Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Frictionless Commerce? A Comparison of Internet and Conventional Retailers

There have been many claims that the Internet represents a new nearly “frictionless market. ” Our research empirically analyzes the characteristics of the Internet as a channel for two categories of homogeneous products — books and CDs. Using a data set of over 8,500 price observations collected over a period of 15 months, we compare pricing behavior at 41 Internet and conventional retail outlets. We find that prices on the Internet are 9-16% lower than prices in conventional outlets, depending on whether taxes, shipping, and shopping costs are included in the price. Additionally, we find that Internet retailers’ price adjustments over time are up to 100 times smaller than conventional retailers’ price adjustments — presumably reflecting lower menu costs in Internet channels. We also find that levels of price dispersion depend importantly on the measures employed. When we compare the prices posted by different Internet retailers we find substantial dispersion. Internet retailer prices differ by an average of 33% for books and 25% for CDs. However, when we weight these prices by proxies for market share, we find dispersion is lower in Internet channels than in conventional channels, reflecting the dominance of certain heavily branded retailers. We conclude that while there is lower friction in many dimensions of Internet competition, branding, awareness, and trust remain important sources of heterogeneity among Internet retailers. (Search; Competition; Internet; Price Dispersion; Menu Costs; Pricing; Intermediaries)
Culex torrentium Mosquito Role as Major Enzootic Vector Defined by Rate of Sindbis Virus Infection, Sweden, 2009

We isolated Sindbis virus (SINV) from the enzootic mosquito vectors Culex torrentium, Cx. pipiens, and Culiseta morsitans collected in an area of Sweden where SINV disease is endemic. The infection rate in Cx. torrentium mosquitoes was exceptionally high (36 infections/1,000 mosquitoes), defining Cx. torrentium as the main enzootic vector of SINV in Scandinavia.
Time-Frequency Representation of Microseismic Signals using the Synchrosqueezing Transform

Summary Resonance frequencies can provide useful information on the deformation occurring during fracturing experiments or CO2 management, complementary to the microseismic event distribution. An accurate time-frequency representation is of crucial importance prior to interpreting the cause of resonance frequencies during microseismic experiments. The popular methods of Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) and wavelet analysis have limitations in representing close frequencies and dealing with fast varying instantaneous frequencies and this is often the nature of microseismic signals. The synchrosqueezing transform (SST) is a promising tool to track these resonant frequencies and provide a detailed time-frequency representation. Here we apply the synchrosqueezing transform to microseismic signals and also show its potential to general seismic signal processing applications.
Setwise Comparison: Consistent, Scalable, Continuum Labels for Computer Vision

A growing number of domains, including affect recognition and movement analysis, require a single, real number ground truth label capturing some property of a video clip. We term this the provision of continuum labels. Unfortunately, there is often an uncacceptable trade-off between label consistency and the efficiency of the labelling process with current tools. We present a novel interaction technique, setwise comparison, which leverages the intrinsic human capability for consistent relative judgements and the TrueSkill algorithm to solve this problem. We describe SorTable, a system demonstrating this technique. We conducted a real-world study where clinicians labelled videos of patients with multiple sclerosis for the ASSESS MS computer vision system. In assessing the efficiency-consistency trade-off of setwise versus pairwise comparison, we demonstrated that not only is setwise comparison more efficient, but it also elicits more consistent labels. We further consider how our findings relate to the interactive machine learning literature.
RAT: Routing by Adaptive Targeting in Wireless Sensor/Actor Networks

Wireless sensor networks have attracted significant interest for various scientific, military, and e-health applications. Recently a new class of sensor networks "sensor/actuator" has been introducing new research challenges due to the unique coordination requirements. In particular, actuators that have the capability to move can respond to emergencies with adaptive targeting in comparison to static sink-based target management. In this regard, little work is done in terms of co-existing push and pull data flows in the network. Also positioning of the actuators in response to observations is still an open question. In this paper we propose an adaptive targeting (RAT) protocol that allows dynamic sensor-to-actor communication and actors coordination in response to emergencies. RAT exploits the mobility of actor nodes to form dynamic responsibility clusters, thus ensures an event specific response time to emergencies. Simulation results suggest significant performance improvements in terms of response time and energy conservation.
Selective COX-2 Inhibitors and Risk of Myocardial Infarction

Selective inhibitors of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2, ‘coxibs’) are highly effective anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs that exert their action by preventing the formation of prostanoids. Recently some coxibs, which were designed to exploit the advantageous effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs while evading their side effects, have been reported to increase the risk of myo cardial infarction and atherothrombotic events. This has led to the withdrawal of rofecoxib from global markets, and warnings have been issued by drug authorities about similar events during the use of celecoxib or valdecoxib/parecoxib, bringing about questions of an inherent atherothrombotic risk of all coxibs and consequences that should be drawn by health care professionals. These questions need to be addressed in light of the known effects of selective inhibition of COX-2 on the cardiovascular system. Although COX-2, in contrast to the cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) isoform, is regarded as an inducible enzyme that only has a role in pathophysiological processes like pain and inflammation, experimental and clinical studies have shown that COX-2 is constitutively expressed in tissues like the kidney or vascular endothelium, where it executes important physiological functions. COX-2-dependent formation of prostanoids not only results in the mediation of pain or inflammatory signals but also in the maintenance of vascular integrity. Especially prostacyclin (PGI2), which exerts vasodilatory and antiplatelet properties, is formed to a significant extent by COX-2, and its levels are reduced to less than half of normal when COX-2 is inhibited. This review outlines the rationale for the development of selective COX-2 inhibitors and the pathophysiological consequences of selective inhibition of COX-2 with special regard to vasoactive prostaglandins. It describes coxibs that are current ly available, evaluates the current knowledge on the risk of atherothrombotic events associated with their intake and critically discusses the consequences that should be drawn from these insights.
Summarizing multiple spoken documents: finding evidence from untranscribed audio

This paper presents a model for summarizing multiple untranscribed spoken documents. Without assuming the availability of transcripts, the model modifies a recently proposed unsupervised algorithm to detect re-occurring acoustic patterns in speech and uses them to estimate similarities between utterances, which are in turn used to identify salient utterances and remove redundancies. This model is of interest due to its independence from spoken language transcription, an error-prone and resource-intensive process, its ability to integrate multiple sources of information on the same topic, and its novel use of acoustic patterns that extends previous work on low-level prosodic feature detection. We compare the performance of this model with that achieved using manual and automatic transcripts, and find that this new approach is roughly equivalent to having access to ASR transcripts with word error rates in the 33--37% range without actually having to do the ASR, plus it better handles utterances with out-of-vocabulary words.
The effect of homophone distractors on non-word recognition

Previous research has shown that auditory representations play a significant role in the identification of printed words. Van Orden et al. (1988) reported, based on a series of experiments, that the process of word identification in reading follows a path from spelling to sound to meaning. In their 1988 study, they found that the presence of pseudohomophones – non-words that sound like real words – interfered with a categorization task. Seidenberg et al. (1996) similarly showed that the presence of pseudohomophones increased the latency for a lexical decision task. Both of these tasks involved comparing non-words to real words. On the other hand, Ferrand and Grainger (2003) studied the effect of homophone pairs of real words, not non-words, and found that the interference effect depended on the relative frequency of the words: lowfrequency words were interfered with by their higher-frequency homophones, but not vice versa.
When Internal Reference Prices and Price Expectations Diverge: The Role of Confidence

When do internal reference prices differ from articulated price expectations? The authors propose that the internal reference price depends not only on the magnitude of the expected price but also on the confidence associated with this expectation. Four experiments delineate the effects of price expectation and confidence on the internal reference price. In Experiments 1 and 2, the authors manipulate repetition and examine the effects of repetition-induced confidence on price judgments. In Experiments 3 and 4, they manipulate confidence directly to investigate its effects on judgments. The results from all four experiments suggest that consumers with less confidence have higher internal reference prices than more confident consumers, even when they do not differ in their articulated price expectations. The authors discuss the implications of these results for pricing theory.
Validating effective design knowledge for re-use: HCI engineering design principles

There is a need for more formal HCI design knowledge, such that effective design knowledge may be specified in a format which facilitates re-use. A conception of Engineering Design Principles (EDPs) is presented, as a framework within which to systematically relate design knowledge to performance. It is argued that the specification of these relations supports validation, leading to a higher likelihood that application of an EDP to an appropriate design problem will result in a satisfactory design solution. A hierarchy of classes of design problem is presented, and discussed in context of the ongoing research project.
Technical Report 11 / 2009 Interventions in ingarch processes

We study the problem of intervention effects generating var ious types of outliers in a linear count time series model. This model belongs to the class of observation driven models and extends the class of Gaussian linear time series models within the exponential family fra mework. Studies about effects of covariates and interventions for count time series models have largely fal len behind due to the fact that the underlying process, whose behavior determines the dynamics of the obse rved process, is not observed. We suggest a computationally feasible approach to these problems, focu sing especially on the detection and estimation of sudden shifts and outliers. To identify successfully such u nus al events we employ the maximum of score tests, whose critical values in finite samples are determine d by parametric bootstrap. The usefulness of the proposed methods is illustrated using simulated and real da t examples.
A game theoretic approach to source identification with known statistics

In the attempt to lay the basis for the construction of a theoretical framework to cast forensics and anti-forensics techniques in, we introduce a game-theoretic model for the source-identification problem with known statistics. The framework is used to derive the Nash equilibrium for an asymptotic version of the game, in which the players' strategies and the payoff are defined in terms of the error exponents of the false positive and false negative probabilities. The payoff at the equilibrium is evaluated and the conditions under which the false negative error probability tends to zero derived.
Fano profiles in scattering around exceptional points

In a previous paper it has been shown that the interference of the first and second order pole of the Green’s function at an exceptional point, as well as the interference of the first order poles in the vicinity of the exceptional point, gives rise to asymmetric scattering cross section profiles. In the present paper we demonstrate that these line profiles are indeed well described by the BeutlerFano formula, and thus are genuine Fano resonances. Also further away from the exceptional points excellent agreement can be found by introducing energy dependent Fano parameters. PACS numbers: 03.65. Nk, 46.40. Ff, 03.65. Vf, 31.15. -p, Submitted to: J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. Fano profiles in scattering around exceptional points 2
Performance Evaluation of Super Resolution Image Reconstruction using IWT and BPT with Different Colour Transforms

Super resolution (SR) images play an important role in Image processing applications. Spatial resolution is the key parameter in many applications of image processing. Super resolution images can be used to improve the spatial resolution. In this paper a new SR image reconstruction algorithm is proposed using Integer wavelet transform (IWT) and Binary plane technique (BPT). The proposed method is analyzed in different color space transforms such as CIELAB, YCbCr and RGB. In this paper we compared PSNR, ISNR, Blocking effect and Homogeneity with different colour images in RGB, YCbCr and CIELAB domains. Qualitative analysis shows that the proposed method in CIELAB color space transforms has better performance.
Object similarity affects the perceptual strategy underlying invariant visual object recognition in rats

In recent years, a number of studies have explored the possible use of rats as models of high-level visual functions. One central question at the root of such an investigation is to understand whether rat object vision relies on the processing of visual shape features or, rather, on lower-order image properties (e.g., overall brightness). In a recent study, we have shown that rats are capable of extracting multiple features of an object that are diagnostic of its identity, at least when those features are, structure-wise, distinct enough to be parsed by the rat visual system. In the present study, we have assessed the impact of object structure on rat perceptual strategy. We trained rats to discriminate between two structurally similar objects, and compared their recognition strategies with those reported in our previous study. We found that, under conditions of lower stimulus discriminability, rat visual discrimination strategy becomes more view-dependent and subject-dependent. Rats were still able to recognize the target objects, in a way that was largely tolerant (i.e., invariant) to object transformation; however, the larger structural and pixel-wise similarity affected the way objects were processed. Compared to the findings of our previous study, the patterns of diagnostic features were: (i) smaller and more scattered; (ii) only partially preserved across object views; and (iii) only partially reproducible across rats. On the other hand, rats were still found to adopt a multi-featural processing strategy and to make use of part of the optimal discriminatory information afforded by the two objects. Our findings suggest that, as in humans, rat invariant recognition can flexibly rely on either view-invariant representations of distinctive object features or view-specific object representations, acquired through learning.
Tests of Significance for 2 × 2 Contingency Tables

Fisher's exact test, and the approximation to it by the continuity-corrected X 2 test, have repeatedly been attacked over the past 40 years, recently with the support of extensive computer exercises. The present paper argues, on commonsense grounds, supported by simple examples, that these attacks are misconceived, and are mainly due to uncritical acceptance of the Neyman-Pearson approach to tests of significance, the use of nominal levels, and refusal to accept the arguments for conditioning on the margins.Two-sided tests have also added to the confusion; it is argued that the best definition of a two-sided probability is twice the observed one-tail probability.
Review of applications of partial differential equations for image enhancement

Image restoration and enhancement are important parts of digital image processing, belonging to the early visual image processing problems. Image pre-processing is the necessary preliminary work of image analysis, such as filtering to reduce image noise and to enhance the image edges. The image enhancement technique plays an important role in improving image quality and is good for image post-processing e.g. image segmentation and image tracking. Image restoration and enhancement have been widely used in military, medical, industrial production and other fields. Partial differential equation (PDE) as a sophisticated method of image analysis and processing is of great values of research and application, which needs a deep study. As both the variational model and the anisotropic diffusion model have a complete theoretical framework, a variety of models and sophisticated numerical schemes, introduction of which to the fields of digital image processing and computer vision provides a powerful tool to solve problems undoubtedly . This paper concerns about the applications of the PDE in image restoration and image enhancement. We mainly assay traditional methods of image analysis, study applications of the variational method and diffusion equations in image restoration, as well as their improved algorithm for image enhancement.
Do Artificial Immune Systems Model Immune Cognition ?

Researchers in cognitive science struggle to find a computational model that best represents cognitive phenomena for the latter are extremely complex and their mechanisms are not well understood. The biological immune system, in turn, features intrinsic cognitive characteristics. As a consequence, computational models of the immune system are capable of naturally incorporating many of these abilities with advantages over more traditional models of cognitive systems. The main purpose of this study is to highlight the cognitive aspects of artificial immune systems in parallel/contrast with more traditional models of cognition.
Network education video recommendation algorithm based on context and trust relationship

With the development of information technology and the internet, there are many education videos on the network for people to study in their spare time. However, it is difficult for people to choose education videos which they really need. To solve the problem, a personalized recommendation algorithm based on context and trust relationship is proposed in this paper. Under the help of this algorithm, education videos interested by users can be proactive recommended. The algorithm improves traditional filtering recommendation algorithm. It is divided into three parts. One candidate video set is firstly obtained according to user-rating matrix and context, and then another set is obtained according to trust relationships between users. Finally, the former two candidate sets are combined to determine the recommendation video set. Experiments indicate that the proposed algorithm is more accurate than traditional collaborative filtering algorithm.
High Performance Work Systems: Exciting Discovery or Passing Fad?

Recently, several organizations reported implementing high performance work systems, with remarkable success. These HPWSs, as they are becoming known (as defined by Nadler, 1989), are primarily aimed at improving the organization's financial and operational performance. A survey of 39 organizations was conducted to examine the antecedents, the design, and the overall effectiveness of these initiatives. Results indicate that HPWSs that create a change in the organization's cultural behavior (e.g., cooperation, innovation) and people management practices (e.g., reward and selection systems) can positively impact the financial and operational performance
Inductive Program Synthesis by Using a Reversible

Program synthesis by examples is more convenient than using conventional techniques, since it only requires examples instead of a detailed speci cation. In spite of this convenience, relatively little research in this type of synthesis has so far been carried out. A major obstacle is that, due to the similarity-based and data-driven features of this technique, many examples and considerable computation power are required to synthesize a complex program. To overcome this di culty, we propose that the learning of empirical synthesis processes be based on their explanations, in which the system explains how other similar programs are synthesized from given examples and transfers the explanation to the target. Since the programming know-how involved in the similar programs is already available, new programs are easily synthesized using only a small number of examples.
Development of a Control Platform for the Mobile Robot Roomba Using ROS and a Kinect Sensor

A control scheme for the mobile robot Roomba was developed using ROS (robot operating system), which allowed the control of the robot using velocity vector references. A Kinect sensor was incorporated into the system and also a framework which provides communication with processes in other instances, monitoring and remote control. The system is flexible enough to be replicated in the future in other Roomba robots. With this framework it is possible to control the movement of the robot using velocity vector references generated from the spatial references extracted from de environment using the Kinect sensor.
One size fits all? – The relationship between the value of genetic traits and the farm system

The wide use of artificial insemination by dairy farmers has facilitated the development of a multi-billion dollar international market in animal genetics. In the major western dairy producing nations, each country has developed a single index to rank bulls, based on the value of traits they are expected to pass on to their offspring. One of the assumptions behind these indexes is that there is a positive linear relationship between profit (and welfare) with increases in a particular trait, regardless of the farm system. In this paper, it is shown, with examples, that the assumption of linearity is false. More importantly, it is shown that for a combination of reasons, including risk aversion, constraints and other issues, the optimal direction of genetic improvement for New Zealand dairy farmers on an individual and industry level could be quite different. Alternatives to the “one size fits all” index are described.