Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying Event-related Bursts via Social Media Activities

Activities on social media increase at a dramatic rate. When an external event happens, there is a surge in the degree of activities related to the event. These activities may be temporally correlated with one another, but they may also capture different aspects of an event and therefore exhibit different bursty patterns. In this paper, we propose to identify event-related bursts via social media activities. We study how to correlate multiple types of activities to derive a global bursty pattern. To model smoothness of one state sequence, we propose a novel function which can capture the state context. The experiments on a large Twitter dataset shows our methods are very effective.
Female Entrepreneurs in a Transitional Economy

Many questions can be raised about the position of women in business in China. Has the reform period given women greater opportunities to enhance their economic and social status? What proportion of new small businesses are owned by women and how does the situation in China compare with that in other countries? Are women involved in large businesses? Are women in managerial positions in private business? Are women as motivated as men to achieve managerial positions? Do men and women in China manage businesses differently? Do men and women have different personnel management styles? What are the career options? Are women subject to discrimination and harassment in the workplace? Does the ‘glass ceiling’ exist in China? Are the issues of concern for Chinese businesswomen similar to those of businesswomen elsewhere or are their experiences determined more by specifically Chinese social and economic conditions? These questions are being examined through ongoing research conducted in Yunnan province in south-west China and in Shanghai and Suzhou in eastern China using literature search, questionnaire survey and structured interviews with women working in both state-owned and private business.
User-perceptive image search using complex multiple word based query (An efficient image search process using complex multiple word based query)

Increasingly developed world internet and social multimedia services allow users to view, tag, and comments also upload large amount of data to search the content among this metadata through text based searching is widely preferred by users. To increase the search efficiency of the searchers we enhanced the model of ternary relationship among users, images and tags; to jointly model of tensor factorization, to perform the low-rank approximation. In this paper, we propose a model to considering the user interest, user specified query in user specified topic space and rank the result list the effect of effective personalize tag-based search. This model is tested for complex multiple word based query and it's showing suitable results.
Comparative Study of Contrast Enhancement and Illumination Equalization Methods for Retinal Vasculature Segmentation

Digital fundus images are routinely analyzed by screening systems, and owing to the acquisition process, these images are very often of poor quality that hinders further analysis. Uneven illumination and contrast variability throughout the image significantly affect the vessels segmentation process. State-of-the-art studies still struggle with the issue of normalizing contrast and illumination in retinal images, mainly due to the lack of literature reviews and comparative studies. Furthermore, available normalization methods are not being evaluated on large benchmark publicly-available datasets. The paper discusses eight contrast enhancement and illumination equalization methods described in literature. A comparative performance measure based on a simple standard vessel segmentation algorithm is accomplished among available methods, using two publicly-available fundus datasets. Moreover, when applying a local contrast enhancement proceeded by an illumination equalization method to fundus images, a noticeable enhancement in the vasculature segmentation was achieved.
Changes in smooth muscle tone during osmotic challenge in relation to epithelial bioelectric events in guinea pig isolated trachea.

The relationship between epithelial bioelectric events and epithelium-dependent relaxant and contractile responses of airway smooth muscle in response to hyperosmolar and hypo-osmolar solutions was investigated in guinea pig isolated trachea. Tracheae were perfused with normal or nonisosmotic modified Krebs-Henseleit solution while simultaneously monitoring transepithelial potential difference (VT) and contractile and relaxant responses of the muscle. Baseline VT was -10.1 to -13.3 mV (distal and proximal ends, respectively). Intraluminal amiloride (10(-4) M) induced a 3.7-mV depolarization, verifying that the VT was of epithelial origin. Extraluminal methacholine (3 x 10(-7) M; EC50) caused hyperpolarization and smooth muscle contraction; intraluminal methacholine had very little effect. Increasing intraluminal bath osmolarity via addition of 240 mOsM NaCl or KCl caused an immediate and prolonged depolarization and epithelium-dependent relaxation. Increasing intraluminal bath osmolarity with sucrose evoked similar responses, except that an immediate, transient hyperpolarization and contraction preceded the depolarization and relaxation. Increasing extraluminal bath osmolarity with 240 mOsM NaCl induced depolarization and a longer lasting epithelium-dependent relaxation, whereas extraluminally added 240 mOsM KCl induced a complex smooth muscle response (i.e., transient relaxation followed by contraction), which was accompanied by prolonged depolarization. Intraluminal hypo-osmolarity produced a transient hyperpolarization followed by depolarization along with contraction of the smooth muscle. Bioelectric responses always preceded smooth muscle responses. These results suggest that bioelectric events in the epithelium triggered by nonisosmotic solutions are associated with epithelium-dependent responses in tracheal smooth muscle.
CREATIVE ACCOUNTING, MEASUREMENT AND BEHAVIOR

The purpose of this research is to discuss creative accounting limitation through ethical developments, focusing on features as: measurement and behavior. In this respect we turn to an original search in the literature that comprise together estimation segment in accounting and theoretical developments from behavioral accounting, all with the scope of creating awareness regarding ethics role. After assessing the areas approached, our goal was further to discuss a possible development of a theoretical framework comprising cognitive structures. Important aspects of decision making process were approached and in correlation we discussed the implications that Machiavellian behavior, moral action model and cognitive moral development theory have upon creative accounting measurement and behavior. The originality of the paper consists in the manner we assess the ethics role as the â€œtone of the topâ€ in the business sector and its implications to measurement and behavior in the area of creative accounting. The findings of our paper indicates that ethics as a solution used for limiting opportunistic behavior in accounting can have an unlimited potential as long term solution.
Social networking: never mind the students, what about us? Use of social networking softwares for professional networking and development for library staff

“While the term 'social networking' may be new, the concepts behind it – creating community, sharing content and collaborating with others – are not” (OCLC, 2007, p.1). However, it seems that with our increasing dependence on technology and the temptation of the being involved in the ‘next big thing’, the two little words 'social networking' elicit anything from excitement to indifference in members of the library community. In particular, social networking software like Facebook, MySpace and Friendster are regarded with scepticism and even disdain by some library staff. And yet, don’t these platforms simply allow us to create community, share content and collaborate with our peers, wherever they are in the world?
Incremental Coevolution With Competitive and Cooperative Tasks in a Multirobot Environment

Coevolution has been receiving increased attention as a method for simultaneously developing the control structures of multiple agents. Our ultimate goal is the mutual development of skills through coevolution. The coevolutionary process is, however, often prone to settle into suboptimal strategies. The key to successful coevolution has thus far been unclear. This paper discusses how several robots can emerge cooperative and competitive behavior through coevolutionary processes. In order to realize successful coevolution, we propose two ideas: multiple schedules for incremental evolution and fitness sharing based on the method of importance sampling. To examine this issue, we conducted a series of computer simulations. We have chosen a simplified soccer game consisting of two or three robots as a testbed for analyzing a problem in which both competitive and cooperative tasks are involved. We show that the proposed fitness evaluation allows robots to evolve robust behaviors in cooperative and competitive situations
Experimental study of bifurcations in a parametrically forced magnetic pendulum

An experimental study of bifurcations associated with stability of stationary points (SP’s) in a parametrically forced magnetic pendulum and a comparison of its results with numerical results are presented. The critical values for which the SP’s lose or gain their stability are experimentally measured by varying the two parameters Ω (the normalized natural frequency) and A (the normalized driving amplitude). It is observed that, when the amplitude A exceeds a critical value, the normal SP with θ = 0 (θ is the angle between the permanent magnet and the magnetic field) becomes unstable either by a period-doubling bifurcation or by a symmetry-breaking pitchfork bifurcation, depending on the values of Ω. However, in contrast with the normal SP the inverted SP with θ = π is observed to become stable as A is increased above a critical value by a pitchfork bifurcation, but it also destabilizes for a higher critical value of A by a period-doubling bifurcation. All of these experimental results agree well with numerical results obtained using the Floquet theory. PACS numbers: 05.45. +b, 03.20. +i Typeset using REVTEX ∗Electronic address: sykim@cc.kangwon. ac.kr 1
A Region-Based Progressive Coding of Semi-Regular 3-D Meshes for View-Dependent Transmission

We first introduce in this paper a new wavelet based segmentation algorithm for three-dimensional (3-D) Semi-Regular (SR) meshes. This method is then considered as a pre-processing step in a view-dependent progressive coding of 3-D meshes. Our segmentation process aims at producing homogeneous regions which have similar frequency amplitudes on the mesh surface, in other words: patches with different degrees of roughness. As a preliminary step of the development of a locally-based Rate-Distortion (R-D) optimized coding scheme, we propose to study the behaviour of the wavelet decomposition in the created patches, during the coding and the view-dependent reconstruction processes. To our knowledge, no previous work has ever considered the influence of the nonrefined parts of a mesh on the more detailed ones, in a view dependent context. The main contribution of this paper consists in considering three different possible wavelet decompositions, close to the patch borders, and to study their influence during the coding and the view-dependent reconstruction stages. Among these three decompositions, we define a new scheme and finally propose various experimentations to demonstrate that it behaves better than the other classical considerations, for view-dependent reconstruction purposes.
Patient safety, satisfaction, and quality of hospital care: cross sectional surveys of nurses and patients in 12 countries in Europe and the United States

Objective To determine whether hospitals with a good organisation of care (such as improved nurse staffing and work environments) can affect patient care and nurse workforce stability in European countries. Design Cross sectional surveys of patients and nurses. Setting Nurses were surveyed in general acute care hospitals (488 in 12 European countries; 617 in the United States); patients were surveyed in 210 European hospitals and 430 US hospitals. Participants 33 659 nurses and 11 318 patients in Europe; 27 509 nurses and more than 120 000 patients in the US. Main outcome measures Nurse outcomes (hospital staffing, work environments, burnout, dissatisfaction, intention to leave job in the next year, patient safety, quality of care), patient outcomes (satisfaction overall and with nursing care, willingness to recommend hospitals). Results The percentage of nurses reporting poor or fair quality of patient care varied substantially by country (from 11% (Ireland) to 47% (Greece)), as did rates for nurses who gave their hospital a poor or failing safety grade (4% (Switzerland) to 18% (Poland)). We found high rates of nurse burnout (10% (Netherlands) to 78% (Greece)), job dissatisfaction (11% (Netherlands) to 56% (Greece)), and intention to leave (14% (US) to 49% (Finland, Greece)). Patients’ high ratings of their hospitals also varied considerably (35% (Spain) to 61% (Finland, Ireland)), as did rates of patients willing to recommend their hospital (53% (Greece) to 78% (Switzerland)). Improved work environments and reduced ratios of patients to nurses were associated with increased care quality and patient satisfaction. In European hospitals, after adjusting for hospital and nurse characteristics, nurses with better work environments were half as likely to report poor or fair care quality (adjusted odds ratio 0.56, 95% confidence interval 0.51 to 0.61) and give their hospitals poor or failing grades on patient safety (0.50, 0.44 to 0.56). Each additional patient per nurse increased the odds of nurses reporting poor or fair quality care (1.11, 1.07 to 1.15) and poor or failing safety grades (1.10, 1.05 to 1.16). Patients in hospitals with better work environments were more likely to rate their hospital highly (1.16, 1.03 to 1.32) and recommend their hospitals (1.20, 1.05 to 1.37), whereas those with higher ratios of patients to nurses were less likely to rate them highly (0.94, 0.91 to 0.97) or recommend them (0.95, 0.91 to 0.98). Results were similar in the US. Nurses and patients agreed on which hospitals provided good care and could be recommended. Conclusions Deficits in hospital care quality were common in all countries. Improvement of hospital work environments might be a relatively low cost strategy to improve safety and quality in hospital care and to increase patient satisfaction.
Finding structural patterns in complex networks

Complex networks are widely used to model various real-world systems. However, traditional tools from graph theory are only suitable for the study of individual networks, but not the relationship between them. In this work, we utilize tools from data mining and pattern recognition to study the similarity and difference between large-scale networks. After transforming networks into data clouds, structural patterns of the networks can be discovered by standard data analysis tools. Using this method, we studied Internet and yeast protein-protein interaction networks. We further discussed the network similarity and difference on the mined structural patterns. Network mining methods in this work provide us novel ways for network analysis, which is valuable for future research.
Congressional Representation & Constituents: The Case for Increasing the U.S. House of Representatives

1. Why Study the Size of the House? 2. Debating the Size of the House 3. The Growth of House District Populations and Electoral Competition 4. Constituents: How Many is Too Many? 5. House Constituency Size and Voting Patterns 6. Public Opinion on the Size of the House 7. The Size of the House: Does it Really Matter?
Interoperable Content-based Access of Multimedia in Digital Libraries (invited talk)

Recent academic and commercial efforts in digital libraries have demonstrated the significant potential for largescale, on-line search and retrieval of cataloged multimedia content. By improving access to scientific, educational, and historical documents and information, digital libraries create powerful opportunities for revamping education, accelerating scientific discovery and technical advancement, and improving knowledge. Furthermore, digital multimedia libraries go well beyond traditional libraries in storing and indexing diverse and complex types of material consisting of images, video, graphics, audio and multimedia. In this paper, we examine several challenges addressed by MPEG-7 for enabling network-based digital multimedia libraries to interoperate with diverse networked multimedia systems and allow universal access to widely distributed multimedia content. MPEG-7 provides a framework for self-describing digital multimedia that uses a common vocabulary to describe the features, semantics, structure and models of audio-visual content. We describe how MPEG-7 can be used to enable interoperable content-based searching, indexing, filtering and browsing of multimedia in digital libraries. We also examine the MPEG-7 application of Universal Multimedia Access, which involves the scalable or adaptive delivery of multimedia content to patrons of digital libraries regardless of capabilities of terminal device, conditions of communication bandwidth, or client support for media formats and modalities.
Asymptotic Formulas with Error Estimates for Call Pricing Functions and the Implied Volatility at Extreme Strikes

In this paper, we obtain asymptotic formulas with error estimates for the implied volatility associated with a European call pricing function. We show that these formulas imply Lee's moment formulas for the implied volatility and the tail-wing formulas due to Benaim and Friz. In addition, we analyze Pareto-type tails of stock price distributions in uncorrelated Hull-White, Stein-Stein, and Heston models and find asymptotic formulas with error estimates for call pricing functions in these models.
Double-Stranded RNA Induces an Antiviral Defense Status in Epidermal Keratinocytes through TLR3-, PKR-, and MDA5/RIG-I-Mediated Differential Signaling1

Emerging evidence suggests an important role for human epidermal keratinocytes in innate immune mechanisms against bacterial and viral skin infections. The proinflammatory effect of viral infections can be mimicked by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). Herein, we demonstrate that keratinocytes express all known dsRNA sensing receptors at a constitutive and inducible level, and that they use several downstream signaling pathways leading to a broad pattern of gene expression, not only proinflammatory and immune response genes under the control of NF-κB, but also genes under transcriptional control of IRF3. As a consequence, dsRNA, a stimulus for TLR3, protein kinase R (PKR), and the RNA helicases retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) and MDA5, induces a status of antiviral defense in keratinocytes. Using inhibitors for the various dsRNA signaling pathways and specific small interfering RNA for TLR3, RIG-I, and MDA5, we demonstrated that in human keratinocytes, TLR3 seems to be necessary for NF-κB but not for IRF3 activation, whereas RIG-I and MDA5 are crucial for IRF3 activation. PKR is essential for the dsRNA response in both signaling pathways and thus represents the central antiviral receptor for dsRNA stimulation. Moreover, human keratinocytes up-regulate TLR7, the receptor for single-stranded RNA, in response to stimulation with dsRNA, which renders keratinocytes functionally responsive to the TLR7 agonist gardiquimod, a member of the imidazoquinoline antiviral immune response modifier family. Thus, in addition to building a physical barrier against infectious pathogens, keratinocytes are specially equipped with a full antiviral defense program that enables them to efficiently target viral infections of the skin.
Optimization in Finance

One of the most widely studied problems in financial mathematics is the pricing of derivative securities, also known as contingent claims. These are securities whose price depend on the value of another underlying security. Financial options are the most common examples of derivative securities. For example, a European call option on a particular underlying security gives the holder the right to purchase this underlying security for a prescribed amount (called the strike price) at a prescribed time in the future, known as the expiration or exercise date. The exercise date is also known as the maturity date of the derivative security. Recall the definitions of European put options as well as American call and put options from Section 1.3. 2. Options are used mainly for two purposes: speculation and hedging. By speculating on the direction of the future price movements of the underlying security, investors can take (bare) positions in options on this security. Since options are often much cheaper than their underlying security, this gamble results in much larger earnings if the price movements happen in the expected direction compared to what one might earn by taking a similar position in the underlying. Of course, if one guesses the direction of the price movements incorrectly, the losses are also much more severe. Hedging refers to the reduction of risk in an investor’s overall position by forming a suitable portfolio of the underlying and an option, or multiple options, on it. For example, if an investor holds a share of XYZ and is concerned that the price of this security may fall significantly, she can purchase a put option on XYZ and protect herself against price levels below a certain threshold (the strike price of the put option). Recall the option example in the simple one-period binomial model of Section 1.3. 2. Below, we summarize sum of the information from that example: We considered the share price of XYZ stock which is currently valued at $40. A month from today, we expect the share price of XYZ to either double or halve, with equal probabilities. We also considered a European call option on XYZ with a strike price of $50 which will expire a month from today. We assumed that interest rates for cash borrowing or lending are zero and that any amount of XYZ shares can be bought or sold with no commission.
Dual Cleavage of Neuregulin 1 Type III by BACE1 and ADAM17 Liberates Its EGF-Like Domain and Allows Paracrine Signaling

Proteolytic shedding of cell surface proteins generates paracrine signals involved in numerous signaling pathways. Neuregulin 1 (NRG1) type III is involved in myelination of the peripheral nervous system, for which it requires proteolytic activation by proteases of the ADAM family and BACE1. These proteases are major therapeutic targets for the prevention of Alzheimer's disease because they are also involved in the proteolytic generation of the neurotoxic amyloid β-peptide. Identification and functional investigation of their physiological substrates is therefore of greatest importance in preventing unwanted side effects. Here we investigated proteolytic processing of NRG1 type III and demonstrate that the ectodomain can be cleaved by three different sheddases, namely ADAM10, ADAM17, and BACE1. Surprisingly, we not only found cleavage by ADAM10, ADAM17, and BACE1 C-terminal to the epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like domain, which is believed to play a pivotal role in signaling, but also additional cleavage sites for ADAM17 and BACE1 N-terminal to that domain. Proteolytic processing at N- and C-terminal sites of the EGF-like domain results in the secretion of this domain from NRG1 type III. The soluble EGF-like domain is functionally active and stimulates ErbB3 signaling in tissue culture assays. Moreover, the soluble EGF-like domain is capable of rescuing hypomyelination in a zebrafish mutant lacking BACE1. Our data suggest that NRG1 type III-dependent myelination is not only controlled by membrane-retained NRG1 type III, but also in a paracrine manner via proteolytic liberation of the EGF-like domain.