Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experience , Machiavellianism , Decision Aid Use and Going Concern Assessment : An Empirical Study

SUMMARY Research on the effect of experience on auditor judgment and decision-making has found results generally consistent with positive experience-related effects on auditor judgment performance. Despite this, audit firms have been known to fail in the performance of their attestation function, with much ensuing public disaffection. This study investigates the effect of experience, Machiavellianism, and decision aid use on going concern assessment. We posit that experienced auditors, while developing lower levels of Machiavellianism in proportion to their growth in experience, may actually suffer a reduction in their ability to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information. This may render them susceptible to the dilution effect, with subsequent impairment in decision performance despite the use of decision aids. The study finds evidence to support this prediction. characterize auditing as Aa process of appraising the validity of an assertion vis-à-vis specified criteria and reporting the findings to interested parties. @ In performing this function, the auditor has to carry out several tasks, ranging from relatively Astructured@ (Keen and Scott-Morton 1978) to Aunstructured@. While the problem and its solution are clearly defined for structured tasks, unstructured tasks are characterized by ill-defined problems lacking clear-cut solutions. The latter require the decision maker to use his or her professional judgment to a considerably greater degree than the former (Abdolmohammadi 1987). Traditionally, while the structured tasks are usually carried out by the less experienced auditors (such as audit juniors and seniors), the unstructured tasks are typically performed by managers and partners on the assumption that they possess the knowledge base appropriate for such tasks. Ever since Ashton=s (1974) seminal study on auditor judgment, an enormous volume of research has contributed to the extant state of knowledge in the area. A large part of this research has focused on the effect of experience on auditor decision making (e. The findings from a majority of these studies provide support for experience-related differences in decision performance. Despite this evidence, experienced auditors do make costly errors of judgment. One of the unstructured tasks in the auditing process relates to expressing an opinion on the ability of an auditee firm to continue as a going concern. Several prominent bankruptcies of firms that had been given a clean bill of health by their auditors in their most recent financial statements point to the susceptibility of experienced auditors to erroneous judgment, and the ensuing public disaffection (Cormier et al. 1995). The dilution effect (Nisbett et …
An Approach for Residual Energy Based Aggregator Selection for Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks

Assistant Professor, Information Technology Engineering Model Institute of Engineering and Technology, Kot Balwal Affiliated to University of Jammu,Jammu &Kashmir, India Abstract. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) comprises an emerging technology which has received a significant attention from the research community. Tiny sensor nodes sometimes referred as “motes” are mini, low-cost devices with limited coverage having low power, smaller memory sizes and low bandwidth. WSN is an event-based system with one “sink” subscribing to specific data streams by expressing interest and queries. Since the amount of energy required to transmit even a bit of data is very high, and the energy of the nodes is limited, transmitting of data from all sources to sink becomes a great challenge. By using a technique termed as the in-network data aggregation, the inherent redundancy in raw data which is collected from the sensors can be eliminated. This paper focuses on the concept of clusters in WSN and defines an approach for selecting the aggregator among all the nodes. The cluster-based hierarchical architecture owns extraordinary performance on energy-saving. In WSN since energy of the nodes is limited, using one single node as aggregator is not feasible. WSN can choose its aggregators dynamically according to their residual power to optimize the total power consumption of the aggregation process. In this paper, the selection of aggregators based on their residual energy is proposed.
Speech enhancement using non negative matrix factorization and enhanced NMF

Speech enhancement is a dominant research area, which is used to augment the degraded speech. This paper is based on speech enhancement using Bayesian Formulation of Nonnegative Matrix Factorization algorithm with Hidden Markov Model (BNMF HMM) for supervised speech enhancement. This paper, explore a new class of unsupervised speech de-noising algorithm known as Enhanced NMF (ENMF), which is used to develop a speech enhancement system neither the speaker identity nor the type of noise is known in advance. NMF methods are used for source separation. Extensive experiments are carried out to examine the performance of the proposed method under different circumstances. Furthermore, this work contrasts the recital of the developed algorithms with state of the art speech enhancement schemes using various objective and subjective measures. The experimental results show that Enhanced NMF (ENMF) method is more efficient than other conservative methods by using Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) in dB, Signal to Distortion Ratio (SDR) in dB and Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ) in Mean Opinion Score.
Impacto de la cirugía estética sobre el bienestar psicológico: la importancia de la apariencia personal en el funcionamiento psicosocial The impact of aesthetic surgery on psychological well-being: the importance of personal appearance in psychosocial functioning

Personal appearance is an important variable for understanding the psychosocial functioning of people. Although there is a popular idea that it is important to get to know what people are like «on the inside», it must also be recognized that many people do not get the opportunity to show what they are like inside if they are rejected due to their personal appearance. At present, due to the development of cosmetic surgery, nearly all the external elements of a person can be modifi ed at will. In this way, features of physical appearance aff ected by the time passing can be modifi ed and have a positive impact on people’s psychosocial aspects. The objective of this work is to evaluate whether there are diff erences in the levels of psychological well-being of people who are about to undergo cosmetic treatment and those who have already undergone treatment. A retrospective ex post facto design with a cuasi control group was performed, in which 86 patients participated (men = 15.1%; women = 84.9%, with ages ranging between 15 and 67 years). Psychological well-being was evaluated using the BIEPS scale and afterwards the existence of meaningful signifi cant diff erences was examined using Student’s t test for independent samples. The results suggest an absence of statistically signifi cant diff erences between the groups (t = 1.2 p < 0.1). The unequal sizes of the groups should be taken into account for it could aff ect the potency of the test, as moderate values (d = 0.48) in favor of the group, which received treatment, were found when estimating the size of the eff ect of the diff erence using Cohen’s d. New longitudinal research should be carried out to obtain clearer evidence regarding the impact of cosmetic surgery on psychological well-being. Palabras clave: Bienestar psicologico, apariencia personal, cirugia estetica.
Application-based TCP hijacking

We present application-based TCP hijacking (ABTH), a new attack on TCP applications that exploits flaws due to the interplay between TCP and application protocols to inject data into an application session without either server or client applications noticing the spoofing attack. Following the injection of a TCP packet, ABTH resynchronizes the TCP stacks of both the server and the client. To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of ABTH, we developed a tool that allows impersonating users of Windows Live Messenger in the matter of few seconds. Due to its generic nature, ABTH can be mounted on a variety of modern protocols for TCP-based applications. Countermeasures to thwart and/or limit the effectiveness of ABTH could include strict Ethernet switching and cryptographic protection of messages. However, the former cannot be guaranteed by the application provider and the latter appears to be still prohibitively expensive for such large-scale applications with hundreds of millions of sporadic users as Windows Live Messenger.
Towards the Semantic Web - An Approach to Reverse Engineering of Relational Databases to Ontologies

We propose a novel approach to reverse engineering of relational databases to ontologies. Our approach incorporates two main sources of semantics: HTML pages and a relational schema. This incorporation results in that: (1) only minimal information about a relational database is required to build an ontology; and (2) the ontology is no longer “impaired” by bad-database design, and by optimization and de-normalization of the relational schema. Our approach can be used for migrating HTML pages (especially those that are dynamically generated from a relational database) to the ontology-based Semantic Web. The main reason for this migration is to make the relational database information that is available on the Web machine-processable.
An Optimization Spiking Neural P System for Approximately Solving Combinatorial Optimization Problems

Membrane systems (also called P systems) refer to the computing models abstracted from the structure and the functioning of the living cell as well as from the cooperation of cells in tissues, organs, and other populations of cells. Spiking neural P systems (SNPS) are a class of distributed and parallel computing models that incorporate the idea of spiking neurons into P systems. To attain the solution of optimization problems, P systems are used to properly organize evolutionary operators of heuristic approaches, which are named as membrane-inspired evolutionary algorithms (MIEAs). This paper proposes a novel way to design a P system for directly obtaining the approximate solutions of combinatorial optimization problems without the aid of evolutionary operators like in the case of MIEAs. To this aim, an extended spiking neural P system (ESNPS) has been proposed by introducing the probabilistic selection of evolution rules and multi-neurons output and a family of ESNPS, called optimization spiking neural P system (OSNPS), are further designed through introducing a guider to adaptively adjust rule probabilities to approximately solve combinatorial optimization problems. Extensive experiments on knapsack problems have been reported to experimentally prove the viability and effectiveness of the proposed neural system.
INFLUENCE OF FOOD INTAKE AND SEXUAL SEGREGATION ON LONGEVITY, ORGAN WEIGHTS AND NEOPLASTIC DISEASES IN RATS THE INCIDENCE OF NON-NEOPLASTIC AND

In a small-scale experiment the effects of four variables were investigated in male and female Wistar rats fed on a standard laboratory chow and not deliberately exposed to any carcinogen. The variables investigated were (i) diet restriction by limiting access to food to 6.5 hr/day instead of 24 hr/day; (ii) housing males in a single-sex room as distinct from a mixed-sex room; (iii) life-long segregation of males from females, as distinct from access to one virgin female for 5 days during each alternate week; and (iv) uniparity in females versus life-long virginity. The endpoints compared were body-weight gain, longevity, visible and palpable swellings, absolute and relative organ weights, microscopically confirmed malignant neoplasms that coniributed to death before the end of the study at 2 yr. incidence of other neoplasms in decedents and rats killed at the end of the study, and the incidence of various non-neoplastic conditions including myocardia1 inflammation and fibrosis, chronic progressive nephropathy, liver glycogen storage and fatty degeneration, mammary gland hyperplasia and secretory activity, pancreatic polyarteritis, radiculoneuropathy and certain testicular changes. The results indicated major beneficial effects of dietary restriction on most of the endpoints. By comparison the other variables had only marginal effects. Leydig-cell hyperplasia and neoplasia occurred at significantly higher incidences in males housed intermittently with females than in permanently segregated males. No convincing differences were seen between females that littered once and those that remained virgins. The relevance of these findings to the prediction of cancer mortality risk in man and to the design of rodent carcinogenicity studies is discussed. '
Child Deaths From Injury in the Special Wards of Tokyo, Japan (2006–2010): A Descriptive Study

Background There has been increasing interest in the formal review of child deaths in Japan. In this study we examined the causes and scene information regarding child deaths from injury in Tokyo, the capital of Japan, as preparation for implementation of a full-scale review of child deaths. Methods Documents on deaths from injury (excluding homicides) investigated by the Tokyo Medical Examiner’s Office during the period from 2006 through 2010 were reviewed. Deaths of children younger than 18 years (N = 217) were selected as the study sample. We examined the cause of and information on the death and were particularly interested in whether a case had preventable factors. Results Overall, 67% of the cases were deaths from unintentional injury. The main cause of death among children younger than 1 year was asphyxia, and the proportions of deaths from traffic accidents were higher in older age groups. Thirty percent of deaths from injury were due to suicide, and all cases of suicide were among children older than 10 years. Although analysis of preventable factors was difficult in some cases, owing to limited information on the death scene, 87% of deaths from unintentional injury, excluding those involving traffic accidents, had preventable factors. Conclusions Most unintentional child deaths from injury appear to be preventable. Development of a system to collect detailed information on the scene at the time of death will help decrease child deaths in Japan.
Treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration with anti-VEGF agents: retrospective analysis of 5-year outcomes

Purpose To evaluate the 5-year results obtained in clinical practice in the treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) with anti-VEGF agents. Materials and methods We retrospectively analyzed all patients with nAMD who initiated anti-VEGF treatment before October 2009. We collected data regarding visual and anatomical outcomes. Results A total of 278 patients met the selection criteria. The mean number of intravitreal injections was 5.7 in the first year and 3.7 in the fifth year. A positive mean visual acuity variation of +3.7 Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study letters occurred in the first year, but no significant differences relative to baseline were observed thereafter. The majority of patients (71%) maintained stable visual acuity throughout follow-up. At 5 years, mean central macular thickness remained substantially inferior to baseline (−96.6 μm), and 56% of patients maintained dry retinas. Conclusion Anti-VEGF therapy leads to long-term visual stabilization in the great majority of patients.
Downslope windstorm in Iceland - WRF/MM5 model comparison

Abstract. A severe windstorm downstream of Mt. Oraefajokull in Southeast Iceland is simulated on a grid of 1 km horizontal resolution by using the PSU/NCAR MM5 model and the Advanced Research WRF model. Both models are run with a new, two equation planetary boundary layer (PBL) scheme as well as the ETA/MYJ PBL schemes. The storm is also simulated using six different micro-physics schemes in combination with the MYJ PBL scheme in WRF, as well as one "dry" run. Output from a 3 km MM5 domain simulation is used to initialise and drive both the 1 km MM5 and WRF simulations. Both models capture gravity-wave breaking over Mt. Oraefajokull, while the vertical structure of the lee wave differs between the two models and the PBL schemes. The WRF simulated downslope winds, using both the MYJ and 2EQ PBL schemes, are in good agreement with the strength of the observed downslope windstorm. The MM5 simulated surface winds, with the new two equation model, are in better agreement to observations than when using the ETA scheme. Micro-physics processes are shown to play an important role in the formation of downslope windstorms and a correctly simulated moisture distribution is decisive for a successful windstorm prediction. Of the micro-physics schemes tested, only the Thompson scheme captures the downslope windstorm.
Radiofrequency Ablation for Hepatic Malignancies: Is Needle Tract Cauterization Necessary for Preventing Iatrogenic Bleeding?

Objective: To evaluate whether iatrogenic hemorrhage can be prevented by intrahepatic tract ablation following radiofrequency ablation (RFA) therapy for hepatic malignancies. Methods: A retrospective cohort study analyzing a prospective database in a single institution was conducted. The incidence of postprocedural complications was compared in two groups: one with cauterization of the needle tracts after RFA and the other without. Results: The complication rates of intraperitoneal hemorrhage were 1.05% (4/380) and 0.92% (6/652) in the nonablation group and the ablation group, respectively (p = 0.90). All of these 10 patients with iatrogenic bleeding were classified as Child-Pugh grade A. Among the 15 hemodialysis patients in this study, hemorrhage was seen in 2 (13.3%), compared with 8 (0.79%) of the nonhemodialysis patients (p = 0.0002). There were no statistically significant differences in the incidence of other complications including pleural effusion, serous ascites, pneumothorax, hemothorax, hepatic infarction, bile duct injury and pericardial effusion between the two groups. Gastrointestinal perforation, peritonitis or tumor seeding were not observed. Conclusion: Our study found a high incidence of bleeding after RFA among hemodialysis patients. Irrespective of tract ablation being after RFA, iatrogenic hemorrhage appeared to be equivalent in this population.
Applying the Partitioned Multiobjective Risk Method (PMRM) to Portfolio Selection

The analysis of risk‐return tradeoffs and their practical applications to portfolio analysis paved the way for Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), which won Harry Markowitz a 1992 Nobel Prize in Economics. A typical approach in measuring a portfolio's expected return is based on the historical returns of the assets included in a portfolio. On the other hand, portfolio risk is usually measured using volatility, which is derived from the historical variance‐covariance relationships among the portfolio assets. This article focuses on assessing portfolio risk, with emphasis on extreme risks. To date, volatility is a major measure of risk owing to its simplicity and validity for relatively small asset price fluctuations. Volatility is a justified measure for stable market performance, but it is weak in addressing portfolio risk under aberrant market fluctuations. Extreme market crashes such as that on October 19, 1987 (“Black Monday”) and catastrophic events such as the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 that led to a four‐day suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are a few examples where measuring risk via volatility can lead to inaccurate predictions. Thus, there is a need for a more robust metric of risk. By invoking the principles of the extreme‐risk‐analysis method through the partitioned multiobjective risk method (PMRM), this article contributes to the modeling of extreme risks in portfolio performance. A measure of an extreme portfolio risk, denoted by f4, is defined as the conditional expectation for a lower‐tail region of the distribution of the possible portfolio returns. This article presents a multiobjective problem formulation consisting of optimizing expected return and f4, whose solution is determined using Evolver—a software that implements a genetic algorithm. Under business‐as‐usual market scenarios, the results of the proposed PMRM portfolio selection model are found to be compatible with those of the volatility‐based model. However, under extremely unfavorable market conditions, results indicate that f4 can be a more valid measure of risk than volatility.
Combination of exercise training and erythropoietin prevents cancer-induced muscle alterations

Cancer cachexia is a syndrome characterized by loss of skeletal muscle mass, inflammation, anorexia and anemia, contributing to patient fatigue and reduced quality of life. In addition to nutritional approaches, exercise training (EX) has been proposed as a suitable tool to manage cachexia. In the present work the effect of mild exercise training, coupled to erythropoietin (EPO) administration to prevent anemia, has been tested in tumor-bearing mice. In the C26 hosts, acute exercise does not prevent and even worsens muscle wasting. Such pattern is prevented by EPO co-administration or by the adoption of a chronic exercise protocol. EX and EPO co-treatment spares oxidative myofibers from atrophy and counteracts the oxidative to glycolytic shift, inducing PGC-1α. LLC hosts are responsive to exercise and their treatment with the EX-EPO combination prevents the loss of muscle strength and the onset of mitochondrial ultrastructural alterations, while increases muscle oxidative capacity and intracellular ATP content, likely depending on PGC-1α induction and mitophagy promotion. Consistently, muscle-specific PGC-1α overexpression prevents LLC-induced muscle atrophy and Atrogin-1 hyperexpression. Overall, the present data suggest that low intensisty exercise can be an effective tool to be included in combined therapeutic approaches against cancer cachexia, provided that anemia is coincidently treated in order to enhance the beneficial action of exercise.
Better performance or better manageability?

Competition among software providers creates enormous pressure on design and development teams to improve application performance. However, increased performance leads to systems whose behaviour is harder to predict. This in turn makes software harder to manage, or self-manage in the case of autonomic software. In this paper we elaborate on this problem, first in generic terms, and then taking memory-usage monitoring in a Java Virtual Machine as a specific example. We motivate the need for more research in developing monitoring techniques that can cope with the complexity of modern software systems. We finally present our own efforts in this direction.
Game Theory Video Streaming

We consider the problem of peer selection for multimedia trans- mission over a peer-to-peer (P2P) network to find a strategy model for peer selection for each lost packet. Our problem consists of two parts one related to the P2P network that is a peer selection method, and the other is related to the uplink bandwidth that each peer in the network receives from a licensed spectrum holder. Moreover, if a peer wants to download a desired packet from another peer in the network, it should pay a certain amount of money to the source to download a packet. Also, if a node in the P2P network wants to use its up- link rate to send a packet to another peer in the network, it should pay some money to the primary user in order to use the primary user bandwidth. In addition, in peer selection method every node in the P2P network decides its peers based on a model that maximizes its utility function. On the other hand, the interaction between the P2P network and spectrum holder is cast in the framework of Stackelberg games and we use game theory model for this part of the report. It is worth mentioning that we consider the P2P network in different situations based on peers’ characteristics in the network.