Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of consumer retention strategies for telecom service industry in Central India

The telecommunication industry has witnessed a tremendous growth in recent times in India. It has not only been limited to voice calls, but also integrated into every aspect of human life. This has resulted in the rapid rise of market players, offering innovative products and services. In this changing scenario, we have tried to design and check a model of various factors such as loyalty, satisfaction and switching barriers (customer relationship management, alternative attractiveness and switching cost) influencing consumer retention strategies in Indian telecom service industry. A structured and undisguised questionnaire and a convenient sampling method have been used to collect the data from respondents from three most populous cities (Indore, Bhopal, and Ujjain) of Central India. Around 450 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 318 usable responses were received for final analysis. The instrument was checked for validity and reliability before the data was analyzed. The hypotheses were tested through Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) for direct effect, and Multiple Moderating Regression Analysis (MMRA) for moderating effect. The results suggested that loyalty, satisfaction, switching barriers and customer relationship management are positively related and have a direct influence on consumer retention, but the relationship with alternative attractiveness has been found weak. Switching cost, as moderating variable, was found to be very effective and showed significant deviation in the relationship between independent and dependent variables.
Two Schemes Of Finger Vein Cryptosystem

Biometric Authentication Technology is an important means to guarantee information security. As one of the most important technology of authentication, finger vein recognition attracts our attention because of its high security, reliable accuracy and excellent performance. However, in the current system, the user's feature vectors are saved in the database directly which would cause a lot of security problems. In order to solve these problems, we designed two complete finger vein encryption schemes based on fuzzy fault and fuzzy extraction. Through experiments, we proved that these two schemes not only guarantee a low False Acceptance Rate but also protect the biometric vectors.
Whose Ideas Matter? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism

The author of this concise and extremely well-referenced study asks an important question: "Why do some emerging ideas and norms find acceptance . while others do not? " The issue is examined with reference to "two puzzles" concerning Asian post-war institutional architecture: why there isn't a regional multilateral security organization and why Asia's regional institutions remain "soft. " Amitav Acharya employs the concept of "constitutive localization" from international relations theory, referring broadly to the process by which international norms are adapted to suit local circumstances and actors.
Estimating skills in the Italian manufacturing sector using the INPS Archives: An application to the Italian pattern of trade

The aim of this paper is to estimate a new measure of skill for the Ital- ian manufacturing system and to utilize it to characterize some features of the Italian trade pattern. Various approaches have been adopted to measure workers' skill. Arst family of measures is based on educational attainment and experience. This family directly measures formal skills, but only imperfectly innate ability. A second family utilizes earnings data on the assumption that the worker is paid the value of its marginal pro- ductivity. However, this group of measures only imperfectly measures a worker's skills since it depends also on variables that are specic to the �rm such as workers' bargaining power, �rm's compensation policies, and rent sharing. For these reasons we exploit the set of information available at the worker andrm level through a new matched-employer-employee panel data (the INPS data-set) so as to decompose the individual wage into an explained, time-varying and time-constant component capturing all persistent characteristics of the worker, purged from confoundingrms- specic eects. This is our measure of the skills that workers take from job to job (their portable skills). Based on a three-digit sectoral classication for the Italian manufacturing sector over the years 2000-2002, we average the individual estimates of the latter component -thought of as proxies for individual skills- across workers in the same sector for each year to provide a time-specic and sector-specic measure of the sectoral skill-intensity. This is central to the analysis on the \atypical" specialization pattern of Italy characterized, on one side, by its strength in the so-called traditional sectors and part of the mechanical sector and, on the other side, by its extreme weakness in high tech sectors and in those characterized by scale economies. We utilize our newly constructed measure of skill intensity to
Linking notions of justice and project outcomes in carbon offset forestry projects_ Insights from a comparative study in Uganda

Over the last 20 years, Uganda has emerged as a testing ground for the various modes of carbon forestry used in Africa. Carbon forestry initiatives in Uganda raise questions of justice, given that people with comparatively negligible carbon footprints are affected by land use changes initiated by the desire of wealthy people, firms, and countries to reduce their more extensive carbon footprints. This paper examines the notions of justice local people express in relation to two contrasting carbon forestry projects in Uganda, the Mount Elgon Uganda Wildlife Authority – Forests Absorbing Carbon Emissions (UWA-FACE) project and Trees for Global Benefit (TFGB). UWA-FACE closed down its initial operations at Mount Elgon after 10 years as a result of deep controversies and negative international publicity, whereas TFGB is regarded by many as an exemplary design for smallholder carbon forestry in Africa. Our approach builds upon an emerging strand in the literature, of empirical analyses of local people’s notions of justice related to environmental interventions. The main contribution of the paper is to examine how people’s notions of justice have influenced divergent project outcomes in these cases. In particular, we highlight the relative success of TFGB in the way it meets people’s primarily distributional concerns, apparently without significantly challenging prevalent expectations of recognition or procedural justice. In contrast, we illuminate how controversy across the range of justice dimensions in UWA-FACE at Mount Elgon ultimately led to the project’s decline. This paper therefore explores how attention to notions of justice can contribute to a fuller understanding of the reactions of people to carbon forestry projects, as well as the pathways and ultimate outcomes of such interventions.
Efficient Access of Cloud Storage with Confidentiality by RASP Data Perturbation

With the wide deployment of public cloud computing infrastructures, using clouds to host data query services has become an appealing solution for the advantages on scalability and cost-saving. However, some data might be sensitive that the data owner does not want to move to the cloud unless the data confidentiality and query privacy are guaranteed. On the other hand, a secured query service should still provide efficient query processing and significantly reduce the in-house workload to fully realize the benefits of cloud computing. We propose the RASP data perturbation method to provide secure and efficient range query and kNN query services for protected data in the cloud. The RASP data perturbation method combines order preserving encryption, dimensionality expansion, random noise injection, and random projection, to provide strong resilience to attacks on the perturbed data and queries. It also preserves multidimensional ranges, which allows existing indexing techniques to be applied to speedup range query processing. The kNN-R algorithm is designed to work with the RASP range query algorithm to process the kNN queries. We have carefully analyzed the attacks on data and queries under a precisely defined threat model and realistic security assumptions. Extensive experiments have been conducted to show the advantages of this approach on efficiency and security.
Morphological character among five strains of giant gourami, Oshpronemus gouramy Lacepede, 1801 (Actinopterygii: Perciformes: Osphronemidae) using a truss morphometric system

Research morphological characters among five strains of O. gouramy aim to know the morphometric characters and relation between strains. Morphometric measurements performed using a truss morphometric system. Sixteen morphometric measurements were made for each individual, data collection is correct by allometric equation for body size different and using Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA). Univariate analysis of variance (One Way Anova) was used to compare the variation among samples for truss measurements. And to know the main differentiating factor of morphological characters used Principal component analysis (PCA). The analysis showed value percentage difference morphological between Tambago strain with Palapah strain amounted 6.25% ie posterior end of dorsal fin to end of anal fin character and centroid close to each other, incorporated in the same plot. While the Merah strain and Krista strain forming a separate plot but intersect with differences in morphology amounted 37.50% ie origin of dorsal fin to origin of pelvic fin, Snout to origin of pelvic fin, snout to origin of dorsal fin, posterior end of dorsal fin to end of anal fin, origin of pelvic fin to posterior end of dorsal fin and End of anal fin to dorsal attachment of the caudal fin. The main differentiator between the strains that the character origin of dorsal fin to end of anal fin.
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION, DIGESTIBILITY AND AEROBIC STABILITY OF CORN SILAGES HARVESTED AT DIFFERENT MATURITY STAGES

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of corn plant harvested in diferente maturity stages on the chemical composition, digestibility and aerobic stability of silages. The corn used in the study was the hybrid BM3061 harvested after 114, 121, 126, 133 and 140 days of sowing at five maturity stages based on the advancement of the grain milk line (early dent (ED), 1/3 of milk line (ML), 1/2 ML, 2/3 ML and black layer (BL)). A variation from 242.7 to 377.4 g of dry matter (DM) kg-1as fed was observed between the ED and BL stages; however, the measurements performed in this study did not exhibited major changes in the composition of these silages. The silages produced with plants that were harvested at the 1/2 ML, 2/3 ML and BL stages showed lower DM loss during the fermentative process. The silages produced with plants that were harvested at the ED and 1/3 ML stages showed higher in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD) (0.584 and 0.631 g g-1 of OM, respectively). The corn silages produced at the maturity stage of 2/3 ML showed a higher aerobic stability (104 hours) during the aerobic exposure. The 1/3 and 2/3 ML maturity stages seem to be the best harvest stages for the production of corn silage in tropical climates.
Schools as Professional Communities: Addressing the Collaborative Challenge, 6(17)

Increasingly, attention is being given to the need to establish and sustain schools as professional learning communities. No aspect of that objective is more critical than that of fostering the collective capacity of teachers to work together toward continuous school improvement, and by extension, toward enhanced student outcomes. Beyond this recognition and the appended rhetoric, however, remain very real practical concerns—not the least of which is the professional perspectives of teachers themselves. The study reported here used survey data collected from 238 Louisiana teachers in ten districts and eighty-eight schools to reveal additional understandings about what is at once a cogent yet complex and highly contextual aspiration. Although there appears to be a general sense among teachers as to what is desirable in terms of sustaining schools as collaborative communities, conditions in their own schools continue to impede such realization, and some schools, by their very structure and size, may be more or less predisposed to collaborative orientations.
The Effects of Social Media Marketing on Online Consumer Behavior

Social media allows customers and prospects to communicate directly to your brand representative or about your brand with their friends. However, the obvious question is: who are the people interacting online and how engaged are they in online activities? This paper aims to answer this question based on a study regarding the online activities of 236 social media users, by identifying different types of users, a segmentation of these users and a linear model to examine how different predictors related to social networking sites have a positive impact on the respondents’ perception of online advertisements. The answer can help discover how to engage with different types of audiences in order to maximize the effect of the online marketing strategy.
FIRST-PRINCIPLES INVESTIGATIONS OF REFERENCE STATES OF Co2CrIn HEUSLER ALLOYS

In order to identify the reasons for the differences between the available theoretical and experimental values of the total magnetic moment of Co2CrIn Heusler alloy, in this work we studied the effects of various magnetic reference states on the magnetic and electronic properties of the alloys by means of ab initio and Monte Carlo methods. It is shown that the calculated ground state in the L21 phase is ferromagnetic. However, the values for both lattice parameter and magnetic moment calculated for the ferrimagnetic state, where the Cr atoms are ordered antiferromagnetically, are found to be in good agreement with the available experimental data. It is shown that the half-metallic behavior is realized only in the case of the ferromagnetic order. By using the calculated exchange coupling parameters in the Heisenberg Hamiltonian, the temperature dependences of magnetization were simulated.
Crowding –Out and Fundraising Efforts: The impact of government grants on Symphony Orchestras

The crowding-out of private donations by government grants is an integral element in designing an efficient method of financing nonprofit activity. This paper looks at elements of crowd-out, both the direct impact on donors and the indirect impact due to the response of nonprofits. We include both a theoretical and empirical analysis of the reactions by donors and nonprofits to an increase in government funding based on data from the League of American Orchestrasâ€™ annual reports from 2004-2007. To combat indirect crowd-out, renewed emphasis should be placed on grant design; for direct crowd-out, theories of collective action are appropriate.
Histogram Preserving QIM-Based Watermarking

Quantisation-based watermarking schemes are known to be strongly robust to noise and widely applied for image authentication. However, such schemes tend to create specific patterns in the histogram of the watermarked image, thus opening security gap for histogram analysis and attack. As such, a secure quantisation-based watermarking scheme should be histogram preserving. That is to say the original statistical characteristics of the histogram should be preserved in the watermarked image. In this paper, we propose a histogram preserving quantisation index modulation (HPQIM)-based watermarking, which can preserve the original statistical characteristics of the histogram of the original image after watermark embedding. This scheme originates from quantisation index modulation (QIM)-based watermarking scheme, but highly increases the security of QIM-based schemes. Meanwhile, the proposed HPQIM-based watermarking scheme can also achieve a lower embedding distortion than the QIM-based watermarking schemes.
Climbing the Drug Staircase: An Analysis of Accessibility, Proneness and Previous Cannabis Use on the Initiation of Hard Drug Use

This paper explores the role of previous cannabis use, accessibility and proneness on a person’s hard drug uptake. Existing empirical drug research and policy discussions have focused on a constant gateway efiect of previous cannabis use, that is hypothesized to contribute to the initiation pattern commonly found in empirical studies (cannabis use precedes hard drug use) due to a causal linkage between cannabis and subsequent hard drug use. Despite mixed evidence and a very limited understanding of possible transmission mechanisms, the gateway hypothesis has been in∞uential in formulating a strict drug policy in many western countries. Proneness and accessibility provide possible alternative/additional explanations for the observed staircase pattern of drug use to the gateway efiect of previous cannabis use and ofier potentially difierent policy implications. We use unique survey data from a representative sample of young adults in Norway (collected in 2006) with individual level information on both accessibility and proneness, to explore the role of previous cannabis use, accessibility and proneness on the initiation of hard drugs like cocaine, amphetamine, ecstasy and heroin. Motivated by possible gateway transmission channels proposed in the literature, we propose a novel modeling approach in the spirit of an endogenous switching regression model, which allows for a more complex efiect of previous cannabis use on hard drug uptake. Our model is formulated within the Bayesian paradigm. We formulate suitable prior distributions based on data from a related 2002 survey. We employ the Bayesian predictive approach to investigate the relative importance of the three efiects and to explore potential policy implications of our flndings. We flnd evidence for the efiects of accessibility, proneness and previous cannabis us, as well as for a heterogeneous gateway efiect.
The Host-Tourist Interaction in a World Heritage Site: The Case of Guimarães

Guimaraes, in the northwest of Portugal, is a city of strong symbolic and cultural significance and its nomination by UNESCO as world heritage, in 2001, enlarged its tourism potential. In this paper we present a few results of a survey that envisaged capturing the Guimaraes residents’ perceptions of tourism impacts and their attitudes towards tourists. Specifically, one analyzes the type of relationship that exists between some socio-demographic groups and the perceived tourism impacts, as well as their socio-characteristics and the existing level of interaction between residents and tourists. The survey was implemented between January and March 2010 to a convenience sample of 540 inhabitants of the municipality of Guimaraes resulting in 400 questionnaires with complete data. For this, we made use of various statistical techniques. Using a factorial analysis, we can conclude that the three factors used explain 52.3% of the variance contained in the original variables obtained from the survey. By another side, using a logit model in the analysis and taking as the dependent variable the frequent or very frequent contact with tourists, we found that only the variables referred to perceived positive impacts of tourism, education and the place of residence in urban areas have shown to be statistically significant. We are aware of the multiple ways the issue of residents’ perceptions and attitudes towards tourism can be approached and of the difficulties to get useful policy-oriented insights. This paper is a step in that trail.
Aleppo pine knot disease: histology of the knots, detection of causal agent and mode of transmission

Knot disease of Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis subsp. halepensis) occurs in the western range of the host in the Mediterranean region. The disease, originally named Aleppo pine tuberculosis (from tubercle, i.e. knot) by Petri in 1924, causes a hyperplastic growth on the twigs and small branches, with knots that initially are small, green and lignified, and expand to 5–6 cm diameter at maturity. These knots have been associated with various bacterial species. In this study, only one bacterium was isolated from Aleppo pine knots, and this bacterium was constantly associated with the pine weevil Pissodes castaneus. The hyperplastic growth started either in the cortex or in the xylem, while the knot was formed in the cortical parenchyma. Bacteria were grouped in zoogloeae in the intercellular spaces or inside lysigenous cavities. Bacterial microcolonies have also been observed in the parenchyma cells. Inoculation of two of the bacterial strains on healthy Aleppo pine twigs did not induce knot formation. Knots did however form when adults of P. castaneus were externally contaminated with the bacteria and were then allowed to feed on pine saplings. These latter knots contained the same bacterial isolate as that which had been used to contaminate the weevils. All the isolates examined were tentatively assigned to the genus Erwinia. As this bacterium seems to be the causal agent of Aleppo pine knot disease, its complete identification and characterisation is needed.
3D modelling in the agora of Segesta: techniques and data interpretation

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the techniques used for data collection, elaboration and interpretation during the archaeological investigation in the agora of Segesta, conducted by the Laboratorio di Scienze dell’Antichita (LSA) of the Scuola Normale Superiore and the Laboratorio di Disegno e Restauro (LADIRE) of the Dipartimento di Civilta e Forme del Sapere of Pisa University. The use of close-range photogrammetry, both terrestrial and aerial, combined with traditional drawing techniques, allowed us to improve the quality and amount of data collected for scientific purposes. As a result, the analysis of the archaeological stratigraphy, and especially the examination of structures and architectural elements, benefitted from a wider and more detailed collection of graphic data and information concerning the ancient site of Segesta. On the one hand, the use of terrestrial photogrammetric techniques, such as the so-called Structure from Motion (SfM), allowed us to obtain 3D models of the excavated area. At the same time, by using RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems) we started an up-to-date survey of the whole site. Using these new techniques, we were able to develop and improve the digital acquisition of data and create 3D models of the elements discovered and of the whole agora. Moreover,, thanks to the fundamental collaboration of the DreamsLab of the Scuola Normale Superiore, it was possible to achieve a virtual simulation of the public square of Segesta and of the most important buildings surrounding the agora. This virtual simulation of the agora in augmented reality, and the opportunity to visualize and utilize it within the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), will certainly make it possible to improve archaeological research and data dissemination, presentation and communication.