Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The New Rules of Marketing and PR

The New Rules of Marketing & PR is an international bestseller with more than 375,000 copies sold in twenty-nine languages. In the latest edition of this pioneering guide to the future of marketing, you'll get a step-by-step action plan for leveraging the power of the latest approaches to generating attention for your idea or your business. You'll learn how get the right information to the right people at the right time—at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.
Discursive Equality and Everyday Talk Online: The Impact of "Superparticipants"

Empirical studies of online debate almost universally observe a "dominant" minority of posters. Informed by theories of deliberative democracy, these are typically framed negatively-yet research into their impact on debate is scant. To address this, a typology of what we call super-participation super-posters, agenda-setters and facilitators is developed and applied to thehttp://www.moneysavingexpert. com/forum. Focusing on the first of these, we found 2,052 superposters 0.4% contributing 47% of 25m+ posts. While superposters were quantitatively dominant, qualitative content analysis of the discursive practices of 25 superposters n=40,044 found that most did not attempt to stop other users from posting curbing or attack them flaming. In fact, in contradiction to the received wisdom, super-posters discursively performed a range of positive roles.
Video views and reviews: gastrulation and the fashioning of animal embryos.

Even the most naive student readily understands that following fertilization, a single-celled egg must undergo multiple rounds of cell division to become a multicellular organism. In contrast, it is not obvious how the embryonic mass of cells resulting from cleavage becomes transformed into a multilayered, functionally complex, and, in many instances, bilaterally symmetrical embryo. This transformation is so universal among animal embryos that developmental biologists refer to the process with a single term: ‘‘gastrulation. ’’ Dramatic changes in embryonic complexity accompany gastrulation. The process is all the more impressive for the relative rapidity of its passage and for its pivotal role in bringing about subsequent morphogenetic events in the life history of an animal. Indeed, as one developmental biologist has remarked, ‘‘It is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation which is truly the most important time in your
Global Sourcing of Services: A Two Stage Model for Selecting a Vendor

Organizations must define the scope of their prospective sourcing initiative in terms of the process or function (e.g., finance and accounting), the sub-process (e.g., accounts receivable), the business units that will participate, and the location or geography of vendor. After having decided the function to outsource, it is critical to choose a country for sourcing — onshore, nearshore, middleshore or farshore. The advantages of onshore are similarity in all country factors except for differences in regulations of individual states or provinces. The benefits of nearshoring are cultural similarities, geographic proximity, and a closer time zone. Middleshoring offers somewhat lower costs, quicker time to market, and cultural proximity. Farshoring (again from the vantage point of U.S. and western Europe) IT and ITES offers the advantages of significant cost arbitrage, acceptable quality standards, and access to the vast resources of a developed, populous marketplace that enables economies of scale. Two other related options to be considered are multi-shoring and right-shoring. Multi-shoring, as the name implies, provides not only a hedge against risk, but also the opportunity to accelerate the development of new processes and products by dividing work among locations. Spreading one’s application portfolio globally avoids excessive dependency on a particular region to deal with the issues of sovereign risk. Force Majeure, natural disasters, sabotage, etc., are all real issues, which require a more nuanced global sourcing strategy. Right-shoring refers to allocating work strategically between locations near, middle, and far: for example, shifting simple customer inquiries to offshore call centers while keeping complex inquiries on the caller’s shore. We recommend proper evaluation of the following factors to select a country or multiple countries in case of multi-shoring: (a) political system; (b) ICT infrastructure; (c) regulatory regime; (d) workforce quality and quantity; (e) judicial and legal system; and (f) language/culture. The next stage should be to drill down to a company within a country. In this second stage to select a company, factors of (a) fit between client needs and potential vendor capabilities; (b) financial/cost considerations; (c) speed/agility of the vendor; and (d) quality considerations — need to be evaluated.
Controlled synthesis of conducting polymer nanostructures

Conducting polymers have been extensively investigated using as electronic materials, while the control of the molecular arrangement in nanostructures as well as the nanostructures themselves is extremely important to improve their performance. Herein, we report a controllable synthesis of conducting polymer nanostructures. Firstly, we prepared helical conducting nanofibers with predominately one-handed helical conformation of polymers by a chemical polymerization. Secondly, a general electrochemical strategy was developed to synthesize vertically aligned conducting polymer nanostructures, including nanotubes and nanofibers.
Photosensitive protein patterning with electrophoretic deposition

This letter reports on the micro-patterning of the photosensitive protein of bacterioRhodopsin (bR) geared toward bioelectronics-based image sensors. bR proteins are denatured by existing micro-fabrication processes, including destructive high-temperature (>100°C) heating and organic solvent cleansing. In our process, the desired area of the electrode for immobilizing bR is defined by a hydrophobic polymer that repels bR. After micro-fabrication, bR is selectively formed on the defined areas using electrophoretic deposition. A 5-µ m patterning resolution was achieved. An 8 × 8 photosensor array was fabricated, and its output electric charge was detected.
Gene Content Evolution in Discobid Mitochondria Deduced from the Phylogenetic Position and Complete Mitochondrial Genome of Tsukubamonas globosa

The unicellular eukaryotic assemblage Discoba (Excavata) comprises four lineages: the Heterolobosea, Euglenozoa, Jakobida, and Tsukubamonadida. Discoba has been considered as a key assemblage for understanding the early evolution of mitochondrial (mt) genomes, as jakobids retain the most gene-rich (i.e., primitive) genomes compared with any other eukaryotes determined to date. However, to date, mt genome sequences have been completed for only a few groups within Discoba, including jakobids, two closely related heteroloboseans, and kinetoplastid euglenozoans. The Tsukubamonadida is the least studied lineage, as the order was only recently established with the description of a sole representative species, Tsukubamonas globosa. The evolutionary relationship between T. globosa and other discobids has yet to be resolved, and no mt genome data are available for this particular organism. Here, we use a "phylogenomic" approach to resolve the relationship between T. globosa, heteroloboseans, euglenozoans, and jakobids. In addition, we have characterized the mt genome of T. globosa (48,463 bp in length), which encodes 52 putative protein-coding and 29 RNA genes. By mapping the gene repertoires of discobid mt genomes onto the well-resolved Discoba tree, we model gene loss events during the evolution of discobid mt genomes.
Plasmid profile and antibiogram of Enterococcal faecalis isolated from tertiary care hospital in Delhi

drugs[3] [Table 1], while one isolate was sensitive to all antibiotics and did not yield any plasmid. Four different plasmid patterns were observed (P1‐4) with band pattern in different isolates varying from 1 to 4 and molecular weight ranging from >23 kbp to 564 kbp [Figure 1]. With a panel of 14 antibiotics, 4 different resistance patterns (R1‐4) were observed; R2 was most commonly observed pattern [Table 1]. Plasmid typing has 100% typeability and reproducibility and the discriminatory index was calculated as 0.57.
Targeting Amyloid-β Peptide (Aβ) Oligomers by Passive Immunization with a Conformation-selective Monoclonal Antibody Improves Learning and Memory in Aβ Precursor Protein (APP) Transgenic Mice*

Passive immunization of murine models of Alzheimer disease amyloidosis reduces amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) levels and improves cognitive function. To specifically address the role of Aβ oligomers in learning and memory, we generated a novel monoclonal antibody, NAB61, that preferentially recognizes a conformational epitope present in dimeric, small oligomeric, and higher order Aβ structures but not full-length amyloid-β precursor protein or C-terminal amyloid-β precursor protein fragments. NAB61 also recognized a subset of brain Aβ deposits, preferentially mature senile plaques, and amyloid angiopathy. Using NAB61 as immunotherapy, we showed that aged Tg2576 transgenic mice treated with NAB61 displayed significant improvements in spatial learning and memory relative to control mice. These data implicated Aβ oligomers as a pathologic substrate for cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease.
Relationship between Aldose reductase and superoxide dismutase inhibition capacities of indole-based analogs of melatonin derivatives

Aldose reductase (AR) has been implicated in the etiology of diabetic complications. Under diabetic condi- tions, the elevated vascular glucose level causes an increased flux through the polyol pathway, which induces functional and morphological changes associated with secondary diabetic complications such as cataract, neuropathy, and nephrop- athy. Oxidative stress, antioxidants, and the polyol pathway have recently been found to be linked in pathological states. A large number of structurally different compounds have been studied as potent in vitro AR inhibitors (ARIs). However, with few exceptions, these compounds did not show clinical benefit, and some even produced serious side effects. In view of the ARI activity of certain indole derivative compounds and antioxidant properties of melatonin, we investigated some indole-based analogs of melatonin derivatives. Antioxidant and ARI activity tests were applied to nine indole derivatives that are substituted at the third and fifth positions. Also, the relationship between ARI and antioxidant enzyme activity is discussed.
Quantifying Morphological Computation of Soft Robotic Hands

Soft manipulators realize complex grasping behavior with simple control, as demonstrated by research with compliant and soft hands [1], [2], [3]. To understand the contribution of compliance to the resulting behavior, it is helpful to compare a soft manipulator with a rigid robotic hand. For the latter, in most applications, the joint space trajectory is controlled explicitly. In contrast, soft hands allow for a much coarser control scheme where the exact joint trajectories are not determined a priori but result from the interactions between hand and environment. For example, the RBO Hand 2 [4] (left hand in Fig. 1) grasps objects by applying a low dimensional actuation signal. The observed grasping behavior, however, is determined by a combination of control and interactions of the hand with the object/environment. The contribution of this interaction to overall behavior is referred to as morphological computation (MC) [5]. In this work, we evaluate MC measures as a possible benchmark for soft hands. We determine the amount of MC during grasping with three different hand morphologies (shown in Figure 1) and three different motion primitives (Controller 1 to 3) that varied slightly in their wrist frame and finger pressure trajectories. We employ an informationtheoretic quantification of MC [6], which we previously evaluated on muscle models before [7]. We perform our experiments in a grasping simulator based on SOFA [8].
Incorporating PMBOK2004 guidelines into the software project management supported by software agents model

Due to globalisation, advances in computing technologies, as well as the deployment of software projects in distributed, collaborative and virtual environments, the software project management environment has changed. Traditional project management methods fail to address these added complexities. As a result, numerous software development projects either do not live up to expectations or they fail outright. The authors proposed the software project management model, entitled software project management supported by software agents (SPMSA) that aims to enhance software project management by taking the unique nature and changing environment of software projects into account. The SPMSA model supports the entire spectrum of software project management functionality, supporting and enhancing each key function with a team of software agents. In this extended paper, the authors adapt the SPMSA model to incorporate PMBOK2004 guidelines. The SPMSA model makes a fresh contribution to enhance software project management by utilising software agent technology.
Training Training Images Ground Truth Tracings Tubular Graphs Sample Positives Sample Negatives Extract Features Classifier Detection Tubular Graph Learned Path Model Assign

We propose a novel Bayesian approach to automated delineation of curvilinear structures that form complex and potentially loopy networks. By representing the image data as a graph of potential paths, we first show how to weight these paths using discriminatively-trained classifiers that are both robust and generic enough to be applied to very different imaging modalities. We then present an Integer Programming approach to finding the optimal subset of paths, subject to structural and topological constraints that eliminate implausible solutions. Unlike earlier approaches that assume a tree topology for the networks, ours explicitly models the fact that the networks may contain loops, and can reconstruct both cyclic and acyclic ones. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a variety of challenging datasets including aerial images of road networks and micrographs of neural arbors, and show that it outperforms state-of-the-art techniques.
Anti prostate cancer using PEGylated bombesin containing, cabazitaxel loading nano-sized drug delivery system

Abstract Context: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most-frequently diagnosed cancer in men. Cabazitaxel was approved for the treatment of patients with hormone-refractory metastatic prostate cancer previously treated with a docetaxel-containing regimen. Objective: In this study, bombesin (BN), a ligand reported to specifically target GRP overexpressing prostate tumor, was applied for the construction of lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles (LPNs), and used for the targeted delivery of cabazitaxel (CAB) to prostate cancer. Methods: BN-polyethylene glycol-1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (BN-PEG-DSPE) was synthesized. CAB loaded, BN-PEG-DSPE contained LPNs (BN-CAB-LPNs) were prepared. Their particle size, zeta potential and drug encapsulation efficiency (EE) were evaluated. In vitro cytotoxicity study of BN-CAB-LPNs was tested in LNCaP human prostatic cancer cell line (LNCaP cells). In vivo anti-tumor efficacy of the carriers was evaluated on mice bearing prostate cancer model. Results: The optimum BN-CAB-LPNs formulations had a particle size of 184.9 nm and a 26.5 mV positive surface charge. The growth of LNCaP cells in vitro was obviously inhibited. BN-CAB-LPNs also displayed better anti-tumor activity than the other formulations in vivo. Conclusion: The results demonstrated that BN-CAB-LPNs can sufficiently deliver CAB to the cancer cells and enhance the anti-tumor capacity. Thus, BN-CAB-LPNs can be proved to be a superior nanomedicine which can achieve better therapeutic efficacy of prostate tumor.
Correlation of Signals, Noise, and Harmonics in Parallel Analog-to-Digital Converter Arrays

Title of dissertation: CORRELATION OF SIGNALS, NOISE, AND HARMONICS IN PARALLEL ANALOG-TODIGITAL CONVERTER ARRAYS Keir Lauritzen, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Dissertation directed by: Professor Martin Peckerar Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Combining M analog-to-digital converters (ADC) in parallel increases the maximum signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by a factor of M, assuming the noise is uncorrelated from one channel to the next. This allows for a significant increase in SNR over a single ADC; however, noise and harmonic correlation degrade this improvement. ADCs have three sources of noise: thermal (and other random physical processes), sampling, and quantization noise. There are two system components creating harmonics: the sampler and the quantizer. In this thesis, I determine, analytically and experimentally, the degree of correlation between signals, noise, and harmonics in a parallel ADC array. To test the analysis experimentally, I developed a 16-channel test-bed using 16-bit, state-of-the-art ADCs and 16 direct-digital synthesizers as low-noise signal sources. The test bed provides excellent signal isolation between channels and minimal digital noise to enable the measurement of very low levels of correlation. I investigated the feasibility of measuring the very high levels of signal correlation in the presence of channel nonlinearities with different measurement signals. For a completely linear channel, the channel matching is limited by noise. With nonlinearities, the ability to measure the signal correlation depends on the measurement signal. I verified that the thermal noise is uncorrelated across 16 channels as expected. I also demonstrated that sampling noise is fully correlated from channel-to-channel when a common clock drives the ADCs. Efforts to reduce the correlation using two previously developed de-correlation techniques-phase randomization and frequency offsets-successfully reduced the correlated noise by a factor of two. I then demonstrated analytically and experimentally that harmonics from quantizers are largely uncorrelated; however, harmonics from the sampler are largely correlated confirming the need for decorrelation techniques. I demonstrated the impact of the previously developed decorrelation techniques to reduce harmonic correlation and developed two new decorrelation techniques: phase cancellation and clock offsets, which offer significant advantages over phase randomization and frequency offsets. Each technique offers different levels of dynamic range improvement and complexity, allowing for a range of techniques to target the optimal level of decorrelation. Correlation of Signals, Noise, and Harmonics in Parallel Analog-to-Digital Converter Arrays
THE BUSINESS TRANSACTION THEORY AND MORAL HAZARDS FOR KNOWLEDGE SHARING: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

AbstractIndividuals don't offer information (knowledge) for free. Therefore, knowledge sharing can be regarded as a business transaction process. During this process humans use a tacit but probably unique function--independent from cultural roots--to evaluate the value of information. After conducting a comprehensive company survey in Europe, we found indicators supporting the business transaction theory. Additionally, we selected a subset of companies and asked employees their thoughts about the motivators for knowledge sharing and working performance. In so doing we performed a cluster analysis and mapped the answers to Alderfer's pyramid. Very important cultural-dependant moral hazards for knowledge sharing were detected.
Dimension Reduction Techniques in Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods for Option Pricing

Many problems in mathematical finance (e.g., the pricing of financial derivative securities) can be formulated as high-dimensional integrals, which are often tackled by quasi-Monte Carlo methods. Quasi-random points have the special property that the one-dimensional projections and the earlier dimensional projections are extremely well distributed. This property strongly motivates us to reduce the effective dimensions of the problems. This paper deals with multiasset path-dependent options. The goal of this paper is twofold: (1) to design new methods for dimension reduction and to offer further insight into dimension reduction techniques, and (2) to investigate the practical performance of various dimension reduction strategies in conjunction with different quasi-random points (digital nets and good lattice points). We propose two groups of two-stage procedures for the constructions of correlated multidimensional Brownian motions, which provide a general framework to combine and use different dimension reduction techniques and optimize the use of quasi-random points. We find the inherent weights that characterize the weighted property and the dimension structure of the underlying functions (e.g., the sensitivity indices, the effective dimensions, etc.), and show how each dimension reduction strategy affects them. Numerical experiments on multiasset path-dependent options demonstrate that significant improvements can be achieved by proper use of dimension reduction strategies and quasi-random points. It is also shown that different quasi-random point sets have different behavior with respect to dimension reduction strategies.
Relevance of F.W. Taylor’s principles to modern shop-floor practices

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use an inter-disciplinary approach to examine the relevance of F.W. Taylor’s principles to modern shop-floor practices in the context of a manufacturing organization. Design/methodology/approach Standard time study guidelines laid out by the ILO were adopted and random observations made between two operators independently performing an identical operation in the shop-floor premises of a particular factory. Findings It was evident from the study that modern management has developed the science for each element of the operator’s manual work, as postulated and proposed by F.W. Taylor. It was also evident that completion of the operation on time was necessary for the operators but not as important as the total number of jobs performed during the duration of the shift. These empirical findings highlighted the high relevance of F.W. Taylor’s principles to modern shop-floor practices. Research limitations/implications The authors adopted time study observation as the single method to collect real data from real practices but this could be considered as a biased approach. Since the time study observation is a slow, time consuming, and expensive process of obtaining data, the authors restricted the study to only two operators. Further, the study was carried out in a real setting under several assumptions that may limit its wider applications and practical implications. The study findings suggest that measuring the operator’s performance in terms of time consumption and resource utilization is necessary but not sufficient to evaluate and improve his/her productivity because operators evaluate their performance in terms of the total number of jobs completed during the duration of the shift. Therefore, it is suggested that the managers on the modern shop-floor measure the output at the aggregate level for the given input, while developing new work methods as well as devising performance management and reward systems. Originality/value The study has contributed to the body of knowledge by conducting a complete assessment of F.W. Taylor’s first principle from its origin to its application in modern shop-floor practices. Also, the authors empirically examined the relevance of Taylor’s principles to modern shop-floor practices in the context of a manufacturing organization. The study supports the descriptive work of Freeman (1996), who envisaged the relevance of Taylor’s ideas to modern management practices; also, it gives a few directions to test behavioral operations theory in terms of using real operational data to examine an established organization theory (Gino and Pisano, 2008).