Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
E-government evolution: an evaluation of local online services

The introduction of the internet and World Wide Web (WWW) technologies has redefined the meaning of 'electronic government' to include usage of web-based internet applications to enhance access to, and delivery of, government information and services to citizens, business partners, employees, other agencies and government entities. The evolution of e-government is going through the same cycle as most commercial websites went through a couple of years ago. While there are similarities, there are also differences between government and commercial firms in terms of the goals and objectives for their websites. In this study we are using a recognised framework for evolution of commercial websites and examining if that framework is appropriate for studying the evolution of e-government services, particularly in the context of city government. The results indicate that the evolution is similar in some respects but different in others. Governments are more interested in delivering content and less focused on commerce, which is different from for-profit firms. Further, governments are very eager to develop the 'community' dimension but are having limited success.
Success factors of internet payment systems

The internet has shaped the way companies are conducting business. When it comes to paying online, many users still shy away from transferring their money electronically. In this paper, we first introduce a framework illustrating important factors that shape users' intentions to pay online. Subsequently, we present data from an empirical survey among Austrian internet users to illustrate which online payment methods are actually used and then test our model. The results show that factors that generate benefits for users and factors that create trust have a significant influence on users' attitudes towards online payments.
A pervasive environment for systemising innovative services in knowledge-intensive firms

In this paper, we propose an approach to model KIBS firm activities as digital ecosystem of services in a distributed environment supported ICT. In particular, we present a generic service system architecture with respect to Everything as a Service (*aaS) architecture to provide digital services in pervasive environment. To achieve interoperability, we introduce a service–based middleware relying on service characteristics and service lifecycles. The middleware enables operational and management features to achieve secure, proactive, and context–aware e–services. An important aspect of our approach is the ontological description of various components and the management of business activities with business rules.
A performance comparison of four WSRF implementations

SOAP is the protocol used most often in web services communications. Implementations of the Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) use SOAP as a communications protocol as well. Performance analyses for SOAP toolkits have been performed for various cases and toolkits but WSRF implementations have generally not been taken into account. This work firstly compares the SOAP performance of four WSRF implementations, namely Apache Muse, the Globus Toolkit, WSRF::Lite and UNICORE 6's WSRFLite, followed by an examination of the performance of WSRF operations. The benchmark results give an indication on how implementations fare performance–wise and can be used to decide which implementation is to be used, especially if performance is an issue.
Content and design characteristics of Chinese and US corporate homepages

Many Chinese companies have built their online presences but few studies examine if the Chinese corporate websites follow the recommended design guidelines. Through a content analysis of 487 websites of the largest Chinese companies, the study analyses 55 content and design elements of the corporate homepages. The results provide a comprehensive evaluation on the homepage content and design characteristics of the largest Chinese companies. In addition, the differences in web design practices between Fortune 500 and Chinese corporate homepages are discussed.
Individual level culture influence on online consumer iTrust aspects towards purchase intention across cultures: A S-O-R model

Building trust and understanding its relationship with online purchasing decisions is important to business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce firms seeking to extend their consumers reach globally. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, this paper examines the moderating role of culture on the relationship between B2C web design (web accessibility, visual appearance and social networking services (SNS)) and interpersonal trust (iTrust), cognitive and affect-based trust that trigger online purchasing intentions. Motivation of this study includes, testing and comparing individual consumer level cultural (individualism and uncertainty avoidance) values as moderators in our research model across two different societies (Australia and Pakistan). The data of the survey were analysed using structural equation modelling-partial least square (SEM-PLS) approach. The results highlight the need to consider cultural differences when identifying the mix of web design strategies to employ in B2C e-commerce websites, not only at the country level but also in one culturally diverse country such as Australia.
Understanding physician acceptance of mobile technology: insights from two telephone interviews in Finland

This paper sets out to investigate physicians' perceptions and usage regarding a new mobile medical information system in a pilot trial in the Finnish healthcare sector. Two sets of data were gathered in June and October 2003 by telephone interviews. The physicians interviewed had positive perceptions of the mobile system, and started to use it frequently in their work. They showed few negative experiences of using a Nokia Communicator. They favoured using mobile technology as a way to improve spreading medical knowledge. The main contents of the system, the Evidence-Based Medical Guidelines and the Pharmaca Fennica (the pharmacopoeia), were crucial for using the system. Some differences in physicians' behaviour across time were also found. Implications for system improvement are discussed.
Mandibular fracture repair in dogs and cats using epoxy resin and acrylic external skeletal fixation

Summary Mandibular fractures in 17 dogs and in eight cats were managed using external skeletal fixation (ESF) with acrylic or epoxy resin connecting bars. In order to maintain dental occlusion during fracture repair pha- ryngostomy or tracheostomy was performed in 12 dogs and in six cats to permit inhalational anaesthesia during surgery. All of the fractures healed with the exception of fractures in two dogs. Mandibular external skeletal fixation was well tolerated and there was not any evidence of iatrogenic damage to teeth nor to neurovascular structures within the mandible. Implant loosening was commonly observed at the time of fixator removal, but it did not affect the outcome.
Atopic Dermatitis: Relation Between Disease Severity, Anxiety and Quality of Life in Children and Adults

Background: A high level of anxiety commonly reported in children and adults suffering from atopic dermatitis (AD). Measurement of the Dermatology Life Quality Index in adults (DLQI) and children (CDLQI) is recommended in AD patients to help assess and monitor the progress of those patients. The aim of this work : Was to study the impact of AD on quality of life of patients and to investigate the relationship between severity of AD, anxiety level, and DLQI (CDLQI) in adults and children suffering form AD. Patients and methods: The patients group in our study comprised 128 children and 30 adults suffering form AD, while the control group included 34 children and 13 adults with minor skin diseases (pityriasis alba and acquired melanocytic naevi respectively). The DLQI (CDLQI) and anxiety index were measured in both patients and control groups and the severity score of AD was calculated in patients group.
A hardware/software co-design case study on MPEG AAC audio decoder

This paper presents a hardware/software co-design method for the implementation of AAC audio decoder. We present the approach not only for the characteristics of the algorithm, but also provide the numerical decision for evaluation of the various approaches. The overall system is first analysed and profiled with ARM profiler. Then the decoder system is partitioned into software part and hardware part respectively based on the property of analysis. The software part is developed for the implementation of intensive decision making operations needed for audio bitstreams. The hardware part is a dedicated hardware for the regular and computation-intensive operations in AAC audio decoding.
Effects of Insight Level on the Sensitivity of Alcoholism Screening Tests in Alcohol Dependent Patients

Results: In good insight group, the sensitivity of AUDIT and CAGE identified 96.9% and 96.9% of the participants as alcohol dependence, respectively. In fair insight group, those were 92.7% and 96.4%, respectively. However, in poor insight group, these decreased substantially to 62.9% and 65.7%, respectively. After adjusting for general characteristics on the basis of good insight group, we found that the possibility of positive on the AUDIT was significantly lower in poor insight group (Odd ratios [OR], 0.025; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.002 to 0.411). Also, the possibility of positive on the CAGE was significantly lower in poor insight group (OR, 0.016; 95% CI, 0.001 to 0.358). Conclusion: Alcohol-dependent patients with poor insight showed a high rate of false negatives in alcoholism screening tests. These suggest that primary care physicians should be careful in interpreting the results of alcoholism screening tests.
Efficacy of Transcatheter Arterial Chemoembolization (TACE) combined with sorafenib in the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma

This study investigated the efficacy and toxic effects of the combination of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) with sorafenib in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Thirty-five cases clinically diagnosed as having HCC were enrolled in the study from January, 2009 to December, 2010. All the patients received TACE combined with sorafenib (400 mg) twice per day. The tumour response was evaluated according to the modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours (mRECIST) criteria following every 4 to 6 weeks. Moreover, safety and response were assessed. TACE in combination with sorafenib was successfully administered in 33 patients: mean age, 52.6 years; child’s A, 76%; Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage C, 46%; and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0, 1 and 2, 27%, 64% and 9% respectively. Among the 33 cases that were evaluated, complete response was achieved in 2 cases, partial response in 14 cases, stable disease in 11 cases, and stable progressive disease in 6 cases. The total disease control rate was 81.8%, median time to tumour progression was 8.6 months, and time was 15.4 months. The most common toxicities were hand-foot skin reaction (63.6%), fatigue (60.6), and anorexia (54.5%). The combination of sorafenib and TACE in patients with unresectable HCC resulted in longer survival time. In addition, the treatment was well tolerated and safe. Key words: Combined transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE), sorafenib, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Changes in cardiorespiratory fitness, psychological wellbeing, quality of life, and vocational status following a 12 month cardiac exercise rehabilitation programme

OBJECTIVE To examine and evaluate improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness, psychological wellbeing, quality of life, and vocational status in postmyocardial infarction patients during and after a comprehensive 12 month exercise rehabilitation programme. SUBJECTS The sample population comprised 124 patients with a clinical diagnosis of myocardial infarction (122 men and two women). INTERVENTIONS 62 patients were randomly allocated to a regular weekly aerobic training programme, three times a week for 12 months, and compared with 62 matched controls who did not receive any formal exercise training. A five year follow up questionnaire/interview was subsequently conducted on this population to determine selected vocational/lifestyle changes. RESULTS Significant improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness (p < 0.01–0.001), psychological profiles (p < 0.05–0.001), and quality of life scores (p < 0.001) were recorded in the treatment population when compared with their matched controls. Although there were no significant differences in mortality, a larger percentage of the regular exercisers resumed full time employment and they returned to work earlier than the controls. Controls took lighter jobs, lost more time from work, and suffered more non-fatal reinfarctions (p < 0.05–0.01). CONCLUSIONS Regularly supervised and prolonged aerobic exercise training improves cardiorespiratory fitness, psychological status, and quality of life. The trained population also had a reduction in morbidity following myocardial infarction, and significant improvement in vocational status over a five year follow up period.
A lattice-based designated verifier signature for cloud computing

A third party-based data storage audit service is a developing branch where a user may use its mobile devices with limited energy to trigger a third party to audit the user's data in a cloud service provider. A basic tool for a third party to check the integrity of a user's data is the designated verifier signature DVS, which allows a designated verifier to simulate a signer's signatures. However, the cloud computing is a technique that may be used a long time in the future, the development of quantum computation shows threats to basic building blocks of cloud computing services. It is then desirable to design DVS schemes potentially secure against quantum attacks. We here give a lattice-based DVS scheme to satisfy the requirement. It is based on Lyubashevsky's signature scheme in EUROCRYPT 2012 and has a shorter signature size.
Efficient and secure software-defined mobile cloud computing infrastructure

This paper proposes an efficient software-based data possession mobile cloud computing framework. The proposed design combines the characteristics of two frameworks. The first one is the provable data possession design built for resource constrained mobile devices and it uses the advantage of trusted computing technology, and the second framework is a lightweight resilient storage outsourcing design for mobile cloud computing systems. The proposed solution utilises the strength aspects found in each framework in order to gain better performance and maintain adequate and comparable security. The proposed framework is a software-defined system, encompassing software-defined storage SDStore and software-defined security SDSec. The evaluation and comparison results showed that our proposed system has better flexibility and efficiency than other related frameworks, individually.
Ultrafast Spectrogram with Sub-THz Bandwidth

We demonstrate a photonics-based spectrogram with an operation bandwidth of 380 GHz and a time resolution of 62.5 ps. This proposed linear-optics based scheme allows for the analysis of highly sophisticated waveforms, here shown on a sub-THz signal with a time-bandwidth product of ~1,826.
Multi-Organ Plant Classification Using Deep Learning

The variability in the shape and appearance of the same plant organs and similarity between organs of different plants results in fewer inter-class and high intra-class variations making organ-based plant classification a challenging problem. Classification of plants using a single organ may not be able to deal with these challenges. Thus the use of multiple organs can be more effective in improving the classification performance by learning different aspects of the same class. Existing approaches mainly focus on generic features of plants while ignoring features related to multiple organs. In the proposed approach, Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is used to exploit the information of multiple organs instead of a single organ for the classification of plants. Moreover, the representation of minority classes is increased through DC GAN. The comparison of the proposed approach with the existing approaches on the publicly available PlantCLEF dataset shows its better performance in the accurate classification of plants.
Learning attribute weighted AODE for ROC area ranking

One related area that has received little attention with regards to AODE is the use of attribute weights for ranking. This paper investigates how to learn an AWAODE with accurate ranking from data sets. We first explore various methods, such as gain ratio, correlation-based feature selection attribute selection algorithm, mutual information and relief attribute ranking algorithm. Our experiments clearly show that an attribute weighted AODE trained to produce AUC ranking outperforms AODE and NB. Then, we propose a new approach to weight AODE for generating accurate ranking, called decision tree-based attribute weighted averaged one-dependence estimator, simply DTWAODE. In DTWAODE, the weight for an attribute is set according to its depth in the decision tree building on the training samples. The experimental results show that our new attribute weighted model via AODE performance effectively than AODE and other attribute weighted approaches on AUC.
Multimode Diamond Cavity Optomechanics

We perform multimode optomechanical spectroscopy of a diamond microdisk cavity optomechanical device, and observe mechanical modes with frequencies between 1 and 11 GHz with mechanical quality factors up to 14,000 and simulated optomechanical coupling exceeding 2π × 50 kHz per phonon. This study expands the versatility of diamond microdisks for spin-mechanical coupling and studies of multimode quantum optomechanics.
Cooperative Target Observation of UAVs using Simulated Annealing

Simulated Annealing (SA) is used to solve various combinatorial optimisation problems and local search problems. This paper deals with Cooperative Target Observation (CTO) by groups of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). We propose a Modified SA algorithm for optimising the position of each of the UAVs to observe the maximum number of targets. CTO is a very good example of study of multi agent cooperation. We compare with Hill Climbing algorithm and Modified SA algorithm and find that the Modified SA algorithm is superior for almost all target speeds, UAV sensor ranges and various group sizes.
Management of common mental health in primary care

Mental health is recognised as a global burden of disease and amongst the leading contributors to disability, with common mental health affecting one in six adults. The impact of these conditions on individuals and the economy are significant. Primary care is the first point of contact and general practitioners, as public health gatekeepers are of key importance in the recognition and management of these. It is suggested that general practitioners find consultations challenging, though it is not clear what these difficulties are. The aim of this thesis was to investigate what, if any, problems general practitioners experience with regards to the common mental health consultation. A scoping study and survey provided information on general practitioners’understanding of common mental health and its management. Another survey investigated the perceptions, beliefs and understanding of the general public in relation to common mental health and its management. A theory of planned behaviour study looked at factors that influenced general practitioners’ prescribing and referral behaviours. And finally, a triangulation study examined the findings from the programme of research with other key professionals who are also part of the pathway of care - primary care counsellors and clinical psychologists. Results of this thesis suggest that general practitioners do experience difficulties with the management of common mental health. Challenges were shown to be associated with the general practitioner’s role as the patient’s advocate, lack of knowledge and education, confidence, personal experience, patient expectation and management systems. Results also showed General practitioners’ and lay persons’ understanding of common mental health in everyday practice was different to that in public policy. General practitioner treatment management was shown to be in conflict with clinical guidelines. Furthermore, prescribing and referral behaviours were shown to be influenced by their attitude, significant others and whether they possessed adequate skills or knowledge.
The Mifne Method — ISRAEL. Early intervention in the treatment of autism/PDD: A therapeutic programme for the nuclear family and their child

The paper will present the Mifne (turning point) Method for early intervention in the treatment of the Autism spectrum, which has been developed as an intensive, short-term therapy programme for infants: the youngest infant treated at the Center was five months old. The Mifne approach is derived from attachment theory. The programme is designed to treat families with children under the age of five. The sequential programme includes three stages: 1. Intensive system therapy for the nuclear family that continues for a three week period in residence at the Center. 2. Follow-up treatment takes place at the family home. 3. Integration of the child into mainstream education. A retrospective evaluation of the programme undertaken by the Schneider Children's Medical Center revealed that children showed improvement on almost all items of two scales: the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) and the Social Behavior Rating Scale (SBRS). Total scores on both scales showed significant improvement after three weeks and after six months. Follow-up data shows that 73% of the children treated at the Center have been integrated in mainstream schools. Clearly, early detection and treatment in the first year of life can redirect the infant's development and might avoid the escalation of autistic symptoms. An illustrative case study is described.