bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Drug Stability Analysis by Raman Spectroscopy
Authors: Shende Chetan , Smith Wayne , Brouillette Carl , Farquharson Stuart
Published: December 2014

Pharmaceutical drugs are available to astronauts to help them overcome the deleterious effects of weightlessness, sickness and injuries. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that some of the drugs currently used may degrade more rapidly in space, losing their potency before their expiration dates. To complicate matters, the degradation products of some drugs can be toxic. Here, we present a preliminary investigation of the ability of Raman spectroscopy to quantify mixtures of four drugs; acetaminophen, azithromycin, epinephrine, and lidocaine, with their primary degradation products. The Raman spectra for the mixtures were replicated by adding the pure spectra of the drug and its degradant to determine the relative percent contributions using classical least squares. This multivariate approach allowed determining concentrations in ~10 min with a limit of detection of ~4% of the degradant. These results suggest that a Raman analyzer could be used to assess drug potency, nondestructively, at the time of use to ensure crewmember safety.
Complementarity of Two Rice Mapping Approaches: Characterizing Strata Mapped by Hypertemporal MODIS and Rice Paddy Identification Using Multitemporal SAR
Authors: Asilo Sonia , De Bie Kees , Skidmore Andrew , Nelson Andrew , Barbieri Massimo , Maunahan Aileen
Published: December 2014

Different rice crop information can be derived from different remote sensing sources to provide information for decision making and policies related to agricultural production and food security. The objective of this study is to generate complementary and comprehensive rice crop information from hypertemporal optical and multitemporal high-resolution SAR imagery. We demonstrate the use of MODIS data for rice-based system characterization and X-band SAR data from TerraSAR-X and CosmoSkyMed for the identification and detailed mapping of rice areas and flooding/transplanting dates. MODIS was classified using ISODATA to generate cropping calendar, cropping intensity, cropping pattern and rice ecosystem information. Season and location specific thresholds from field observations were used to generate detailed maps of rice areas and flooding/transplanting dates from the SAR data. Error matrices were used for the accuracy assessment of the MODIS-derived rice characteristics map and the SAR-derived detailed rice area map, while Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and linear correlation were used to assess the TSX-derived flooding/transplanting dates. Results showed that multitemporal high spatial resolution SAR data is effective for mapping rice areas and flooding/transplanting dates with an overall accuracy of 90% and a kappa of 0.72 and that hypertemporal moderate-resolution optical imagery is effective for the basic characterization of rice areas with an overall accuracy that ranged from 62% to 87% and a kappa of 0.52 to 0.72. This study has also provided the first assessment of the temporal variation in the backscatter of rice from CSK and TSX using large incidence angles covering all rice crop stages from pre-season until harvest. This complementarity in optical and SAR data can be further exploited in the near future with the increased availability of space-borne optical and SAR sensors. This new information can help improve the identification of rice areas.
A Versatile, Production-Oriented Approach to High-Resolution Tree-Canopy Mapping in Urban and Suburban Landscapes Using GEOBIA and Data Fusion
Authors: O'Neil-Dunne Jarlath , MacFaden Sean , Royar Anna
Published: December 2014

The benefits of tree canopy in urban and suburban landscapes are increasingly well known: stormwater runoff control, air-pollution mitigation, temperature regulation, carbon storage, wildlife habitat, neighborhood cohesion, and other social indicators of quality of life. However, many urban areas lack high-resolution tree canopy maps that document baseline conditions or inform tree-planting programs, limiting effective study and management. This paper describes a GEOBIA approach to tree-canopy mapping that relies on existing public investments in LiDAR, multispectral imagery, and thematic GIS layers, thus eliminating or reducing data acquisition costs. This versatile approach accommodates datasets of varying content and quality, first using LiDAR derivatives to identify aboveground features and then a combination of LiDAR and imagery to differentiate trees from buildings and other anthropogenic structures. Initial tree canopy objects are then refined through contextual analysis, morphological smoothing, and small-gap filling. Case studies from locations in the United States and Canada show how a GEOBIA approach incorporating data fusion and enterprise processing can be used for producing high-accuracy, high-resolution maps for large geographic extents. These maps are designed specifically for practical application by planning and regulatory end users who expect not only high accuracy but also high realism and visual coherence.
Indole Alkaloids from Fischerella Inhibit Vertebrate Development in the Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Embryo Model
Authors: Walton Katherine , Gantar Miroslav , Gibbs Patrick , Schmale Michael , Berry John
Published: December 2014

Cyanobacteria are recognized producers of toxic or otherwise bioactive metabolite associated, in particular, with so-called “harmful algal blooms” (HABs) and eutrophication of freshwater systems. In the present study, two apparently teratogenic indole alkaloids from a freshwater strain of the widespread cyanobacterial genus, Fischerella (Stigonemataceae), were isolated by bioassay-guided fractionation, specifically using the zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryo, as a model of vertebrate development. The two alkaloids include the previously known 12-epi-hapalindole H isonitrile (1), and a new nitrile-containing variant, 12-epi-ambiguine B nitrile (2). Although both compounds were toxic to developing embryos, the former compound was shown to be relatively more potent, and to correlate best with the observed embryo toxicity. Related indole alkaloids from Fischerella, and other genera in the Stigonemataceae, have been widely reported as antimicrobial compounds, specifically in association with apparent allelopathy. However, this is the first report of their vertebrate toxicity, and the observed teratogenicity of these alkaloids supports a possible contribution to the toxicity of this widespread cyanobacterial family, particularly in relation to freshwater HABs and eutrophication.
Progressive Adaptation of a CpGV Isolate to Codling Moth Populations Resistant to CpGV-M
Authors: Graillot Benoît , Berling Marie , Blachere-López Christine , Siegwart Myriam , Besse Samantha , López-Ferber Miguel
Published: December 2014

The NPP-R1 isolate of CpGV is able to replicate on CpGV-M-resistant codling moths. However, its efficacy is not sufficient to provide acceptable levels of control in natural (orchard) conditions. A laboratory colony derived from resistant codling moths was established, which exhibited a homogeneous genetic background and a resistance level more than 7000 fold. By successive cycles of replication of NPP-R1 in this colony, we observed a progressive increase in efficacy. After 16 cycles (isolate 2016-r16), the efficacy of the virus isolate was equivalent to that of CpGV-M on susceptible insects. This isolate was able to control both CpGV-M-susceptible and CpGV-M-resistant insects with similar efficacy. No reduction in the levels of occlusion body production in susceptible larvae was observed for 2016-r16 compared to CpGV-M.
Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycan: An Arbovirus Attachment Factor Integral to Mosquito Salivary Gland Ducts
Authors: Ciano Kristen , Saredy Jason , Bowers Doria
Published: December 2014

Variants of the prototype Alphavirus, Sindbis (SINV), were used in per os infections of adult female mosquitoes to investigate arbovirus interaction with the salivary gland (SG). Infection of Aedine mosquitoes with AR339, a heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG)-dependent variant, resulted in gross pathology in the SG lateral lobes while infection with TR339, a HSPG-independent variant, resulted in minimal SG pathology. HSPG was detected in the internal ducts of the SG lateral lobes by immunolabeling but not in the median lobe, or beyond the triad structure and external ducts. Reports that human lactoferrin interacts with HSPG, suggested an interference with virus attachment to receptors on vertebrate cells. Pre-incubation of Aedes albopictus cultured C7-10 cells with bovine lactoferrin (bLF) followed by adsorption of SINV resulted in earlier and greater intensity of cytopathic response to TR339 compared with AR339. Following pre-treatment of C7-10 cells with bLF, plaques from tissue culture-adapted high-titer SINVTaV-GFP-TC were observed at 48 h post-infection (p.i.), while plaques from low-titer SINVTaV-GFP-TC were not observed until 120 h p.i. Confocal optics detected this reporter virus at 30 days p.i. in the SG proximal lateral lobe, a region of HSPG-immunolocalization. Altogether these data suggest an association between SINV and HSPG in the host mosquito.
High-frequency multimodal atomic force microscopy
Authors: Nievergelt Adrian P , Adams Jonathan D , Odermatt Pascal D , Fantner Georg E
Published: December 2014

Multifrequency atomic force microscopy imaging has been recently demonstrated as a powerful technique for quickly obtaining information about the mechanical properties of a sample. Combining this development with recent gains in imaging speed through small cantilevers holds the promise of a convenient, high-speed method for obtaining nanoscale topography as well as mechanical properties. Nevertheless, instrument bandwidth limitations on cantilever excitation and readout have restricted the ability of multifrequency techniques to fully benefit from small cantilevers. We present an approach for cantilever excitation and deflection readout with a bandwidth of 20 MHz, enabling multifrequency techniques extended beyond 2 MHz for obtaining materials contrast in liquid and air, as well as soft imaging of delicate biological samples.
Redox active dendronized polystyrenes equipped with peripheral triarylamines
Authors: Nokami Toshiki , Musya Naoki , Morofuji Tatsuya , Takeda Keiji , Takumi Masahiro , Shimizu Akihiro , Yoshida Jun-ichi
Published: December 2014

Dendronized polystyrene having peripheral bromo groups was prepared from the dendronization of unfunctionalized polystyrene with dendritic diarylcarbenium ions bearing peripheral bromo groups using the “cation pool” method. The palladium-catalyzed amination of the peripheral bromo groups with diarylamine gave dendronized polystyrene equipped with peripheral triarylamines, which exhibited two sets of reversible redox peaks in the cyclic voltammetry curves.
MEASUREMENT OF INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL OF LITHUANIAN CITIES BY A COMPOSITE INDEX
Authors: Krušinskas Rytis , Bruneckienė Jurgita
Published: December 2014

The article comprises analysis of theoretical and practical aspects of measurement of the city's intellectual capital. This article includes analysis of the intellectual capital concept and possibilities of its application at the city level, generalization of the organization intellectual capital models and principles, which, considering the macro-level context and overview of tendencies of economic growth, are applied for measurement of intellectual capital of the city. The newly created city's intellectual capital balance index is presented. The empirical application of the method proved that it is an appropriate tool for the measurement of the city's intellectual capital within a country, which corresponds to the second level NUTS of the European Union. This article is one of the ambitions to promote the methodological background for urban governance and improvement of intellectual capital as well as competitiveness of Lithuanian cities. The city's intellectual capital balance index can be used as the tool for assessment of efficiency and timeliness of the urban and national development strategies, also as the tool for publicity for innovation, creativity and “smartness” of the city or the whole country.
EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FIRM SIZE AND EXTERNAL ADVICE ON LEGAL MATTERS AND HUMAN RESOURCES BY FAMILY BUSINESSES
Authors: Benito-Hernández Sonia , López-Cózar-Navarro Cristina , Priede-Bergamini Tiziana
Published: December 2014

In this paper the authors study the relationship between the use of external advice and the size of a Spanish family business, focusing especially on the advice on legal matters and human resources, due to the importance of these particular issues for family firms. To fulfill this objective, an in-depth review of the literature has been performed, as well as an empirical study. The results show that a family nature of business has a positive impact in the use of human resources management external advice. Nevertheless, for legal advice no relationship can be found. Finally, in line with the literature and the results of the analysis, no positive relationship has been found between family business size and the use of external advice, in comparison to the results for companies in general. The scarcity of published work about the issue and the results obtained, especially those related to the use of legal advice for family business managers, make this paper useful for researchers and businesses managers.
QUATERNARY INTERGLACIAL SEDIMENTS AS POSSIBLE NATURAL SOURCES OF ARSENIC AND MOLYBDENUM ANOMALIES IN STREAM SEDIMENTS IN LITHUANIA
Authors: ZINKUTĖ Rimantė , BALTRŪNAS Valentinas , TARAŠKEVIČIUS Ričardas , KARMAZA Bronislavas , STAKĖNIENĖ Rimutė , ŠEIRIENĖ Vaida , KISIELIENĖ Dalia
Published: December 2014

Geochemical investigations were conducted on Quaternary interglacial sediments in order to reveal if they can be a natural source of 10 potentially harmful chemical elements: As, Ba, Cr, Cu, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, V and Zn. Determination of the total contents of elements in 680 samples was performed by EDXRF analysis. The content of Ni, Cu, Pb, Ba in all analyzed samples was lower than maximum permissible concentrations (MPC) for soil, the content of Zn, V, Cr, Mn exceeded MPC values only in several samples (≤4%). The highest percentage of anomalous samples where MPC was exceeded was characteristic of Mo (21%) and As (12.6%). Therefore, interglacial sediments, especially enriched in organic matter and other sorbents, comprise one of the possible natural sources of Mo and As. It is probable that they contribute to As and Mo anomalies in stream sediments in Lithuania.
SHOCKING CONTENTS IN SOCIAL AND COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING / ŠOKIRUOJANTYS TURINIAI SOCIALINĖJE IR KOMERCINĖJE REKLAMOJE
Authors: Skorupa Pavel
Published: December 2014

The current paper presents an analysis of the concept of advertising and its functions in the present-day world. Three prime advertising functions have been singled out: the informative or communicative, economic and social. In addition, the impact of advertising on the consumer is discussed based on seven main appeals (fear, humour, sex, music, rationality, emotions, scarcity) used by advertisers when targeting feelings and emotions of an audience. Moreover, the paper presents and defines the concept of shocking advertising as well as analyses the aims of its use. One of the main purposes of shocking advertising is to draw the attention of the target audience to the advertising message. It is rather frequent that shocking content – disgusting images, sexual reference, profanity/ obscenity, vulgarity, impropriety, moral offensiveness and religious taboos – is presented and described.
Straipsnyje analizuojama reklamos sąvoka ir nagrinėjamos funkcijos, kurias reklama atlieka šiuolaikiniame pasaulyje. Išskiriamos trys pagrindinės reklamos funkcijos – informacinė, arba komunikacinė, ir ekonominė bei socialinė. Taip pat aptariamas reklamos poveikis vartotojui, aprašomos septynios reklamos apeliacijos (baimė, humoras, seksas, muzika, racionalumas, emocijos ir stygius), kurias naudoja reklamos kūrėjai, taikydamiesi į tikslinės reklamos auditorijos jausmus ir emocijas. Be to, šiame darbe didelis dėmesys skiriamas šokiruojančiai reklamai ir jos sąvokos apibrėžimui, analizuojamos šokiruojančios reklamos naudojimo priežastys, kurių viena pagrindinių yra tikslinės auditorijos dėmesio patraukimas į reklaminį pranešimą. Nagrinėjami ir aprašomi dažniausiai komercinėje ir socialinėje reklamoje naudojami šoką sukeliantys turiniai, tokie kaip bjaurūs vaizdai, seksualinės užuominos, nešvankybės, cinizmas, vulgarumas, nepadorumas, moralinių normų pažeidimai ir religiniai tabu.
Diversional and Physical Nonpharmacological Interventions for Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia
Authors: Fitzsimmons Suzanne , Barba Beth , Stump Maria
Published: December 2014

This article is the last of a four-part series addressing the use of non-pharmacological interventions for older adults with behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). These types of interventions are used to prevent, lessen, or eliminate BPSD, thereby reducing patient reliance on psychoactive medications. These interventions are easy to use, cost-effective, and simple to implement. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ psychoactive medication reduction initiative encourages all staff to use nonpharmacological interventions to manage BPSD. As with any attempt to handle BPSD, health care professionals and staff need a tool-box of interventions, as what works one day may not work the next and what works with one older adult may not work with another. This article describes the categories of diversional and physical nonpharmalogical interventions, presents the evidence supporting their use, and provides information on effective implementation. [
Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 41
(2), 8–17.]
A Binary Cuckoo Search Algorithm for Graph Coloring Problem
Authors: Djelloul Halima , Layeb Abdesslem , Chikhi Salim
Published: December 2014

The Graph Coloring Problem (GCP) is one of the most interesting, studied, and difficult combinatorial optimization problems. That is why several approaches were developed for solving this problem, including exact approaches, heuristic approaches, metaheuristics, and hybrid approaches. This paper tries to solve the graph coloring problem using a discrete binary version of cuckoo search algorithm. To show the feasibility and the effectiveness of the algorithm, it has used the standard DIMACS benchmark, and the obtained results are very encouraging.
Decreasing the Digital Divide by Increasing E-Innovation and E-Readiness Abilities in Agriculture and Rural Areas
Authors: Herdon Miklós , Botos Szilvia , Várallyai László
Published: December 2014

Technologies and skills in the ICT sector have rapidly advanced in the past forty years, but the profession has not kept up with this process. Unfortunately, poorly qualified colleagues are even found in sector today. The EU ensures that the knowledge, skills and creativity of the European workforce (including ICT practitioners) meet the highest standards, by using effective lifelong learning. ICT programs offer workers the full advantage of strategic and operational opportunities. More and better qualified ICT practitioners and e-skilled managers are needed to take advantage of them. That is why e-skills are a central aspect of European policies, which increase the competitiveness and productivity of the workforce. Education providers, government and industries have to collaborate to accomplish these goals. Important factors of the digital divide are networking, internet penetration and services, as well as e-skills on all levels. This research and developments focus on the discovery of the differences in the e-readiness and developing of education programs in agri-informatics to reduce the digital gaps in agriculture and rural areas. In the first part of the article, the usage of network services were evaluated on two regional levels. On the national level, it analyzed the EU member states, in order to compare their actual development level. On a micro-regional level, the SMEs of a typical rural settlement were evaluated, since within the functional analysis, the evaluation of rural regions has grown in importance and, with regard to territory and population, Hungary is mainly classified as a rural area. 106 enterprises were involved in this study and the data collected during the research were derived by Principal Component and Cluster analyses. Farms consider network services to be unnecessary because of the nature of their work, even though most of the factors included in the analysis were considered important or expressly important by service and commercial enterprises, regardless of the applications they use. The second part of the article presents those educational tools which could increase the e-readiness of SMEs and principally aid agricultural enterprises.
The Effects of Cloud Approach in Short Chain Administration
Authors: Contò Francesco , Faccilongo Nicola , La Sala Piermichele
Published: December 2014

This work aims at analyzing the characteristics of supply chain, focusing in particular on the short chain. Further, it highlights the weaknesses and strengths of this form of business organization and industry. This analysis will proceed by explaining the new forms of management of the organization by means of the latest IT innovations focusing on the “cloud” and the role that they can play in improving processes and market information. It will also highlight how the use of these technologies can reduce the organizational gap as strategically illustrated in the first part and how they can help in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the supply chain processes that are already positive.
Factors Affecting Customers' Perceptions and Firms' Decisions Concerning Online Fast Food Ordering
Authors: Papaioannou Eugenia , Georgiadis Christos K. , Moshidis Odysseas , Manitsaris Athanasios
Published: December 2014

This study aims to research issues such as e-commerce potentials in the fast food industries, the acceptance of e-commerce alternatives by the consumers and the collaboration between businesses and customers. The purpose of this paper is to examine firstly the industries' use of electronic ordering and their experiences on the deployment of e-commerce technologies. Secondly, the current study investigates consumers' views about and factors affecting the use of those distribution channels. The paper's aim is accomplished through an empirical investigation of a sample of 767 students, examining buyers' attitudes and perception levels towards online fast food ordering and 260 Greek fast food firms, examining their use of electronic ordering and their experiences. Cluster analysis was first employed for profiling online users in Greece and for grouping the firms based on their characteristics. Secondly, factor analysis was utilized in order to examine the critical factors affecting students' decision towards online fast food ordering and to examine the factors influences industries' use of electronic ordering. The findings indicate that Greek consumers seem to pay more attention in cost issues and in special offers and Greek firms are more interested in their reputation and the appeal online orders have on their customers.
Virtual Reality as Analgesia
Authors: Nazemi Mark , Gromala Diane , Karamnejad Mehdi
Published: December 2014

This paper introduces a multidisciplinary and interactive approach to self-management of chronic pain using Virtual Reality (VR). This approach is meant to reduce the reliance on heavy use of medication and provide a non-pharmacological method for pain management. In addition, the paper discusses additional technologies that deal with issues surrounding immersion, presence, and interface design that directly impact the quality of treatment patients can obtain through VR therapy. A set of guidelines are also included that signify the importance of using biofeedback and interactive sound design to help improve rehabilitation and meditation practices for pain reduction.
Drivers of Cloud Computing Adoption for E-Government Services Implementation
Authors: Mohammed Fathey , Ibrahim Othman Bin
Published: December 2014

Adopting and using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the public sector affords undeniable benefits in terms of efficient and cost-effective provision of services, facilitating public management and promoting transparency and participation through e-government systems. However, many governments around the globe face many challenges and still struggle to implement e-government initiatives successfully. Cloud computing may offer a new chance to address many of these challenges by providing elastic scalable, customized, and highly available environment. Moreover, it is already adopted and proved to be advantageous for governmental institutions in different countries. By analyzing some cases, this paper extracts the main drivers of cloud computing adoption in the public sector organizations. Cost saving and the need for scalability are the main common factors that drive public sector organizations to move their services to the cloud.
The Effect of Real Workloads and Synthetic Workloads on the Performance of Job Scheduling for Non-Contiguous Allocation in 2D Mesh Multicomputers
Authors: Bani-Mohammad Saad
Published: December 2014

The performance of non-contiguous allocation has been traditionally carried out by means of simulations based on synthetic workloads, and also it can be significantly affected by the job scheduling strategy used for determining the order in which jobs are selected for execution. To validate the performance of the non-contiguous allocation algorithms, there has been a need to evaluate the algorithm's performance based on a real workload trace. In this paper, the performance of the well-known Greedy Available Busy List (GABL) non-contiguous allocation strategy for 2D mesh-connected multicomputers is revisited considering several important job scheduling strategies based on a real workload trace, and the results are compared to those obtained from using a synthetic workload. The scheduling strategies used are the First-Come-First-Served (FCFS), Out-of-Order (OO), and Window-Based job scheduling strategies. These strategies have been selected because they are common and they have been used in related works (Ababneh & Bani-Mohammad, 2011). Extensive simulation results based on synthetic and real workload models indicate that the Window-Based job scheduling strategy can improve both overall system performance and fairness (i.e., maximum job waiting delays) by adopting a large job scheduling window. Moreover, the relative performance merits of the scheduling strategies when a real workload trace is used are in general compatible with those obtained when a synthetic workload is used.
Scope of Biogeography Based Optimization for Economic Load Dispatch and Multi-Objective Unit Commitment Problem
Authors: Kamboj Vikram Kumar , Bath S.K.
Published: December 2014

Biogeography Based Optimization (BBO) algorithm is a population-based algorithm based on biogeography concept, which uses the idea of the migration strategy of animals or other spices for solving optimization problems. Biogeography Based Optimization algorithm has a simple procedure to find the optimal solution for the non-smooth and non-convex problems through the steps of migration and mutation. This research paper presents the solution to Economic Load Dispatch Problem for IEEE 3, 4, 6 and 10-unit generating model using Biogeography Based Optimization algorithm. It also presents the mathematical formulation of scalar and multi-objective unit commitment problem, which is a further extension of economic load dispatch problem.
YouTube as a Teacher Training Tool
Authors: Copper Jenna , Semich George
Published: December 2014

High-stakes student testing, accountability for students' outcomes, new educational trends, and revised curricula and standards are only a few of the reasons that teachers must learn to teach complex material with skilled and intentional practices. As a result, professional development for educators is in critical demand. Nevertheless, research in the field of professional development indicates that most teachers do not experience effective teacher training (Desimone et al., 2002; Guskey, 2002). Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to examine one professional development opportunity using the video-sharing tool, YouTube, as a training modality for in-servicing teachers. For this study, the researchers conducted interviews with six teachers currently teaching in Western Pennsylvania to analyze their perceptions about the YouTube teacher training method. The results of the study indicated that the YouTube training tool is a quality training tool to assist teachers in the implementation of higher-order teaching strategies. Additionally, the results indicated that YouTube training videos could reinforce in-person training.
A Linguistic Approach to Identify the Affective Dimension Expressed in Textual Messages
Authors: Rigo Sandro José , Alves Isa Mara da Rosa , Barbosa Jorge Luis Victória
Published: December 2014

The digital mediation resources used in Distance Education can hinder the teacher's perception about the student's state of mind. However, the textual expression in natural language is widely encouraged in most Distance Education courses, through the use of Virtual Learning Environments and other digital tools. This fact has motivated research efforts in order to identify feelings expressed by students in textual messages. A significant part of the known approaches in this area apply textual analysis without a deep linguistic representation, which can lead to some weakness in the results obtained. This paper reports an approach using theories of Computational Lexical Semantics for the representation of the lexicon of emotion. The methodology was developed through studies regarding corpus analysis, lexical unit description, and the implementation of a computational system to identify the feelings expressed in the textual messages in natural language, using the lexicon of emotion. This system was used in evaluation experiments that indicate improvements when comparing the adopted approach with other similar approaches.
An Event-Driven Platform for Agility Management of Crisis Response
Authors: Barthe-Delanoë Anne-Marie , Carbonnel Sabine , Bénaben Frédérick , Pingaud Hervé
Published: December 2014

This article aims at presenting a whole approach of Information System Interoperability management in a crisis management cell: a Mediation Information System (MIS) may be used to help the crisis cell partners to design, run and manage the workflows of the response to a crisis situation. The architecture of the MIS meets the needs of low coupling between the partners' Information System components and the need of agility for such a platform. It is based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) principles that are combined to the Complex Event Processing (CEP) principles. This should leads on the one hand to an easier orchestration, choreography and real-time monitoring of the workflows' activities, on the other hand to assume on-the-fly automated agility of the crisis response (considering agility as the ability of the processes to remain consistent with the response to the crisis).
A Semantic-Based Approach for Context-Aware Service Discovery
Authors: Grifoni Patrizia , D'Ulizia Arianna , Ferri Fernando
Published: December 2014

The increasingly growing number of services available on the web, along with advances in information and communication technologies, has given rise to the development of new approaches for service discovery, devoted to retrieve services advertised by a service provider and satisfying users requests. Traditional service discovery attempts are devoted to enable a matching between advertised service names and the keywords of the user request. Some of these methods use also semantic approaches, however an improvement in terms of precision has been obtained with the adoption of a semantic-based approach, together with the use of contextual information. This research aims at facing the problem of discovering context-aware services by proposing a semantic similarity model for enabling the matching between advertisements and requests personalized according to the context information (such as user position, user preferences, available resources). The method proposed has been validated by performing a set of experiments for evaluating the recall and precision of the method.
An Innovative Design Approach to New Service Development Learning Processes
Authors: Rozenes Shai , Kukliansky Ida
Published: December 2014

The new service development discipline is expanding within many business activities. This discipline can facilitate strivings toward successful accomplishment of a sustainable entrepreneurship. Therefore, many academic institutes teach courses within this domain. This study presents a novel approach that educates engineering students to become successful entrepreneurs based on contextual learning. This approach embeds a practical project within the academic program. The student has to implement the academic know-how into the embedded project. The study utilizes a quantitative tool to measure the students' response to the approach. The results indicate that the students were satisfied with the approach.
A Simulation Framework for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Chronic Disease Management Interventions
Authors: Diaz Rafael , Behr Joshua G.
Published: December 2014

The treatment and management of chronic diseases currently comprise a major fraction of the United States' healthcare expenditures. These expenses are projected to increase as the US population ages. Utilization of the ambulatory healthcare system stemming from chronic conditions has been seen as contributory factor in the rising expenditures. Efforts to better manage chronic conditions ought to result in better health outcomes and, by extension, savings through lower utilization of ambulatory services. The longer-term financial consequences of such interventions, however, are more uncertain. This study offers a System Dynamics simulation framework that identifies and models the critical relationships associated with health outcomes and longer-term financial consequences. This framework is demonstrated through a comparison between groups with a similar generic chronic condition, but one group is subjected to a management intervention and the other group is not. The framework provides constructive insights into how the initial intervention cost estimates, the resulting savings, and the health status may change depending on uncertainties, feedback effects, and cost structures.
Research in Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) (2000 – 2010)
Authors: Shahsavarani Narges , Ji Shaobo
Published: December 2014

In information systems (IS) research, Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) has become a popular research area among IS and management researchers as a result of industry push and the development and advancement of research in service sciences. From academic perspective, a growing number of papers have been published addressing many aspects of ITSM issues. This paper presents the results based on a study of comprehensive review of publications in ITSM from 2000 to 2010. A total of 152 research papers from leading information systems (IS) journals and conference proceedings were identified, categorized and analyzed from the perspectives of reference discipline, theoretical foundation, research method, level of analysis, and research topic. The findings suggest five primary conclusions: 1) there is generally a lack of theoretically driven researches; 2) the field is still improving, with a growing number of published papers dealing with the development of concepts, constructs, models, methods and implementations for theory formalization; 3) ITSM performance issues, justifications, and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) topics are among the most popular topics of research; 4) ITSM researchers do not seem to consider research at an individual level; 5) the most popular research method was the conceptual orientation. Recommendations for future research in ITSM are presented and articulated.
A New Service Mediator For Human Resource Management
Authors: Doan Minh Chau , Le Nguyen Dinh , Kosaka Michitaka
Published: December 2014

Service science has recently been focused on and this has encouraged both economic activities and research. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of the concept of a mediator model that was Service Dominant Logic (SDL) oriented in Human Resource Management (HRM) to attain service value co-creation between employers and employees. A hypothesis has been anticipated from the literature to propose the concept of an SDL mediator for HRM. Consequently, a case study on a municipal hospital in Ishikawa prefecture (Japan) was undertaken to demonstrate the usefulness of the new model. The authors found that HRM as an SDL mediator was positively related to the support of value co-creation within organizations. HRM also fostered the relationship between management and staff by organizing and managing the service field for collaboration. Perceived communications and feedback won the trust and commitment of employees. Further, the motivation and knowledge of employees was also shared with employers through HRM. Therefore, the mediating role of HRM was considerable in collaboration. This study demonstrated how the concept of the SDL service mediator supported knowledge sharing and understanding, which thus led to mutual value co-creation.
Syntactic Pattern Based Word Alignment for Statistical Machine Translation
Authors: Quang-Hung LE  , Anh-Cuong LE
Published: December 2014

Word alignment is the task of aligning bilingual words in a corpus of parallel sentences, and determining the probabilities for these aligned bilingual word pairs. It is the most important factor affecting the quality of any Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) systems. The IBM word alignment models are most well-known in the SMT research community. These models are pure statistical models and therefore they are not good for some language pairs which have differences in linguistic aspects (e.g. grammatical structures). This paper aims to improve the IBM models by using syntactic information. The authors first propose a new type of constraint based on bilingual syntactic patterns, and then integrate it into the IBM models. Finally, they show how to estimate the models' parameters using this new type of constraint. The experiments are conducted on the English-Vietnamese language pair for evaluation.
A Novel Time Series Forecasting Approach Considering Data Characteristics
Authors: Tang Ling , Wang Shuai , Yu Lean
Published: December 2014

A novel time series forecasting approach with consideration of inner knowledge hidden in data, in terms of data characteristics, is proposed. In the proposed methodology, the main data characteristics hidden in the observed time series data are first explored; and according to the data characteristics, suitable forecasting models are formulated to improve prediction performance. For illustration, the proposed methodology is used to predict Chinese total social consumption and total energy consumption. The empirical results show the forecasting model considering data characteristics outperforms other popular forecasting models ignoring data characteristics, which further implies that data characteristics exploration is an important and necessary step in forecasting and the proposed methodology can be used as a promising approach for time series forecasting.
Development and Use of an EFL Reading Practice Application for an Android Tablet Computer
Authors: Ishikawa Yasushige , Smith Craig , Kondo Mutsumi , Akano Ichiro , Maher Kate , Wada Norihisa
Published: December 2014

This paper reports on the use of an English-language reading practice application for an Android tablet computer with students who are not native speakers of English. The application materials for vocabulary learning in reading-passage contexts were created to include words from a database of low-frequency and technical noun-verb collocations which occurred frequently in certain documents related to the study of international affairs. The learning materials were used in an English for specific purposes course intended to support the reading skill development of students studying international affairs at a university in Japan. Research showed that use of the learning materials had three positive influences on students' study behavior: the students' reading speed increased without a loss in comprehension; the students enjoyed the reading practice with the tablet computer; and they appreciated that the use of the tablet computer had merits that differed from reading practice in hard copy formats.
E-Tutor Perceptions towards the Star Rural Area E-Learning Project
Authors: Huang Chiung-Wei , Liu Eric Zhi Feng
Published: December 2014

The authors examine e-tutor perceptions of the star rural area e-learning project, service learning. The study employed 125 volunteer e-tutors twice per week for one semester. A survey found that e-tutors had the most positive perceptions towards teaching preparation. The results showed that only e-tutors from different grades reflected various perceptions of the star rural area e-learning project and no significant differences existed regarding genders, schools, and majors' perceptions. Integrating digital technology into teaching improves e-tutee abilities in information technology and balances the educational resources gap between city and county.
Explicit Knowledge Transfers in New Product Development
Authors: Acar William , Burns Alan T. , Datta Pratim
Published: December 2014

The literature on learning in new product development (NPD) documents the processes globally but is short on specifics. Knowledge levels are not clearly conceptualized, nor are there clear devices for documenting knowledge transfers in terms of knowledge levels. This paper presents the methods of a qualitative research approach for measuring knowledge transfer directly in terms of knowledge. The paper specifically addresses the commonly avoided dimension of knowledge, depth. The methods are derived from a real-life comparative case study exploring knowledge sharing in product development. Our focused interview approach has been refined to avoid unproductive digressions by the subjects and certain forms of bias, yet still obtain rich accounts of project events. Evidence of transfer obtained by the interviews is analysed in terms of three knowledge dimensions: scope, depth and action. Methods for aggregating and interpreting data are discussed and an operational flowchart for knowledge transfer coding is proposed.
Determinants of Audit Fees in Malaysia's Top 100 Listed Companies
Authors: Joshi Prem Lal , Deshmukh Ashutosh , Salleh Nik Mohamad Zaki Nik , Jaffar Nahariah
Published: December 2014

This paper examines the determinants of audit fees in a sample of top 100 companies listed in Bursa Stock Exchange in Malaysia; market capitalization of these companies is about 85% of the total market capitalization at the end of 2012. The authors collected data from the annual reports of the companies for the year 2012, and analyzed it using a multiple regression model. The authors report that firm size, profitability, and ownership structure are the main determinants of audit fees in Malaysia. Additionally, profitability shows a negative and significant relationship, which is also in line with findings of the most recent studies. The results also indicate that there is no Big 4 premium in audit fees in Malaysia; interestingly, the relationship though insignificant is negative. The adjusted R square is approximately 47% and there were no multicollinearity issues among the variables. The study makes an incremental contribution to the literature on audit fees in the Malaysian context.
Cultural Policy, Administration, and Info-Communication Landscape
Authors: Gantzias George K.
Published: December 2014

In the recent economic crisis, some of the most important and widely debated issues in the areas of digitalization of cultural policy and cultural management are the protection of cultural diversity, cultural rights, cultural freedom, cultural capital, and cultural goods (products and services). A new digital revolution is coming, this time not only in cultural management of cultural goods but also in the administration systems of cultural organizations and institutions. New technologies exert strong pressure on traditional cultural organizations and institutions to digitalize their cultural management and administration structures. This article examines and analyses cultural management, administration, new technologies, and info-communication globalization. In addition, it examines cultural heritage as a very important issue of cultural diversity in the info-communication landscape. It explores digitalisation of cultural management and administration structures and proposes a new dynamic cultural management model, the Info-Communication Cultural Management (ICCM).
Interpreting the Local Development through the History of the Place
Authors: Georges Sidiropoulos
Published: December 2014

The city of Nigrita is located in Visaltia, the valley of the Strymon, in Eastern Macedonia wich in the past was an active shareholder of Greek history. The text tries to explain the current situation through the time. The approach involves both the city of Nigrita -and Visaltia- the region in which it grows, from the time of first appearance until today. The town appears for the first time in the 15th century and quickly evolves into village and then in a strong town. In an area with a significant presence in Classical and Byzantine periods, the city meets the conditions to be established. The determining factor for its establishment is the change of traffic policy during the Ottomanic occupation, which choose the mountain shortcuts instead of the Roman style traffic through lowland axes. Developed ex nihilo, at the area of this node in the old Roman road system, the city of Nigrita serves one of the main intersections in the valley of Serres to Thessaloniki. Since then, the growth of the city is continuous until two decisive events in the early 20th century. The first one, concerns the change in traffic policy of New Greek State, which sets new routes that bypass the city. The second fact is linked with the transformation of Nigrita's geographical situation, decisively altered by the draining of lake Kerkinida, making the city part of a mandatory central corridor in a typical city in an open plain. Since then, the city has a very slow and declining growth, because of certain particularities and also the general situation of the Greek periphery. The text seeks to understand and interpret the present city, through data in-city and regional scale, attempting to study-specified cross sections in the historical geography of the place.