Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methods for Handling Massive Numbers of Attributes in Conjoint Analysis

Conjoint analysis is arguably the most versatile method in marketing research. As the method has been employed in practice, one serious problem has been finding ways to deal with the massive (large) numbers of attributes in conjoint analysis studies. This chapter provides a review of thirteen methods that have been applied in various contexts. We also offer our subjective assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. We find that three methods (self-explicated method, partial profiles method, and upgrading method) seem to stand out. In concluding, we offer some directions for future research.
Investigating Pneumonia Etiology Among Refugees and the Lebanese population (PEARL): A study protocol

Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), a leading cause of mortality, mainly affects children in developing countries. The harsh circumstances experienced by refugees include various factors associated with respiratory pathogen transmission, and clinical progression of CAP. Consequently, the etiology of CAP in humanitarian crisis situations may differ to that of settled populations, which would impact appropriate case management. Therefore, the Pneumonia Etiology Among Refugees and the Lebanese population (PEARL) study was initiated with the objective of identifying the causal pathogenic microorganisms in the respiratory tract of children and adults from both the refugee and host country population presenting with signs of CAP during a humanitarian crisis. Methods: PEARL, a prospective, multicentric, case-control study, will be conducted at four primary healthcare facilities in Tripoli and the Bekaa valley over 15 months (including two high-transmission seasons/winters). Sociodemographic and medical data, and biological samples will be collected from at least 600 CAP cases and 600 controls. Nasopharyngeal swabs, sputum, urine and blood samples will be analyzed at five clinical pathology laboratories in Lebanon to identify the bacterial and viral etiological agents of CAP. Transcriptomic profiling of host leukocytes will be performed. Conclusions: PEARL is an original observational study that will provide important new information on the etiology of pneumonia among refugees, which may improve case management, help design antimicrobial stewardship interventions, and reduce morbidity and mortality due to CAP in a humanitarian crisis.
Deterrence Effects: The Role of Authoritarian Leadership in Controlling Employee Workplace Deviance

ABSTRACT Drawing upon two independent samples from mainland China, we propose and investigate the deterrence function of leadership behavior focused on control. We suggest that controlling leadership, specifically, authoritarian leadership, deters employees’ deviance under certain conditions. That is, authoritarian leadership thwarts employees’ interpersonal deviance behavior when leaders send clear signals of potential punishments of non-compliance by showing low leader benevolence, and when employees are highly dependent on the leaders for important work resources. Results from two independent studies largely support our key propositions. Overall, these results add to the range of possible impacts that a leader can play in decreasing employee deviance. Theoretical implications and directions for follow-up research are discussed.
Edge Domination Number of Corona Product Graph of a Cycle with a Star

Graph Theory has been realized as one of the most useful branches of Mathematics of recent origin with wide applications to combinatorial problems and to classical algebraic problems. Graph theory has applications in diverse areas such as social sciences, linguistics, physical sciences, communication engineering etc. The theory of domination in graphs is an emerging area of research in graph theory today. It has been studied extensively and finds applications to various branches of Science & Technology. An introduction and an extensive overview on domination in graphs and related topics is surveyed and detailed in the two books by Haynes et al [7, 8]. Products are often viewed as a convenient language with which one can describe structures, but they are increasingly being applied in more substantial ways. Every branch of mathematics employs some notion of product that enables the combination or decomposition of its elemental structures. In this paper some results on minimal edge dominating sets of corona product graph of cycle with a star are discussed.
Innovation Districts as a Strategy for Urban Economic Development: A Comparison of Four Cases.

This study investigates the urban economic development strategy of innovation districts. As the phenomenon of innovation districts currently is flourishing and expanding across the nation, it commands rigorous attention from those interested in understanding economic development in the United States. Researching the design, opportunities, and pitfalls associated with the economic development strategy will be valuable to policymakers. By studying innovation districts, we aim to provide practical guidance to governments, nonprofit organizations, and other interested actors as they consider devoting substantial effort and resources toward improving their local and regional economies. Because innovation districts are relatively new, this research does not claim to provide definitive empirical knowledge or results. Moreover, it is too early in the application of innovation districts to conduct widespread empirical evaluation. Instead, our approach focuses on examining four cases of innovation districts that present contrasting settings and policies. We assess the economic development efforts as they have progressed so far by drawing on existing theories of regional economic development and by relating the design and implementation of innovation district actions to stated and normative goals. In conducting this research relatively early in terms of innovation district applications, we anticipate the information to be opportune for the consideration of local economic development policymakers and stakeholders.
Computer aided orthodontics measures evaluation

The paper is devoted to analysis of orthodontic images and to new mathematical methods for evaluation of their characteristics. The main goal of the paper is in analysis of three-dimensional objects to enable numerical evaluation of measures important for the study of the appropriate treatment after dental operations. Methods presented include (i) computer analysis of a single image based upon its de-noising followed by a thresholding and image components detection and (ii) presentation of tools for the three dimensional modelling using the double camera system. Proposed algorithms allow semi-automatic evaluation of measures between selected objects.
A Focal Plane Array To Model The Color Processing of the Retina

This thesis presents a bio-inspired color camera chip. It is the first focal plane array of photo-pixels that react to temporal color contrast of three different color spectra and thus this vision sensor emulates the color opponencies in the human retina. The array has been designed, implemented and thoroughly characterised in TSMC 90nm CMOS technology. The three different spectra are transduced into photocurrents by stacked photodiodes and temporal changes of the contrast of these three spectra are represented as asynchronous pixels event streams which are read-out off-chip by the Address Event Representation (AER) protocol. The implemented focal plane consists of 16x16 pixels. A single pixel measures 82μm x 82μm and has a fill factor of 27%. The experimental results proved that the designed sensor can discriminate between temporal color contrasts. In comparison to traditional frame-based cameras, the designed vision sensor relaxed the post processing load of a CPU preforming moving objects color recognition.
A Study on the Moderating Effect of Perceived Voluntariness in the Organizational Information System Usage and Performance

According to an industry report, a large number of organizations have invested in Organizational Information System(OIS) in the past few years. Several research results indicate that successful investments in OIS lead to productivity enhancement, while failed ones result in undesirable consequences such as financial losses and dissatisfaction among employees. In spite of huge investments, however, many organizations have failed in achieving the hoped-for returns from OIS. Thus, understanding user acceptance, adoption, and usage of new IS(Information Systems) is an important issue for IS practitioners. Indeed, study of the user acceptance of new information system has been one of the most important research topics in the contemporary IS literature. Several theoretical models are tested to examine 'user acceptance' and 'usage behavior' in IS context. While many research models incorporate 'ease of use' or 'usefulness' as important factors in explaining user acceptance, Technology Acceptance Model(TAM) has been one of the most widely applied models in user acceptance and usage behavior. Even in recent IS studies that employ theories of innovation diffusion in the area of IS implementation, a major focus has been on the user's perception of information technologies. In this research, we study 'voluntariness' as an important factor in IS acceptance by users. Voluntariness is defined as "the degree to which the use of the innovation is perceived as being voluntary, or of free will" When examining the diffusion of accepting OIS, a thoughtful consideration should be given to 'perceived voluntariness. ' Current article has following research questions: 1) What models are appropriate to explain the success of OIS? and 2) How does the 'voluntariness' affect the success of OIS?
Die Rolle von Lebensversicherungen in der betrieblichen Altersvorsorge

Diese neue Schatzung zur Verbreitung der betrieblichen Altersvorsorge in Osterreich legt einen Schwerpunkt auf die Rolle der Gruppenlebensversicherung. Grundlage der Hochrechnung sind die Umfrageergebnisse aus dem Jahr 2007; die Umstellung der osterreichischen Betriebssystematik auf die Klassifikation ONACE 2008 erhoht die Ungenauigkeit der Schatzung. Im Jahr 2010 gewahrten demnach 65.000 Unternehmen ihren Beschaftigten eine betriebliche Altersvorsorge; das entsprach 25% der aktiven Unternehmen. Insgesamt hatten 1,2 Mio. Personen oder 34% der unselbstandig Beschaftigten in Osterreich eine Anwartschaft. Gleichzeitig kamen 150.000 Leistungsberechtigte in den Genuss einer Betriebspension; das entsprach 14,1% der Personen mit Bezug einer Alterspension in der Pensionsversicherung der Unselbstandigen. Die Beitragszahlungen betrugen 1,5 Mrd. € bzw. 1,1% der Arbeitnehmerentgelte. Im Jahr 2010 wurden insgesamt 1,9 Mrd. € an Betriebspensionen ausgezahlt. Den Pensionsverpflichtungen standen 37,1 Mrd. € an Deckungskapital oder 7,3% des Geldvermogens der privaten Haushalte gegenuber.
Spectral retinal image processing and analysis for ophthalmology

Lauri Laaksonen Spectral retinal image processing and analysis for ophthalmology Lappeenranta, 2016 159 p. Acta Universitatis Lappeenrantaensis 699 Diss. Lappeenranta University of Technology ISBN 978-952-265-956-9 ISBN 978-952-265-957-6 (PDF) ISSN-L 1456-4491 ISSN 1456-4491 Diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma are the leading causes of blindness worldwide. Automatic methods for diagnosis exist, but their performance is limited by the quality of the data. Spectral retinal images provide a significantly better representation of the colour information than common grayscale or red-green-blue retinal imaging, having the potential to improve the performance of automatic diagnosis methods. This work studies the image processing techniques required for composing spectral retinal images with accurate reflection spectra, including wavelength channel image registration, spectral and spatial calibration, illumination correction, and the estimation of depth information from image disparities. The composition of a spectral retinal image database of patients with diabetic retinopathy is described. The database includes gold standards for a number of pathologies and retinal structures, marked by two expert ophthalmologists. The diagnostic applications of the reflectance spectra are studied using supervised classifiers for lesion detection. In addition, inversion of a model of light transport is used to estimate histological parameters from the reflectance spectra. Experimental results suggest that the methods for composing, calibrating and postprocessing spectral images presented in this work can be used to improve the quality of the spectral data. The experiments on the direct and indirect use of the data show the diagnostic potential of spectral retinal data over standard retinal images. The use of spectral data could improve automatic and semi-automated diagnostics for the screening of retinal diseases, for the quantitative detection of retinal changes for follow-up, clinically relevant end-points for clinical studies and development of new therapeutic modalities.
Pose Machines: Estimating Articulated Pose in Images and Video

The articulated motion of humans is varied and complex. We use the range of motion of our articulated structure for functional tasks such as transport, manipulation, communication, and self-expression. We use our limbs to gesture and signal intent. It is therefore crucial for an autonomous system operating and interacting in human environments to be able to reason about human behavior in natural, unconstrained settings. This requires reliably extracting compact representations of behavior from possibly noisy sensors in a computationally efficient manner. The goal of this thesis is to develop computational methods for extracting compact keypoint representations of human pose from unconstrained and uncontrolled real-world images and video. Estimating articulated human pose from unconstrained images is an extremely challenging task due to complexity arising from the large number of kinematic degrees of freedom of the human body, large appearance and viewpoint variability, imaging artifacts and the inherent ambiguity when reasoning about three dimensional objects from two dimensional images. A core characteristic of the problem is the trade-off between the complexity of the human pose model used and the tractability of drawing inferences from it: as we increase model fidelity by either incorporating structural and physical constraints or making fewer limiting assumptions, the problem of searching for the optimal pose configuration becomes increasingly difficult and intractable. Cognizant of this trade-off, in this thesis, we develop methods to reason about articulated human pose from single images by developing a modular sequential prediction framework called a Pose Machine. Pose Machines reduce the structured prediction problem of articulated pose estimation to supervised multi-class classification. The modular framework allows for integrating the latest advances in supervised prediction, incorporates informative cues across multiple resolutions, learns rich implicit spatial models by making fewer limiting assumptions, handles large real-world datasets, and can be trained in an end-to-end manner. Additionally we develop methods for estimating pose from image sequences and reconstructing pose in three dimensions by finding tractable substructures to incorporate physicial and structural constraints while maintaining tractability.
GART: An environment-guided path planner for robots in crowded environments under kinodynamic constraints

The problem of three-dimensional path planning in obstacle-crowded environments is a challenge (an NP-hard problem), which becomes even more complex when considering environmental uncertainty and system control. Int this paper, we mainly focused on more challenging problem, that is, path planning in obstacle-crowded environments, and we try to find the relation between contact information and obstacle modeling. We proposed a newactive exploring sampling-based algorithm based on rapidly exploring random tree (RRT), namely, guiding attraction–based random tree (GART). GART introduces bidirectional potential field to redistribute each newly sampled state, such that the in-collision samples can be redistributed for extension. Furthermore, dynamic constraints are deployed to establish forward extending region by GART. Thus, GART can ensure kinodynamic reachability as well as smoothness. Theoretical analysis demonstrate that GART is probabilistic complete, and it obtains faster convergence rate because of its r.
IS-IS Extensions for Segment Routing

Segment Routing (SR) allows for a flexible definition of end-to-end paths within IGP topologies by encoding paths as sequences of topological sub-paths, called "segments". These segments are advertised by the link-state routing protocols (IS-IS and OSPF). This draft describes the necessary IS-IS extensions that need to be introduced for Segment Routing operating on an MPLS data-plane.
Devaluación y Distribución del Ingreso en República Dominicana

Este trabajo explora los efectos de la devaluacion del tipo de cambio sobre la distribucion del ingreso en Republica Dominicana utilizando el enfoque de cointegracion desarrollado por Johansen con informacion trimestral para el periodo 1992:1-2009:2. Los resultados muestran que el traspaso (pass-through) de las fluctuaciones del tipo de cambio hacia los precios de las canastas de consumo de todos los quintiles de ingresos es significativo y elevado, en el corto y largo plazo. La devaluacion del tipo de cambio no parece tener un impacto diferenciado sobre los ingresos de los hogares que beneficie a los mas ricos en perjuicio de los mas pobres, o viceversa, por lo tanto, no provoca un cambio significativo en el valor del coeficiente de Gini. No obstante, una devaluacion, por su impacto sobre el nivel de precios, tiene la capacidad de reducir el ingreso real de todos los hogares y desplazar muchos de ellos por debajo de la linea de pobreza.
A communication protocol and architectural support for high-performance distributed computing

With the evolution of processor technology and the emergence of high-speed networks, there has been increased interest in High-Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC). Current workstations are capable of delivering tens and hundreds of Megaflops of computing power; the aggregate computing power of a group of general-purpose workstations can be comparable to that of supercomputers. The advance in networking technology has increased communication bandwidth from a few Mbps to hundreds of Mbps for the past decade and soon it will reach Gbps range. We envision that by interconnecting a cluster of high-performance workstations with high-speed networks, the HPDC environment can be built in a cost-effective manner as a future computing environment. However, a number of issues must be resolved to utilize the full potential of the HPDC environment. The main objective of this dissertation is to study these problems and present solutions. We present an architecture of a high-speed local area network (HLAN) to transform a network of computers into an HPDC environment suitable for solving compute-intensive applications. The HLAN architecture maintains two modes of operation: normal-speed mode and high-speed mode. We also present an architecture of a host interface processor (HIP) that offloads protocol processing from host processor and supports efficient implementation of high-speed protocol. We present a high-speed communication protocol (HCP) that provides efficient communication environment suitable for HPDC. HCP is characterized with its simple communication scheme to provide low-latency and high-bandwidth, and concurrent communication capability to allow multiple hosts to communicate over the HLAN at the same time. We also present an ATM-based HPDC environment using the HCP. We analyze the performance of the proposed HPDC environment and show that the application-level bandwidth achieved is comparable to medium rate. We also demonstrate through examples that reasonable performance gain is obtained with the support of HCP and HIP.
Redesign in teacher education: the roles of teacher educators

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on current issues regarding the status of teacher education in the context of policy and practice in the United States. It is intended as a ‘think piece’ to spur discussion among teacher educators regarding the role of teacher education as a vehicle for social justice and school improvement world-wide. Using the framework of design theory relative to Dewey’s powerful discussion of teacher education in his essay, The relation of theory to practice in education, this paper takes up the challenge of developing new approaches to teacher education that are driven by inquiry among teacher educators who focus on expanding understandings of partnership between universities and schools aimed at the preparation and support of teachers and of schools themselves.
eSports Evolution in Football Game Series

Abstract Sport used to be practiced and watched only live. Over time, it started to be broadcast by the radio or television. The development of sport on the Internet has led to the emergence of eSports and professionalization of virtual sports competitions. For some gamers playing computer games has turned into competition and later into the professionalization of the game. This paper explores the topic of electronic sports and virtual competition. It discusses eSports and the accompanying behaviors and practices. Authors delivered taxonomy of video game types, game modes and current phenomenon of both online and land-based tournaments as well eSports leagues. The paper also illustrates how gamers are preparing themselves for tournaments and a crucial role of gamers’ motivation. Authors present the FIFA football games series and its eSports application. The adopted research method allowed to obtain answers from n=452 gamers. Results show that 60% of gamers have been spending more than 7 hours a week playing games. More than half of gamers have been playing for more than ten years. Most players play in games because it is considered as a hobby. Most of the gamers consider eSports as a sport. Most of the players are also spectators, who had watched in streaming at least one eSports tournament We find that FIFA game series has an extensive eSports platform and filled the gap by exploring it. Gamers usually play 40 games each weekend in FIFA eSports league but casual eSports gamers and spectators rarely take part in land-based tournaments.