Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Privacy Concerns and Smartphone App Purchase Behavior in Malaysia

The online privacy concerns remain a top priority for every smartphone users, specifically those involved in mobile purchase activities. Studies showed that it is an important factor that affects attitude and intention to purchase smartphone apps. Although there are significant number of theories and research on the effect of privacy concerns on purchase intention in the general concepts on information systems and e-commerce, there is little evidence if the results of these findings still hold true in the mobile technology context. The objective of this chapter is to investigate the issue of privacy concerns on the attitude and purchasing intention among Malaysian smartphone users. This chapter investigates the role of privacy concerns in influencing the decision-making process. The chapter provides significant insights on the issue of privacy concerns in the usage of smartphones which can help developers such as Google and Apple to improve their apps stores to provide better protection for users' privacy and security in Malaysia.
The lipotropic action of methionine

IN 1937 Tucker & Eckstein demonstrated that methionine exerts a lipotropic effect. This has been confirmed in our laboratory [Best & Ridout, 1938] and by Channon, Manifold & Platt [1938]. The latter workers have shown that methionine, under the conditions of their experiments, exerted very little effect upon the deposition of fat in the liver unless the basal diet was such that large amounts of fat were deposited in the livers of the control animals. We have been interested in the lipotropic effects of dand l-methionine and in the failure of large doses of the racemic mixture to produce greater effects than small doses under certain experimental conditions.
PROPERTIES OF MULTINUCLEATED GIANT CELLS IN A NEW IN VITRO MODEL FOR HUMAN GRANULOMA FORMATION

Multinucleated giant cells (MGCs) are a key feature of granulomas. They have been studied with respect to the mechanism and regulation of their formation, but the function of these cells still remains elusive. A new method for the in vitro generation of granulomas was developed and characterized in which L3 larvae of Nippostrongylus brasiliensis, as a target for the cellular response, were co‐incubated with human mononuclear blood cells. The development of epithelioid cells and MGCs was observed and single isolated MGCs were analysed by the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction method. The presence of tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), interleukin‐1 beta (IL‐1β), interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) transcripts in MGCs was demonstrated. It is proposed that MGCs in the granuloma model may in part represent an active cellular constituent involved in granuloma formation and turnover and in the destruction of the irritant. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Detection of Human Papillomavirus DNA in Cervical Samples: Analysis of the New PGMY-PCR Compared To the Hybrid Capture II and MY-PCR Assays and a Two-Step Nested PCR Assay

ABSTRACT The PGMY-PCR for human papillomavirus (HPV) was evaluated, in parallel with nested PCR (nPCR), in samples with noted Hybrid Capture II (HCII) and MY-PCR results. PGMY-PCR detected HPV DNA in 2.5% of HCII-negative-MY-PCR-negative samples and in 71.7% of HCII-positive-MY-PCR-negative samples; also, it detected the MY-PCR-negative-nPCR-negative types HPV-42, HPV-44, HPV-51, HPV-87, and HPV-89.
Enhancing hybrid parallel file system through performance and space-aware data layout

Hybrid parallel file systems (PFSs), which consist of solid-state drive servers (SServer) and hard disk drive servers (HServer), have recently attracted growing attention. Compared to a traditional HServer, an SServer consistently provides improved storage performance but lacks storage space. However, most current data layout schemes do not consider the differences in performance and space between heterogeneous servers and may significantly degrade the performance of the hybrid PFSs. In this article, we propose performance and space-aware (PSA) scheme, a novel data layout scheme, which maximizes the hybrid PFSs’ performance by applying adaptive varied-size file stripes. PSA dispatches data on heterogeneous file servers not only based on storage performance but also storage space. We have implemented PSA within OrangeFS, a popular PFS in the high-performance computing domain. Our extensive experiments with representative benchmarks, including IOR, HPIO, MPI-TILE-IO, and BTIO, show that PSA provides superior I/O throughput than the default and performance-aware file data layout schemes.
A Refinement of the Eulerian numbers, and the Joint Distribution of π(1) and Des(π) in Sn

Given a permutationchosen uniformly from Sn, we explore the joint distribution of �(1) and the number of descents in �. We obtain a formula for the number of permutations with Des(�) = d and �(1) = k, and use it to show that if Des(�) is fixed at d, then the expected value of �(1) is d+1. We go on to derive generating functions for the joint distribution, show that it is unimodal if viewed correctly, and show that when d is small the distribution of �(1) among the permutations with d descents is approximately geometric. Applications to Stein's method and the Neggers-Stanley problem are presented.
Isolation-enhanced four-element MIMO antenna system using mushroom

In this paper, double-layer mushroom walls are vertically positioned in between a four-element substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity-backed slot (CBS) MIMO antenna system for the inter-element isolation enhancement. A piece of mushroom wall comprises two printed circuit boards (PCB), two identical patches of mushroom cells are symmetrically printed onto both the surface of the PCBs, the shared ground is sand-wiched in between, and a vias connecting the patches to the ground. Using the band-gap characteristics of the mushroom walls, the four-element SIW CBS MIMO antenna system, where-in the edge-to-edge distance of the antenna elements is 0.024 λ (λ is the wavelength in free space at 2.42 GHz), achieves extremely high isolation of 40 dB between the elements throughout the operating frequency bandwidth of 2.396 GHz-2.445 GHz, the envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) is lower than 0.02 across the operating bandwidth accordingly.
EKSPLORASI ELEMEN INTEGRATED REPORTING DALAM ANNUAL REPORTS PERUSAHAAN DI INDONESIA

This study aims to identify the patterns and scope of integrated reporting and to examine the effect of audit committee characteristics (expertise and meeting) on elements of integrated reporting disclosed in the annual report of companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchanges (IDX). This study used 170 annual reports of companies listed on the IDX as research data (not all companies have the required data). Research data were then analyzed using STATA / MP14 Software. The findings showed that the IDX-listed companies have presented annual reports in accordance with the elements of integated reporting although the scope of presentation was relatively low amounting of 51% (33 of 64 indicators). Furthermore, this study revealed that the audit committees’ expertise (in accounting/ finance) and the frequency of audit committee meetings positively and significantly influenced the scope of the integrated reporting presented in the annual report of the companies.
Map-based robust localization for indoor mobile robots

Standard Monte-Carlo Localization (MCL) cannot work well in dynamic environments and it usually requires a large number of particles to obtain stable and accurate pose information. To cope with these issues, this paper proposes an improved MCL approach inspired by motion detection and scan matching for robust localization of indoor mobile robots. Different from standard MCL, the proposed approach incorporates a motion detection module to handle dynamic environments, and it also considers the ray tracing characteristics of each laser beam to optimize the particle distribution. The proposed approach is implemented under Robot Operating System (ROS), and comparative experimental results are provided to illustrate the superior performance of the proposed approach.
Costimulation of Multiple NK Cell Activation Receptors by NKG2D1

The activation of NK cells is mediated through specific interactions between activation receptors and their respective ligands. Little is known, however, about whether costimulation, which has been well characterized for T cell activation, occurs in NK cells. To study the function of NKG2D, a potential NK costimulatory receptor, we have generated two novel hamster mAbs that recognize mouse NKG2D. FACS analyses demonstrate that mouse NKG2D is expressed on all C57BL/6 IL-2-activated NK (lymphokine-activated killer (LAK)) cells, all splenic and liver NK cells, and ∼50% of splenic NKT cells. Consistent with limited polymorphism of NKG2D, its sequence is highly conserved, and the anti-NKG2D mAbs react with NK cells from a large number of different mouse strains. In chromium release assays, we show that stimulation of NK cells with anti-NKG2D mAb can redirect lysis. Also, enhanced lysis of transfected tumor targets expressing NKG2D ligand could be inhibited by addition of anti-NKG2D mAb. Interestingly, stimulation of LAK cells via NKG2D alone does not lead to cytokine release. However, stimulation of LAK via both an NK activation receptor (e.g., CD16, NK1.1, or Ly-49D) and NKG2D leads to augmentation of cytokine release compared with stimulation through the activation receptor alone. These results demonstrate that NKG2D has the ability to costimulate multiple NK activation receptors.
Application of the thermoluminescent technique for calibration and dosimetry of 90 Sr + 90 Y applicators

Dermatological and ophthalmic applicators are used in brachytherapy for the treatment of superficial lesions of skin and eyes. The calibration of these applicators should be realized periodically, according to quality control programs and international recommendations about dosimetry and calibration of brachytherapy sources. Thin thermoluminescent dosimeters of CaSO4:Dy were utilized in this work for the calibration of different applicators using a dermatological applicator as reference. The absorbed dose rates obtained were compared with those of their calibration certificates. Depth dose curves were obtained for all applicators using absorbers of different thicknesses.
Human ear recognition using SIFT features

Biometrics have lately been receiving attention in popular media. Biometrics deal with identification and verification of individuals based on their behavioral or physiological characteristics. Biometrics will become one of the most important ways of the identification technology. Ear recognition might be a good solution since ear is visible, ear images are easy to be taken, and the ear structure does not change radically over time. In this paper an algorithm based on SIFT features for ear recognition is proposed. SIFT key points are extracted from ear image and an augmented vector of extracted SIFT features are created for matching. Firstly, a pre-processing phase is done by converting image to gray level. Then a median filter is applied to smooth the image and to remove noise if found. Edge detection is used for cropping ear part from the image. Then the SIFT features were extracted from ear image. Finally, the extracted features were classified by using minimum distance classifier. This method is invariant to scaling, translation and rotation. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach gives better results compared with other researchers and obtained over all accuracy almost 95.2 % for IIT Delphi database and 100% for AMI database.
Stock Allocation in Turkish Capital Markets: Industry and Firm Level Perspectives

Investors’ trading patterns has been an intensively researched topic in emerging markets depending on their significant role and power in the capital markets. This paper provides what global and domestic factors have driven the stock allocation of investors in Turkey and how has the crisis changed investors’ attitude toward stock allocation between the years 2006 and 2016. Year-end stock allocation data are obtained from the Central Securities Depository Institution of Turkey. Stock allocation has been investigated mainly in terms of the domestic and foreign stock investments. A detailed classification of investors as individual and institutional investors in terms of investment funds, corporate and investment trusts with firm and industry levels has also been evaluated. The variations on stock allocation has been examined in BIST Industrials, Financials and Services Industries. Additionally, this paper gives an insight about the firm and industry level stock allocation in Turkish Capital Markets considering the responsible stockholders. Corporate governance practices are considered to be strengthened with the growing role of institutional investors in the financial system, which provide insights about the investor profile of BIST Corporate Governance Index in the related period.
Fibronectin expression in the developing human spinal cord, nerves, and ganglia.

AIM Analysis of developmental role of fibronectin during differentiation of the human spinal cord, nerves, and ganglia. METHODS Seven normal human embryos and fetuses between the 7th and 9th developmental week and a 9-week fetus with cervical spina bifida were histologically examined on hematoxylin and eosin stained serial paraffin sections of thoracic axial segments. Monoclonal antibody to the human cell fibronectin fragment was used for immunohistochemical detection of fibronectin. RESULTS In the 7th and 8th week of development, fibronectin was weakly expressed in the ventricular and intermediate zones of the spinal cord. Intense fibrillar expression was found in the marginal zone of the spinal cord - first over the ventral gray horns and later over the lateral and dorsal gray horns, and along the pathways of ventral and dorsal roots of the spinal nerves and in the spinal ganglia. At 9th week, fibronectin expression disappeared in the ventricular and intermediate zones a nd became weak and granular in the marginal zone of the spinal cord. In the spinal cord of a 9-week malformed fetus with cervical spina bifida, fibronectin expression was completely absent. Fibronectin was expressed in the nerves and ganglia throughout the investigated period, both in normal and malformed human conceptuses. CONCLUSION Transient expression of fibronectin in the human spinal cord coincided with the most intense neuronal differentiation. Temporal and spatial expression of fibronectin during normal development, and its absence in a malformed human fetus suggests developmental role of fibronectin for the normal formation of the spinal cord.
Clustered OFDM with adaptive antenna arrays for interference suppression

In this paper, we investigate clustered OFDM with adaptive antenna arrays for interference suppression. To calculate weights for interference suppression, instantaneous correlations of the received signals and channel responses corresponding to the desired signal have to be estimated. Therefore, a polynomial based parameter estimator is proposed to combat the severe leakage of the traditional DFT based estimator. The approximately optimal window size for the polynomial estimator is obtained and an adaptive algorithm of optimal window size is developed. Simulation results show that the developed algorithm improves performance significantly.
Investigating incentives that encouraged and can encourage Polish and UK-based prosumers to engage in knowledge sharing

Prosumers’ knowledge is increasingly becoming an integral and important element in business strategy regardless of the country. A major challenge for enterprises involves motivating prosumers to share their knowledge. This problem is addressed by incentives linked to the knowledge sharing activities of prosumers. Previous research showed that prosumers are willing to share knowledge, but only under the condition of obtaining certain benefits, rewards or fulfilling other personal goals in return. The purpose of this paper is to investigate which incentives encouraged and would encourage Polish and UK-based prosumers to engage in knowledge sharing with enterprises. The reported outcomes are the result of a questionnaire survey that yielded responses from 783 Polish and 171 UK-based prosumers. The results indicate there are statistically significant differences between Polish and UK-based prosumers in the particular choice of incentives that encouraged them and would encourage them to engage in knowledge sharing.
The Mozart Effect: Questions about the Seminal Findings of Rauscher, Shaw, and Colleagues

Seminal evidence for the Mozart effect was presented by Rauscher, Shaw, and colleagues in 1993 and 1994. A critical evaluation of their methodologies and interpretation of findings raises questions that must be answered before this evidence can be regarded as valid. We discuss issues such as their scoring of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, the experimental design used in their 1993 study, the validity of their 1993 IQ measure, the duration of the Mozart effect, their choice of experimental tasks in relation to predictions of the trion model of neural functioning, and the statistical analyses and interpretation of results in the 1993 and 1994 studies.
Assessing the significance of internal migration in drought affected areas: A case study of the Murray-Darling Basin

The Murray-Darling Basin is the heart of Australia's agricultural industry, representing 14 per cent of all agricultural output and housing almost 40 per cent of Australia's farmers. The area is also one of the biggest consumers of Australia's scarce water resources and was subject to a severe drought over the period from 1997-2009. The drought years placed intense pressure on agricultural communities and industries within the Basin. The drought and its effects have placed additional pressures on rural communities, with population growth in some areas decreasing or non-existent. Within this setting, this article analyses migration patterns and makes a judgement on how severe internal migration issues are in the Murray-Darling Basin. Conceptualising internal migration as a movement from one local government area to another, we find that although enduring a negative net migration pattern especially among the youth, the net migration in the Murray-Darling Basin during the drought is not significantly different to other areas in Australia.
Beneficial Effect of Low-Glycemic Index Diet in Overweight NIDDM Subjects

Objectives To determine whether low-glycemic index (GI) diets have clinical utility in overweight patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM). Research Design and Methods Six patients with NIDDM were studied on both high- and low-GI diets of 6-wk duration with metabolic diets with a randomized crossover design. Both diets were of similar composition (57% carbohydrate, 23% fat, and 34 g/day dietary fiber), but the low-GI diet had a GI of 58 compared with 86 for the high-GI diet. Results Small and similar amounts of weight were lost on both diets: 2.5 kg on high-GI diet and 1.8 kg on low-GI diet. On the low-GI diet, the mean level of serum fructosamine, as an index of overall blood glucose control, was lower than on the high-GI diet by 8% (P <0.05), and total serum cholesterol was lower by 7% (P <0.01). Conclusions In overweight patients with NIDDM, reducing diet GI improves overall blood glucose and lipid control.
Recommender Systems in the Web 2.0 Sphere

Recommender Systems (RS) are software solutions that help users deal with the information overload and find the information they need. From a technical perspective, RS have their origins in different fields such as information filtering and data mining and are built using a broad array of statistical methods and algorithms. Since their beginnings in the early 1990s, boosted by the enormous growth of the Web, RS have been widely applied in e-commerce settings, with recommendations from the book e-tailer Amazon.com being probably the most prominent example [4]. Systems like this point an individual online visitor to additional interesting items, usually by analyzing their shopping behavior or that of the wider user community. The success of RS is based on the fact that personalized item recommendations can measurably increase overall sales figures on e-commerce sites as shown by a recent study [1], [2].
Investor behavior in a university student managed portfolio

This paper analyzes whether behavioral issues can be partly responsible for the strong financial performance of a student managed investment portfolio (SMIP). The SMIP data include 144 monthly return observations from January, 2002 to December, 2013. The SMIP portfolio outperformed the S&P 500 by an average of 247 basis points per year over the lifetime of the fund. The SMIP portfolio also recently finished first in the “Undergraduate Growth” category at the Global Asset Management Education Forum in March, 2014. This data is quite unique because SMIP is managed by college juniors and seniors majoring in finance. The student managers in the SMIP portfolio are generally not tied to any preconceived notion of security prices since they are inheriting portfolios from previous classes, and were therefore not involved in selecting securities presently in the portfolio. This paper provides the specific trading data related to the fund. The authors attribute the strong performance of the SMIP fund to behavioral biases that were not present in the student investor selection process, particularly anchoring, overconfidence, and the disposition effect related to investor decisions.
Threonine and lysine requirements for maintenance in chickens

In order to describe the response of broiler breeder hens to dietary amino acids and to develop an effective model for the precise feeding of these birds after sexual maturity, accurate estimates of the amounts of each amino acid required for maintenance and egg production are needed. The maintenance requirement for threonine and lysine were estimated in two different experiments by measuring the nitrogen balance of adult male cockerels. Measured amounts of a diet first-limiting in threonine or lysine were fed by intubation each day for 4 d to give a range of intakes (unbalanced series) of from 0 to 239 mg threonine/kg or 0 to 40 mg lysine/kg body weight. To confirm that threonine or lysine was first-limiting and that the response obtained was to threonine or lysine and not to protein, a second series of diets was used (balanced series) in which synthetic threonine or lysine was added to each diet in the unbalanced series. A nitrogen-free diet containing energy, vitamins and minerals was made available ad libitum during the balance period, to ensure that the birds remained in positive energy balance. The balance period was three days and excreta were collected in colostomy bags (threonine) or in trays (lysine) during that time. The nitrogen content of the excreta was determined on dried homogenised samples. The resultant linear regression equations describing the effect of threonine or lysine intakes on nitrogen retention were: N retention = -230.4 (± 27.6) + 4.134 (± 0.274) I (R 2 = 91.9) and N retention = -256.8 (± 37.7) + 6.89 (± 1.37) I (R 2 = 70.8), respectively, where I is the intake of threonine or lysine in mg/kg body weight day. The threonine and lysine required to maintain the body at zero nitrogen retention was therefore estimated to be 56 and 37 mg/kg body weight day, respectively.