Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Hybrid Approach for Event Social Influence Visualization

Social network is rapidly growing to be a major platform for the dissemination of breaking events. Numerous studies focus on the user's influence in different types of social network and visualize user and event propagation process. However, little works is done to visualize and analyze the social influence of breaking events. To fill this gap, we propose VIBES, a hybrid model that combines both event popularity and event public attention to quantitatively measure and visualize event social influence through time at both macroscopic and microscopic levels. Experimental results based on two real-world event datasets from Weibo validate the effectiveness of VIBES for accurately capturing breaking sub-events as well as visualizing event social influence from different temporal granularity. The visualization results produced by VIBES are not only useful for public users to have a better understanding of breaking events, but also helpful for mass media and and government agencies to mediate and stabilize the outbreak of event.
EMG Biofeedback Training, Relaxation Training, and Placebo for the Relief of Chronic Back Pain

24 patients with chronic low back pain were randomly assigned to three treatment conditions: (a) EMG biofeedback, (b) relaxation training, and (c) a placebo condition. Patients were seen for eight sessions and were evaluated before Session 1 and after Session 8. Eight analyses of covariance which were adjusted for age and pretest scores were computed on the final scores to find which variables could detect significant difference between treatments. Age was included as a covariate because the differences in age between conditions were significant. Four variables with significant and nearly significant differences were chosen for analysis. The second set of analyses identified the nature of the differences among the three conditions. These included a priori planned comparisons among conditions, and paired t tests. Relaxation-trained subjects were significantly superior to subjects in the placebo condition, in decreasing pain during the function test, increasing relaxation, and decreasing Upper Trapezius EMG. They were superior to EMG Biofeedback training in increasing reported activity. Both Relaxation and EMG trained subjects were able to reduce Upper Trapezius EMG by Session 8 Relaxation-trained subjects showed significant change on eight of the 14 possible comparisons for each treatment condition. EMG biofeedback training showed significant favorable results in only one condition; the placebo condition showed no significant results. Relaxation training gave better results in reducing EMG and pain, and in increasing relaxation and activity than either EMG biofeedback alone or a placebo condition.
5‐HydroxytryptamineiA Agonists A New Therapeutic Principle for Stroke Treatment

We conducted the present study to investigate the effects of 5-hydroxytryptamine agonists on brain morphology after the induction of focal cerebral ischemia by permanent occlusion of the left middle cerebral artery in rats and mice. Forty-eight hours after vessel occlusion, the damage was quantified in rats by planimetry and subsequent integration on cresyl violet-stained serial sections and in mice by planimetric analysis of the damaged cortical surface after counterstaining with carbon black. All 5-HT1A agonists investigated substantially decreased cortical infarct size in the rat focal ischemia model (p < 0.05). Drugs were applied 30 minutes before the induction of ischemia, and efficacy was demonstrated for 8-OH-DPAT (1 mg/kg s.c), buspirone (10 mg/kg i.p.), gepirone (10 mg/kg i.p.) ipsapirone (10 or 30 mg/kg i.p.), and Bay R 1531 (1 mg/kg i.p.). The most pronounced effects were seen with the higher dose of ipsapirone and Bay R 1531, both compounds reducing cortical infarct size by more than 60%. Except for 8-OH-DPAT, the 5-HT1A agonists also caused a reduction in total infarct volumes. In a separate series, ipsapirone (30 mg/kg i.p.), applied 1 hour after vessel occlusion, led to a reduction in cortical and total infarct volumes by about 50% compared with corresponding controls (p < 0.05). In neither series was striatal damage influenced. We tested the compounds in the mouse ischemia model over a broad dose range. Treatment with 8-OH-DPAT (1, 3, or 10 mg/kg s.c), buspirone (30 mg/kg i.p.), gepirone (10 mg/kg i.p.), or ipsapirone (10 or 30 mg/kg i.p.) 15 minutes before occlusion significantly (p < 0.05) reduced the area of cortical tissue damage. Our results provide evidence for neuroprotectant properties of 5-HT]A agonists in two rodent stroke models. As exemplified for ipsapirone, preischemic and postischemic drug application attenuates infarct development after middle cerebral artery occlusion. These data add 5-HTu agonists to current approaches to stroke therapy. (Stroke 1990;21(suppl IV):IV-161-IV-163)
Market orientation, product innovation and export performance: evidence from Chinese manufacturers

Based on resource-based view (RBV), this study examines the impact of marketing-related resource (market orientation) and innovation-related resources (innovation orientation and innovation resources) on exporters' performance (new product performance and overall export performance), as well as moderating role of environmental turbulence in the market orientation and export performance link. The questionnaire survey conducted among 220 manufacturing exporters reveals that there exist positive relationships among the constructs in question. This research departs from the majority of past research investigating the relationship among market orientation, product innovation and business performance in three aspects: (1) it examines the impact mechanism how market orientation improves new product performance and export performance through innovation orientation and innovation resources based on RBV, (2) it distinguishes among three constructs involved in product innovation activity, and (3) it extends the research from domestic markets to export markets. We conclude by discussing our contributions, the implications, and possible future extensions.
Determinants of customer price sensitivity: an empirical analysis

Purpose Consumer price sensitivity has become a major issue over the past few decades. This paper aims to investigate the importance that insurance customers give to premiums, insurers, intermediary recommendations and bundling strategies. The relationship between attributes and consumer price sensitivity is also studied. Design/methodology/approach To calculate the importance of attributes and part-worth utilities, a Conjoint Analysis with Full Profile was performed. To segment the market, a two-stage cluster analysis was performed. The traditional formula for estimating price elasticity of demand was also used. Findings Price sensitivity is affected by the level of purchase involvement, bundled discounts and brand loyalty. Also, brand loyalty has a strong influence on customer acceptance of bundled discounts. Price bundling increases a firm’s revenues and profits. Research limitations/implications The size of the sample of the second stage of the research could be higher. It would also be interesting to have the collaboration of an actuary to carry out more precise analysis of premium estimation of bundling strategies and to study the ideal number of products that would compose the bundling strategy. Moreover, it could be relevant to consider life insurance products as part of the bundling strategy. It would also be interesting to study whether there is any benefit in applying the bundle discount to the anchor product instead of applying it to the accessory product. Practical implications Insurers and intermediaries can benefit from price bundling strategies to increase sales and profit. Originality/value The study contributes to the service marketing literature and marketing of the insurance sector by providing empirical evidence of the impact of price bundling on insurance customer sensitivity, with the use of a methodological and experimental approach.
The dissemination of Salmonella typhi, S. paratyphi A and S. paratyphi B through the organs of the white mouse by oral infection

A dose of 5 × 109S. typhi (strain Ty2) and S. paratyphi B (strain HB3) administered to white mice orally, caused an infection of various organs of the mouse, namely: spleen, liver, kidneys, lungs, gall-bladder, mesenteric lymph nodes, jejunum and of the blood stream. The percentage of infected spleens was higher than that of other organs. With the above-mentioned dose of Ty2, the infection of the liver was found to be five times higher than that of the gall-bladder. The infection of the latter lasted for about 8–9 days, whereas that of the liver for 18–19 days. The bacteria appeared in the various organs: liver, spleen, kidneys, and lungs in about 2 min. after oral infection, and in the blood stream after about 20 sec. The speed and intensity of the invasion of micro-organisms from the gastrointestinal tract to the blood stream depends neither upon the volume of the dose (0·5 ml. or 0·1 ml.), nor upon the content of the mouse's stomach. The M.I. D. for the blood stream of the mouse by oral infection is about 5 × 105 bacteria for Ty2, HB3 and AH6. In blood samples collected by cardiac puncture 2–3 min. after oral infection, an average of 5 × 102 micro-organisms/ml. blood was found. The count of bacteria increased and reached its peak after 20 min. (about 3 × 103 bacteria). After that period, the number decreased: 1·6 × 103 after 1 hr. , 8 × 102 after 2 hr. and 1·7 × 102 after 3 hr. In spite of this considerable decrease, the blood did not became sterile until after several days. In the infected spleen (by oral infection) an inverse process was observed: at the beginning only a small number of micro-organisms was found (about 5 × 10/100 mg. spleen), but afterwards the number of bacteria increased (1·2 × 102 after 24 hr. and 5 × 102 after 4 days). In mice infected by the subcutaneous route with a dose of 5 × 109 bacteria, the number of micro-organisms in the blood stream did not differ significantly from that found after oral infection, whereas infection by intraperitoneal route caused a severe infection. When 5 × 107 micro-organisms (LD50) were administered by intraperitoneal route, 107 bacteria appeared in the blood stream of the moribund mice while in the spleen about 4·1 × 107 were found. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Prof. I. Gurewitch and to Dr R. Rozansky from the Department of Clinical Microbiology, the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, for their advice and criticism.
ARE AUDITOR REPUTATIONS CORRELATED ? EVIDENCE FROM THE ANDERSEN EXPERIENCE

Does bad news about one auditor’s conduct affect the credibility of other auditors? We address this question by investigating the existence, timing and magnitude of auditor credibility impairment spillovers around 25 bad news events involving Arthur Andersen LLP’s Waste Management, Sunbeam and Enron audits. We document strong evidence of market-wide negative abnormal returns (spillovers) around SEC sanctions and criticism of Andersen’s Waste Management and Sunbeam audits and around select events as Enron was failing. Thus, bad news about a leading auditor does, in our setting, impair other auditors’ credibility as well. In addition, we find that the timing and magnitude of reputation impairment are somewhat different for Andersen itself and for other Big Five auditors. This suggests that leading auditors’ reputations are highly but not perfectly correlated. ARE AUDITOR REPUTATIONS CORRELATED? EVIDENCE FROM THE ANDERSEN EXPERIENCE
Geometric Hashing Classifier Based on Modified D-S Theory in SAR Target Recognition

Geometric hashing technology can effectively recognize targets with partially changed shape. But when the known targets in training data set don't satisfy with the condition of 360 azimuths, the effect of recognition degrades. The reason is that the imperfect training set and partially changed shape make the uncertain information increase. Dempster-Shafer theory can deal with the uncertainty successfully. However, Dempster-Shafer theory does not model well evidences with a high degree of conflict. In order to overcome the aforementioned problems, in this paper, a modified D-S theory combined with geometric hashing is proposed and used in SAR images recognition. Experimental results with MSTAR dataset show that this fusion method is feasible, and it can correctly recognize the targets with partially changed shape
A novel method for recovery from Crypto Ransomware infections

Extortion using digital platforms is an increasing form of crime. A commonly seen problem is extortion in the form of an infection of a Crypto Ransomware that encrypts the files of the target and demands a ransom to recover the locked data. By analyzing the four most common Crypto Ransomwares, at writing, a clear vulnerability is identified; all infections rely on tools available on the target system to be able to prevent a simple recovery after the attack has been detected. By renaming the system tool that handles shadow copies it is possible to recover from infections from all four of the most common Crypto Ransomwares. The solution is packaged in a single, easy to use script.
Discovery of Predicate-Oriented Relations among Named Entities Extracted from Thai Texts

Extracting named entities (NEs) and their relations is more difficult in Thai than in other languages due to several Thai specific characteristics, including no explicit boundaries for words, phrases and sentences; few case markers and modifier clues; high ambiguity in compound words and serial verbs; and flexible word orders. Unlike most previous works which focused on NE relations of specific actions, such as work for, live in, located in, and kill, this paper proposes more general types of NE relations, called predicate-oriented relation (PoR), where an extracted action part (verb) is used as a core component to associate related named entities extracted from Thai Texts. Lacking a practical parser for the Thai language, we present three types of surface features, i.e. punctuation marks (such as token spaces), entity types and the number of entities and then apply five alternative commonly used learning schemes to investigate their performance on predicate-oriented relation extraction. The experimental results show that our approach achieves the F-measure of 97.76%, 99.19%, 95.00% and 93.50% on four different types of predicate-oriented relation (action-location, location-action, action-person and person-action) in crime-related news documents using a data set of 1,736 entity pairs. The effects of NE extraction techniques, feature sets and class unbalance on the performance of relation extraction are explored. key words: relation extraction, named entity, surface feature, information extraction
PERAN BRAND IMAGESEBAGAI PEMEDIASI PENGARUH COUNTRY OF ORIGINPADA BRAND EQUITY

The aim of this study is to determine the mediating role of brand image on the influence of countryof origin on brand equity of Toyota car in Denpasar City. This research was conducted to 150 samples by implementing purposive sampling method. The data was collected by using instrument with 5 point Likert’s Scale. The data was analized with Structural Equation Modeling ( SEM ) technique. The results show that 1) country of origin has a positive effect on brand image, 2) country of origin is positively affect brand equi ty, 3) brand image is positively affect brand equity, and 4) brand image mediates the effect of country of origin on brand equity. It is recommended for Toyota Management to further highlight that Toyota is a made in Japan car with an image of developed countries. Additionally, Toyota management can also improve its brand image by making Toyota as the top brand award, so it will be able to increase the brand equity of the Toyota products.
A perspective of synthetic biology: Assembling building blocks for novel functions

Synthetic biology is a recently emerging field that applies engineering formalisms to design and construct new biological parts, devices, and systems for novel functions or life forms that do not exist in nature. Synthetic biology relies on and shares tools from genetic engineering, bioengineering, systems biology and many other engineering disciplines. It is also different from these subjects, in both insights and approach. Applications of synthetic biology have great potential for novel contributions to established fields and for offering opportunities to answer fundamentally new biological questions. This article does not aim at a thorough survey of the literature and detailing progress in all different directions. Instead, it is intended to communicate a way of thinking for synthetic biology in which basic functional elements are defined and assembled into living systems or biomaterials with new properties and behaviors. Four major application areas with a common theme are discussed and a procedure (or “protocol”) for a standard synthetic biology work is suggested.
Umur Dan Kinerja Perusahaan: Studi Empiris Perbankan Syariah Di Indonesia

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of firm age on the performance of Islamic Banks ( BUS ) in Indonesia. To compare the effect of firm age on performance of BUS derived from UUS and BUS resulted from conversion, we analyzed the influence of experience as UUS on BUS performance. This study used statistical data of Islamic banking in Indonesia, for the period 1999-2011, with a performance measure of BUS in the form of financial ratios: profitability, liquidity and effeciency. To analyze the influence of firm age and experience to BUS performance, we use panel data regression model . The results showed that there is a significant relationship between firm age and performance of Islamic Banks, however, it did not show a significant relationship between prior experience as Islamic Business Unit (IBU) on the performance of Islamic Banks (IB ) after spin-off .
Electrophoretic Motion of a Liquid Droplet within an Uncharged Cylindrical Pore

Electrophoretic motion of a liquid droplet within an uncharged cylindrical pore is investigated theoretically in this study. It is found that the boundary effect in terms of the reduction of droplet mobility (droplet velocity per unit strength of the applied electric field) is very significant when the double layer surrounding the droplet is thick, and diminishes as it gets very thin. Moreover, the viscosity ratio of the ambient fluid to the internal one, σ, is a crucial factor in determining its electrophoretic behavior. The boundary effect is less significant as the viscosity ratio gets high. Up to 70% mobility reduction is observed when this ratio is low (σ = 0.01), whereas only 40% reduction when it is high (σ = 100). The results of this study can be utilized in various fields of biotechnology, such as a biosensor or a lab-on-a-chip device. Keywords—Cylindrical pore, Electrophoresis, Lab-on-a-chip, Liquid droplet
The diagnostic value of GM‐CSF and IL‐6 determinations in patients after renal transplantation

Abstract Cytokines are released by graft‐infiltrating cells during cellular rejection. We studied the release of GMCSF and IL‐6 and their prognostic significance in predicting rejection. Sequential measurements were made in serum and urine samples with an IL‐6 specific cell line and a GMCSF ELISA. Biopsy tissue was snap frozen and examined with immunohistochemical methods. The IL‐6 values for normal controls (CTR) and stable transplant patients (PTS) were 5–10 pg/ml in serum and 0–2.5 pg/ml in urine. In 51 biopsy‐proven rejections (AR), serum IL‐6 values at least doubled in 15 (sensitivity 29%, specificity 87%; 19 ± 7 vs. 7 ± 2 pg/ml; P= ns). In urine an increase was observed in 29 of 36 AR (sensitivity 80%, specificity 75%; 92 ± 34 vs. 5 ± 1 pg/ml; P < 0.05). After treatment, IL‐6 decreased in urine in 26/29 PTS to 7 ± 2 pg/ml (P < 0.05). In three PTS, rejection persisted, as did their elevated IL‐6 urine values. In PTS with urinary tract infections, IL‐6 increased in the serum of 13/19 and in the urine of 10/12. GMCSF in serum was not influenced by rejection; however, urine values increased in 22/33 AR (sensitivity 67%, specificity 96%; 22 ± 5 vs. 4.8 ± 0.3 pg/ml; P < 0.05). These values decreased (5 ± 0.3; P < 0.05) after treatment. During infection, increased urinary GMCSF levels were observed in 2/9 PTS. Further analysis revealed a better correlation between elevated cytokine levels and rejection episodes in the early post‐transplant period. In kidneys with acute rejection, IL‐6 was found in the interstitium of all PTS tested. CTR tissue was negative. In PTS GMCSF was found in arterioles and in infiltrate; however, control tissue also showed some staining. Cytokine labeling in tissue could not be correlated with serum or urine values. We concluded: (1) serum IL‐6 and GMCSF are of no value in rejection; (2) in urine, they reflect rejection, especially in the early posttransplant period; however, infection confounds the results; (3) IL‐6 staining in tissue may be helpful, but requires more study.
Board reform versus profits: The impact of ratings on the adoption of governance practices

Research summary: External stakeholders frequently attempt to influence organizations' adoption of new practices through the creation of public ratings. Based on the insights of performance feedback theory, we develop the theory of organizational reactions to external ratings to explain how firms' behaviors depend on their rating scores and their profitability. A central issue in our theory is the conflict between established internal goals and goals introduced by public ratings, with public ratings receiving lower priority than established profitability goals. Our theory suggests that, contrary to the expectations of the external stakeholders, firms targeted for criticism by ratings become less likely to adopt corresponding practices when their profitability is below aspirations. These arguments are supported in data on the diffusion of corporate governance practices in Canada. Managerial summary: Firms and their products are rated and ranked by external agencies ranging from Consumer Reports to magazine rankings of admired, environmental, or well-governed companies. We investigate whether such ratings affect firm behaviors, and especially whether they can incentivize poorly rated firms to improve their ranking when these firms' profitability is also low. Using the leading corporate governance ranking in Canada, we find that rankings could have adverse effects: when firms have both poor governance ranking and poor profitability they are less likely to adopt governance practices, contrary to the ranking creators' intentions. The findings show that there is a hierarchy of firms' goals, where the goal of profitability comes ahead of other goals imposed by external agencies through ratings and rankings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Automatic 2D-to-3D Image Conversion based on Depth Map Estimation

Recent advances in 3D have increased the importance of stereoscopic content creation and processing. Therefore, converting existing 2D contents into 3D contents is very important for growing 3D market. The most difficult task in 2D-to-3D conversion is estimating depth map from a single-view image. Thus, in this paper, we propose a novel algorithm to estimate the map by simulating haze as a global image feature. Besides, the visual artifacts of the synthesized leftand right-views can also be effectively eliminated by recovering the separation and loss of foreground objects in the proposed algorithm. Experimental results show that our algorithm can produce a good 3D stereoscopic effect and prevent the separation and loss artifacts with low computational complexity.