

Introduction The prevalence of obesity has increased significantly in the last three decades and became an important public health concern. Evidence of weight status variability at the neighbourhood level has led researchers to look more precisely at the characteristics of local geographic areas that might influence energy balance related behaviours, giving rise to the field of the ‘neighbourhood effect’ in public health research. Among an abundant literature about neighbourhood effects and obesity, we propose a protocol for a scoping review that will aim at determining how temporal measurements of residential neighbourhood exposure, individual covariates and weight outcome are integrated in longitudinal designs. Methods and analysis A list of relevant citations will be obtained through a comprehensive systematic database search in Pubmed, Web of Science and Embase. The search strategy will be designed using a broad definition of neighbourhood to take into account the heterogeneity of this concept in research. Two investigators will screen titles, abstracts and entire publications using predetermined eligibility criteria yielding a list of selected publications. Data from the publications included in the scoping review will be charted according to bibliographic information, study population, exposure, outcomes and results. Discussion and conclusion To our knowledge, our protocol will yield the first scoping review regarding longitudinal designs of neighbourhood effect on obesity. Describing how longitudinal designs include temporal measurements of exposure, covariates and outcome is a necessary step in the quest to determine if or which contextual characteristics are likely to be involved in the development of obesity. Such information would bring new knowledge to complement current aetiological investigations and would contribute to enhancing resource allocation strategies for stakeholders in developing relevant interventions to prevent obesity and its negative impacts.
Overlapping anal sphincteroplasty: impact of suture selection on bowel symptoms.

OBJECTIVE To look at women who underwent overlapping anal sphincteroplasty (OAS) with the use of either permanent or absorbable sutures and to describe patient-reported fecal continence and quality of life. STUDY DESIGN A case series of 40 women who underwent OAS completed the Modified Manchester Health Questionnaire a mean of 50 months after surgery. Descriptive statistics were used to describe those who had permanent sutures and those who had absorbable sutures. RESULTS The primary outcome, loss of solid stool, was similar at 50% for each group. Severity of incontinence symptoms, as measured by the Fecal Incontinence Severity Index, was lower in the permanent suture group (15.9 vs. 24.0). There was no difference in overall impact on quality of life. CONCLUSION While overall patient-reported fecal incontinence was similar, permanent suture use at time of OAS was associated with decreased fecal incontinence severity.
Applied morphological processing of English

We describe two newly developed computational tools for morphological processing: a program for analysis of English inflectional morphology, and a morphological generator, automatically derived from the analyser. The tools are fast, being based on finite-state techniques, have wide coverage, incorporating data from various corpora and machine readable dictionaries, and are robust, in that they are able to deal effectively with unknown words. The tools are freely available. We evaluate the accuracy and speed of both tools and discuss a number of practical applications in which they have been put to use.
A Slot Micro/Nano Fiber With Elliptical Low-Index Core

A slot micro/nano optical fiber with elliptical low-index core, referred to as the elliptical-slot micro/nano fiber (ESMNF), is studied systematically in great detail in this paper. It is demonstrated that the ESMNF can confine most of the light in the low-index region and hence lead to large field enhancement. Benefiting from the large low-index power confinement factor and the field enhancement, the ESMNF also yields significant nonlinearity enhancement by the proper selection of materials. In addition, large birefringence between the two fundamental polarized modes is observed, due to the breakage of the circular symmetry for the core. The nonlinearity and low-index confinement properties of a more practical elliptical-slot embedded suspended microstructure fiber are also studied.
Novel particle image velocimetry system based on three-color pulsed lamps and image processing

A novel particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurement system based on flashed lamps as light sources and digital reconstruction of particle positions by image processing is presented. Three different colors are used in order to distinguish, on a same photograph, the corresponding positions of each moving particle at three different instants of time. This solution can give significant advantages in several aerodynamic and hydrodynamic situations. In particular, it allows high flexibility for velocity measurements and independent settings of different acquisition parameters, like pulse powers and timing. Furthermore, the developed PIV measurement system is fully transportable, eye-safe, practical, and economical. The first hydrodynamics measurements achieved by using the proposed velocimetry measurement system are reported.
Eavesdropping and animal conflict

Fights between pairs of animals frequently take place within a wider social context. The displays exchanged during conflict, and the outcome of an encounter, are often detectable by individuals who are not immediately involved. In at least some species, such bystanders are known to eavesdrop on contests between others, and to modify their behavior toward the contestants in response to the observed interaction. Here, I extend Maynard Smith's well known model of animal aggression, the Hawk–Dove game, to incorporate the possibility of eavesdroppers. I show that some eavesdropping is favored whenever the cost of losing an escalated fight exceeds the value of the contested resource, and that its equilibrium frequency is greatest when costs are relatively high. Eavesdropping reduces the risk of escalated conflict relative to that expected by chance, given the level of aggression in the population. However, it also promotes increased aggression, because it enhances the value of victory. The net result is that escalated conflicts are predicted to occur more frequently when eavesdropping is possible.
Candida glabrata and Candida albicans co-infection of an in vitro oral epithelium.

BACKGROUND Candida albicans is regarded as the leading of candidosis. However, Candida glabrata has emerged as an important pathogen of oral mucosa, occurring both singly or in mixed species infections, often with C. albicans. Compared with C. albicans, little is known about the role of C. glabrata in oral infection. The aim of this study was to examine single and mixed species infection of oral epithelium involving C. glabrata and establish its ability to invade and damage tissue. METHODS A reconstituted human oral epithelium (RHOE) was infected only with C. glabrata, or simultaneously with C. glabrata and C. albicans. The ability of both species to invade the tissue was examined using species specific peptide nucleic acid (PNA) probe hybridization and confocal laser scanning microscopy. Epithelial damage was assessed by measuring lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. RESULTS Candida glabrata strains were able to colonize the RHOE, in a strain dependent manner. Candida glabrata single infection after 12 h, generally revealed no invasion of the RHOE, which contrasted with extensive tissue invasion demonstrated by C. albicans. Mixed infection showed that C. albicans enhanced the invasiveness of C. glabrata, and led to increased LDH release by the RHOE, which paralleled the observed histological damage. CONCLUSIONS The results obtained demonstrating enhanced invasion and increased tissue damage caused by mixed C. glabrata and C. albicans infections have important clinical significance and highlight the need to identify Candida species involved in oral candidosis.
Yagi–Uda Antenna for Multiband Radar Applications

In this letter, a simple and compact Yagi-Uda antenna with good antenna gains is proposed for multiband radar applications. The prototype operates in three different frequency bands, namely 1.9, 2.5, and 3.5 GHz. The drivers are designed on the basis of classical dipole configuration with embedded L-shaped slotlines. On the other hand, directors and reflector are deployed to achieve good directivity over frequency bands of interest. From measurements, the prototype demonstrates high performance of the designed multiband Yagi-Uda antenna and also shows a good agreement between measurements and simulations. Measured operating frequencies are 1.89, 2.54, and 3.51 GHz, respectively, and the realized antenna gains are 6.29, 4.63, and 6.77 dBi, correspondingly. Measured front-to-back ratios are better than 10.8 dB, hence making the design suitable for radar applications.
A blending method control of switched LPV systems with slow-varying parameters and its application to an F-16 aircraft model

This paper presents a controller design method using a blending method based on a common Lyapunov function for the induced ℒ2-norm problem for switched linear parameter varying (LPV) systems with slowly-varying parameters. The parameter region is divided into two overlapped subsets, and Lyapunov existence conditions are proposed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) for each subset. Based on each Lyapunov function in each subset, the blending method is used to construct a blended Lyapunov function for the whole parameter set. The proposed method is applied to an F-16 aircraft longitudinal model and simulation result demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.
A survey and performance evaluation of decentralized aggregation schemes for autonomic management

Over the last few years, autonomic network and service management has emerged as a serious alternative to traditional management approaches. In these systems, distributed entities, called autonomic managers, perform monitoring and control operations in an autonomous and decentralized way. The monitoring consists of providing indicators on the state of the system. Several monitoring solutions have been proposed to enable autonomic managers to obtain a partial or complete knowledge of an indicator through aggregation processes. Such a profusion of solutions raises important questions regarding the choice of an aggregation scheme in a particular operational context and for a particular management information because each class of solution presents different benefits and weaknesses. That is why, in this paper, we present the result of our study of decentralized aggregation schemes for autonomic network and service monitoring. The contribution is twofold: (i) a survey of decentralized aggregation schemes based on a refined taxonomy; and (ii) the results of an evaluation campaign we performed to compare typical aggregation schemes. These results highlight the context, in terms of the managed network behaviour as well as information dynamics, in which each aggregation scheme outperforms the others, thus helping autonomic management system designers in choosing the best scheme for their management purpose. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Job Polarisation in Denmark?: Changes in Employment Structure and Work Organisation, 2006-2010

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Influenza-like illness in residential care homes: a study of the incidence, aetiological agents, natural history, and health resource utilisation.

Background: Influenza-like illness (ILI) among elderly people living in residential care homes (RCHEs) is a common cause for hospitalisation. A study was undertaken to examine the incidence, underlying aetiology, natural history and associated healthcare resource utilisation related to ILI in the RCHE population. Methods: A prospective study of ILI in four RCHEs in Shatin, Hong Kong was conducted from April 2006 to March 2007. Each RCHE was monitored daily for the occurrence of ILI and followed up until resolution of illness or death. Clinical features were recorded and sputum, nasopharyngeal aspirate, blood and urine specimens were examined for underlying aetiology. Results: 259 episodes of ILI occurred in 194 subjects, with mild peaks in winter and summer, over a sustained level throughout the year. The infectious agent was identified in 61.4% of all episodes, comprising bacterial infection in 53.3% and viral in 46.7%. Multiple infections occurred in 16.2% of subjects. The most frequent organism was Streptococcus pneumoniae , followed by respiratory syncytial virus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa , metapneumovirus and parainfluenza virus types 1 and 3. Clinical features did not vary according to the underlying aetiology, the common presenting features being a decrease in general condition, cognitive and functional deterioration, and withholding of food in addition to fever and respiratory symptoms. Overall, mortality at 1 month/ discharge was 9.7%. Infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus , low body mass index and poor function predisposed to mortality. No association was observed between influenza vaccination status and underlying aetiology, clinical features or outcome.
Clinical outcome and safety of periodic infliximab therapy in children and adolescents with Crohn's disease.

To the Editor: We have read with great interest the recent paper by Lien et al. (1) on growth and safety in term infants fed reduced-protein formula with added bovine alpha-lactalbumin. At the end of the Discussion section the authors state the following: “this current study is the first to reduce total protein concentration in infant formula by the use of a new whey fractionation method. ” However, in September 2002 (2) we published a study in which reduced protein formulas were studied in term infants and compared with infants fed conventional formula or breast milk. In this study the bovine alphalactalbumin proportion in the reduced protein formula was also increased by a protein fractionation process involving bovine whey proteins. Surprisingly, the authors of the current study (1) have not made any reference to our study although it was published in the same Journal. The two formulas (EF experimental formula and CF control formula) used in the present study (1) had a total protein concentration of 14.4 g/L and 15.1 g/L, respectively. The difference of 0.7 g/L is very small and it would be interesting to know the batch-to-batch variation in protein concentration in the two formulas. The protein/energy ratio of the formulas is not reported, but assuming an energy density of 67 kcal/100 ml the difference in protein content per 100 kcal would be only 0.1 g (2.15 and 2.25 g/100 kcal). It would also be nice to know the non-protein nitrogen content of the formulas used. Did reduced protein formula really decrease true protein intake in the EF feeding group? Mean protein intakes in the infants were not presented.
MobilePulse: Dynamic profiling of land use pattern and OD matrix estimation from 10 million individual cell phone records in Shanghai

In this paper, we present a new method for dynamically profiling land use pattern and generating Origin-Destination matrices from millions of individual mobile phone traces. It is based on analyzing individual anonymzed mobile phone call records. Starting from these records, we systematically analyze the different signals received from the cell phone towers and identify the key feature associated with land user patterns. Meanwhile, we derive individual traces and extract origin, destination and travel time of each estimated trip. We show that cell phone signals could indicate the land use patterns, and the estimated Origin-Destination matrices correlate well with the Shanghai Travel Survey 2004 data. Moreover, our methodologies have several advantages: 1) capture weekday and weekend patterns as well as seasonal variations; 2) capture work and non-work trips, 3) capture the traffic flows for all transportation modes. These features make this method for land use profiling and Origin-Destination estimation very useful.
The Employment Impact of Different Forms of Innovation: Evidence from Italian Community Innovation Survey

This paper explores the employment impact of innovation activity, taking into account both RD however, this positive effect is barely significant when the sole in-house R&D expenditures are considered and fades away when ETC is included as a proxy for innovation activities. Moreover, the positive employment impacts of innovation activities and R&D expenditures are totally due to firms operating in high-tech industries and large companies, while no job-creation due to technical change is detectable in traditional sectors and SMEs.
Ambulatory measurement of foot kinematics using wearable ultrasonic sensors

In this paper, an ultrasonic-based system for foot parameters measurement has been proposed and investigated. An extended Kalman filtering-based methodology has been developed to extract foot parameters including step length, stride length and cycle time from horizontal displacement during walking. The system comprises of one ultrasonic transmitter (mobile) and four ultrasonic receivers (anchors) with fixed known positions. A Radio Frequency (RF) module is used in our system not only to provide synchronization clock between the mobile and anchors, but also to transmit collected data wirelessly to reduce the wires used. To evaluate the performance of the proposed system, the 2-dimensional foot displacement and the foot parameters were measured and validated against the reference camera motion capture system. These experiment results demonstrate the capability of the proposed system being used as a gait analysis tool for rehabilitation and other medical applications.
Enhanced sensor localization through compensation of battery level decay

A good amount of research for the localization of sensor nodes in a wireless sensor network (WSN), consisting of MICAz sensors, is carried out by just taking into account the received signal strength indication (RSSI). In this regard, one important factor is the battery voltage of the nodes (i.e. the MICAz sensors) which is not taken into account in the existing literature. As battery voltage level performs a vital role for the location of sensor nodes through anchor nodes. In this paper, we take into account this crucial factor and propose an algorithm that overcomes the problem of decaying battery. We show the results, in terms of more precise localization of sensor nodes, through simulation.
Circular dichroic and kinetic differentiation of DNA binding modes of distamycin.

DNA binding modes of distamycin (DST) were investigated via comparative binding studies with oligomeric duplexes of the form d(GCG-X-GCG). d(CGC-Y-CGC), where Y is complementary to X and X = 4- or 5-base binding site. It was found that 1:1 and 2:1 drug-duplex complexes exhibit distinctly different circular dichroic (CD) spectral characteristics and can, thus, serve as diagnostic tools for binding mode differentiation. CD intensity profiles at 265 or 275 nm as a function of drug to DNA ratios can reveal the extent of binding cooperativity for 2:1 complex formation (i.e., the relative binding affinities of 2:1 vs 1:1) at a 5-base-paired binding site. Comparison of these profiles leads to the following qualitative ranking for the binding cooperativity for the studied sites: AAGTT, ATATA >/= AAACT > AATAA, AAATA, AAAGT > AATAT > TAAAA >/= AAATT >/= AAAAA >/= ATAAA, AAAAT. The plausibility of this ordering is strengthened by its agreement with the ranking established by earlier NMR studies on some of the sequences. The significantly slower DST dissociation kinetics of the 2:1 complexes as compared to those of 1:1 made the kinetic measurements of SDS-induced dissociation by the stopped-flow technique possible. The results indicate that the AAGTT site exhibits the slowest DST dissociation rate, with a characteristic time of 35 s. The rates of dissociation in general correlate reasonably well with the cooperativity order found via equilibrium CD measurements (the higher the binding cooperativity, the slower the rate of dissociation). Base sequence specific binding of DST was also found for the 1:1 complex formation at the 4-base-paired sites, with AAAA, TTTT, ATTT, and AAAT sequences exhibiting the highest binding affinities.