Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Second-generation systematic literature studies using snowballing

Systematic literature studies have become standard practice in software engineering to synthesize evidence in different areas of the discipline. As more such studies are published, there is also a need to extend previously published systematic literature studies to cover new research papers. These first extensions become second-generation systematic literature studies. It has been asserted that snowballing would be a suitable search strategy for these types of second-generation studies, since newer studies ought to refer to previous research on a topic, and in particular to systematic literature studies published in an area. This paper compares using a snowballing search strategy with a published second-generation study using a database search strategy in the area of cross-company vs. within-company effort estimation. It is concluded that the approaches are comparable when it comes to which papers they find, although the snowballing approach is more efficient in this particular case.
Dynamics of Central Control and Subsidiary Autonomy in the Management of Human Resources: Case-Study Evidence from US MNCs in the UK

This article revisits a central question in the debates on the management of multinationals: the balance between centralized policy-making and subsidiary autonomy. It does so through data from a series of case studies on the management of human resources in American multinationals in the UK. Two strands of debate are confronted. The first is the literature on differences between multinationals of different national origins which has shown that US companies tend to be more centralized, standardized, and formalized in their management of human resources. It is argued that the literature has provided unconvincing explanations of this pattern, failing to link it to distinctive features of the American business system in which US multinationals are embedded. The second strand is the wider debate on the balance between centralization and decentralization in multinationals. It is argued that the literature neglects important features of this balance: the contingent oscillation between centralized and decentralized modes of operation and (relatedly) the way in which the balance is negotiated by organizational actors through micro-political processes whereby the external structural constraints on the company are defined and interpreted. In such negotiation, actors’ leverage often derives from exploiting differences between the national business systems in which the multinational operates.
A study of computer usage by Nigerian quantity surveyors

Quantity Surveying (QS) appears to be one of the few professions that have not been profoundly transformed by the application of the technological advancement offered by digital revolution especially in a developing economy like Nigeria. The paper examines the extent to which the Nigerian quantity surveyors (NQS) have been moving with the times of information technology. The aim is to discover the challenges faced by the professionals by examining the factors affecting the use and adoption of computer in a dynamic world of explosive growth of the information and communication technology (ICT). The study adopted a survey design methodology. It was observed that there was increasing yearly rate of adoption of computer in QS services, particularly among those QSs in their mid-career years. About 89% of the quantity surveyors have been using computer for project cost management services (PCMS). Almost all the respondents are performing word processing functions using computers while the proficiency level is indicated to be high in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. About 44% of the respondents carried out spread functions using computer while about 45% wished to perform spreadsheet functions with computer. QSs’ attempt to computerize their services has been more of technology driven than process driven. Four elements of cost that were rated to be high with respect to income of the QSs are cost of original software, cost of branded hardware, cost of infrastructures to support computerization and cost of support services by computer professionals.
The Potential Public Health Relevance of Social Isolation and Loneliness: Prevalence, Epidemiology, and Risk Factors

Our social relationships are widely considered crucial to emotional well-being; however, the possibility that social connection may be a biological need, vital to physical wellbeing and even survival, is commonly unrecognized. Still, extreme examples clearly illustrate infants in custodial care who lack human contact fail to thrive and often die (UNICEF, 1997), and social isolation is so distressing that solitary confinement has been used as a form of punishment and even torture. Yet an increasing portion of the U.S. population now experiences isolation regularly. News headlines from many nations, including the United States, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom, suggest that we are facing a loneliness epidemic (http://www.campaigntoendloneliness.org/loneliness-research, http://www.spiegel.de/ international/germany/germany-faces-epidemic-of-lonelyand-isolated-seniors-a-876635.html, https://startsat60.com/ health/new-survey-reveals-australias-loneliness-epidemic, http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/tania-de-jong/lonelinessis-the-global-epidemic-of-our-times), leading to the important question of whether there is evidence to support such a claim and, if so, whether we are facing a public health crisis. Recently my work has systematically examined and summarized the available evidence supporting the public health prioritization of social connections (Holt-Lunstad, Robles, & Sbarra, 2017). Here I will summarize data on prevalence rates, epidemiological evidence of risk, and potential risk factors.
NOISE AND VIBRATION OF SPACECRAFT STRUCTURES RUIDO Y VIBRACIÓN DE ESTRUCTURAS DE VEHÍCULOS ESPACIALES

The launch of space craft generates extreme conditions, such as vibrations and acoustics that can affect the launch pad, space craft, and their payloads. The noise at launch and during the two-minute liftoff and transonic climb phase causes intense acoustic loads. These acoustic loads are the result of an intense acoustic environment generated by the interaction of the rocket-engine exhaust stream mixing with the atmosphere. Pyroshocks, that occur when spacecraft vehicle stages separate, cause additional vibration problems. In this article, an overview of the main aspects related to noise and vibration problems experienced by spacecraft structures is presented. Most of the information is based on the Space Shuttle experiences at the NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC). In addition, a review of the vibroacoustic research being conducted at KSC is presented. These research programs are aimed at designing future space launch facilities, where cost and rocket exhaust launch noise are significantly reduced.
International trade and financial integration: a weighted network analysis

The authors analyse patterns of international trade and financial integration using complex network analysis. The combination of both binary and weighted approaches delivers more precise and thorough insights into the topological structure and properties of international trade and financial networks (ITN and IFN). It is found that the ITN is more densely connected than the IFN, while both types of network display a core–periphery structure. This hierarchical organization is more pronounced in financial markets, suggesting that the bulk of trade in financial assets occurs through a handful of countries acting as hubs. High-income countries are better linked and form groups of tightly interconnected nodes. This kind of structure can explain why the recent financial crisis has spread rapidly among advanced countries while reaching emerging markets only in a second phase.
Treatment of Brain Metastasis from Lung Cancer

Brain metastases are not only the most common intracranial neoplasm in adults but also very prevalent in patients with lung cancer. Patients have been grouped into different classes based on the presence of prognostic factors such as control of the primary tumor, functional performance status, age, and number of brain metastases. Patients with good prognosis may benefit from more aggressive treatment because of the potential for prolonged survival for some of them. In this review, we will comprehensively discuss the therapeutic options for treating brain metastases, which arise mostly from a lung cancer primary. In particular, we will focus on the patient selection for combined modality treatment of brain metastases, such as surgical resection or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) combined with whole brain irradiation; the use of radiosensitizers; and the neurocognitive deficits after whole brain irradiation with or without SRS. The benefit of prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) and its potentially associated neuro-toxicity for both small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are also discussed, along with the combined treatment of intrathoracic primary disease and solitary brain metastasis. The roles of SRS to the surgical bed, fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy, WBRT with an integrated boost to the gross brain metastases, as well as combining WBRT with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors, are explored as well.
Lipoprotein(a) – Structure, Epidemiology, Function and Diagnostics of a Cardiovascular Risk Marker

Decades after its first description by Berg 1963 lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) is an established risk marker of cardio- vascular diseases which is independent from other risk markers. The main difference of Lp(a) compared to LDL is the apo(a) residue which is covalently bound to apoB. Apo(a) is a glycoprotein which underlies a large genetic polymor- phism. The latter is caused by a variation of the kringle-IV-type-2 repeats of the protein which is characterized by a large structural homology to plasminogen. The Lp(a) plasma concentration in the population is highly skewed and determined to more than 90 % by genetic factors. In healthy subjects the Lp(a)-concentration is correlated to its synthesis and not to its metabolism. Plasma concentrations of Lp(a) are affected by different diseases (e.g. diseases of liver and kidney), hor- monal factors (e.g. sexual steroids, glucocorticoids, thyroid hormones), individual and environmental factors (e.g. age, cigarette smoking) as well as pharmaceuticals (e.g. derivatives of nicotinic acid) and therapeutic procedures (lipid aphere- sis). However, even though a large number of studies on Lp(a) were performed up to now many details of its physiologi- cal function and regulation of plasma concentration are not yet understood. In addition, studies showed contradictory re- sults because there were large differences of the included patients, use of not sufficiently validated tests as well as analysis of frozen samples. Aim of our review was to describe function and physiological regulation of Lp(a) as well as factors in- fluencing its plasma concentration.
Understanding how experts rate cigars: a ‘havanometric’ analysis

Drawing on data from an annual French guidebook published in 2004, this article focuses on the determinants of experts’ ratings on Cuban cigars. We find that high quality cigars are more likely to be recommended to more experienced cigar lovers. Both the self-assessed quality and recommendation depend on the length and diameter of the cigars, but also on more subjective characteristics like number and type of aromas. Results from a Fields’ decomposition show that the quality of cigars is much more sensitive to the presence of a defect and number of aromas than the experts’ recommendation, which is more influenced by the rarity of cigars. Finally, it is essentially the cigars’ objective characteristics that have an influence on their prices, meaning that consumers truly benefit from additional qualitative information when reading experts’ advice and ratings.
Why do people share knowledge in online social Q&A communities?

Li, Mengcheng Why do people share knowledge in online social Q&A communities? Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2017, 62 p. Information Systems, Master’s Thesis Supervisor: Yixin Zhang As there is increasing volume of knowledge with the development of technology and human intelligence, it is a fast and efficient way for individuals to get knowledge from others’ sharing. Therefore, it is of significant importance to understand why people are willing to share their knowledge and in this paper the context of online social Q&A communities are discussed. A measurement model is established to test variables from the perspectives of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, personal variables, members’ perceptions about the community, factors that may discourage knowledge contribution. 12 variables including reputation, expected associations, self-efficacy, norm of reciprocity, use of self-presentation, enjoying helping, attention, trust, identification/commitment, loss of knowledge power, codification effort and cyber-bullying have been discussed and analyzed to investigate their impacts on individual’s perceived knowledge contribution as well as the quantity and quality of their actual knowledge sharing behavior. Survey data and empirical data were collected and combined for analysis with 269 complete responses. In addition, individual differences including gender, age, duration, status, education and tenure are taken into consideration in the structural model using PLS technique. Interesting findings as well as theoretical and practical implications are discussed at last.
A Controlled Experiment on the Effects of Machine Translation in Multilingual Requirements Meetings

Requirements engineering is a communication-intensive activity and thus it suffers much from language difficulties in global software projects. Remote requirements meetings can benefit from machine translation as this technology is today available in the form of cross-language chat services. In this paper, we present the design of a controlled experiment to investigate the effects of automatic machine translation services in requirements meetings. Experiment participants, using either Italian or Portuguese as native language, are asked to interact with a communication tool from a distance in order to prioritize and estimate requirements. First results show that real-time machine translation is not disruptive of the conversation flow and is accepted with favor by participants. However, concrete effects are expected to emerge when language barriers are critical.
Event-related theta synchronization predicts deficit in facial affect recognition in schizophrenia.

Growing evidence suggests that abnormalities in the synchronized oscillatory activity of neurons in schizophrenia may lead to impaired neural activation and temporal coding and thus lead to neurocognitive dysfunctions, such as deficits in facial affect recognition. To gain an insight into the neurobiological processes linked to facial affect recognition, we investigated both induced and evoked oscillatory activity by calculating the Event Related Spectral Perturbation (ERSP) and the Inter Trial Coherence (ITC) during facial affect recognition. Fearful and neutral faces as well as nonface patches were presented to 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 matched healthy controls while EEG was recorded. The participants' task was to recognize facial expressions. Because previous findings with healthy controls showed that facial feature decoding was associated primarily with oscillatory activity in the theta band, we analyzed ERSP and ITC in this frequency band in the time interval of 140-200 ms, which corresponds to the N170 component. Event-related theta activity and phase-locking to facial expressions, but not to nonface patches, predicted emotion recognition performance in both controls and patients. Event-related changes in theta amplitude and phase-locking were found to be significantly weaker in patients compared with healthy controls, which is in line with previous investigations showing decreased neural synchronization in the low frequency bands in patients with schizophrenia. Neural synchrony is thought to underlie distributed information processing. Our results indicate a less effective functioning in the recognition process of facial features, which may contribute to a less effective social cognition in schizophrenia.
Combined Pricing and Inventory Control Under Uncertainty

This paper addresses the simultaneous determination of pricing and inventory replenishment strategies in the face of demand uncertainty. More specifically, we analyze the following single item, periodic review model. Demands in consecutive periods are independent, but their distributions depend on the item's price in accordance with general stochastic demand functions. The price charged in any given period can be specified dynamically as a function of the state of the system. A replenishment order may be placed at the beginning of some or all of the periods. Stockouts are fully backlogged. We address both finite and infinite horizon models, with the objective of maximizing total expected discounted profit or its time average value, assuming that prices can either be adjusted arbitrarily (upward or downward) or that they can only be decreased. We characterize the structure of an optimal combined pricing and inventory strategy for all of the above types of models. We also develop an efficient value iteration method to compute these optimal strategies. Finally, we report on an extensive numerical study that characterizes various qualitative properties of the optimal strategies and corresponding optimal profit values.
Managing on-chip inductive effects

With process technology and functional integration advancing steadily, chips are continuing to grow in area while critical dimensions are shrinking. This has led to the emergence of on-chip inductance to be a factor whose effect on performance and on signal integrity has to be managed by chip designers and has to be sometimes traded off against other performance parameters. In this paper, we cover several techniques to reduce on-chip inductance which in turn improve timing predictability and reduce signal delay and crosstalk noise. We present experimental results obtained from simulations of a typical high performance bus structure and a clock tree structure to examine the effectiveness of some of the different inductance reduction techniques.
A First Attempt to Allow Enthymemes in Persuasion Dialogs

This paper is a first attempt to define a protocol able to handle enthymemes in a persuasion dialog. An enthymeme is an incomplete argument that uses implicit information either in the support of the argument or even in its conclusion. We propose a protocol that enables the agent to enunciate statements or to utter maybe incomplete arguments, retract orre-precise them. This protocol is designed to forbid inconsistency and redundancy and to ensure that agents listen to each other. The system is illustrated on a small example and some of its properties are presented.
Performance comparizon of unorganized recurrent neural network applied to streamflow forecasting of Sobradinho plant

Echo state networks can be safely regarded as promising tools in time series forecasting because they are recurrent networks which have a simple and efficient training process based on a linear regression. The recurrent character of an ESN comes from a dynamic reservoir that corresponds to a hidden layer with feedback loops which remains untrained, whereas its output layer is an adjustable linear combiner. Recently, Boccato et al. proposed a new architecture in which the output layer is built using a data compression method - principal component analysis - and a Volterra filter. Interestingly, this idea does not compromise the simplicity of the training process, once the output remains linear with respect to the free parameters and the PCA stage prevents any risk coming from a potential "curse of dimensionality". This work performs a comparative investigation among the performances of different ESNs architectures in the context of the forecasting of monthly seasonal streamflow series associated with Sobradinho hydroelectric plant. Two possible reservoir design approaches are tested with the classical and the Volterra-based output layer structures, and a multilayer perceptron is also included to establish bases for comparison with feedforward solutions. The results obtained from this study show the relevance of echo state networks to the problem of modeling seasonal streamflow series and also contribute to a better understanding of the applicability of these networks to forecasting problems in general.
Crenças Indicativas de Resiliência Parental no Contexto do Autismo

A resiliencia parental refere-se a uma parentalidade sensivel e cuidadosa nas situacoes criticas, como em processos diagnosticos de autismo envolvendo os filhos. Trata-se de um processo que permite aos pais desenvolver uma relacao protetora frente as necessidades dos filhos e as do proprio casal, e elaborar o diagnostico recebido. No atual estudo investigaram-se indicativos de resiliencia parental atraves da Analise de Conteudo de seis entrevistas com casais, cujo filho apresenta autismo. Os resultados revelaram que (a) a busca e a atribuicao de sentido ao comportamento do filho e ao proprio termo “autismo” e (b) a capacidade de desenvolver um empoderamento nessa vivencia, foram indicativos de resiliencia parental importantes no processo de elaboracao do diagnostico de autismo do filho.
Precise Phone Boundary Detection using Selective Context-dependent Acoustic Refinement

This paper proposes an automatic method for locating phone boundaries in speech utterances based on HMMbased forced alignment together with some context-dependent refinements. HMM-based forced alignment has been a preferred method for speech segmentation in many applications. However, the resulting boundaries are usually not consistent with real boundaries, defined based on abrupt changes in acoustic properties, which are often required in a number of applications such as landmarkand segment-based speech recognizers. In this work, the boundary refinement process fine-tunes boundary locations by utilizing acoustic features selected according to boundary types, categorized by their manners of articulation. Several acoustic measurements are combined with spectral features to form the set of acoustic features to be selected from. Performances of the refinements on different boundary types are investigated on a development set. Refinements working well are identified and these refinements are applied to an unseen test set. The maximum accuracy of 87.13% is achieved from speakerindependent speech segmentation experiments on 490 continuous speech utterances. This introduces a 14.7% error reduction when compared to the baseline HMM-based forced alignment.
Investigation of emotion classification using speech rhythm metrics

The processing of emotion during speech production has recently become a subject of increasing interest and attention for many languages. Such research has a wide range of applications in many different fields. The Arabic language, however, has thus far received little attention in this area, with the exception of a limited number of papers at some conferences. The current paper investigates the relationship between rhythm metrics Interval Measures (IM) (i.e., %V, ΔC, and ΔV) and speech emotions. The four emotions of `funny,' `sad,' `surprised,' and `question' are investigated in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The KACST Text To Speech Database (KTD) was used to perform the study. We found variations between the four emotion categories, especially for sadness and question. A major conclusion is that ΔC, and ΔV rhythm metrics can be used to classify emotions such as those investigated in this study.