Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brand management in a situation of an economic crisis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present modern marketing tools used by today’s businesses to maintain or strengthen the value of their brands in the conditions of deteriorating economic situation. The specific purpose is an analysis of activities that might be attempted by companies in emerging markets in order to increase the strength of their brands. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents the determinants of the development of brand value. An analysis has also been made of activities connected with the development of the brand based on the experience of the best brands in the world. Considerations are based on secondary sources, from national and international journals, books, magazines and specialist reports, as well as were supported by research results of the most valuable brands in the world. Findings The paper provides the insight of marketing activities, that may favor building brand value in the time of recession. It was suggested that recession may be a good time for some companies to invest in the brand. However, today’s competition conditions are forcing companies to used more modern marketing techniques in order to build a positive brand image. In addition, customers increasingly expect to be able to engage in brand and wish to influence its image. Practical implications The paper includes implications for companies in emerging markets, through which it is possible to effectively manage brand value in the time of crisis. These proposals are an important course of action for companies from emerging markets, which tend to increase the strength of its brand. Originality/value Due to the fact that the considerations in the paper relate to general proposals for action, the results can constitute a starting point for in-depth research in the future. An interesting issue would be to assess the effectiveness of the proposed activities in emerging markets.
Generic Object Recognition with Strangeness and Boosting Ph

People can quickly recognize enormous number of rigid/non-rigid object, such as cars, faces, trees, regardless of the viewpoint, lighting, illumination and local deformation. How to recognize generic object has been a hard problem for long time in psychophysics, neurobiology and computation. Based on the research of psychophysics and neurobiology, human interprets the image scene (label class) depending on the shape of the objects, orientation the objects present and the context the objects locate [5]. Hence many object representations have been proposed capturing geometric and/or appearance information. In case of appearance based representations objects are represented holistically or in terms of parts and their spatial relationships. The holistical appearance approach was first proposed by Turk and Pentland [54] in face recognition domain and by Murase and Nayar [44] in a more general domain. In this framework, the object is encoded via principal component analysis (PCA) and represented as an eigenspace called eigenimage. The variation of object are encoded in the eigenfaces. Instead of operating the original image space, eigenimage can also work in some filter-bank feature space which characterizes the local statistics of the images with different orientation and scale. Because the eigenimage is computed using the whole image, it is very sensitive to partial occlusion, outlier, background clutter and segmentation. Leonardis et al [2, 3] further proposed a robust eigenimage recognition algorithm, which considered the partial occlusion. However, it is still hard to deal with occlusion, local deformation, disguise, clutter background, and object location and orientation robustly. It has poor class generalization ability. To overcome the shortcomings of global appearance-based methods, many approaches developed recently represent objects in terms of local features [10, 45, 18, 52, 59, 51, 13, 55]. The approaches consider the appearance information of local features and/or the geometric spatial relationships between them and achieve the good performance on certain classification task and data base. However, those works either require the pre-segmented training images or have high computational complexity for model parameter estimation. For weakly supervised object recognition, the Bayesian framework in [13] only works with a small number of parts to build the model of objects due to the computational complexity of learning. It only has the discrimination power to distinguish the objects from background. The approach in [55] clustered all features
Do Tonic Itch and Pain Stimuli Draw Attention towards Their Location?

Background Although itch and pain are distinct experiences, both are unpleasant, may demand attention, and interfere with daily activities. Research investigating the role of attention in tonic itch and pain stimuli, particularly whether attention is drawn to the stimulus location, is scarce. Methods In the somatosensory attention task, fifty-three healthy participants were exposed to 35-second electrical itch or pain stimuli on either the left or right wrist. Participants responded as quickly as possible to visual targets appearing at the stimulated location (ipsilateral trials) or the arm without stimulation (contralateral trials). During control blocks, participants performed the visual task without stimulation. Attention allocation at the itch and pain location is inferred when responses are faster ipsilaterally than contralaterally. Results Results did not indicate that attention was directed towards or away from the itch and pain location. Notwithstanding, participants were slower during itch and pain than during control blocks. Conclusions In contrast with our hypotheses, no indications were found for spatial attention allocation towards the somatosensory stimuli. This may relate to dynamic shifts in attention over the time course of the tonic sensations. Our secondary finding that itch and pain interfere with task performance is in-line with attention theories of bodily perception.
Is It Safe to Delay Appendectomy in Adults With Acute Appendicitis?

Objective:To examine whether delayed surgical intervention in adult patients with acute appendicitis is safe by correlating the interval from onset of symptoms to operation (total interval) with the degree of pathology and incidence of postoperative complications. Summary Background Data:Prompt appendectomy has long been the standard of care for acute appendicitis because of the risk of progression to advanced pathology. This time-honored practice has been recently challenged by studies in pediatric patients, which suggested that acute appendicitis can be managed in an elective manner once antibiotic therapy is initiated. No such data are available in adult patients with acute appendicitis. Methods:A retrospective review of 1081 patients who underwent an appendectomy for acute appendicitis between 1998 and 2004 was conducted. The following parameters were monitored and correlated: demographics, time from onset of symptoms to arrival at the emergency room (patient interval) and from arrival to the emergency room to the operating room (hospital interval), physical, computed tomography (CT scan) and pathologic findings, complications, length of stay, and length of antibiotic treatment. Pathologic state was graded 1 (G1) for acute appendicitis, 2 (G2) for gangrenous acute appendicitis, 3 (G3) for perforation or phlegmon, and 4 (G4) for a periappendicular abscess. Results:The risk of advanced pathology, defined as a higher pathology grade, increased with the total interval. When this interval was <12 hours, the risk of developing G1, G2, G3, and G4, was 94%, 0%, 3%, and 3%, respectively. These values changed to 60%, 7%, 27%, and 6%, respectively, when the total interval was 48 to 71 hours and to 54%, 7%, 26%, and 13% for longer than 71 hours. The odds for progressive pathology was 13 times higher for the total interval >71 hours group compared with total interval<12 hours (95% confidence interval = 4.7–37.1). Although both prolonged patient and hospital intervals were associated with advanced pathology, prehospital delays were more profoundly related to worsening pathology compared with in-hospital delays (P < 0.001). Advanced pathology was associated with tenderness to palpation beyond the right lower quadrant (P < 0.001), guarding (P < 0.001), rebound (P < 0.001), and CT scan findings of peritoneal fluid (P = 0.01), fecalith (P = 0.01), dilation of the appendix (P < 0.001), and perforation (P < 0.001). Increased length of hospital stay (P < 0.001) and antibiotic treatment (P < 0.001) as well as postoperative complications (P < 0.001) also correlated with progressive pathology. Conclusion:In adult patients with acute appendicitis, the risk of developing advanced pathology and postoperative complications increases with time; therefore, delayed appendectomy is unsafe. As delays in seeking medical help are difficult to control, prompt appendectomy is mandatory. Because these conclusions are derived from retrospective data, a prospective study is required to confirm their validity.
Tractable and Intractable variations of Unordered Tree Edit Distance

In this paper, we investigate the problem of computing structural sensitive variations of an unordered tree edit distance. First, we focus on the variations tractable by the algorithms including the submodule of a network algorithm, either the minimum cost maximum flow algorithm or the maximum weighted bipartite matching algorithm. Then, we show that both network algorithms are replaceable, and hence the time complexity of computing these variations can be reduced to O(nmd) time, where n is the number of nodes in a tree, m is the number of nodes in another tree and d is the minimum degree of given two trees. Next, we show that the problem of computing the bottom-up distance is MAX SNP-hard. Note that the well-known linear-time algorithm for the bottom-up distance designed by Valiente (2001) computes just a bottom-up indel (insertion-deletion) distance allowing no substitutions.
Motion planning and control for a robot performer

The authors describe robot motion planning in a dynamic environment, that is, a trajectory generation to attain a working purpose with redundancy free to use under the restriction of time and space. Emphasis is placed on juggling. A parametric representation of the robot motion makes it easy to generate an appropriate trajectory of the end-effector for juggling tasks. A hierarchical learning control strategy is effective to generate a desired motion pattern for juggling which is not given beforehand. To juggle several balls repeatedly by a real robot the location and time at which a ball is caught by using sensory feedback signals is predicted, and the end-tip trajectory is modified. Experimental results obtained using a 2-degree-of-freedom direct-drive manipulator are shown. <<ETX>>
Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting as an Alternative Domestic Water Resource in Zambia

Within the last decade, substantial progress has been achieved in the management of centralized water reticulation in Zambia. Characterized by diversified fiscal resourcing, concurrent institutional restructuring and introduction of new players in water governance, the water sector is set to achieve improved reliability on sustainable grounds. However, the threat of underground water pollution resulting from increased urbanization besides the unreliable energy sector presents new challenges for the current urban water. In effect, urban areas are affected by chronic water rationing creating public stress and insecurity which impacts domestic development. While the course of development has meant investment in the extension and expansion of water infrastructure in Zambia, alternative urban water resources are being sought to address challenges of traditional water systems globally. This paper therefore attempts to make a case for the modernization of Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting (RRWH) as an augmenting water resource in the Zambian urban housing sector. Here—in, it is identified as a Low Impact Development technology within the Integrated Urban Water Management framework currently being forged by local water. Based on a desktop literature survey and online questionnaire survey, an argument to support the development of RRWH in Zambia was developed. While literature survey results revealed evidence of economic loss and a growing compromise to public health resulting from inconsistent water supply in the study area of Lusaka city, the online questionnaire survey depicted significant domestic stress due to erratic water supply. Results confirmed that at one time residents observed an average of eight hours of power blackouts which effectively induced water disruption forcing homeowners to engage in various water storage methods which in turn are costly on domestic time, health and finances. A retrospective discussion based on both survey results attempts to present benefits and opportunities of urban RRWH to water sector stakeholders providing recommendations towards the mainstreaming of the practice in Zambia.
Inhibition of DNA biosynthesis in HeLa cells by cytotoxic and antitumor sesquiterpene lactones.

Parthenolide, a cytotoxic sesquiterpene lactone, was found to inhibit incorporation of radioactive thymidine, uridine, and leucine into macromolecules in HeLa cells. In the case of the two latter precursors, the inhibitory effects were predominantly due to decreased uptake of uridine and leucine into cells, which indicated a negligible effect of parthenolide on RNA and protein synthesis. In contrast, inhibition of thymidine incorporation into DNA was only partially caused by impaired uptake of the precursor into cells. This result was directly demonstrated in experiments with HeLa cells pulse-labeled with [3H]thymidine at 6° chased at 37° in the presence of parthenolide. The inhibition of thymidine incorporation into DNA, as observed under these conditions, seems to reflect the interference of parthenolide with DNA synthesis, since the metabolic conversion of thymidine to deoxythymidine triphosphate remained unaffected. Moreover, incubation of HeLa cells with parthenolide resulted in the inhibition of [3H]deoxythymidine triphosphate incorporation into DNA in nuclear systems ("lysates") derived from these cells. Hence, the inhibitory action of parthenolide probably occurs at the replication level as opposed to the effect on the biosynthesis of DNA precursors. Several other cytotoxic and antitumor sesquiterpene lactones were also found to inhibit DNA synthesis in HeLa cells. This inhibitory activity appeared to correlate with the cytotoxic activities of sesquiterpene lactones against HeLa cells in the case of eight compounds among nine studied. The results suggest that DNA is a target molecule in the mechanism of action of cytotoxic and antitumor sesquiterpene lactones.
Stereoscopic Image Recoloring via Consistent Intrinsic Decomposition

In this paper, we present a system to address stereoscopic image recoloring. The proposed system contains two main stages. First, we adopt a balanced quad tree to establish super-pixel level correspondence between left and right image. Then we conduct intrinsic image decomposition by edge-aware prior and reflectance consistence. We demonstrate our system on stereoscopic recoloring. Experimental results show that our method automatically achieve shape-edge intrinsic estimation and vivid recoloring.
Ontology-Driven Creation of Contents: Making Efficient Interaction between Organizational Users and Their Surrounding Tasks

In this chapter, a framework is discussed for creating contents to help significant organizational tasks such as planning, research, innovation, education, development, et cetera be achieved in an efficient way. The proposed framework is based on an interplay between the ontologies of the key segments and the problem context using the linguistically significant notions for each key segment. Once a certain organizational task is faced these notions are adjusted to create a new content filling the new situation. In the chapter, an agent-based architecture is discussed to show how human interaction with his/her surrounding organization can be realized through using this framework. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-516-8.ch010
Service quality of B&B hotels in Novi Sad

Аbstract Providing quality service is a priority for service companies. The quality of services being offered to customers is considered to be a means by which hotels obtain a competitive advantage in the market. The aim of this study was to identify the effects of customer satisfaction on their loyalty and frequency of re-visit intention in the hotels in Novi Sad. The research results indicate that management teams of analyzed hotels understand the needs of their guests quite well. Based on the results of descriptive statistical analysis and the results of the regression analysis, it is concluded that the quality of restaurant services is of a great importance to total guest satisfaction. The quality of services in the accommodation sector still has a great significance in the entire hotel offer, but not decisive.
Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation in Karnataka

In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation in Karnataka. The study is based on secondary data collected from secondary sources. The Study gives a brief Picture about the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation in Karnataka. Karnataka has greater potential to increase Public Transport to make the Karnataka economy and Service sector more prosperous and sustainable.
Supporting Decentralized SPARQL Queries in an Ad-Hoc Semantic Web Data Sharing System

Sharing the Semantic Web data encoded in Resource Description Framework (RDF) triples from proprietary datasets scattered around the Internet, calls for efficient support from distributed computing technologies. The highly dynamic ad-hoc settings that would be pervasive for Semantic Web data sharing among personal users in the future, however, pose even more demanding challenges for the enabling technologies. We extend previous work on a hybrid peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture for an ad-hoc Semantic Web data sharing system which better models the data sharing scenario by allowing data to be maintained by its own providers and exhibits satisfactory scalability owing to the adoption of a two-level distributed index and hashing techniques. Additionally, we propose efficient, scalable decentralized processing of SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) queries in such a context and explore optimization techniques that build upon distributed query processing for database systems and relational algebra optimization. The effectiveness and efficiency of the SPARQL query processing mechanism we proposed for a decentralized settings were verified through a series of experiments. We anticipate that our work will become an indispensable, complementary approach to making the Semantic Web a reality by delivering efficient data sharing and reusing in an ad-hoc environment. Â
in Innovation and Export Performance

This paper studies the effects of local market attributes on local firms' exports of innovations. Our starting point are three common hypotheses. First, innovations are a major determinant for the export performance of firms. Second, user-producer interaction is an important factor for successful innovations. Third, user-producer interaction is most efficient in close proximity. Taken together this would mean that intense local user-producer interaction increases exports. This reason- ing contradicts a main proposition in international manage- ment that overt local responsiveness may be hampering export chances of a firm. In order to generate global innovations, an international firm should look at the world market instead, for instance by identifying the global common denominator of national preferences. Yet, many local innovations have become globally successful. This paper investigates the question to what extent local demand is capable of inducing innovations that are export effective. We utilize data from the German innovation survey of 4,786 firms in the manufacturing and service indus- tries. In this survey firms were asked about the sources of their innovation and their export activities. We find evidence that the export orientation and the domestic demand structure stimulate export success.
Increase in Peritonitis Rates with the Reuse of Drain Tubing of the Fresenius Liberty Cycler

Editor: We report a patient who was successfully treated with peritoneal dialysis (PD) combined with the isolated extracorporeal ultrafiltration method (ECUM). A 75-year-old man with diabetic renal failure was referred to our hospital for PD start. The patient had 3-vessel coronary artery disease ineligible for revascularization. His left ventricular ejection fraction was 30%, and he had systemic edema and pulmonary congestion. At the start of PD, daily urine output was 400 mL. Dialysate-to-plasma ratio of creatinine at 4 hours was elevated at 0.88. Using continuous cycling PD with 2 L icodextrin and 10 L 2.5% glucose dialysate, daily PD ultrafiltration was limited to as little as 400 mL, which might have been a result of elevated peritoneal permeability and peritoneal edema (1). The patient’s Kt/V was 1.73, but PD could not resolve his overhydration. We added hemodialysis (HD) using arteriovenous fistula, but during HD sessions, the patient suffered from repeated hypotension with angina. We therefore administered ECUM, using a low-surfacearea dialyzer (1.3 m2) with low blood flow (80 mL/min). During ECUM, the patient’s hemodynamics became relatively stable, and angina appeared less frequently. In each ECUM session, 2 L – 2.5 L of fluid was removed. By receiving PD combined with ECUM, the patient achieved a reduction of 10 kg in excess fluid. He continued to be treated with continuous cycling PD and onceor twice-weekly ECUM for 3 years until he died of myocardial infarction. He maintained a renal Kt/V of 0.5 during that period. Intradialytic hypotension is a crucial problem in HD patients. Compared with regular HD, ECUM may maintain better plasma osmolality and blood pressure (2). In this case, solute removal was adequate with PD and residual renal function, and ECUM complemented the ultrafiltration failure in PD. The use of PD reduced the frequency and intensity of ECUM. The two dialysis modalities mutually compensated for the other’s disadvantages. Combination therapy with PD and HD is typically used for patients with decreased residual renal function, but cardiovascular instability is another potential indication (3). This type of combined therapy might be a therapeutic option for high-transport patients with hemodynamically unstable severe heart failure.