Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Strategies for warranty service in a dual-channel supply chain with value-added service competition

This paper studies a dual-channel supply chain composed of a manufacturer and a retailer. The manufacturer and the retailer sell homogeneous durable goods bundled with warranty service that is provided by the manufacturer, and they compete for customers by offering free value-added service. Both the warranty and value-added services can affect the purchasing behaviour of customers. We examine the warranty service decision of the manufacturer and the value-added service competition between the manufacturer and the retailer. Three types of warranty service strategies that can affect the value-added service competition are proposed. By analysing the equilibriums of the value-added service level decisions of the manufacturer and the retailer, we find that when the manufacturer increases its warranty service level, the value-added service competition will be weakened, and when the warranty service level is high enough, there is no value-added service competition. In addition, we examine the optimal warranty service strategy and warranty service level of the manufacturer under different conditions, and we find that the stronger the manufacturer’s bargaining power is, or the stronger the value-added service competition intensity is, the more motivation the manufacturer has to provide a high warranty service level. Numerical examples reveal that differentiation strategy in value-added service may hurt the profits of the manufacturer, the retailer and the entire supply chain.
2D-Packing Images on a Large Scale: Packing a Billion Rectangles under 10 Minutes

—We present a new heuristic for 2D-packing of rectangles inside a rectangular area where the aesthetics of the resulting packing is amenable to generating large collages of photographs or images. The heuristic works by maintaining a sorted collection of vertical segments covering the area to be packed. The segments deﬁne the leftmost boundaries of rectangular and possibly overlapping areas that are yet to be covered. The use of this data structure allows for easily deﬁning ahead of time arbitrary rectangular areas that the packing must avoid. The 2D-packing heuristic presented does not allow the rectangles to be rotated during the packing, but could easily be modiﬁed to implement this feature. The execution time of the present heuristic on various benchmark problems is on par with recently published research in this area, including some that do allow rotation of items while packing. Several examples of image packing are presented. A multithreaded version of our core packing algorithm running on a 32-core 2.8 GHz processor packs a billion rectangles in under 10 minutes.
EQUILIBRIUM EXISTENCE THEOREMS IN HADAMARD MANIFOLDS

In this paper, we ﬁrst prove a generalization of Fan-Browder type ﬁxed point theorem for multimaps on a geodesic convex subset in a Hadamard manifold due to Kim [5], and next we will prove general existence theorems of Nash equilibrium for generalized games G with geodesic convex values in Hadamard manifolds.
Reconfigurable Hyper-Structures for Intrinsic Digital Circuit Evolution

— A workbench for intrinsic evolution of digital circuits is presented, based on a Cartesian Genetic Programming algorithm running on a personal computer and a reconfigurable platform suitable for run-time reconfiguration. Two types of Cartesian cell structures are proposed, based on a cylindrical interconnection grid. In addition to a feed-forward network, the cylindrical grid can allow feedback loops as well. The proposed structures are combined with dedicated communication and control logic, producing automatically a fitness result for each circuit configuration. The proposed system is tested with known digital circuits and evaluated in terms of resource usage and configuration speed.
Evaluation of in vitro antioxidant activity of Acrostichum aureum Linn. Rachis

Acrostichum aureum Linn is a medicinal fern collected from Puthalam, Kanyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, India. This plant is used by the local people for curing pharyngitis, chest pain and diabetics. Hence, in the present study, petroleum ether, benzene, ethyl acetate, methanol and ethanol extracts of the rachis of A. aureum have been tested for antioxidant activity by using 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, hydroxyl radical scavenging activity, superoxide radical scavenging activity, antioxidant activity by radial cation (ABTS •+ ) and reducing power assays. The antioxidant potential is dose dependent in all the assays carried out. It is concluded that the A. aureum can be used as a medicine against free radical associated oxidative damage.
Amino acid starvation induces the SNAT2 neutral amino acid transporter by a mechanism that involves eIF2alpha phosphorylation and cap-independent translation 1

translational control of SNAT2 transporter Nutritional stress caused by amino acid starvation involves a coordinated cellular response that includes the global decrease of protein synthesis and the increased production of cell defense proteins. Part of this response is the induction of transport system A for neutral amino acids, that leads to the recovery of cell volume and amino acid levels once extracellular amino acid availability is restored. Hypertonic stress also increases system A activity, as a mechanism to promote a rapid recovery of cell volume. Both starvation-dependent and hypertonic increase of system A transport activity are due to the induction of SNAT2, the ubiquitous member of SLC38 family. The molecular mechanisms underlying SNAT2 induction were investigated in tissue culture cells. We show that the increase in system A transport activity and SNAT2 mRNA levels upon amino acid starvation were blunted in cells with a mutant eIF2 α that cannot be phosphorylated. In contrast, the induction of system A activity and SNAT2 mRNA levels by hypertonic stress were independent of eIF2 α phosphorylation. The translational control of the SNAT2 mRNA during amino acid starvation was also investigated. It is shown that the 5’-UTR contains an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) that is constitutively active in amino acid fed and deficient cells and in a cell-free system. We also show that amino acid starvation caused a 2.5-fold increase in mRNA and protein expression from a reporter construct containing both the SNAT2 intronic amino acid response element and the SNAT2 UTR. We conclude that the adaptive response of system A activity to amino acid starvation requires eIF2 α phosphorylation, increased gene transcription, and IRES-mediated translation. In contrast, the response to hypertonic stress does not involve eIF2 α phosphorylation, suggesting that SNAT2 expression can be modulated by specific signalling pathways in response to different stresses.
Workshop on Emerging Trends in Technology

Low-power design is becoming a crucial design objective for the chip design engineer due to the growing demand on portable application and the increasing difficulties in cooling and heat removal. In the integrated circuits power consumption is one of the challenges like area and speed . In this paper a novel technique is proposed to design an error detector for the lower power consumption. Here the work has done by using two low power flip flops (1)have
Improvement of Shade Resilience in Photovoltaic Modules Using Buck Converters in a Smart Module Architecture

Partial shading has a nonlinear effect on the performance of photovoltaic (PV) modules. Different methods of optimizing energy harvesting under partial shading conditions have been suggested to mitigate this issue. In this paper, a smart PV module architecture is proposed for improvement of shade resilience in a PV module consisting of 60 silicon solar cells, which compensates the current drops caused by partial shading. The architecture consists of groups of series-connected solar cells in parallel to a DC-DC buck converter. The number of cell groups is optimized with respect to cell and converter specifications using a least-squares support vector machine method. A generic model is developed to simulate the behavior of the smart architecture under different shading patterns, using high time resolution irradiance data. In this research the shading patterns are a combination of random and pole shadows. To investigate the shade resilience, results for the smart architecture are compared with an ideal module, and also ordinary series and parallel connected architectures. Although the annual yield for the smart architecture is 79.5% of the yield of an ideal module, we show that the smart architecture outperforms a standard series connected module by 47%, and a parallel architecture by 13.4%.
On the Possibility to Interpret Aesthetic Emotions and the Concept of Chef-D’oeuvre in an Artificial Cognitive System

— The problem of interpretation and simulation of the Aesthetic Emotions (not inspired by a pragmatic goal, but by impression of Artwork, natural phenomena, etc.) is considered under the Natural-Constructive Approach to modeling the cognitive process. The designed cognitive architecture is represented by the complex multilevel combination of various types of neuroprocessors, with the whole system being composed of two subsystems, by analogy with the two hemispheres of the human brain. Only one subsystem involves mandatory random component (noise), and the noise-amplitude variation controls the subsystem activity representing the emotional responses. A peculiar feature of the architecture is the fuzzy set at the lowest (“image”) hierarchy level. This neuroprocessor contains images of the objects recorded by weak (“grey”) connections that reflect personal (unformulated) experience. It is shown that individual aesthetic preferences arise at the border of image (fuzzy set) and symbolic internal information. The concept of Chef-d’oeuvre is associated with the “paradox of recognition”, which is caused by ambiguous impression (familiar and unusual simultaneously) induced by the Artwork. These impressions could be accompanied by small oscillation (trembling) of the noise amplitude around a normal value that represents an analogue to the human “goosebumps” .
Clay-Alginate Composite Aerogels as Insulation Materials

9 There is a growing incentive within the construction industry to design low energy buildings which 10 incorporate increased levels of insulation whilst also encouraging the use of ‘green’ materials which 11 have a low environmental impact and can contribute positively to sustainable building strategies. 12 Silica aerogels have received an increasing amount of attention in recent years as a contemporary 13 insulation material, but their wide-spread use is currently hindered by high costs and their high 14 embodied energy. This research project explores the development of a composite insulation material 15 proposed as an alternative to silica aerogel, which consists of natural components including clay and 16 a biopolymer obtained from seaweed known as alginate. Prototype specimens have been developed 17 and characterised in terms of their mechanical properties and microstructure allowing comparisons to 18 be made between five alginate types, each obtained from a different seaweed source. Whilst all of the 19 composites tested offered an improvement over the control sample, the results also demonstrated 20 that the type of alginate used has a significant influence on the compressive strength and modulus 21 values of the resulting composite materials. An analysis of the production process additionally 22 demonstrated that the freeze-drying element can have a significant impact on both the environment 23 and financial costs of producing such a material.
STUDY OF INTERACTION (COMPATIBILITY) AND EVALUATION OF SOLUBILITY OF ACETYL SALICYLIC ACID IN PRESENCE OF EXCIPIENT LYSINE

Studies of pharmaceutical drug/active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) compatibility represent an important phase in the design or development of new formulation stage and drug delivery systems. Excipients in the formulations influence the chemical nature, stability, manufacturability, drug bioavailability or delivery of the drug to the patient. Acetyl Salicylic Acid (ASA) is one of the most widely used analgesic, which is poorly soluble in water and causes gastrointestinal irritation. Its cocrystal with Lysine (1:1 part by weight) were prepared in 50% aqueous ethanol and evaluated for Scanning Electron Microscopy, FT-IR spectra, X-ray diffraction, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and in vitro dissolution study.
OPEN Effect of high threonine diets on growth performances of commercial broilers

A total of 720 Cobb 500 day old chicks with an average hatching weight 44.35 g each were divided into five dietary treatments groups (diet group 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 with the doses of threonine like, 0 g/kg, 0.5g/kg, 1g/kg, 1.5g/kg and 2g/kg feed, respectively). Each of 144 birds under each treatment were replicated to eight subgroups of 18 birds each to investigate the productivity and cost effectiveness of commercial broilers fed increasing levels of threonine supplemented diets. The birds were reared in an open-sided shed up to the age of 35 days at Bangladesh Agricultural University Poultry Farm, Mymensingh, Bangladesh. Apart from differences in diets, care and management for all treatments groups were similar. Data were collected on body weight, feed intake, livability, average daily weight gain (ADG), feed conversion ratio (FCR), carcass traits and income over cost of production were calculated out. The highest live weight (1978.09±0.40 g/bird) at 35 days and the highest dressing yield ( 1314.63±1.48 g/bird) at 30 days were documented for the diet group five. The best amount of threonine for live body weight gain, FCR, ADG of broiler bird was 2.0 g/kg feed and it was followed by 1.0 g/kg feed, 1.5 g/kg feed and 0.5 g/kg feed. Very interestingly,
Immunohaematological impacts induced by clomazone in Swiss albino mice: ameliorative role of vitamin C

/ ABSTRACT: The present study aimed to evaluate the probable perturbations produced by herbicide clomazone (CMZ) on immunohaematological indices in Swiss albino mice and to assess the alleviative role of vitamin C. To achieve this goal, male Swiss albino mice were administrated phosphate buffer saline (PBS), vitamin C (1136 µM/kg), and/or CMZ (46 µM/kg; 1/20 of the 96 h LD 50 ) daily intraperitoneally (i.p.) for 4 weeks. By the end of the treatment, immunohaematological parameters: erythrocyte (RBC) count, haemoglobin (Hb) percent, haematocrit (Hct) content, platelets (Plt) count, leucocyte (WBC) count, absolute number of neutrophils, lymphocyte and monocytes and count of splenocytes, thymocytes and bone marrow (BM) cells were evaluated. To investigate the influence of immunoglobulin (Ig) isotypes production activity of CMZ, naïve splenocytes were inoculated for 24 h into media supplemented with PBS, CMZ (4.6 µM/well) and/or vitamin C (113.6 µM/well) and the concentrations of IgA, IgG, and IgM were measured by ELISA assay. Thus, 96 h LD 50 of CMZ was estimated at 911 µM/kg. Exposure to CMZ alone significantly decreased RBC count, Hb content, Hct%, WBC count, absolute numbers of lymphocytes and monocytes, Plt count, total numbers of splenocytes, thymocytes and BM cells when compared to their values in PBS-treated mice. Contrary, Absolute number of neutrophils was significantly higher in CMZ-treated mice than in control mice. The concentrations of IgA, IgG and IgM in CMZ-cultured splenocytes were significantly higher than that in PBS-cultured splenocytes. Pre-treatment of vitamin C to CMZ-exposed mice mildly ameliorated the immunohaematological perturbations of CMZ exposure. Accordingly, to the present results, it appears that CMZ induced immunohaematological perturbations and vitamin C could reduce these perturbations, but it was not completely alleviative and further studies are needed.
Class I and II Antigen Presentation Chamber of the Eye: Role of B Cells in MHC Peripheral Tolerance Via the Anterior

Ags introduced into the anterior chamber (AC) of the eye induce a form of peripheral immune tolerance termed AC-associated immune deviation (ACAID). ACAID mitigates ocular autoimmune diseases and promotes corneal allograft survival. Ags injected into the AC are processed by F4/80 (cid:1) APCs, which migrate to the thymus and spleen. In the spleen, ocular APCs induce the development of Ag-speciﬁc B cells that act as ancillary APCs and are required for ACAID induction. In this study, we show that ocular-like APCs elicit the generation of Ag-speciﬁc splenic B cells that induce ACAID. However, direct cell contact between ocular-like APCs and splenic B cells is not necessary for the induction of ACAID B cells. Peripheral tolerance produced by ACAID requires the participation of ACAID B cells, which induce the generation of both CD4 (cid:1) regulatory T cells (Tregs) and CD8 (cid:1) Tregs. Using in vitro and in vivo models of ACAID, we demonstrate that ACAID B cells must express both MHC class I and II molecules for the generation of Tregs. These results suggest that peripheral tolerance induced through the eye requires Ag-presenting B cells that simultaneously present Ags on both MHC class I and II molecules. The Journal of Immunology, 2006, 176: 5950–5957. self Ags crucial homeostasis in various and for survival itself. Two fundamental processes prevent the induction and expression of autoreactive T lymphocytes: central tolerance and peripheral tolerance (1–3). Central tolerance during T lymphocyte on-togeny in the thymus T lymphocytes bearing receptors that recognize self Ags expressed in the thymus by apo-ptosis. Other T cells bear Ag receptors for epitopes that are not in the thymus are not deleted and mature into autoreactive T cells.
Specificity and Degeneracy Duality in T Cell Recognition of Antigen: The Study of High-Affinity TCRs Reveals

TCRs exhibit a high degree of Ag speciﬁcity, even though their afﬁnity for the peptide/MHC ligand is in the micromolar range. To explore how Ag speciﬁcity is achieved, we studied murine T cells expressing high-afﬁnity TCRs engineered by in vitro evolution for binding to hemoglobin peptide/class II complex (Hb/I-E k ). These TCRs were shown previously to maintain Ag speciﬁcity, despite having up to 800-fold higher afﬁnity. We compared the response of the high-afﬁnity TCRs and the low-afﬁnity 3.L2 TCR toward a comprehensive set of peptides containing single substitutions at each TCR contact residue. This speciﬁcity analysis revealed that the increase in afﬁnity resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of stimulatory peptides. The apparent dis-crepancy between observed degeneracy in the recognition of single amino acid-substituted Hb peptides and overall Ag speciﬁcity of the high-afﬁnity TCRs was examined by generating chimeric peptides between the stimulatory Hb and nonstimulatory moth cytochrome c peptides. These experiments showed that MHC anchor residues signiﬁcantly affected TCR recognition of peptide. The high-afﬁnity TCRs allowed us to estimate the afﬁnity, in the millimolar range, of immunologically relevant interactions of the TCR with peptide/MHC ligands that were previously unmeasurable because of their weak nature. Thus, through the study of high-afﬁnity TCRs, we demonstrated that a TCR is more tolerant of single TCR contact residue substitutions than other peptide changes, revealing that recognition of Ag by T cells can exhibit both speciﬁcity and degeneracy. The Journal of Immunology, 2006, 177: 6911–6919. The coordinates of the crystal structures of Hb/I-E k (1FNG) and MCC/I-E k (1KT2) were used to compare the conformations of the peptides, as previously described (43). The pMHC molecules were aligned by their I-E (cid:1) chains using the Insight II suite of programs (Molecular Simulations). Rep-resentations of the peptides were generated showing the P1 to P9 residues of the peptides using Insight II.
A MANY-CORE ENERGY AND LATENCY ESTIMATOR

-Many-core processors can now be used as an alternative hardware platform for implementing embedded media devices. However, a lack of generic tools for application development may hamper their rate of adoption by industry. This work has contributed towards the solution by providing an abstraction from the many design constraints facing application developers. A Many-core Energy and Latency Estimator (MELE) has been designed to improve the programmer’s ability to iteratively map data flow applications to a target machine. A set of models included in the tool transforms an application mapped to an abstract machine into its Intermediate Representation. An Abstract Interpreter which runs on the Ptolemy II modeling platform is used to return feedback from the Intermediate Representation to the programmer. A case study has been used to showcase the use of MELE in analyzing the mapping of data flow applications. The case study has also been used to explain how a rank based system can arrive at the most suitable mapping of an application to the processor based on energy and latency costs. Results from the case study shows that the use of a greater number of cores in the processing does not necessarily result in the highest ranked mapping. Also, some mappings take too long to arrive at their steady state processing cost value. This may result in a lower Quality of Service (QOS) for the application. Based on these findings, suggestions have been made for further work.
Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Innovation and leadership: When does CMO leadership improve performance from innovation?

firm importance of the CMO role This study explores the link between innovation leadership and performance at medium and large global firms. Our analysis of archival interviews with 587 global CEOs reveals unexpected relationships between CMO leadership, customer focus, and product–market innovation (PMI) efforts. CMO leadership of innovation is positively associated with PMI but not returns from innovation. In contrast with prior Abstract Ensuring that organizational innovation generates value increasingly requires effective marketing management. Prior studies, however, report conflicting effects of chief marketing officer (CMO) leadership on how well the firm exploits innovation. These inconsistencies may be associated with firm-level innovation effort, customer focus, and industry type. We analyze archival data from 587 interviews with global CEOs to explain the effect of CMO leadership on outcomes of organizational innovation. CMO leadership of the firm’s primary innovation mode is positively associated with product–market innovation effort but not marginal revenue from innovation. CMO leadership also moderates the relationship between customer focus and innovation revenue. Predictive validity testing shows that these effects are especially important for service firms. The benefits of CMO-led innovation have specific limitations that firms must consider for organization-wide innovation efforts. issues, people skills, issues, regulatory and