Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Advertising in Markets with Consumption Externalities

This paper extends the entry deterrence literature by examining coordinating advertising in markets with consumption externalities using a stochastic success function. Optimal advertising and pricing strategies are analysed when an incumbent firm faces a challenger with a product of equal quality. I show that strategic entry deterrence using advertising is possible and optimal entry deterrence involves strategic pre-commitment to over-investment relative to the non-strategic simultaneous advertising benchmark. I show that when entry deterrence is not possible the incumbent does not possess a first mover advantage and optimal entry accommodation involves strategic investment in advertising followed by aggressive price competition congruent with the non-strategic simultaneous advertising benchmark. The findings suggest that an incumbent’s ability to deter entry through coordinating advertising in a market with products of equal quality is sensitive to the size of the fixed cost of entry that the challenger must incur and the consumption externality parameter.
Molecular and cellular parameters of ageing: an overview

Ageing is characterized by a progressive loss of physiological integrity, leading to impaired function and increased propensity to death. Ageing is an actively regulated metabolic process. This wear and tear is the primary risk factor for major human pathologies including diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. Approximately worldwide 1 lakh people die each day of age related causes. Ageing, which we define as the time-dependent functional decline that affects most living organisms, has attracted inquisitiveness and excited imagination throughout the history of mankind. Nowadays, ageing is subjected to scientific analysis based on the ever-expanding familiarity of the molecular and cellular basis of life and disease as specific genes have been recognized that regulate ageing. The time-dependent accretion of cellular damage is widely considered the general cause of ageing. In this study we tried to exemplify few parameters which regulates ageing and some pathways to increase life span or protecting mutation of cells into cancerous growth.
Cue Saliency and Age as Factors Affecting Performance in a Card Sorting Task

The present study aimed to identify if cue saliency could be manipulated in a card-sorting task in a way that would hinder task performance. Specifically, it was predicted that when four similar colours were used in a card-sorting task similar to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, performance would suffer. It was also predicted that there would be a significant difference in performance between individuals in their early twenties and individuals in their forties and fifties. The results suggested no significant difference in performance between the control and experimental group, F (1,24) = . 21, p> . 05, partial  =. 009, as well as no significant difference in performance between age groups, F (1,24) = . 48, p> . 05, partial  =. 019.
SPARSE STORAGE RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM FOR SPARSE MATRIX VECTOR MULTIPLICATION ON GPU

Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication (SpMV) Ax=b is a well-known kernel in science, engineering, and web world. Harnessing large computing capabilities of GPU device, many sparse storage formats have been proposed to optimize performance of SpMV on GPU. Compressed Sparse Row (CSR), ELLPACK (ELL), Hybrid (HYB), and Aligned COO sparse storage formats are known for efficient implementation of SpMV on GPU for wide spectrum of sparse matrix pattern. Researchers have observed that performance of SpMV on GPU for a given matrix A can vary widely depending on sparse storage format used. Hence, it has become a great challenge to choose an appropriate storage format from this collection for a given sparse matrix. To resolve this problem, this paper proposes an algorithm that recommend highly suitable storage format for a given sparse matrix. This system use simple metrics (like row length, number of rows, number of columns and number of non-zero element) of a given sparse matrix to analyse impact of different storage format on performance of SpMV. To demonstrate influence of this algorithm, performance of SpMV and its associated application - Conjugate Gradient Solver (CGS) over various sparse matrix patterns with various sparse formats have been compared.
Sense and Meaning Facets in Verbal Semantics: A MARVS Perspective *

This paper explores the theory of lexical knowledge set forth in the Module-Attribute Representation of Verbal Semantics (Biq 2000) and extends its scope to include issues concerning verbal polysemy. Previous versions of the theory postulated that different event structures required sense distinctions. In examining corpora data for the verbs ‘put’ and ‘set’ we argue that an additional criterion for ‘sense’ needs to be put in place, namely the standard that if two meanings can coexist in the same sentence, then their representation is at the meaning facet, and not the sense level (following Ahrens et al. 1998). In sum, this paper adds to the cross-linguistic evidence supporting MARVS as well as constrains its definition of ambiguity.
A Ranking Fraud Detection System For Mobile Apps

Ranking fraud in the mobile App market refers to false or deceptive activities which have a reason of bumping up the Apps in the popularity list. Certainly, it becomes more and more frequent for App developers to use shady means, such as inflating their Apps' sales or posting phony App ratings, to commit ranking fraud. While the importance of preventing ranking fraud has been widely recognized, there is limited understanding and research in this area. A ranking fraud detection system for mobile Apps was developed. Specifically, this ranking fraud happened in leading sessions and provided a method for mining leading sessions for each App from its historical ranking records and identified ranking based evidences, rating based evidences and review based evidences for detecting ranking fraud. Moreover, we proposed an optimization based aggregation method to integrate all the evidences for evaluating the credibility of leading sessions from mobile Apps. An unique perspective of this approach is that all the evidences can be modelled by statistical hypothesis tests, In this paper we want to propose more effective fraud evidences and analyze the latent relationship among rating, review and rankings. Moreover, we will extend our ranking fraud detection approach with other mobile App related services, such as mobile Apps recommendation, for enhancing user experience.
Industrial Organization and the Organization of Industries: an American Perspective

This paper suggests that the scholarly field of industrial organisation is shaped and directed by the debate concerning some of the most pressing policy issues at any historical time period about the link between the organisation of industries and economic performance. By industrial organisation, we mean the scholarly field of research. By the organisation of industries, we mean the actual way in which economic activity is organised within the unit of observation of an industry. A shift in the organisation of industries that is taking place, away from economic activity based on the traditional factors of production, such as labour and capital, and towards knowledge-based economic activity. Accompanying this shift is a new public policy debate focusing on how to create new knowledge and facilitate its commercialisation. The field of industrial organisation is responding with a new focus on the link between the dynamics of the organisation of industries, or how industries and firms evolve and change over time, and innovative performance. JEL Classification: L10, L20, L40.
Day Long Effect of Liquidity on Stock Return: An Empirical Investigation in a Day of Political and Economic Importance in India

Market events that build up high degree of uncertainty and expectation are an interesting case to study the relationship between liquidity and equity return in any economic system. This study examines the day long effect of liquidity on the equity return in the day during government budget announcement. Using the OLS and ARDL models, the study establishes the direction and magnitude of relationship between different liquidity proxies and intraday stock returns in Indian equity market. The empirical evidence suggests that returns have significant dynamic negative relationship with liquidity measures. Further the effects of liquidity on stock returns are relatively prominent during the period of budget speech than the period of post budget announcement. The study concludes that the absolute spread as a liquidity measure plays an important role in driving a day long equilibrium dynamics of intraday stock returns in Indian market.
Hepatotoxic Assessment of Pecralima nitida Seeds Supplemented Diet in Wistar Rats.

This study assessed phytochemical constituents of Pecralima nitida seed extract and its effect on liver enzymes activities of male albino rats fed Pecralima nitida seed supplemented diet. A total of twenty male albino rats were used for this study and were randomly divided into four groups of five rats each. Group I was fed with normal rat feed and water, group II was fed with 50% pecralima nitida seed and 50% normal rat feed, group III was fed with 70% pecralima nitida seed and 30% normal rat feed while group IV was fed with 90% sample and 10% normal rat feed for a period of twenty eight days. The preliminary phytochemical profile showed the presence of flavoniod, saponin, tainins, glycoside, alkaloid, phenol and steroid. These bioactive compounds may contribute to the reputed medicinal efficacy of pecralima nitida seed. Liver enzymes activities such as AST showed no significant difference between the control (24.39±3.6IU/l) and group II (25.88±3.7IU/l) but significantly increased in group III (37.38±7.2IU/l) and group IV (42.19±2.1IU/l). The other enzymes ALT and ALP showed significant statistical increase in groups II-IV (P<0.05). The histological evaluation shows that group III and IV had evidence of degenerative tissues induced by 70% sample and 30% normal rat feed and 90% and 10% normal rat feed. This however showed and suggested that irrespective of the reputed medicinal relevance of pecralima nitida seed, care should be taken in the quantity of these extract that is consumed as this may exhibit cumulative toxicity leading to functional impairment in the integrity of the liver.
Combined Therapy with Insulin and Vildagliptin causes Cardiac Dysfunction in Diabetic Rats

There is a strong rationale for using incretin-based therapies with insulin. In particular, hypoglycaemia is the limiting factor in glycemic management of insulin-treated patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus. The present study aimed at gaining greater understanding of the progression of cardiovascular degeneration in diabetes mellitus under combined treatment with vildalgliptin and insulin through various analyses on cardiac tissues such as triphenyl tetrazolium chloride dye test. Experimental diabetic rats exhibited significantly lower TCA cycle enzyme and antioxidant defence enzyme activities with a concomitant increase in lipid peroxidation of the heart tissue. Monotherapy with either vildagliptin or insulin prevented these alteration in the oxidative energy metabolism and restored the TCA cycle enzyme activities to near normal in alloxan diabetic rats whereas the combined therapy altered mitochondrial enzyme levels significantly. These findings suggested that the toxic effects of the combinatorial therapy could be attributed to an increased oxidative damage and altered mitochondrial energy production, which might lead to progression of cardiovascular disease.
The analysis of change, Newton's law of gravity and association models

Summary. Newton's law of gravity states that the force between two objects in the universe is equal to the product of the masses of the two objects divided by the square of the distance between the two objects. In the first part of the paper it is shown that a model with a ‘law‐of‐gravity’ interpretation applies well to the analysis of longitudinal categorical data where the number of people changing their behaviour or choice from one category to another is a measure of force and the goal is to obtain estimates of mass for the two categories and an estimate of the distance between them. To provide a better description of the data dynamic masses and dynamic positions are introduced. It is shown that this generalized law of gravity is equivalent to Goodman's RC(M) association model. In the second part of the paper the model is generalized to two kinds of three‐way data. The first case is when there are multiple two‐way tables and in the second case we have change over three points of time. Conditional and partial association models are related to three‐way distance models, like the INDSCAL model, and triadic distance models respectively.
Formulation and evaluation of glimepiride solid dispersion tablets

Glimepiride (GMP) is poorly water soluble drug, so solubility is the main constraint for oral its bioavailability. An attempt has been made to increase the solubility of this model drug by formulating solid dispersion (SD) using Poloxamer 188(PXM 188) as polymer and then formulating SDs tablets of the best formulation of SDs. Tablet formulations were prepared by direct compression technique using superdisintegrant croscarmellose sodium in different concentrations. SDs were evaluated for XRD, SEM, in vitro dissolution profiles, and dissolution efficiency, and developed tablet formulations were evaluated for various pharmaceutical characteristics viz. hardness, % friability, weight variation, drug content, disintegration time, in vitro dissolution profiles, and dissolution efficiency. Among different formulations of SDs, SD containing drug is to polymer ratio 1 : 4 gives best dissolution profile and dissolution efficiency and among tablet formulations, formulations containing 5% croscarmellose sodium gives best disintegration and dissolution profiles compared with other formulations. Results showed that poloxamer is a promising polymer for enhancing the solubility of GMP.
From thallus to communities: scale effects and photosynthetic performance in macroalgae communities

Experiments on aquatic plant photosynthesis are often performed on spatial scales much smaller than natural systems. The photosynthesis-irradiance relationship (P-I curve) depends, however, on whether photosynthesis is measured on leaves, shoots, plants or entire communities, so that results cannot be reliably extrapolated from the limited spatial scale of experiments to the larger scale of natural systems. To evaluate how the photosynthetic response changes with spatial scale for aquatic plants, we measured the photosynthetic production as a function of irradiance for thallus pieces, single-species and multi-species communities of 4 different marine algae (Fucus serratus, Chordaria flagelliformis, Enteromorpha sp. and Ahnfeltia plicata). Thallus pieces followed the well- known hyperbolic shape of P-I curves; that is, the community P-I curves approached linearity. Thal- lus pieces, thus, saturated at irradiances below 160 µmol photons m -2 s -1 , while the communities started to saturate at values 4 times higher and never became fully saturated even at 1750 µmol pho- tons m -2 s -1 . This increasing linearisation of the P-I relationship for communities influenced the pho- tosynthetic parameters, as maximum gross photosynthesis and compensation irradiances increased 3 to 8 times. The increasing linearisation of the P-I curves is attributed to the 3-dimensional structure of the communities, since communities with a low extinction per unit leaf area, and thus an even dis- tribution of irradiance among thallus parts, used their potential photosynthesis capacity more effi- ciently. Although not significantly different, multi-species communities had a slightly more linear response and a higher gross photosynthesis than single-species communities, suggesting a more effi- cient distribution and photosynthetic use of light among the photosynthetic tissue. An increase in spatial scale from thallus pieces to communities decreased variation in photosynthetic rates between species, implying that differences between species are much smaller on natural scales than experi- ments on single thallus pieces suggest. The findings imply that experiments on the thallus scale should be avoided or treated with caution when predicting the ecological performance of plants in their natural habitat.
From product to service: navigating the transition

The results of a survey completed by participants before the event show a mixed picture. Services can play the role of both an offensive and a defensive strategy – 59% of executives viewed services as a proactive weapon to grow revenues and profits. At the same time, 30% of respondents viewed services as a way to keep existing customers and build barriers to entry (see Figure 1). In terms of sales challenges, only 9% of executives thought that salespeople had the right tools to communicate the value of the service to customers, even though 35% thought the sales team understood the value to customers of the service.
Multiple aphid resistance from alien sources and its chromosomal location in bread wheat

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a very important cereal crop and is cultivated worldwide on more than 200 million hectares annually, with an average grain yield of about 3 t/ha. A number of diseases and pests are known to affect wheat production, with aphids being important insect pests. The aphid species that commonly attack wheat are Schizaphis graminum, Rhopalosiphum padi, Sitobion avenae, Diuraphis noxia and Metopolophium dirhodum. These aphids can reduce wheat yields by up to 40% solely due to feeding and by over 60% when their feeding transmits viral diseases. One way to reduce aphid damage is through plant breeding and growing resistant varieties. The aims of this thesis were to: 1) identify novel sources of resistance to multiple aphid species in a wheat-alien genetic stock; 2) determine the utility of those resistance sources in the field; 3) review the utility of rye as a source of resistance to biotic stresses in wheat; and 4) locate genomic regions associated with aphid resistance in a synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW). Under laboratory conditions, certain wheat genotypes carrying the 1R chromosome from rye reduced both R. padi and S. avenae growth, the most resistant ones by 24 and 34% relative to the control, respectively. Certain Aegilops speltoides-derived wheat lines displayed hardly any chlorosis due to S. graminum and reduced aphid colony weight by up to 68% compared with the control. The results of laboratory and field evaluations were in good agreement. The most resistant wheat-rye genotype reduced R. padi field population development by 33% relative to the control, while the A. speltoides-derived line reduced S. graminum field population development by up to 75%. Certain rye-derived genotypes carrying resistance to one or two aphid species also showed resistance to fungal diseases such as powdery mildew and Septoria tritici blotch. Five quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with aphid resistance were found in the SHW mapping population. One QTL for R. padi antibiosis is located on chromosome arm 4BL, two QTL for R. padi tolerance on 5AL and 5BL, and two QTL for S. graminum resistance on 2DL and 7DL. An epistatic interaction that enhanced R. padi tolerance was also detected. The sources of resistance identified here have potential applications in wheat breeding programmes aiming to incorporate aphid resistance.
Clustering using Particle Swarm Optimization

Data clustering has been a well-studied research field for a long time. One of the latest trends in this area is the application of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) in clustering which has good potential for improvements. This paper presents an approach to using Particle Swarm Optimization to cluster data. It is shown how PSO can be used to find the centroids of a user specified number of clusters. Results show that PSO clustering techniques have much potential.
Variability and Predictability of a Three-Dimensional Hurricane in Statistical Equilibrium

AbstractThe internal variability and predictability of idealized three-dimensional hurricanes is investigated using 100-day-long, statistically steady simulations in a compressible, nonhydrostatic, cloud-resolving model. The equilibrium solution is free of the confounding effects of initial conditions and environmental variability in order to isolate the “intrinsic” characteristics of the hurricane.The variance of the axisymmetric tangential velocity is dominated by two patterns: one characterized by a radial shift of the maximum wind, and the other by intensity modulation at the radius of maximum wind. These patterns are associated with convectively coupled bands of anomalous wind speed that propagate inward from large radii with a period of roughly 5 days, the strongest of which is associated with an eyewall replacement cycle. The asymmetric tangential wind is strongest radially inward of the radius of maximum wind. On average, asymmetries decelerate the azimuthal-mean tangential wind at the radius of m.
Practices in postgraduate research supervision : from apprentice to scholar

This article aims to identify lessons from current postgraduate research supervision practices at universities, relevant to improving the quality of such supervision. Research supervision practices in recent literature were scrutinised, current practices in selected universities were investigated and lessons that could be learnt from these practices were identified. The research focused on experiences of individual research supervisors within their specific contexts. The results of the research were analysed using Glassick's six areas of assessing scholarship, and the data were located on a continuum ranging from "freedom-and-friendship" to "apprenticeship" practice types. Single and sets of practices emerged from the data analysis, revealing certain patterns relevant to scholarship, cohesion of practices and contexts. Nagraadse navorsingsbegeleidingspraktyk : van vakleerling tot geleerde Hierdie artikel het ten doel om lesse wat geleer kan word uit huidige nagraadse navorsingsbegeleidingspraktyke by universiteite te identifiseer. Nagraadse navorsingsbegeleidingspraktyke soos beskryf in die literatuur is bestudeer, huidige praktyke by geselekteerde universiteite is ondersoek en lesse is geidentifiseer wat uit hierdie praktyke geleer kan word. Die navorsing het gefokus op die ervarings van individuele nagraadse navorsingsbegeleiers in hul onderskeie kontekste. Die resultate van die navorsing is geinterpreteer met behulp van Glassick se ses areas van geleerdheidsassessering, en deur die plasing van die data op 'n virtuele kontinuum wat strek van 'vryheid-en-vriendskap' tot 'vakleerling' praktyktipes. Alleenstaande en stelle praktyke het uit die data-analise na vore getree en patrone is geidentifiseer ten opsigte van geleerdheid, samehang en konteks.