Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Utilisation des systèmes de particules pour la simulation de phénomènes naturels : présentation d'une architecture permettant l'intégration de systèmes animés hétérogènes

Les systemes permettant la simulation de phenomenes naturels se sont rapidement transformes en systemes a effets speciaux inseres dans des sequences reelles. En utilisant une architecture appropriee, nous montrons qu'il est possible de faire interagir automatiquement dans un meme systeme des objets de types differents (geometriques purs, rigides, deformables, naturels,), et que les effets speciaux peuvent etre vus comme des objets classiques de l'animation. Pour cela, l'architecture doit controler les differents objets de facon unifiee. Nous avons ete conduit a faire les choix suivants: ? utiliser un modele agent pour la representation des objets, ? faire communiquer les agents par envois de messages, ? utiliser la notion de force comme moyen d'interaction unique. Une plate-forme de test a ete realisee et a montree l'utilisabilite d'un systeme de ce type (performances, souplesse, robustesse). Notre objectif etant la simulation de phenomenes naturels nous avons etudie plus particulierement les systemes de particules car ils sont tres bien adaptes a ce type de simulations. Un agent de ce type a ete cree permettant d'obtenir: des nuages, la pluie, des objets fortement deformables pour tester les interactions avec des objets plus classiques (rigides), nous avons cree l'agent de type objet rigide. Ce travail a montre qu'il est possible d'integrer differents types de modeles animes dans un meme systeme. Il suffit que l'on soit capable de fournir pour chacun une interface unifiee qui utilise des forces pour les interactions. Ceci permet de mettre en commun les nombreux moteurs realises pour creer des scenes complexes tout en gardant une architecture simple
Effects Of Interaction Between Erp And Advanced Managerial Accounting Techniques On Firm Performance: Evidence From Turkey

Almost all large and middle-sized firms worldwide have adopted enterprise planning (ERP) systems and advanced managerial accounting techniques (AMAT). However, there are virtually no studies on the interaction between ERP and AMAT and the effects of this interaction on firm performance. In this study, the effects of interaction between ERP and AMAT on firm performance are examined via an empirical analysis based on data from 125 manufacturing firms selected from among the top 500 in Turkey in 2015. The results support the hypothesis that high interaction between ERP and AMAT is associated with high financial and non-financial performance.
Health Games: A Key Component for the Evolution of Wellness Programs.

Healthcare cost growth has been a major concern for both governments and employers. Considerable efforts have been made to "bend the trend" or find ways to control costs. At the highest levels, this has been the move from indemnity care models to managed care and then to consumer-directed health models using Healthcare Reimbursement Accounts and Healthcare Spending Accounts in plan designs. Accompanying this move in plan design has been an effort to get the consumer/patient/employee more engaged and responsible for his or her health expenditures, health decision-making, and activities. Consumers have gone through the phases of health being doctor-centric (indemnity care model), to health plan-centric (managed care models), to consumer-centric (consumer-directed health models). There is currently a need to incorporate wellness into the equation. Simply put, wellness is intended to keep people out of the health system by reducing the risk factors that would put them into the system in the first place. This includes things like smoking cessation, exercise, weight management, nutrition, and other factors over which individuals have a significant level of control over, as well as condition management such as medication adherence, and condition monitoring (such as glucose monitoring for diabetics). Wellness will become increasingly more common for major buyers, initially large self-funded employers and then health plans that will offer it as a part of their overall Plan Design and Administration services. Wellness initiatives will also be offered by Federal and State governments and will include programs for the elderly and at-risk populations as well as for the general population. The measure of success of wellness programs to actually "bend the trend" will be engagement. How large a piece of the population can be captured and retained will be the critical metric for success…and metrics require real data and will be used by the entire healthcare value-chain to measure efficacy and efficiency of "wellness spending. "
Can service quality predict customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions in the sport tourism industry? An application of the SERVQUAL model in an outdoors setting

Abstract This paper aimed to investigate the applicability of the SERVQUAL model in predicting customer satisfaction and customer behavioral intentions in one of the segments of the sport tourism industry, named outdoors. Two hundred and eighty seven (N = 287) individuals took part in the study. These individuals participated in an outdoor program that took place in the lake Plasteera, Greece, and included activities such as lake canoe/kayak, orienteering, and archery. Service quality was measured by the SERVQUAL scale, satisfaction was measured by Oliver (1980) scale, and behavioral intentions were measured by Ajzen and Fishbein (1977) scale. Two sets of data were collected: the first one before customers' participation in the programs in order to measure their quality expectations, and the second one after customers' participation in the program, in order to measure their quality perceptions. The gap scores were calculated, and these scores were used in order to predict customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The results of the study did not provide support for the applicability of SERVQUAL in outdoor services. The five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model predicted very low amount of variances in both the satisfaction and behavioral intentions variables. These results indicate the need for further research on the factors that determine customer satisfaction in outdoor settings.
Experimenter Bias, Anxiety, and Social Desirability

A recent paper (Rosenthal, 1961) summarized the daca available on some personality correlates of Es more and less prone to influence their Ss in unintended ways. The tentative condusions were that medium anxiety level Es seemed to bias cheir Ss more than did Es of more extreme levels of anxiery and chat among Es of medium anxiety level, those with higher scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSD) tended to bias their Ss most. Among more extreme anxiety scorers this positive relationship of hlCSD co biasing was not found. The correlations in fact tended to be negative. The purpose of this paper is to add to the nornological net a rather thin strand by testing the above conclusions based on an N so small that its use is justified only by the now relative scarcicy of graduace srudenc Es who are likely to be naive about the problem of E bias. Es were 10 male graduate students enrolled in a course in individual appraisal. All had been biased to expect certain data from their Ss in an experiment on person perception (Rosenthal, Fode, Friedman, & Vikan, 1960). Degree of bias was defined as in the study just cited, i.e., by the degree to which any E obcained from his Ss the daca he had specifically expected co obtain from them. While the original srudy had used 12 Es, the 10 used in che presenc analysis were those on whom MMPI data were available. As suggested by Dahlstrom and Welsh (1960) we defined Es' anxiety level by their scores on the Pt scale of the MMPI. The social desirability variable was defined by Es' scores on boch the L and K scales because boch correlate fairly well with the hlCSD (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960; A. Ismir, personal communication). High anxiety Es were defined as those three Es obtaining scaled scores above 60 on the Pt scale. Medium anxiety Es were those three whose scores fell between 55 and 59. Low anxiety Es were chose four whose scores fell below 55 with a score of 50 being the lowest obcained from any E. Among the medium anxiety Es, the rank correlation between social desirability defined by both L ( 2 8 ) and K (1.00) and degree of E bias averaged over . 95 ( p = .05, one-tailed test). Among the high anxiety Es these correlations (L, -.50; K, $SO) averaged zero, while among the low anxiety Es they (L, f.40; K, -.85) averaged -. 40. Neither of these mean rhos was significant. In general, our analysis confirms the earlier findings of the relation-
How novel molecular diagnostic technologies and biomarkers are revolutionizing genetic testing and patient care

Technological applications and novel biomarkers in the field of molecular diagnostics have never been evolving at a more rapid pace. These novel applications have the promise to change the face of clinical care as we move into the era of personalized medicine. While some of these technologies and biomarkers have been adopted by some clinical laboratories, most laboratories face a steep learning curve in bringing these dramatically new and different molecular diagnostic applications on board. Furthermore, interpreting the vast amounts and new types of data produced by these novel applications brings forth challenges for laboratorians and clinicians alike. In this article, we discuss how some of these emerging novel molecular diagnostic technologies and analytes, such as next-generation sequencing, chromosomal microarray, microRNAs and circulating fetal nucleic acids are revolutionizing patient care and personalized medicine.
Higher-Order Image Co-segmentation

A novel interactive image cosegmentation algorithm using likelihood estimation and higher order energy optimization is proposed for extracting common foreground objects from a group of related images. Our approach introduces the higher order clique's, energy into the cosegmentation optimization process successfully. A region-based likelihood estimation procedure is first performed to provide the prior knowledge for our higher order energy function. Then, a new cosegmentation energy function using higher order cliques is developed, which can efficiently cosegment the foreground objects with large appearance variations from a group of images in complex scenes. Both the quantitative and qualitative experimental results on representative datasets demonstrate that the accuracy of our cosegmentation results is much higher than the state-of-the-art cosegmentation methods.
Cardiotoxicity of combined administration of adriamycin and recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (rhG-CSF) in rats-with special reference to 125I-MIBG cardioautoradiography and histopathological findings.

We studied whether adriamycin(ADM)-induced myocardial disorder in rats is advanced when recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (rhG-CSF) is administered. Rats were divided into three groups (15 rats/group), i.e. the ADM group, the ADM+rhG-CSF group, and the vehicle-treated control group. ADM (2 mg/kg, i.p.) was administered for the first 2 days in each cycle and 10 days of administration of rhG-CSF (50 micrograms/kg, s.c.) was started two days after the second dose of ADM was given in each cycle. The dosing cycle was repeated 3 times. One day after the last dose, the following parameters were analyzed: peripheral blood and bone marrow cells, electrocardiogram (ECG) and histopathological findings. Four hours after intravenous administration of 125I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (125I-MIBG), accumulation of 125I-MIBG in some organs and findings from autoradiography (ARG) of the heart were examined. ECG revealed an extended ventricular activation (VAT) time in the ADM and ADM+rhG-CSF groups. In histopathological analysis, vacuolar degeneration of the myocardium was observed in both the ADM and ADM+rhG-CSF groups. The degree of change was the same for both groups. The accumulation of 125I-MIBG in the heart was lower in both the ADM and ADM+rhG-CSF groups than in the control group. The same tendency was observed in ARG, but the difference between the ADM group and the ADM+rhG-CSF group was not significant. These results suggest that administration of rhG-CSF at the standard clinical dose does not aggravate ADM-induced myocardial disorder. However, because this disorder may be more clearly manifested by treatment with higher doses of ADM, it is necessary to conduct further studies on the methods of dosing and administration.
Phenolics Production through Catalytic Depolymerization of Alkali Lignin with Metal Chlorides

Lignin is an important renewable source of phenolic products. In this study, alkali lignin was depolymerized to produce phenolic compounds. The effects of catalyst, solvent, reaction time, and reaction temperature on the yields of liquid products and volatile fractions were investigated in detail. Compared with the solvents water and octane, alcohols can significantly promote depolymerization of lignin due to the excellent solubility of the degradation products and intermediates. Under the conditions of 300 °C for 2 h in the solvent ethanol, the highest yields of liquid products (75.8 wt%) and volatile fraction (38.1 wt%) were obtained over a ZnCl2 catalyst. Gas chromatograph-mass spectroscopy analysis demonstrated that the volatile fraction was composed of guaiacols (15.09 wt%), phenols (15.79 wt%), and syringols (2.28 wt%). Furthermore, the mechanism for lignin depolymerization is discussed.
Ecuaciones diferenciales estocásticas y casos de aplicación en finanzas

El calculo estocastico tiene muchas aplicaciones en las areas de Biologia, Sociologia, Demografia, Economia y Finanzas. Por otro lado, las series de tiempo son una herramienta estadistica muy utilizada en el estudio de series financieras y economicas. Estas dos herramientas pueden emplearse conjuntamente para estudiar la dinamica de precios de algunos commodities con caracteristicas especiales. En este trabajo se presentan de manera formal los elementos matematicos de las Ecuaciones Diferenciales Estocasticas con un enfoque dirigido a la Dinamica de Portafolios y la Valoracion de Opciones segun Black-Scholes. Debido a que algunos precios de commodities, como el aluminio, presentan efectos GARCH, se propone hacer una fusion entre procesos de reversion a la media del tipo Ornstein Uhlenbeck y los procesos GARCH.
Developing an Optimization Method for Bidding Strategies in an Open Electricity Market

Deregulation of power sector has highly maximized competition of market by reforming conventionally integrated utility of power into competitive EM. Purpose of this research is to develop an optimization method by combining the genetic algorithm, adaptive metropolis search, particle swarm optimization and differential evolution methods for strategy of optimal bidding in an open electricity market. Maximum profit for power exchange and optimal result has been obtained with minimum convergence with the proposed algorithm. Developed algorithm gives much faster convergence of the optimal result Further the proposed algorithm can be expanded for complicated power system issue of optimization under deregulated environment. 
Localisation et cartographie simultanées de l'environnement à bord de véhicules autonomes : analyse de solutions fondées sur le filtrage de Kalman

Pour etre autonome, un robot mobile doit etre capable de decrire l'environnement dans lequel il evolue. Pour ce faire, le robot doit pouvoir se localiser et construire une carte de l'environnement si celle-ci n'existe pas. Grâce a ces informations, il pourra par exemple eviter les obstacles et donc naviguer en toute securite. Cette capacite correspond a une etape obligatoire sur la route de son autonomie totale. Le sujet traite dans ce manuscrit repond a cette problematique. Il concerne la localisation d'un vehicule et la cartographie d'un environnement en simultane, SLAM pour simultaneous localization and mapping. Apres un etat de l'art des approches proposees durant la derniere decennie, deux points importants ont ete constates lors de l'emploi d'un filtre EKF-SLAM : les estimations obtenues avec ce filtre ne sont pas consistantes et cette approche, telle qu'elle a ete introduite, ne repond pas aux criteres d'observabilite d'un systeme. Pour chacun de ces problemes, une solution est proposee et critiquee a l'aide de resultats de simulation et d'experimentation
When sport becomes a way of life – a lifestyle market segmentation approach

ABSTRACT The goal of this study was to segment endurance athletes according to their lifestyle adaption. To achieve this goal, an online survey targeting endurance athletes participating in South African events was conducted, with 498 questionnaires being collected. Lifestyle proved to be a favourable segmentation variable as it led to three distinctive market segments, each with specific demographic and lifestyle characteristics, namely the Serious, Opportunistic and Recreational Pursuers. Lifestyle can furthermore exert an influence on travel patterns, spending and participation frequency with all these constructs being directly related to one another. A lifestyle in which sport is the main priority will increase the event participation of different South Africans in the long-term, which would ultimately secure a sustainable endurance event sector. The study also supports the notion that the main aim of events and the government should be fostering a sport-related lifestyle among the youth in South Africa.
MAPPING OF VEHICLE EMISSIONS IN ZONGULDAK PROVINCE

Increase in the rate of individual vehicle use and decrease in the usage habits of public transportation results in significant increase in traffic-related emissions. One of the most important factor among these is the number of vehicles that increases day by day especially in developing countries. In Zonguldak, the number of vehicles have also increased by 21% in the last five years. For that reason we focused on to determine the effects of urban transportation on air quality in the city center of Zonguldak/Turkey. The main objective of the study was to determine pollutant emissions in different parts of a highway and present it on emission maps. In this context, hourly vehicle counts were conducted at Zonguldak D010 highway in four zones in the coastal area. In addition, speed counts were carried out in the same zones. Emissions were calculated by the obtained data and IPCC guidance was used for these calculations. The IPCC guidelines include main headings such as energy, industrial processes, agriculture and waste. In this study, emission related data under the head of “energy” were used. Emission intensity maps for Zonguldak province were established by using the obtained values. The results of the study show that fuel consumption was the highest between 08:00 and 09:00 a.m. It decreases between 12:00 and 13:00 at noon and then tends to increase again between 18:00 and 19:00 p.m. Pollutant emissions were also higher in the morning and evening hours, depending on fuel consumption. In this study only the main arterial road was selected as study area. In future studies, by choosing whole road segments, the study area can be expanded and more accurate and reliable results can be obtained. Article DOI: https://dx.doi. org/10.20319/mijst.2018. 41.129142 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
Self-Adjusting Networks for VLSI Simulation

Magnitude networks [1l, [2] have been used as a theoretical base for switch-level simulation of MOS VLSI circuits. We address in this paper the particular problem of evaluating the influence of switches in unknown state on the steady-state response of the network. A two-pass procedure based on local controllers attached to such switches is described and a hardware implementation is proposed which models magnitude networks as self-adjusting combinational circuits.
Problematic Mobile Phone Use and Big-Five Personality Domains

Background: Although a mobile phone is useful and attractive as a tool for communication and interpersonal interaction, there exists the risk of its problematic or addictive use. Objectives: This study aims to investigate the correlation between the big-five personality domains and problematic mobile phone use. Materials and Methods: The Mobile Phone Problem Usage Scale and the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) were employed in this study. Survey data were gathered from 504 university students for multiple regression analysis. Results: Problematic mobile phone use is a function of gender, extraversion, neuroticism, openness-to-experience; however, it is not a function of agreeableness or conscientiousness. Conclusions: The measurement of these predictors would enable the screening of and intervening in the potentially problematic behaviors of mobile phone users.
Opportunistic Channel Sharing Based on Primary User Transition Probabilities in Dual Mode Cognitive Radio Networks

In cognitive radio networks, it is important to effectively use the under-utilized spectrum resources without affecting the primary users. In an underlay system, cognitive users are allowed to share the channel simultaneously with primary users with the restriction on interference level but not in an overlay system. In this paper, we consider a system where cognitive users can switch between overlay and underlay modes of operation in order to improve their throughput. The results, based on Markov chain analysis, are satisfactorily verified using Monte-Carlo simulation. It is shown that proper selection of transmission mode can provide greater improvement in throughput for cognitive users. If a primary user occupies the channel for a longer (shorter) period, then the system should allow the cognitive users to choose underlay (overlay) mode for throughput advantage. The exact strategy (or mode) switching thresholds can be found from our analysis and it depends primarily on the transition probabilities of the primary users and throughput ratio during underlay/overlay transmission.
Micropuncture Evaluation of Local Control of Arteriolar Resistance of Kidney and Brain

Micropuncture experiments on the brain and kidney were carried out to investigate further the organ-specific mechanisms for the adjustment of arteriolar resistance. The blood flow is incorporated quite differently into the functional complexity of these organs. In the brain the blood flow primarily serves the metabolic needs of the cells, whereas in the kidney the formation of a large filtrate needs the unusually high blood flow. These differences are reflected in the organs' specific mechanisms for the adjustment of blood flow rate. The pH sensitivity of the arteriolar system in the brain is consistent with such a close functional connection between metabolism and blood flow. In contrast, the adjustment of arteriolar resistance in the kidney seems to be intimately linked to the rate of filtrate formation and hence to the fluid reabsorption in the tubules.