Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Process-Oriented and Technology-Based Model of Virtual Communities of Practices: Evidence from a Case Study in Higher Education

This article hypothesizes that virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) are valuable to business schools and universities because they contribute to the emerging paradigms of just-in-time, action-based informal learning. It presents a real case study of a VCoP called Virtual eBMS that was built by applying participative observation (Yin, 1994). In particular, the article provides a process-oriented model of Virtual eBMS that is composed of four main elements: the people participating in the community, the processes and the purpose of the community in terms of the value created for the business school, and the technology enabling the interactions between the community members. Indeed, from a technological point of view, the community is supported by an integrated Web learning and knowledge management platform, described in terms of the main knowledge processes triggered and the correspondent technologies supporting the actions. Finally, the work presents some preliminary results and the value created through the use of Virtual eBMS.
The back/forward sweep-based power flow method for distribution networks with DGs

Power system deregulation and the shortage of transmission capacities have led to increased interests in distributed generation sources (DGs). The high penetration of distributed generation (DG) units at the distribution level have a profoundly influence on grid security, operation, planning, etc. Therefore, based on the back/forward sweep methods, this paper presents a power flow method for radial distribution networks with DGs. To improve robustness and enhance convergence rate of the solution method, we developed an efficient branch and nodal numbering scheme and employed variable step-size factor and next-linked branch matrix. Meanwhile, a computer program implementing the solution scheme was developed and successfully applied to several practical and complex radial distribution networks. The results show that the proposed method has excellent convergence rate and is simple, flexible, reliable and very robust while maintaining necessary accuracy. It is available to calculate power flow for radial distribution network with multi-source and multi-type DGs. The solutions are given and compared with the results acquired with existing software to verify the proposed approaches.
Value Oriented Process Modeling - Towards a Financial Perspective on Business Process Redesign

To date, typical process modeling approaches put a strong emphasis on describing behavioral aspects of business operations. However, they often neglect value-related information. Yet, such information is of key importance to strategic decisionmaking, for instance in the context of process improvement or business engineering. In this paper we propose a valueoriented approach to business process modeling based on key concepts and metrics from operations and financial management. A simple case study suggests that our approach facilitates managerial decision-making in the context of process re-design.
The in fl uence of levamisole on cortisol concentration and peripheral blood in arti fi cially stressed pigs

The objective of the study was to evaluate the infl uence of levamisole (LEV) application in pigs stressed by adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) injection on the total and differential leukocyte count, blood erythrocyte count, haemoglobin concentration and cortisol level during and for 16 days after the treatment. Swedish Landrace boars aged 6 to 7 months were divided into three groups. Group 1 received levamisole 2.5 mg/kg/body mass/day intramuscularly over 3 days and ACTH 10 μg/kg/body mass/day intravenously for 3 days. Group 2 received ACTH 10 μg/kg/body mass/day intravenously for the next 3 days and group 3 received saline intramuscularly for 6 days (control group). Cortisol concentration was increased in both ACTH treated groups during all three days of administration and the day after the last ACTH treatment. A signifi cantly increase in total leukocyte count and a decrease in lymphocyte percentages was recorded during ACTH treatment. Use of levamisole before stress induction caused an increase in total leukocyte count in the 16 day period after cessation of ACTH treatment and also a lymphocyte increase in stressed animals on the fi rst day of ACTH injection. Pigs that received levamisol and ACTH did not show eosinophilia in contrast to pigs that received ACTH only. In both groups of stressed animals, an elevated percentage of neutrophilic granulocytes was recorded on days 2 and 3 of ACTH treatment. However, administration of levamisole led to faster normalization of neutrophils and prevented neutropenia one week after termination of stress. According to the data presented, levamisole can infl uence pig immunity during and after stress induction by ACTH administration.
Differentiated reliability (DiR) in WDM rings without wavelength converters

The concept of differentiated reliability, (DiR) was recently introduced by the authors to provide multiple reliability degrees (or classes) at the same network layer using a common protection mechanism, e.g., path switching. According to the DiR concept, each connection at the layer under consideration is guaranteed a minimum reliability degree, defined as the maximum failure probability allowed for that connection. The reliability degree chosen for a given connection is thus determined by the application requirements, and not by the actual network topology, design constraints, robustness of the network components, and span of the connection. In the paper the DiR concept is applied to designing the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) layer of a ring network in which wavelength conversion is not available. To solve the routing and wavelength assignment problem at the WDM layer an efficient algorithm is proposed that resorts to reusable protection wavelengths while guaranteeing the required reliability degree of each connection. Lower bounds on the network bandwidth required by two approaches-respectively based on non-reusable and reusable protection wavelengths-reveal interesting properties of the DiR concept and the proposed algorithm.
Oral and Craniofacial Manifestations and Two Novel Missense Mutations of the NTRK1 Gene Identified in the Patient with Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis

Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA) is a rare inherited disorder of the peripheral nervous system resulting from mutations in neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor 1 gene (NTRK1), which encodes the high-affinity nerve growth factor receptor TRKA. Here, we investigated the oral and craniofacial manifestations of a Chinese patient affected by autosomal-recessive CIPA and identified compound heterozygosity in the NTRK1 gene. The affected boy has multisystemic disorder with lack of reaction to pain stimuli accompanied by self-mutilation behavior, the inability to sweat leading to defective thermoregulation, and mental retardation. Oral and craniofacial manifestations included a large number of missing teeth, nasal malformation, submucous cleft palate, severe soft tissue injuries, dental caries and malocclusion. Histopathological evaluation of the skin sample revealed severe peripheral nerve fiber loss as well as mild loss and absent innervation of sweat glands. Ultrastructural and morphometric studies of a shed tooth revealed dental abnormalities, including hypomineralization, dentin hypoplasia, cementogenesis defects and a dysplastic periodontal ligament. Genetic analysis revealed a compound heterozygosity- c.1561T>C and c.2057G>A in the NTRK1 gene. This report extends the spectrum of NTRK1 mutations observed in patients diagnosed with CIPA and provides additional insight for clinical and molecular diagnosis.
Optimal Control of Gene Regulatory Networks with Effectiveness of Multiple Drugs: A Boolean Network Approach

Developing control theory of gene regulatory networks is one of the significant topics in the field of systems biology, and it is expected to apply the obtained results to gene therapy technologies in the future. In this paper, a control method using a Boolean network (BN) is studied. A BN is widely used as a model of gene regulatory networks, and gene expression is expressed by a binary value (0 or 1). In the control problem, we assume that the concentration level of a part of genes is arbitrarily determined as the control input. However, there are cases that no gene satisfying this assumption exists, and it is important to consider structural control via external stimuli. Furthermore, these controls are realized by multiple drugs, and it is also important to consider multiple effects such as duration of effect and side effects. In this paper, we propose a BN model with two types of the control inputs and an optimal control method with duration of drug effectiveness. First, a BN model and duration of drug effectiveness are discussed. Next, the optimal control problem is formulated and is reduced to an integer linear programming problem. Finally, numerical simulations are shown.
Application of fuzzy theory for an adaptive learning diagnosis system

This paper presents an application of Fuzzy Theory for Adaptive Learning Diagnosis System (FADS), which consists of five parts: calculating the concept similarity of different chapters; producing the personal adaptive reading mark automatically; calculating the learning degree of each chapter; constructing the fuzzy membership function; and evaluating the adaptive items selection mechanism. The system uses the similar concept method to compute the association between test items and teaching materials, and depends on a learner's practice and test results when selecting and marking the important paragraphs from readings by bolding the text automatically. Each learner has personal adaptive marks on their teaching materials, used to identify the weak parts. Additionally, the system uses the associations and results from practices to compute the personal learning degree of each learner. FADS focus on the functions of a review and detailed explanation of answers, providing learners with diverse feedback and creating a personal self-study environment for each learner. The system transfers the difficulty of each chapter by using the fuzzy membership function to select appropriate items for the learner. A total of 200 fourth-grade students in six social studies classes participated. The learners were divided into three groups, two classes per group; the groups were the experiment group, the comparison group, and the control group. The experimental method was quasi- experimental. The experiment group used FADS for learning diagnosis and assisted learning; the comparison group used traditional error rates for learning diagnosis and assisted learning; and the control group did not use a system for learning diagnosis and assisted learning. The results indicate that the use of FADS to diagnose and assist learning enabled the students in the experimental group to perform better than the two other groups. Since FADS makes online learning diagnosis analysis more effective and user-friendly, it can be an adaptive and flexible learning diagnosis system.
A chance-corrected measure of inter-annotator agreement for syntax

Following the works of Carletta (1996) and Artstein and Poesio (2008), there is an increasing consensus within the field that in order to properly gauge the reliability of an annotation effort, chance-corrected measures of inter-annotator agreement should be used. With this in mind, it is striking that virtually all evaluations of syntactic annotation efforts use uncorrected parser evaluation metrics such as bracket F1 (for phrase structure) and accuracy scores (for dependencies). In this work we present a chance-corrected metric based on Krippendorff’s , adapted to the structure of syntactic annotations and applicable both to phrase structure and dependency annotation without any modifications. To evaluate our metric we first present a number of synthetic experiments to better control the sources of noise and gauge the metric’s responses, before finally contrasting the behaviour of our chance-corrected metric with that of uncorrected parser evaluation metrics on real corpora. 1
3-D Displays and Signal Processing

In this article, main electronic 3-D display technologies from a signal processing perspective are overviewed. And the underlying physics, benefits, deficiencies of various displays are described. The general role of signal processing and provide specific examples of signal processing helping address certain display deficiencies are discussed. Challenges awaiting signal processing in quest of the ultimate 3-D experience is highlighted.
AGENT-BASED PREDICTIVE OPERATIONAL BENCHMARKING MODEL

This research establishes an Agent-based Predictive Operational Benchmarking model (A-POB ™ ), an advanced framework with the capability of performing automatic, predictive and comprehensive benchmarking. The model, standing as one critical link on iCognitive's evolutionary benchmarking roadmap, was designed, developed and implemented to predict companies' future performance by reviewing and analyzing its past Supply Chain Management (SCM) performance metrics in accordance with the Supply Chain Operational Reference (SCOR ™ ) model. A-POB ™ is a six-step process embracing agent-based communication, competitive analysis, advanced benchmarking (by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)), prediction by Genetic Algorithm (GA), second time advanced benchmarking, and control and result analysis. A-POB ™ is an updated version of POB ™ , but empowered with agent-based communication and simulation demonstrates higher levels of efficiency and data accuracy. An off-the-shelf A-POB ™ software program was developed to assess SCM performance at the aggregated level while covering both operations and business aspects. It is an effective and efficient tool to examine and forecast a company's overall strength and sustainability in the future business setting, primarily in terms of profit and growth. Consequently, it enhances strategic decision-making for investments with a long term horizon. Furthermore, the software has been tested for a SCM Benchmarking Study involving 272 companies in South East Asia (SEA). Comparing predictive results against actual data, approximately 45% of companies were positioned in the correct performance category in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.
Plexity Iterative Multiuser Detection for Ds/cdma with Fec," in International Con- 5] Tia/eia Is-95a: Mobile Station-base Station Compatibility Standard for Dual

19] P. D. Alexander, \Properties of pre-processing lters for asynchronous random{code{ division multiple{access. \Near single user performance using iterative multiuser detection for CDMA with turbo-code de-coders, \Optimal decoding of linear codes for minimising symbol error rate," IEEE Trans. 21 6 Summary We have proposed a low-complexity iterative decoder for the uplink in a CDMA communications system. The receiver provides unusually good performance for the complexity spent. Although the system must iterate several times, the complexity of one iteration is extremely low. The complexity of the CDMA MAP decoder is approximately equal to a single branch metric computation for a corresponding full complexity MAP decoder. The performance of the receiver is computed using both simulation and analytical tools, and good agreement is observed. System performance after a only a few iterations is as if there were only one user in the system, i.e. the interference has been almost completely eliminated. Although this has been done in the past with small numbers of users or orthogonal codes we drop both restrictions and allow the codes to be random and the number of users to exceed the spreading code length. Multipath propagation is easily incorporated in the receiver design, even taking into account errors in channel estimation. Future studies will study the possibility of integrated channel estimation procedures. The receiver is also shown to have excellent near-far resistance. 20 independent across users and the actual powers of all users are identical. The number of users in this test was K = 13 with N = 15 chips per spreading code. These values follow the theme of this work which is to highly load the available bandwidth. Figure 6 shows the performance of the receiver for the erroneous amplitude estimates and the exact estimates. We see that the fourth iteration at high E b =N 0 seems bound away from single user performance. This is justiied since we used a multiplicative method for introducing channel estimate errors. If we had employed an additive error then an error oor would have been evident. Assuming that a 2% error on the estimated amplitude is realistic, then acceptable error rates for continuous data applications are realisable.
Telematic dinner party: designing for togetherness through play and performance

There is an increasing desire to remain connected when physically distant and computer-mediated communication (CMC) is one means of satisfying this desire. In particular, there is a growing trend for individuals to use commercially available technology to connect with friends and family in social and leisure settings. Drawing on this trend, performative arts and existing telecommunications research, we identify the social practice of sharing a meal together as ripe for reinterpretation within CMC. We explore the opportunities to design a technology platform that supports remote guests in experiencing togetherness and playfulness within the practices of a traditional dinner party. Through both visual and aural channels as well as remote agency, the dinner guests were able to share a holistic telematic dining experience comparable to a traditional co-presence dinner. Based on the findings, we propose that one must consider the social structure and cultural background of users to inform the design of a technological intervention.
Early Taste Experiences and Later Food Choices

Background. Nutrition in early life is increasingly considered to be an important factor influencing later health. Food preferences are formed in infancy, are tracked into childhood and beyond, and complementary feeding practices are crucial to prevent obesity later in life. Methods. Through a literature search strategy, we have investigated the role of breastfeeding, of complementary feeding, and the parental and sociocultural factors which contribute to set food preferences early in life. Results. Children are predisposed to prefer high-energy, -sugar, and -salt foods, and in pre-school age to reject new foods (food neophobia). While genetically determined individual differences exist, repeated offering of foods can modify innate preferences. Conclusions. Starting in the prenatal period, a varied exposure through amniotic fluid and repeated experiences with novel flavors during breastfeeding and complementary feeding increase children’s willingness to try new foods within a positive social environment.
The nonlinear long term X ray variability of Mrk 421

In this work, I present the results of a thorough nonlinear time series analysis study concerning the long-term variability behaviour of Mrk 421. I use all the archival data obtained by the proportional counter array (PCA) and the all-sky monitor (ASM) aboard the Rossi X-ray timing explorer (RXTE), since 1996. Linearity and stationarity tests reveal that the long-term timing properties of the system originate from a strictly nonlinear and bistable system respectively. Moreover, from the dimensionality analysis I conclude that the underlying variability process of the system consists of numerous physical parameters, each one contributing to the observed X-ray variations equivalently in a stochastic way.
The Influence of North Pacific Atmospheric Circulation on Streamflow in the West

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): The annual cycle and non-seasonal variability of streamflow over a network of stations in western North America and Hawaii is studied in terms of atmospheric forcing elements. The phase lag between the annual cycle of streamflow and precipitation varies considerably over this network, as does the persistence of monthly streamflow anomalies. This lag effect appears to be largely a function of the relative amount of snow laid down in a particular basin. In addition to the rather strong annual cycle that exists in mean streamflow and its variance at most of the stations, there is also a distinct annual cycle in the autocorrelation of streamflow anomalies that is related to the interplay between the temperature and precipitation annual cycles; of particular importance is the existence of stored water in the form of a snow pack.
ZigBee Exploited The good , the bad and the ugly

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging trend. IoT involves the integration of digital and wireless technologies in physical objects and systems, especially those historically unconnected, which are supposed to make our everyday life easy and convenient. One of the most widespread used wireless technologies to connect IoT devices is the ZigBee standard. This emerging technology needs to keep pace with customer demands for cheap, long-living and available devices. One of the major challenges besides user and industry acceptance is security. However, security is very often sacrificed or neglected due to fear of reduced or limited usability or fear of breaking backwards compatibility. This paper describes the actual applied security measures in ZigBee, highlights the included weaknesses and introduces a software framework that can be used to automatically audit ZigBee communication and the implementation of ZigBee security services for various vulnerabilities and exploit them.
SVEUČILIŠTE U ZAGREBU MEDICINSKI FAKULTET

Polycystic kidney disease is a genetic disorder in which abnormal cysts develop and grow in the kidneys.The kidneys become enlarged with multiple cysts that interfere with normal kidney function. This can sometimes lead to kidney failure and the need for dialysis or kidney transplantation.Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease is a dominantly inherited disorder characterized by cystic dilatations in all parts of the nephron. Cysts are also common in the liver, pancreas, and other organs. Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease is a recessively inherited disorder characterized by cystic dilations of the renal collecting ducts and congenital hepatic fibrosis. Early diagnosis of asymptomatic individuals with polycystic kidney disease currently offers the opportunity for maximal preemptive care such as tight blood pressure control, close surveillance of extrarenal manifestations (eg. congenital hepatic fibrosis, cardiovascular disease), avoidance of potential dietary and lifestyle progression factors and targeted disease-specific therapies. Any interventions in polycystic kidney disease that delay dialysis or kidney transplantation improve the quality of life.