Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Organizational commitment and users’ perception of ease of use: a study among bank managers

– The purpose of this paper is to look at the issue of perceived ease of use of a web‐based customer relationship management system and consider the role of organizational commitment as a possible antecedent. , – Data for this study were collected from among managers of a major player in the community banking sector within the EU. A total of 274 valid responses were obtained from 398 managers. , – Results have been mixed and partially conditioned by service providers’ willingness to leverage the possibilities that the technology can provide. , – The study was limited to a single organization and consequently the results should be generalized with caution. Replication studies with improved measures, in other countries and contexts are desirable. , – The results can be useful for management, since Web‐based customer relationship management systems have been adopted by many service providers in their quest to offer better one‐to‐one marketing possibilities to their customers. , – This paper demonstrates the importance of fostering a sense of organizational commitment amongst key service providers, as this in turn seems to enable them to overcome many impediments pertaining to technology use.
“OUTSIDER WITHIN” THE FIREHOUSE

From the perspective of African American women firefighters, the authors examine the social interactions that make them excluded “outsiders within” their firehouses and different from not only dominant white men but also other subordinated groups of Black men and white women firefighters. Drawing on extensive survey data from 24 Black women career firefighters nationwide and detailed interviews with 22 of these, the authors found persistent and pervasive patterns of subordination through the exclusion of Black women, reflected in insufficient instruction, coworker hostility, silence, close supervision, lack of support, and stereotyping. Perceived differences of Black women from white and Black men as well as white women created strained relations, especially when Black men and white women gained some acceptance by virtue of their gender and race, respectively, and thus reportedly distanced themselves from Black women. The experiences of African American women firefighters highlight the omnirelevance and intertwining of race and gender.
Method for the restoration of multicomponent images distorted by applicative disturbances based on tree-dimensional Markov chain

A method for the restoration of multicomponent images that were distorted by applicative disturbances is proposed. A particular case of multicomponent images is studied — the RGB images each color component of which is a g-bit digital half-tone image (DHTI). The method is based on the representation of g-bit DHTIs as a set of g-bit binary images and the use of probabilistic mathematical apparatus of three-dimensional Markov chains. To improve the calculation precision of probability characteristics for each local area of the image, a sliding window is used. To detect the distorted region, a method was used that is based on an estimate of the borders and taking into consideration the possible range of pixel brightness in the distorted region. A restoration algorithm is given for images distorted by applicative disturbances. The results of the proposed algorithm simulation are presented.
Perception during interaction is not based on statistical context

To evaluate the central tendency we plotted the reproduced lengths against the presented length and measured the regression index, defined as the difference in slope between the best linear fit of the data and the identity line. This index varies from 0 (veridical performance) to 1 (complete regression to the mean). In the control "alone" conditions, all subjects showed on average a clear central tendency mechanism (average regression index 0.417 ± 0.028) which decreased significantly when the task was performed with the robot (0.156 ± 0.028, one-tailed, pair-sample t-test, p<;0.01). Part of this common decrease can be explained by the difference in the richness of the two kinds of stimuli: on the one hand just two brief flashes of lights represented the length to be reproduced, while in both robotics conditions the whole arm motion was visible, providing a richer stimulation. Indeed, according to the Bayesian models described in [1,4] the presence of less sensory noise would yield to less regression to the mean. However, the amount of change in regression was different between the two robotic groups.
Water levels, falling objects, and spiral tubes : an investigation of the general naivete hypothesis of physical task performance

Abstract Although numerous studies have reported sex differences on Piaget's water-level task, these differences remain unexplained. One potential hypothesis for water-level task performance is the general naivete hypothesis, which states that subjects failing to perform accurately on horizontality tasks do so as part of a general lack of understanding of physical phenomenon. In this study, 38 men and 38 women completed paper-and-pencil versions of three physical principle tasks: the water-level, falling object, and spiral tube problems. Analyses indicated that performance on the falling object problem was closely related to water-level task performance, whereas the spiral tube problem was not. Results suggest that horizontality performance can be explained as a figure-ground problem and that this interpretation does not necessarily exclude the general naivete hypothesis.
Infants’ and Toddlers’ Television Viewing and Language Outcomes

Viewing data were reported every 3 months beginning at 6 months of age by the parents of 51 infants and toddlers. Viewing logs were coded for program, content, and intended audience. Using hierarchical linear modeling techniques, growth curves examining relationships between television exposure and the child’s vocabulary knowledge and expressive language skills were modeled. Parent’s education, child’s home environment, and child’s cognitive performance were statistically controlled. The findings support the importance of content and program type when describing media effects. At 30 months of age, watching Dora the Explorer, Blue’s Clues, Arthur, Clifford, or Dragon Tales resulted in greater vocabularies and higher expressive language scores; watching Teletubbies was related to fewer vocabulary words and smaller expressive language scores; watching Sesame Street was related only to smaller expressive language scores; and viewing Barney & Friends was related to fewer vocabulary words and more expressive language. Reasons for differences are discussed.
The Tyranny of the Temporal Dimension: Learning about fundamental values through the Internet

In this article we report on one of four schools involved in a research project aiming to develop knowledge about the way in which teaching knowledge is conveyed with the help of information and communication technology. A particular interest was issues of fundamental values. Two classes in Grade 9 of Swedish compulsory school were studied, by observations and interviews, when seeking information about international conflicts on the Internet. The results show that most students searched for and collected information with a focus on mainly one dimension: the temporal dimension of the conflict in question. How this focus on chronologically ordered historical events affected the students' ability to develop the capacity for individual standpoints on questions concerning ethics, morals, equality, and democracy by way of studying conflicts is discussed.
In Vitro Mutasynthesis of Lantibiotic Analogues Containing Nonproteinogenic Amino Acids

Lantibiotics are ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide antibiotics containing the characteristic thioether cross-links lanthionine and methyllanthionine. To date, no analogues of lantibiotics that contain nonproteinogenic amino acids have been reported. In this study, in vitro-reconstituted lacticin 481 synthetase was used in conjunction with synthetic peptide substrates containing nonproteinogenic amino acids to generate 11 analogues of lacticin 481. These analogues contained sarcosine and aminocyclopropanoic acid in place of Gly5, d-valine at position 6, 4-cyanoaminobutyric acid in place of Glu13, β3-homoarginine at the position of Asn15, N-butylglycine and β-Ala at Met16, naphthylalanine (Nal) at Trp19, 4-pyridynylalanine (Pal) at Phe21, and homophenylalanine (hPhe) at Phe23. Of these analogues, the Trp19Nal and Phe23hPhe mutants provided zones of inhibition larger than the parent compound in agar diffusion assays against the indicator strains Lactococcus lactis HP and Bacillus subtilis 6633. These two compounds also demonstrated improved MIC values against liquid cultures of L. lactis HP.
Biosensors for Characterizing the Dynamics of Rho Family GTPases in Living Cells

The biosensors developed in the authors' laboratory have been based on different designs, each imparting specific strengths and weaknesses. Here we describe detailed protocols for the application of three biosensors exemplifying different designs—first, a design in which an environmentally sensitive dye is used to report the activation of endogenous Cdc42, followed by two biosensors based on FRET, one using intramolecular and the other intermolecular FRET. The design differences lead to the need for different approaches in imaging and image analysis. Curr. Protoc. Cell Biol. 46:14.11. 1‐14.11. 26. © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Aromatherapy for treatment of hypertension: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES The objective of this review is to systematically review the evidence for the effectiveness of aromatherapy in the treatment of high blood pressure. METHODS Twelve databases were searched from their inception through December 2009. Controlled trials testing aromatherapy in patients with hypertension of any origin that assessed blood pressure were considered. The selection of studies, data extraction and validations were performed independently by two reviewers. RESULTS One randomized clinical trial (RCT) and four non-randomized controlled clinical trials (CCTs) met our inclusion criteria. The one RCT included tested the effects of aromatherapy as compared with placebo and showed significant reduction of systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. All of the four CCTs showed favourable effects of aromatherapy. However, all of the CCTs also had a high risk of bias. CONCLUSION The existing trial evidence does not show convincingly that aromatherapy is effective for hypertension. Future studies should be of high quality with a particular emphasis on designing an adequate control intervention.
Generating environment model for Linux device drivers

Linux device drivers can"t be analyzed separately from the kernel core due to their large interdependency with each other. But source code of the whole Linux kernel is rather complex and huge to be analyzed by existing model checking tools. So a driver should be analyzed with environment model instead of the real kernel core. In the given paper requirements for driver environment model are discussed. The paper describes advantages and drawbacks of existing model generating approaches used in different systems of model checking device drivers. Besides, the paper presents a new method for generating model for Linux device drivers. Its features and shortcomings are demonstrated on the basis of application results.
Prevalence of Isolated Urethral Asymptomatic Chlamydia trachomatis Infection in the Absence of Cervical Infection in Incarcerated Adolescent Girls

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Adolescent girls may have isolated asymptomatic urethral Chlamydia trachomatis infection. GOAL OF THIS STUDY To determine if a single direct fluorescent antibody (DFA) slide can detect as many urethral and cervical infections as the use of separate slides and to determine if isolated urethral infection occurs. STUDY DESIGN During pelvic examinations upon admission, DFA slides were prepared from the cervix, from the urethra, and with cells from both sites. RESULTS Of 125 girls, 17 had C. trachomatis infection: 4 in the urethra only (24%), 5 in the cervical sample only (31%), 5 in both sites (31%), 3 had positive results only on the combined slide, and 1 had a positive result on the cervical slide and an inadequate urethral slide. CONCLUSION Isolated urethral C. trachomatis infection occurs frequently, and sampling both sites as opposed to sampling the cervix alone increases the number of cases found by 24% (P < 0.002). Using a single slide to detect infection in both sites detects as many infections as using two separate slides.
Morphologic Features of Carotid Plaque Rupture Assessed by Optical Coherence Tomography

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Rupture of the plaque fibrous cap and subsequent thrombosis are the major causes of stroke. This study evaluated morphologic features of plaque rupture in the carotid artery by using optical coherence tomography in vivo. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-six carotid plaques with high-grade stenosis were prospectively imaged by optical coherence tomography. “Plaque rupture” was defined as a plaque containing a cavity that had overlying residual fibrous caps. The fibrous cap thickness was measured at its thinnest part for both ruptured and nonruptured plaques. The distance between the minimum fibrous cap thickness site and the bifurcation point was also measured. Optical coherence tomography identified 24 ruptured and 12 nonruptured plaques. RESULTS: Multiple ruptures were observed in 9 (38%) patients: Six patients had 2 ruptures in the same plaque, 2 patients had 3 ruptures in the same plaque, and 1 patient had 5 ruptures in the same plaque. Most (84%) of the fibrous cap disruptions were identified at the plaque shoulder and near the bifurcation point (within a 4.2-mm distance). The median thinnest cap thickness was 80 μm (interquartile range, 70–100 μm), and 95% of ruptured plaques had fibrous caps of <130 μm. Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that a fibrous cap thickness of <130 μm was the critical threshold value for plaque rupture in the carotid artery. CONCLUSIONS: Plaque rupture was common in high-grade stenosis and was located at the shoulder of the carotid plaque close to the bifurcation. A cap thickness of <130 μm was the threshold for plaque rupture in the carotid artery.
Behavioral Contrast in a Multiple Schedule with Topographically Different Responses in the Components

Summary Two pigeons were exposed to a multiple schedule in which key pecking was reinforced in one component and bar pressing was reinforced in another. When bar pressing later was extinguished, key peck rate at least doubled. The results confirm that behavioral contrast occurs in a multiple schedule with different responses in the components. A recent failure by Scull and Westbrook to obtain this result was probably due to a feature of their procedure.
Application aware firewall architecture to enhance performance of enterprise network

The performance of an enterprise network is affected not only by its protocol specification, its communication channel, design capacity and architecture of the firewall but also by its implementation and traffic management. Firewall is a perimeter security solution that is useful for addressing network traffic. It introduces a single point through which all traffic passes and as a result it creates performance bottleneck on enterprise network by increasing latency, reducing bandwidth and throughput. The challenges of firewall architecture on enterprise network performance and the proposed solution to enhance it are presented in this paper. Literature review and simulated experiment are employed to study the practice in firewall configuration and management, firewall security and network performance. The stateful firewall architecture is studied and redesigned into application aware architecture into three layers or modules: the application identification and control module, content awareness and filtering module, and enforcement module integrated with traffic optimization to accommodate the applications performance and security requirement of the enterprise network. The application identification features is tested using Optimized Network Engineering Tool (OPNET) for efficient application identification. Its performance is then compared with a sample firewall system based on scenarios to meet the temporal quality of service requirement under distributed denial-of-services (DDoS) envision. We have achieved firewall performance improvements of 94.4% on Central Processing Unit (CPU) utilization, 98.9% on throughput, and 69.20% on queue delay against the base scenario. We also achieved performance improvement of 49.23% on servers task processing and 54.35% on database query response against the base scenario.
Measuring life-long patterns of instrumental aggression: a methodological note

Abstract Instrumental and reactive subtypes of aggression are likely to have different biopsychosocial roots. This has implications for research aimed at identifying aetiological mechanisms and for forensic practice. In this methodological note we describe the development of a unidimensional measure of lifetime persistent instrumental aggression based on information collected from a random sample of 241 Scottish male prisoners. We applied modern psychometric methods – confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory methods – to the development of a short, reliable and informative measure of this important forensic construct. Results indicated that information from files and interviews could be combined to develop a unidimensional measure of the degree of instrumentality, which provided a psychometrically robust measure of the construct of instrumental aggression. Further, item response theory analyses indicated good measurement across the middle to high range of the trait. Identifying life-long patterns of instrumental aggressive behaviour, and distinguishing instrumental aggression from the broad pool of aggressive behaviour, has the potential to improve understanding of underlying mechanisms, increase the accuracy of risk assessments, and contribute to more effective treatment and management strategies.
A Public Health Response against Strongyloides stercoralis: Time to Look at Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis in Full

Strongyloides stercoralis infections have a worldwide distribution with a global burden in terms of prevalence and morbidity that is largely ignored. A public health response against soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections should broaden the strategy to include S. stercoralis and overcome the epidemiological, diagnostic, and therapeutic challenges that this parasite poses in comparison to Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, and hookworms. The relatively poor sensitivity of single stool evaluations, which is further lowered when quantitative techniques aimed at detecting eggs are used, also complicates morbidity evaluations and adequate drug efficacy measurements, since S. stercoralis is eliminated in stools in a larval stage. Specific stool techniques for the detection of larvae of S. stercoralis, like Baermann's and Koga's agar plate, despite superiority over direct techniques are still suboptimal. New serologies using recombinant antigens and molecular-based techniques offer new hopes in those areas. The use of ivermectin rather than benzimidazoles for its treatment and the need to have curative regimens rather than lowering the parasite burden are also unique for S. stercoralis in comparison to the other STH due to its life cycle, which allows reproduction and amplification of the worm burden within the human host. The potential impact on STH of the benzimidazoles/ivermectin combinations, already used for control/elimination of lymphatic filariasis, should be further evaluated in public health settings. While waiting for more effective single-dose drug regimens and new sensitive diagnostics, the evidence and the tools already available warrant the planning of a common platform for STH and S. stercoralis control.
Gremlin, a Bone Morphogenetic Protein Antagonist, Is a Crucial Angiogenic Factor in Pituitary Adenoma

Gremlin is an antagonist of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) and a major driving force in skeletal modeling in the fetal stage. Several recent reports have shown that Gremlin is also involved in angiogenesis of lung cancer and diabetic retinopathy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of Gremlin in tumor angiogenesis in pituitary adenoma. Double fluorescence immunohistochemistry of Gremlin and CD34 was performed in pituitary adenoma tissues obtained during transsphenoidal surgery in 45 cases (7 PRLoma, 17 GHoma, 2 ACTHoma, and 2 TSHoma). Gremlin and microvascular density (MVD) were detected by double-immunofluorescence microscopy in CD34-positive vessels from tissue microarray analysis of 60 cases of pituitary adenomas (6 PRLoma, 23 GHoma, 22 NFoma, 5 ACTHoma, and 4 TSHoma). In tissue microarray analysis, MVD was significantly correlated with an increased Gremlin level (linear regression: P < 0.005, r 2 = 0.4958). In contrast, Gremlin expression showed no correlation with tumor subtype or Knosp score. The high level of expression of Gremlin in pituitary adenoma tissue with many CD34-positive vessels and the strong coherence of these regions indicate that Gremlin is associated with angiogenesis in pituitary adenoma cells.
Le procès Papon. Justice et temporalité

Le proces Papon a ete un evenement mediatique considerable pour des raisons qui tiennent autant a sa place a part dans la « seconde epuration » qu’aux modifications de la comprehension globale du regime de Vichy qu’il a suscitees dans l’opinion publique. La categorie juridique du crime contre l’humanite, en rompant avec la logique juridique traditionnelle sur plusieurs plans (temporalite, perspective individuelle), a sans aucun doute ete un puissant vecteur dans la transformation du proces en evenement : la definition de ce crime a part a favorise l’intervention d’autres « usagers » du passe et a suscite des mobilisations collectives tres diverses. Plus generalement, le proces Papon peut apparaitre comme un evenement « socio-historique » dans la mesure ou il est le temoin de transformations decisives dans les rapports entre droit et societe.
Asymptotic Spectral Theory for Nonlinear Time Series 1

Abstract: We consider asymptotic problems in spectral analysis of stationary causal processes. Limiting distributions of periodograms and smoothed periodogram spectral density estimates are obtained and applications to spectral domain bootstrap are made. Instead of the commonly used strong mixing conditions, in our asymptotic spectral theory we impose conditions only involving (conditional) moments, which are easily verifiable for a variety of nonlinear time series.