Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Product Differentiation and Capacity Cost Interaction in Time and Price Sensitive Markets

In this paper, we study a profit-maximizing firm selling two substitutable products in a price and time sensitive market. The products differ only in their prices and delivery times. We assume that there are dedicated capacities for each product and that there is a standard industry delivery time for the regular (slower) product. The objective of the firm is to determine the delivery time of the express (faster) product and appropriately price the two products, taking into consideration the impact of delivery time reduction on capacity requirements and costs. We develop a model that integrates pricing and delivery time decisions with capacity requirements and costs, and study scenarios where the firm is constrained in capacity for none, one, or both product(s). We show how product differentiation decisions are influenced by capacity costs, and how the firm should adapt its differentiation strategy in response to a change in its operating dynamics. We first identify a market characteristic that governs the optimal pricing structure. We then show that the degree of product differentiation depends on both the absolute, as well as the relative values of the capacity costs. Provided that the capacity cost differential remains the same, higher capacity costs induce less time differentiation and less price differentiation. An increase in capacity cost differential increases price differentiation, but decreases time differentiation. The optimal prices depend, in addition to the above, on the market characteristic. We find that prices can actually decrease when the firm incurs capacity-related costs. We also explore the impact of substitutability on product differentiation, and illustrate our results in a numerical study.
Beyond First-Line Therapy: Combining Chemotherapy and Radioembolization for Hepatic Colorectal Metastases

Metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) remains largely an incurable condition. Although progress has been made in expanding the number of available systemic agents, treatment after initial therapy has limited benefit. Radioembolization (RE) with radiolabeled microspheres is an emerging treatment modality for mCRC. Given the potential benefit of chemotherapy to control systemic disease and act as a radiosensitizer, there is high enthusiasm for studying RE and chemotherapy combinations, particularly after initial systemic therapy for patients with liver dominant or confined disease. This manuscript reviews the rationale for this approach, summarizes recently reported clinical trials, and provides a perspective for everyday practice and future unanswered research questions.
Optimal Investment Strategies for Flexible Resources, Considering Pricing and Correlated Demands

We study the optimal resource investment decision faced by a two-product, price-setting firm that operates in a monopolistic setting and employs a postponed pricing scheme. The firm has the option to invest in dedicated resources as well as a more expensive, flexible resource that can satisfy both products. While the resource investment decision is made under demand uncertainty, pricing and resource allocation decisions are postponed to the time when demand curves are realized. Our analysis provides the structure of the firm's optimal resource investment strategy as a function of demand parameters and investment costs, and shows that the flexible resource investment decision follows athreshold policy. We also show that it can be optimal for the firm to invest in the flexible resource even when demand patterns are perfectly positively correlated. The reason for flexible capacity investment in this case is financial rather than risk pooling. On the other hand, we show that it can be optimal for the firm not to invest in the flexible resource even when demand patterns are perfectly negatively correlated. The flexible resource investment decision in this case depends on the profitability of the two products. Based on our analysis, we provide principles on the firm's optimal resource investment decision.
Ergonomic chair intervention: Effect on chronic upper quadrant dysfunction, disability and productivity in female computer workers

AIM: To compare the effect of two ergonomic chairs on upper quadrant musculoskeletal pain and tension, disability and productivity among female computer workers in the office workplace.METHODS: A series of two N=1 studies were conducted using the A-B-A-C-A design whereby an intervention ergonomic chair was compared to a less adjustable control ergonomic chair using visual analogue scales (VAS) for pain and muscle spasm, the Neck Disability Index and the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment questionnaire. The female participants were assessed over the four week phases as they performed high intensity visual display unit work. The results were compiled and tabulated.RESULTS: Both the control and intervention ergonomic chairs showed a reduction in both the mean and variance of pain and muscle spasm. The second participant also showed an increase in productivity with both chairs.CONCLUSION: The introduction of an ergonomic chair shows a reduction in VAS intensity and frequency for pain and muscle spasm, as well as a reduction in variance of the symptoms. Both chairs showed a similar reduction in symptoms, thus indicating almost equivalent benefit from the use of both ergonomic chairs.
COMPARION OF GAP ARTHROPLASTY AND INTERPOSITIONAL GAP ARTHROPLASTY ON THE TEMPOROMANDIBULAR JOINT ANKYLOSIS

Temporomandibular joint ankylosis causes limitation in mouth opening and establishes severe deformity and asymmetry in patient’s face, especially in children. Surgery is the only treatment. This study was conducted to compare the effect of two surgical approaches, gap arthropasty and interpositional gap arthroplasty, on rate of maximum interincisal opening in temporomandibular joint ankylosis. We also evaluated the relapse rate of these two surgical approaches. A total of 48 patients were enrolled in this cross-sectional experimental study. Range of mouth opening was evaluated before and during and one year after surgery. All other related information was also recorded. Mean age of the study population was 19.5  8.9 years. Of those, 21 (41%) were male and 27 (59%) were female. For 26 patients (54.2%) interpositional gap arthroplasty was accomplished and for 22 patients (45.8%) gap arthropasty was performed. Mean range of mouth opening before and after surgery was 10.3  3.9 and 33.9  5.2 in interpositional gap arthroplasty, 8.7  4.9 and 32.1  7.8 in gap arthropasty, respectively. The results showed that the range of mouth opening significantly increases after ankylosis surgery in both surgical approaches but improvement was less in interpositional gap arthroplasty. In regards to recurrence, results of interpositional gap arthroplasty were superior to gap arthropasty.
Premaxillary Distraction Osteogenesis Using an Intraoral Appliance for Unilateral Cleft Lip and Palate: Case Report

Objective Premaxillary distraction osteogenesis was introduced using intraoral devices to correct maxillary hypoplasia and lengthen the alveolar bone horizontally in a patient with unilateral cleft lip and palate. Methods For premaxillary distraction osteogenesis, Le Fort I osteotomy was performed. Vertical osteotomy lines were located distally of the upper right canine and left first premolar to separate the anterior segment of the maxilla. After a 7-day latency period, distraction was allowed to continue for 20 days at a rate of 0.5 mm/d, followed by a 3-month consolidation period. After consolidation, orthodontic treatment and bilateral intraoral vertical ramus osteotomy were performed for the mandibular setback. The implant and prosthodontic treatments were applied to the alveolar ridge area created by the distraction osteogenesis. Results The A-point moved 8.0 mm forward during the distraction osteogenesis period, and the recurrence rate was 25% after the retention period. The transverse dimension of the upper arch was expanded during orthodontic treatment. The quality of the alveolar bone created by distraction osteogenesis was acceptable for the prosthodontic implant. Conclusions Premaxillary distraction osteogenesis and arch expansion is an effective treatment strategy, improving function, aesthetics, and stability for cleft patients with multiple missing teeth.
Easy and effective acoustic noise protection in neonatal MRI

Background: The effect of acoustic noise during MRI is unclear and difficult to study in neonatal individuals. High acoustic noise levels during MRI can lead to anxiety, motion artifacts, and incomplete examinations due to newborns waking up. The acoustic noise is clearly a risk factor in MRI and hearing protection must be used. Usually, three passive attenuators are used: (1) a moldable dental putty (2) Natus minimuffs and (3) regular earmuffs, which is difficult to fit properly on the small neonate. Objective: To develop a new simple, safe and reliable method for reducing the acoustic noise in neonatal imaging. Design/Methods: An acoustic hood of dampening material was built (figure 1) and placed inside the MR-scanner tunnel. Acoustic noise levels were tested with and without an acoustic hood during 12 common pulse sequences to achieve a substantial dampening effect. The acoustic hoods were made of acoustic foam rubber, 38–104mm, combined with a 4mm isolating mat and a closed exit in the back of the MR-scanner. Results: Acoustic noise levels were reduced by 6–24dB on the A-weighted scale (figure 2). A substantial dampening effect was achived when using a acoustic hood (figure 3) that left at least 50mm of space outside the Philips SENSE Head coil. Acoustic noise levels during our neonatal MRI studies ranged from 80–112dB (A-weighted); earlier publications report similar acoustic noise levels of 81–117dB [3, 4, 5]. The acoustic hood was used in neonatal MRI without affecting the image quality and it was easily inserted from the back of the MR-scanner without interfering with the examination (figure 1). Conclusions: The acoustic hood is a reliable way of attenuating acoustic noise thereby facilitating the neonatal MRI examination. It may also reduce the need for supplemental sedative medications.
Exploratory Analysis on Failure Causes in a Mass-Market Operating System

Empirical studies in software reliability have predominantly focused on end-user applications. Given the intrinsic dependency of user programs on the operating system (OS) software, OS failures can severely impact even the most reliable applications. Therefore, it is a major requirement to understand how OS failures occur in order to improve software reliability as a whole. In this paper, we present an exploratory study on OS failure causes, based on 7,007 real failure records collected from different computers running a mass-market operating system. We performed quantitative and qualitative analyses to investigate different properties of the OS failures analyzed. The findings indicate that OS services failed more than any other OS failure category. Empirical evidences confirmed the presence of failure correlation in the sample, where both cross-correlation and autocorrelation were found; in particular, causal relationship between different operating system failures was observed.
Removing Flaming Problems from Social Networking Sites using Semi-Supervised Learning Approach

Natural Language Processing (N.L.P.) is a field of Computer Science concerned with the interactions between Computer and Human (Natural) Languages. Social Networking Sites (S.N.S.) are amongst the most effective communication tools now days. But it also gave rise to the problem of flaming which is difficult to deal with. A flaming incident is triggered by comments and actions of users in S.N. S. that ends up damaging reputation or causing negative impact on the target party. So, this review paper is based on dealing with flaming problems and hence prevention of damages caused due to them. In this paper we have presented a brief review about various classifiers and methods that can be used for classification of documents in to required classes namely Positive, Negative and Neutral, such as Sentiment Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Naïve Bayes Classifier[1][2], Maximum Entropy Classifier[3], Back Propagation Neural Networks[2], Topic Modeling[5], Semi-Supervised Learning[1] etc. N.L. P. techniques of Parsing, P.O. S. Tagging [4], and Tokenization etc have also been studied. The method of Semi-Supervised Learning including Maximum Entropy Classifier has been proposed to deal with the flaming problems.
The usefulness of determining C-reactive protein by using rapid test for the differentiation of infections in febrile children**

Introduction. An ill child in the Hospital Emergency Department (HED) is a major diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. Serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), in correlation with the clinical condition of the patient, may be an important indicator of the etiology of the infection (viral or bacterial), which allows for the rationalization of treatment and prevents unnecessary antibiotic treatment. Aim. Presentation of three cases where the CRP test had an impact on the treatment decisions. Material and methods. The HED, Bielanski Hospital performed 206 rapid diagnostic tests, aimed to differentiate infections. The paper will discuss three cases of patients where determining the CRP level allowed to take or change the diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Conclusions. The CRP rapid test was a valuable supplement to the history and physical examination in children with fever, and the test results had an impact on the treatment decisions.
Accounting for Parameter Uncertainty in Large-Scale Stochastic Simulations with Correlated Inputs

This paper considers large-scale stochastic simulations with correlated inputs having normal-to-anything (NORTA) distributions with arbitrary continuous marginal distributions. Examples of correlated inputs include processing times of workpieces across several workcenters in manufacturing facilities and product demands and exchange rates in global supply chains. Our goal is to obtain mean performance measures and confidence intervals for simulations with such correlated inputs by accounting for the uncertainty around the NORTA distribution parameters estimated from finite historical input data. This type of uncertainty is known as the parameter uncertainty in the discrete-event stochastic simulation literature. We demonstrate how to capture parameter uncertainty with a Bayesian model that uses Sklar's marginal-copula representation and Cooke's copula-vine specification for sampling the parameters of the NORTA distribution. The development of such a Bayesian model well suited for handling many correlated inputs is the primary contribution of this paper. We incorporate the Bayesian model into the simulation replication algorithm for the joint representation of stochastic uncertainty and parameter uncertainty in the mean performance estimate and the confidence interval. We show that our model improves both the consistency of the mean line-item fill-rate estimates and the coverage of the confidence intervals in multiproduct inventory simulations with correlated demands.
Statistical Models in Epidemiology

menopause, and coital behaviour. The next section examines major causes of infertility, followed bv two sections reviewing fecundity and what studies of assisted conception have revealed about its biological determinants. It is a pity that demographic work on patterns of infertility in Africa could not have been juxtaposed here. This is followed by a section on the causes and frequency of fetal loss. Wilcox et al and Baird et al's papers relate new methodological developments for studying very earlv fetal loss, demonstrating the importance of studying the relationship betwreen this reproductive outcome and, for example, reduced fecundity. The final and longest section reviews lack or fecundity post partum, and its determinants, especially lactation and nutrition. This is perhaps the most interesting and well developed area of convergence between biological scientist, epidemiologist, and demographer and all are represented among the papers in this section. Contributions by Gray et al and Etienne and Francine Xvan de Walle serve to remind us of the complexity which is caused by heterogeneity in both biology and behaviour. The book is well organised, although there is inevritable difficulty classifying some of the contributions where material ov-erlaps several sections, and some repetition. Although some results reported in this volume have appeared in specialist journals, this book collects these wide ranging contributions under one cover. It provides the non-demographer with easy access to important demographic research in an understandable form and gives researchers in all 3 fields access to major subject reviews (a service to the student and researchers coming new to the field) and a compendium of reasonably current knowledge for those who want to keep abreast of research developments. PATRICIA DAVID Centre for Population Stzudies, Department of Epidecmiologe anid Population Scienees, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicizne
AIDGEN: A database Of AIDS information system

AIDS is a a highly vulnerable life threatening disease that attacks and destroys the body’s immune system, leaving the patient abnormally vulnerable to infections and many other diseases caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in humans. The overall aim of this AIDGEN database is to create awareness among people about AIDS, to dispel myths about AIDS and AIDS causing genes. This database will provide information that will support and strengthen those people affected by HIV/AIDS and those who work to provide for their needs. Key words: Disease, AIDS, HIV, genes, infection, side effect.
Comparative Alternative Medicinal (CAM) Properties in Camel Milk for Treatment of Epidemic Diseases

This communication brings scientific evidence to explain the basis for efficacy of camel milk, especially on diseases where the immune system is compromised. Camels (Camelu sdromedarius) have very small and active antibodies, nanaobodies. Their special properties are being used by the USA Department of Homeland Security as bio-receptors to determine which substance could be used in a biological warfare attack. The antibodies are part of the "protective proteins" in camel milk. These include potent antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. Camel milk antibodies are, in fact, "nanobodies". They are not destroyed in their passage through the stomach. These nanobodies are responsible for data concerning the use of camel milk in autoimmune diseases. Various diseases treated with camel milk are presented, as is the mode of action. The effect of pasteurization on activity of camel milk is presented as a way to overcome the need for heat. This is accomplished by presenting "pathogen-free" camel milk. The antibodies are part of the "protective proteins" in camel milk. These include potent antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. The effect of pasteurization on activity of camel milk is presented as a way to overcome the need for heat. This is accomplished by presenting "pathogen-free" camel milk.
Study to assess the psychosocial aspects of refractive errors and effectiveness of health education in correcting stigmas related to spectacle use in high-school students of rural India -

Background: Refractive error is the most common cause of blindness which can be corrected easily using simple modality like spectacles but because of ignorance, stigmas and cost related issues it is underutilized. Aims & Objective: Study to assess the psychosocial aspects of refractive error and effectiveness of health education in correcting stigmas related to spectacle use in high-school students of rural India. Material and Methods: This was a cross sectional study in which total of 255 high school students from a school near Bhopal were included. The responses were recorded on a pre-designed and pre-tested questionnaire. The health education was provided to all the participants and they were reassessed after one month using same questionnaire. The researcher used the STATA version 12.1 for data entry and analysis. Results: Amongst total of 255 students, 165 were males and 90 were females. During initial phase most of the respondents believed that common reasons for low vision were nutritional deficiency (68%) and bad eye care (56%). The respondents refused to use spectacles at all if needed as spectacles are cosmetically unacceptable (62%) , fear of rejection from opposite sex (54%) and likely teasing from colleagues (36%). Following health education there were statistically significant changes in the knowledge, attitude and care seeking behaviour of spectacle use. Only two parameters i.e. cosmetic acceptance of spectacles and that traditional methods were more than spectacles did not changed significantly. Conclusion: Prevalent stigmas regarding spectacle use among students of rural India were effectively corrected with health education.
The Double-Ended Queue with Bulk Service and Limited Waiting Space

The double-ended queue involving taxis and customers at a taxi-stand has been considered under the assumption that there is limited waiting space both for customers and for taxis, and that the taxis "serve" the customers in bulk. The arrivals of customers and taxis are taken as general and Poisson respectively. Two separate probability generating functions have been defined for the cases when i taxis are waiting and ii when customers are waiting and their Laplace transforms L.T. 's as well as that of the probability for empty state have been obtained by using the supplementary variable technique. Cases of Erlangian and Poisson arrivals of customers and of single-seated taxis are considered as particular cases.
Superparasitism Behavior and Host Discrimination of Campoletis chlorideae (Ichneumonidae: Hymenoptera) Toward Mythimna separata (Noctuidae: Lepidoptera)

ABSTRACT The oriental army worm, Mythimna separata Walker (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), was adopted as a host to keep Campoletis chlorideae Uchida (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) populations in the laboratory, because it can be mass reared, However, wasp cocoon production in this system via single parasitism was not satisfactory. To improve the rearing efficiency of C. chlorideae on M. separata, we studied the effects of superparasitism on the offspring production of C. chlorideae, as well as the host discrimination ability of the adult wasps in the laboratory. The results showed that, compared with single parasitism, both double and quintuple parasitism significantly increased C. chlorideae cocoon production in M. separata without a significant effect on emergence, weight, or sex ratio of adult wasps at the P < 0.05 level. Host selection experiments suggested that C. chlorideae preferred to lay eggs on unparasitized hosts rather than freshly parasitized hosts but could distinguish neither the 24-h postparasitization hosts from the unparasitized hosts nor the freshly self-parasitized hosts from the conspecifically parasitized hosts. Nochoice behavior tests indicated that C. chlorideae took significantly longer time to accept the freshly parasitized hosts containing more than two eggs compared with the unparasitized hosts. In the end, superparasitism behavior and its application in the mass rearing of this endoparasitoid are discussed.
Flow-Shop Scheduling with the Branch-and-Bound Method

The branch-and-bound technique has been applied to the three machine flow shop problem where the objective is to minimize makespan. A new method of obtaining the bound has been developed. Rules for ordering the machines and listing the jobs prior to application of the algorithm have been proposed. Computational results are given for a large number of job sets up to 10 jobs, and for a few cases up to 45 jobs.