Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social and Cultural Issues in Institutionalisation of ERP Systems

ERP systems are highly integrated and complex systems. These systems have become a core technology in many businesses since the past two decades; however, the implemented systems do not always bring about the planned results and still many ERP implementations fails to achieve the desired benefits. This is mainly because of the way these organisations have implemented ERP and the way this technology has been institutionalised within the organisations. ERP institutionalisation, however, occurs when its usage becomes stable, routinized and embedded within the organisation’s work processes and value chain activities. Many research has been studied the success/ failure factors associated with ERP implementation which is valuable for advanced understanding of ERP implementation success, however, alone it is not sufficient for explaining social and cultural issues in institutionalisation of ERP systems. This research, thus, aims to fill this gap by offering a preliminary framework which studies the socio-cultural drivers influencing various stages of assimilation process within organisations. Towards the next stage of this research, the authors will engage different Australian organisations who use ERP systems in their organisations to investigate socio-cultural aspects which managers should consider through initiation, adoption and routinization of ERP usage. The refined version of this framework, obtained after qualitative analysis of gathered data, may be mastered as a decision making tool by business manager to guide the organisation through various stages of ERP assimilation and institutionalisation.
Molecular characterization of Verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli O157:H7 isolates from Argentina by Multiple-Loci VNTR Analysis (MLVA)

The aim of this work was to adapt described MLVA protocols to the molecular typing and characterization of VTEC O157:H7 isolates from Argentina. Nine VNTR loci were amplified by PCR showing diversity values from 0.49 to 0.73. Nine MLVA profiles were observed and the cluster analysis indicated both unrelated and closely related VTEC O157:H7 strains. In spite of the limited number of isolates studied, the panel of VNTR used made it possible to perform a first approach of the high genetic diversity of native strains of O157:H7 by MLVA.
A Comparison of FPGA and GPU for Real-Time Phase-Based Optical Flow, Stereo, and Local Image Features

Low-level computer vision algorithms have extreme computational requirements. In this work, we compare two real-time architectures developed using FPGA and GPU devices for the computation of phase-based optical flow, stereo, and local image features (energy, orientation, and phase). The presented approach requires a massive degree of parallelism to achieve real-time performance and allows us to compare FPGA and GPU design strategies and trade-offs in a much more complex scenario than previous contributions. Based on this analysis, we provide suggestions to real-time system designers for selecting the most suitable technology, and for optimizing system development on this platform, for a number of diverse applications.
How Strong is the Relationship between Defence Expenditure and Private Consumption? Evidence from the United States

A long run conditional demand model is specified to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between government defence expenditure and private consumption in the United States. By assuming that government defence expenditure is exogenously determined with respect to private consumption decisions, the empirical results show a significant impact on the utility function of households and substitutable or complementary effects for specific categories of private expenditure. The findings are in line with the evidence that in aggregate it is possible to obtain a weak impact of defence expenditure on consumption.
Alternative Strategies for Fighting Unemployment

During more than three decades of protracted high unemployment, European countries have developed a variety of approaches in order to tackle the problem. These strategies differ in their philosophy, scopes and successes. A number of them can be understood in terms of shying away from full-fledged liberalization in order to preserve the "European Social Model". In this paper the author discusses their relative merits. He focuses on strategies that may reasonably be expected to reduce unemployment, and ignores sheer blunders based on a false view of how the economics works (such as working time reduction), as well as measures that may improve the welfare of the unemployed but are nevertheless harmful to the labour market (such as generous unemployment benefits). The general message is that some of the strategies that â€œpreserve the European Social Modelâ€ have merits, but are unlikely to lead to an efficient labour market where finding a job or hiring a worker are no longer considered as a painful challenge.
Can population genomics guide future therapeutic gene transfer strategies for Parkinson’s disease?

Medical and surgical therapies for patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) are typically considered and initiated upon development of clinical signs, especially therapeutic gene transfer therapies. Early clinical trials delivering transgenes within the brains of PD patients have confirmed their safety and suggested mild to moderate efficacy. Confirmatory phase III trials have yet to be undertaken with any of the current treatment regimens. During the development of PD gene therapy, mapping of the human genome was finalized and provides major insights into the normal and pathogenic genetic variabilities of populations. Genome wide association studies (GWAS) have expanded the genetic defects and risk factors accompanying clinical PD. Advanced genomic investigations may allow asymptomatic individuals with a high risk of developing PD, and evident presymptomatic nigrostriatal deficiencies, to consider early treatment approaches. Herein we propose that certain genomically and clinically defined PD patients may provide unique opportunities for testing neuronotrophic gene therapy in a pathobiological environment that is antecedent to overt motoric dysfunction. Such an approach may finally allow testing of the disease-altering capabilities of therapeutic gene transfer in PD.
Readiness to Quit Smoking and Quit Attempts Among Australian Mental Health Inpatients

Introduction: Mental health inpatients smoke at higher rates than general population smokers. However, provision of nicotine-dependence treatment in inpatient settings is low, with barriers to the provision of such care including staff views that patients do not want to quit. This paper reports the findings of a survey of mental health inpatients at a psychiatric hospital in New South Wales, Australia, assessing smoking and quitting motivations and behaviors. Methods: Smokers (n = 97) were surveyed within the inpatient setting using a structured survey tool, incorporating the Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence, Reasons for Quitting Scale, Readiness and Motivation to Quit Smoking Questionnaire, and other measures of smoking and quitting behavior. Results: Approximately 47% of smokers reported having made at least one quit attempt within the past 12 months, despite nearly three quarters (71.2%) being classified as in a “precontemplative” stage of change. Multinomial logistic regressions revealed that self-reporting “not enjoying being a smoker” and having made a quit attempt in the last 12 months predicted having advanced beyond a precontemplative stage of change. A high self-reported desire to quit predicted a quit attempt having been made in the last 12 months. Conclusions: The majority of smokers had made several quit attempts, with a large percentage occurring recently, suggesting that the actual quitting behavior should be considered as an important indication of the “desire to quit. ” This paper provides further data supporting the assertion that multimodal smoking cessation interventions combining psychosocial and pharmacological support should be provided to psychiatric inpatients who smoke.
An overview of disability.

DISABILITY AND THE CONTINUUM OF OUTCOME MEASURES Disability represents the impact of a disease process or disorder on the ability of the patient to carry out activities in the manner or within the range considered normal [1]. In this context, disability fits into a continuum of potential measures of outcome (Fig. 1) [2, 3]. Outcome can be measured at a number of levels— pathology, impairment, disability and handicap. For example, in the case of arthritis, there is likely to be pain, swelling and/or stiffness in the joints. These can lead to impairments, such as restricted joint movement, deformity or loss of strength. Impairment may then result in disability, which is the restriction in performance of activities. This might be difficulty or inability in activities of daily living, such as walking, climbing stairs, dressing, or any of the other activities that make up the daily life of the person affected. Particularly in the case of RA, the ability to carry out activities may be further compromised by systemic features of the illness, such as fatigue, morning stiffness and general unwellness.
Hungry Capital: The Financialization of Food

Over the past thirty years, the ability of global finance to affect aspects of everyday life has been increasing at an unprecedented rate. The world of food bears vivid testimony to this tendency, through the scars opened by the 2008 world food price crisis, the iron fist of retailing giants that occupy the supply chain and the unsustainable ecological footprint left behind by global production networks. Hungry Capital offers a rigorous analysis of the influence that financial imperatives exert on the food economy at different levels: from the direct use of edible commodities as an object of speculation to the complex food chains set up by manufacturers and supermarkets. It argues that the circular compulsion to build profits upon profits that global finance injects into the world of food restructures the basic nurturing relationship between man and nature into a streamlined process from which value has to be mined. The end result is a monstrous Leviathan that holds together while - at every step - risks to crumble.
A geometrical approach for online error compensation of industrial manipulators

In this paper, a comprehensive online error compensation approach using offline calibration results is proposed for industrial manipulators (with closed control architecture), in order to improve its accuracy. The contents in this paper include a calibration algorithm based on the product-of-exponential formula, an online error compensation procedure for implementing the calibration results on industrial manipulators, and an experimental study that is conducted on a 6-DOF industrial manipulator from ABB (Model: IRB-4400) with a laser tracker system from Leica (Model: AT901-MR) and its Tracker-Machine control sensor. After implementing the proposed online error compensation approach, the accuracy of the ABB industrial manipulator improved to 0.3 mm, thus verifying the effectiveness of the proposed error compensation approach.
Fitting models predicting dates of flowering of temperate‐zone trees using simulated annealing

The aim of the present study was to test the four commonly used models to predict the dates of flowering of temperatezone trees, the spring warming, sequential, parallel and alternating models. Previous studies concerning the performance of these models have shown that they were unable to make accurate predictions based on external data. One of the reasons for such inaccuracy may be wrong estimations of the parameters of each model due to the non-convergence of the optimization algorithm towards their maximum likelihood. We proposed to fit these four models using a simulated annealing method which is known to avoid local extrema of any kind of function, and thus is particularly well adapted to fit budburst models, as their likelihood function presents many local maxima. We tested this method using a phenological dataset deduced from aeropalynological data. Annual pollen spectra were used to estimate the dates of flowering of the populations around the sampling station. The results show that simulated annealing provides a better fit than traditional methods. Despite this improvement, classical models still failed to predict external data. We expect the simulated annealing method to allow reliable comparisons among models, leading to a selection of biologically relevant ones.
A Study of Intonation in Three-Part Singing using the Automatic Music Performance Analysis and Comparison Toolkit (AMPACT)

This paper introduces the Automatic Music Performance Analysis and Comparison Toolkit (AMPACT), is a MATLAB toolkit for accurately aligning monophonic audio to MIDI scores as well as extracting and analyzing timing-, pitch-, and dynamics-related performance data from the aligned recordings. This paper also presents the results of an analysis performed with AMPACT on an experiment studying intonation in three-part singing. The experiment examines the interval size and drift in four ensembles’ performances of a short exercise by Benedetti, which was designed to highlight the conflict between Just Intonation tuning and pitch drift.
A Vision Simulation Algorithm for Nonplayer Characters in Dynamic Scene

Based on scene partition technique and vision cut-out technique, an algorithm of vision simulation of ANPCs (autonomous nonplayer characters) in dynamic scene is proposed. The algorithm consists of three steps. Firstly, the scene is partitioned sectors and PVS (potentially visible set) of each sector is represented as a tree-like structure at stage of level design. Secondly, active entities in each sector are updated while testing collision every frame. Finally, visibility is calculated by the NPC¿s cut-out frustum for active entities in sector the NPC stays and in PVS the sector includes. As a result, an experiment proves the model.
A Two-Microphone Noise Reduction Method in Highly Non-stationary Multiple-Noise-Source Environments

In this paper, we propose a two-microphone noise reduction method to deal with non-stationary interfering noises in multiple-noise-source environments in which the traditional two-microphone algorithms cannot function well. In the proposed algorithm, multiple interfering noise sources are regarded as one virtually integrated noise source in each subband, and the spectrum of the integrated noise is then estimated using its virtual direction of arrival. To do this, we suggest a direction finder for the integrated noise using only two microphones that performs well even in speech active periods. The noise spectrum estimate is further improved by integrating a single-channel noise estimation approach and then subtracted from that of the noisy signal, finally enhancing the desired target signal. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared with the traditional algorithms in various conditions. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the traditional algorithms in various conditions in terms of objective and subjective speech quality measures.
Resveratrol Inhibits LPS-Induced MAPKs Activation via Activation of the Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Pathway in Murine RAW 264.7 Macrophage Cells

Background Resveratrol is a natural polyphenolic compound that has cardioprotective, anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties. We investigated the capacity of resveratrol to protect RAW 264.7 cells from inflammatory insults and explored mechanisms underlying inhibitory effects of resveratrol on RAW 264.7 cells. Methodology/Principal Findings Murine RAW 264.7 cells were treated with resveratrol (1, 5, and 10 µM) and/or LPS (5 µg/ml). Nitric oxide (NO) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) were measured by Griess reagent and ELISA. The mRNA and protein levels of proinflammatory proteins and cytokines were analysed by ELISA, RT-PCR and double immunofluorescence labeling, respectively. Phosphorylation levels of Akt, cyclic AMP-responsive element-binding protein (CREB), mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) cascades, AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and expression of SIRT1(Silent information regulator T1) were measured by western blot. Wortmannin (1 µM), a specific phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3-K) inhibitor, was used to determine if PI3-K/Akt signaling pathway might be involved in resveratrol’s action on RAW 264.7 cells. Resveratrol significantly attenuated the LPS-induced expression of nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) in RAW 264.7 cells. Resveratrol increased Akt phosphorylation in a time-dependent manner. Wortmannin, a specific phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3-K) inhibitor, blocked the effects of resveratrol on LPS-induced RAW 264.7 cells activation. In addition, PI3-K inhibition partially abolished the inhibitory effect of resveratrol on the phosphorylation of cyclic AMP-responsive element-binding protein (CREB) and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) cascades. Meanwhile, PI3-K is essential for resveratrol-mediated phosphorylation of AMPK and expression of SIRT1. Conclusion and Implications This investigation demonstrates that PI3-K/Akt activation is an important signaling in resveratrol-mediated activation of AMPK phosphorylation and SIRT1 expression, and inhibition of phosphorylation of CREB and MAPKs activation, proinflammatory mediators and cytokines production in response to LPS in RAW 264.7 cells.
Spatio-temporal extension in site of origin for cortical calretinin neurons in primates

The vast majority of cortical GABAergic neurons can be defined by parvalbumin, somatostatin or calretinin expression. In most mammalians, parvalbumin and somatostatin interneurons have constant proportions, each representing 5–7% of the total neuron number. In contrast, there is a threefold increase in the proportion of calretinin interneurons, which do not exceed 4% in rodents and reach 12% in higher order areas of primate cerebral cortex. In rodents, almost all parvalbumin and somatostatin interneurons originate from the medial part of the subpallial proliferative structure, the ganglionic eminence (GE), while almost all calretinin interneurons originate from its caudal part. The spatial pattern of cortical GABAergic neurons origin from the GE is preserved in the monkey and human brain. However, it could be expected that the evolution is changing developmental rules to enable considerable expansion of calretinin interneuron population. During the early fetal period in primates, cortical GABAergic neurons are almost entirely generated in the subpallium, as in rodents. Already at that time, the primate caudal ganglionic eminence (CGE) shows a relative increase in size and production of calretinin interneurons. During the second trimester of gestation, that is the main neurogenetic stage in primates without clear correlates found in rodents, the pallial production of cortical GABAergic neurons together with the extended persistence of the GE is observed. We propose that the CGE could be the main source of calretinin interneurons for the posterior and lateral cortical regions, but not for the frontal cortex. The associative granular frontal cortex represents around one third of the cortical surface and contains almost half of cortical calretinin interneurons. The majority of calretinin interneurons destined for the frontal cortex could be generated in the pallium, especially in the newly evolved outer subventricular zone that becomes the main pool of cortical progenitors.
Vector-wavelet based scalable indexing and retrieval system for large color image archives

This paper presents an efficient content based indexing and retrieval mechanism based on vector wavelet coefficients of color images. We use highly decorrelated wavelet coefficient planes to acquire a search efficient feature space. The feature space is subsequently indexed using properties of the all the images in the database. Therefore the feature key of an image does not only correspond to the content of the image itself but also how much the image is different from the other images being stored in the database. The search time depends only on the number of images similar to the query image but not on the size of the entire database. The system is scalable and provides fast retrievals. We show that in a database of 1000 images, query search takes less than 50 msec, on a 266 MHz Pentium processor compared to several seconds of retrieval time in the earlier systems proposed in the literature.
New-Knowledge-View Based Ontology Cloud Model

In this article, an ontology cloud model and its corresponding definition and operation is brought forward. The new-knowledge-view and pragmatic which leads to virginity and creativity of knowledge is embodied in this model, and the knowledgepsilas characters including uncertainty, inconsistency, time-varying and sociality, regularity is well expressed in this model too. As a result, Knowledge modeling by ontology-cloud model is a novel idea and foundation of building information, knowledge and intelligent system.
Side Effect Mitigation Algorithm for Cache Maintenance in Opportunistic Networks

Cooperative caching with a data access tree (DAT) in opportunistic networks, where the connectivity among nodes are intermittently disconnected and the transmission opportunities are very limited, significantly improves routing performance, since a node can download data from the source node of the data as well as any caching nodes. With a DAT, cached data is updated in two different ways, intentionally and opportunistically. While intentional updates are performed along the tree structure, opportunistic updates are performed between two nodes without a parent-child relationship in the tree when they have a contact. Although opportunistic updates contribute the cache data to be fresh, it introduces the side effect. That is, a legitimate parent node in the tree cannot updates its child's cache by the delta update (patching only diff data) due to data version inconsistency introduced an opportunistic update. Therefore, in this paper, we first build mathematical model of the cooperative caching in opportunistic networks, and then, propose a side effect mitigation (SEM) algorithm to alleviate the side effect. The key idea of the proposed scheme is that having the nodes in the same levels try to keep the cache version be consistent, and as a result, the DAT with SEM leads cached data to be as fresh as possible with less side effect. The performance of the proposed scheme is proved by mathematical analysis, and we demonstrated that the DAT with SEM keeps cached data fresher than the original DAT.