bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Product Comparison Networks for Competitive Analysis of Online Word-of-Mouth
Authors: Zhang Zhu , Guo Chenhui , Goes Paulo
Published: April 2014

Enabled by Web 2.0 technologies social media provide an unparalleled platform for consumers to share their product experiences and opinions---through word-of-mouth (WOM) or consumer reviews. It has become increasingly important to understand how WOM content and metrics thereof are related to consumer purchases and product sales. By integrating network analysis with text sentiment mining techniques, we propose product comparison networks as a novel construct, computed from consumer product reviews. To test the validity of these product ranking measures, we conduct an empirical study based on a digital camera dataset from Amazon.com. The results demonstrate significant linkage between network-based measures and product sales, which is not fully captured by existing review measures such as numerical ratings. The findings provide important insights into the business impact of social media and user-generated content, an emerging problem in business intelligence research. From a managerial perspective, our results suggest that WOM in social media also constitutes a competitive landscape for firms to understand and manipulate.
The Impact of SOA Implementation on IT-Business Alignment
Authors: Choi Jae , Nazareth Derek L. , Jain Hemant K.
Published: April 2014

With firms facing intense rivalry, globalization, and time-to-market pressures, the need for organizational agility assumes greater importance. One of the primary vehicles for achieving organizational agility is the use of agile information systems [IS] and the close alignment of information technologies [IT] with business. However, IS is often viewed as an impediment to organization agility. Recently, service-oriented architecture [SOA] has emerged as a prominent IS agility-enhancing technology. The fundamental question of how SOA can enhance organization agility and foster closer alignment between IT and business has not been adequately addressed. The dynamic interaction among external business environmental factors, organizational agility, and IS architecture makes the process of keeping IT and business aligned more complex. This study uses a design science approach to build a system dynamics model to examine the effect of employing alternative SOA implementation strategies in various organizational and external business environments on the IT business alignment and IS cost. The results provide insights into the shaping of IT-business alignment. Additionally, the system dynamics model serves as a tool for supporting managerial decisions related to SOA implementation.
Does Knowledge Management Matter? The Empirical Evidence from Market-Based Valuation
Authors: Wu Jiming , Holsapple Clyde W.
Published: April 2014

Information technology is inseparable from contemporary knowledge management (KM). Although anecdotal evidence and individual case studies suggest that effective knowledge management initiatives contribute to superior firm performance, other kinds of empirical investigations are scarce, and more to the point, most of them are based on perceptions of survey participants embedded in the firms being studied. Moreover, studies analyzing the question of whether superior KM performance can predict superior market-based valuation appear to be virtually nonexistent. Findings of such studies would be of value to those who champion and direct a firm’s KM efforts, and to the firm’s strategists, planners, and operational managers. Here, we empirically examine the relationship between KM performance and firm valuation; the former is assessed by international panels of independent KM experts and the latter is evaluated in terms of market-based measures. Based on data spanning eight years, the results show that superior KM performance has a statistically significant positive association with firm valuation in terms of Tobin’s
q
, price-to-book ratio, and price-to-sales ratio. This study contributes to the management literature by using independent expert judges and archival data to substantiate the notion that KM competencies are an important ingredient in a firm’s performance as indicated by market-based valuation.
Real Options and System Dynamics for Information Technology Investment Decisions
Authors: Kasiri Narges , Sharda Ramesh
Published: April 2014

We propose a unique combination of system dynamics and real options into a robust and innovative model for analyzing return on investments in IT. Real options modeling allows a cost benefit analysis to take into account managerial flexibilities when there is uncertainty in the investment, while system dynamics can build a predictive model, in which one can simulate different real-life and hypothetical scenarios in order to provide measurements that can be used in the real options model. Our return on the investment model combines these long-established quantitative techniques in a novel manner. This study applies this robust hybrid model to a challenging IT investment problem: adoption of RFID in retail. Item-level RFID is the next generation of identification technology in the retail sector. Our method can help managers to overcome the complexity and uncertainties in the investment timing of this technology. We analyze the RFID considerations in retail decision-making using real data compiled from a Delphi study. Our model demonstrates how the cost and benefits of such an investment change over time. The results highlight the variable cost of RFID tags as the key factor in the decision process concerning whether to immediately adopt or postpone the use of RFID in retail. Our exploratory work suggests that it is possible to combine merchandising and pricing issues in addition to the traditional supply chain management issues in studying any multifaceted problem in retail.
The “Mail-Order-Bride” (MOB) Phenomenon in the Cyberworld
Authors: Sarker Suprateek , Chakraborty Suranjan , Tansuhaj Patriya Silpakit , Mulder Mark , Dogerlioglu-Demir Kivilcim
Published: April 2014

Information technology (IT) is often an enabler in bringing people together. In the context of this study, IT helps connect matchmaking service providers with those looking for love, particularly when a male seeks to meet and possibly marry a female from another country: a process which results in over 16,500 such ‘mail-order-bride’ (MOB) marriages a year in the United States alone. Past research in business disciplines has been largely silent about the way in which this process unfolds, the perspectives of the participants at different points of time, and the role of IT underlying the MOB matchmaking service. Adopting an interpretivist stance, and utilizing some of the methodological guidelines associated with the Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM), we develop a process model which highlights: a) the key states of the process through which the relationship between the MOB seeker (the man) and the MOB (the woman) unfolds, b) the transitions between states, and c) the triggering conditions for the transitions from one state to another. This study also highlights key motivations of the individuals participating in the MOB process, the effect of power and the role it plays in the dynamics of the relationships, the status of women and how their status evolves during the MOB process, and the unique affordance provided by IT as the relationships evolve.
Predicting Stability of Open-Source Software Systems Using Combination of Bayesian Classifiers
Authors: Bouktif Salah , Sahraoui Houari , Ahmed Faheem
Published: April 2014

The use of free and Open-Source Software (OSS) systems is gaining momentum. Organizations are also now adopting OSS, despite some reservations, particularly about the quality issues. Stability of software is one of the main features in software quality management that needs to be understood and accurately predicted. It deals with the impact resulting from software changes and argues that stable components lead to a cost-effective software evolution. Changes are most common phenomena present in OSS in comparison to proprietary software. This makes OSS system evolution a rich context to study and predict stability. Our objective in this work is to build stability prediction models that are not only accurate but also interpretable, that is, able to explain the link between the architectural aspects of a software component and its stability behavior in the context of OSS. Therefore, we propose a new approach based on classifiers combination capable of preserving prediction interpretability. Our approach is classifier-structure dependent. Therefore, we propose a particular solution for combining Bayesian classifiers in order to derive a more accurate composite classifier that preserves interpretability. This solution is implemented using a genetic algorithm and applied in the context of an OSS large-scale system, namely the standard Java API. The empirical results show that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art approaches from both machine learning and software engineering.
Smart Health and Wellbeing
Authors: Yang Christopher C. , Leroy Gondy , Ananiadou Sophia
Published: April 2014

Healthcare informatics has drawn substantial attention in recent years. Current work on healthcare informatics is highly interdisciplinary involving methodologies from computing, engineering, information science, behavior science, management science, social science, as well as many different areas in medicine and public health. Three major tracks, (i) systems, (ii) analytics, and (iii) human factors, can be identified. The
systems
track focuses on healthcare system architecture, framework, design, engineering, and application; the
analytics
track emphasizes data/information processing, retrieval, mining, analytics, as well as knowledge discovery; the
human factors
track targets the understanding of users or context, interface design, and user studies of healthcare applications. In this article, we discuss some of the latest development and introduce several articles selected for this special issue. We envision that the development of computing-oriented healthcare informatics research will continue to grow rapidly. The integration of different disciplines to advance the healthcare and wellbeing of our society will also be accelerated.
Postmarketing Drug Safety Surveillance Using Publicly Available Health-Consumer-Contributed Content in Social Media
Authors: Yang Christopher C. , Yang Haodong , Jiang Ling
Published: April 2014

Postmarketing drug safety surveillance is important because many potential adverse drug reactions cannot be identified in the premarketing review process. It is reported that about 5% of hospital admissions are attributed to adverse drug reactions and many deaths are eventually caused, which is a serious concern in public health. Currently, drug safety detection relies heavily on voluntarily reporting system, electronic health records, or relevant databases. There is often a time delay before the reports are filed and only a small portion of adverse drug reactions experienced by health consumers are reported. Given the popularity of social media, many health social media sites are now available for health consumers to discuss any health-related issues, including adverse drug reactions they encounter. There is a large volume of health-consumer-contributed content available, but little effort has been made to harness this information for postmarketing drug safety surveillance to supplement the traditional approach. In this work, we propose the association rule mining approach to identify the association between a drug and an adverse drug reaction. We use the alerts posted by Food and Drug Administration as the gold standard to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach. The result shows that the performance of harnessing health-related social media content to detect adverse drug reaction is good and promising.
Efficient Index-Based Snippet Generation
Authors: Bast Hannah , Celikik Marjan
Published: April 2014

Ranked result lists with query-dependent snippets have become state of the art in text search. They are typically implemented by searching, at query time, for occurrences of the query words in the top-ranked documents. This
document-based
approach has three inherent problems: (i) when a document is indexed by terms which it does not contain literally (e.g., related words or spelling variants), localization of the corresponding snippets becomes problematic; (ii) each query operator (e.g., phrase or proximity search) has to be implemented twice, on the index side in order to compute the correct result set, and on the snippet-generation side to generate the appropriate snippets; and (iii) in a worst case, the whole document needs to be scanned for occurrences of the query words, which could be problematic for very long documents.

We present a new
index-based
method that localizes snippets by information solely computed from the index and that overcomes all three problems. Unlike previous index-based methods, we show how to achieve this at essentially no extra cost in query processing time, by a technique we call
operator inversion
. We also show how our index-based method allows the caching of individual segments instead of complete documents, which enables a significantly larger cache hit-ratio as compared to the document-based approach. We have fully integrated our implementation with the CompleteSearch engine.
Modeling Term Associations for Probabilistic Information Retrieval
Authors: Zhao Jiashu , Huang Jimmy Xiangji , Ye Zheng
Published: April 2014

Traditionally, in many probabilistic retrieval models, query terms are assumed to be independent. Although such models can achieve reasonably good performance, associations can exist among terms from a human being’s point of view. There are some recent studies that investigate how to model term associations/dependencies by proximity measures. However, the modeling of term associations theoretically under the probabilistic retrieval framework is still largely unexplored. In this article, we introduce a new concept
cross term
, to model term proximity, with the aim of boosting retrieval performance. With cross terms, the association of multiple query terms can be modeled in the same way as a simple unigram term. In particular, an occurrence of a query term is assumed to have an impact on its neighboring text. The degree of the query-term impact gradually weakens with increasing distance from the place of occurrence. We use shape functions to characterize such impacts. Based on this assumption, we first propose a bigram CRoss TErm Retrieval (
CRTER
2
) model as the basis model, and then recursively propose a generalized n-gram CRoss TErm Retrieval (
CRTER
n
) model for n query terms, where
n
> 2. Specifically, a bigram cross term occurs when the corresponding query terms appear close to each other, and its impact can be modeled by the intersection of the respective shape functions of the query terms. For an n-gram cross term, we develop several distance metrics with different properties and employ them in the proposed models for ranking. We also show how to extend the language model using the newly proposed cross terms. Extensive experiments on a number of TREC collections demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed models.
Online 3D Gaze Localization on Stereoscopic Displays
Authors: Wang Rui I. , Pelfrey Brandon , Duchowski Andrew T. , House Donald H.
Published: April 2014

This article summarizes our previous work on developing an online system to allow the estimation of 3D gaze depth using eye tracking in a stereoscopic environment. We report on recent extensions allowing us to report the full 3D gaze position. Our system employs a 3D calibration process that determines the parameters of a mapping from a naive depth estimate, based simply on triangulation, to a refined 3D gaze point estimate tuned to a particular user. We show that our system is an improvement on the geometry-based 3D gaze estimation returned by a proprietary algorithm provided with our tracker. We also compare our approach with that of the
Parameterized Self-Organizing Map
(PSOM) method, due to Essig and colleagues, which also individually calibrates to each user. We argue that our method is superior in speed and ease of calibration, is easier to implement, and does not require an iterative solver to produce a gaze position, thus guaranteeing computation at the rate of tracker acquisition. In addition, we report on a user study that indicates that, compared with PSOM, our method more accurately estimates gaze depth, and is nearly as accurate in estimating horizontal and vertical position. Results are verified on two different 4D eye tracking systems, a high accuracy Wheatstone haploscope and a medium accuracy active stereo display. Thus, it is the recommended method for applications that primarily require gaze depth information, while its ease of use makes it suitable for many applications requiring full 3D gaze position.
Improving Transparency in Teleoperation by Means of Cutaneous Tactile Force Feedback
Authors: Pacchierotti Claudio , Tirmizi Asad , Prattichizzo Domenico
Published: April 2014

A study on the role of cutaneous and kinesthetic force feedback in teleoperation is presented. Cutaneous cues provide less transparency than kinesthetic force, but they do not affect the stability of the teleoperation system. On the other hand, kinesthesia provides a compelling illusion of telepresence but affects the stability of the haptic loop. However, when employing common grounded haptic interfaces, it is not possible to independently control the cutaneous and kinesthetic components of the interaction. For this reason, many control techniques ensure a stable interaction by scaling down both kinesthetic and cutaneous force feedback, even though acting on the cutaneous channel is not necessary.

We discuss here the feasibility of a novel approach. It aims at improving the realism of the haptic rendering, while preserving its stability, by modulating cutaneous force to compensate for a lack of kinesthesia. We carried out two teleoperation experiments, evaluating (1) the role of cutaneous stimuli when reducing kinesthesia and (2) the extent to which an overactuation of the cutaneous channel can fully compensate for a lack of kinesthetic force feedback. Results showed that, to some extent, it is possible to compensate for a lack of kinesthesia with the aforementioned technique, without significant performance degradation. Moreover, users showed a high comfort level in using the proposed system.
Improved cardiac function and dietary fatty acid metabolism after modest weight loss in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance
Authors: Labbé Sébastien M. , Noll Christophe , Grenier-Larouche Thomas , Kunach Margaret , Bouffard Lucie , Phoenix Serge , Guérin Brigitte , Baillargeon Jean-Patrice , Langlois Marie-France , Turcotte Eric E. , Carpentier André C.
Published: April 2014

Using a novel positron emission tomography (PET) method with oral administration of 14( R, S)-[18F]-fluoro-6-thia-heptadecanoic acid (18FTHA), we recently demonstrated that subjects with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) display an impairment in cardiac function associated with increased myocardial uptake of dietary fatty acids. Here, we determined whether modest weight loss induced by lifestyle changes might improve these cardiac metabolic and functional abnormalities. Nine participants with IGT, enrolled in a one-year lifestyle intervention trial, were invited to undergo determination of organ-specific postprandial dietary fatty acids partition using the oral 18FTHA method, and cardiac function and oxidative metabolic index using PET [11C]acetate kinetics with ECG-gated PET ventriculography before and after the intervention. The intervention resulted in significant weight loss and reduction of waist circumference, with reduced postprandial plasma glucose, insulin, and triglycerides excursion. We observed a significant increase in stroke volume, cardiac output, and left ventricular ejection fraction associated with reduced myocardial oxidative metabolic index and fractional dietary fatty acid uptake. Modest weight loss corrects the exaggerated myocardial channeling of dietary fatty acids and improves myocardial energy substrate metabolism and function in IGT subjects.
Zoledronic Acid Elicits Proinflammatory Cytokine Profile in Osteolytic Prostate Cancer Cells
Authors: Lin Yi-Chia , Liao Po-Cheng , Tsai Te-Fu , Chou Kuang-Yu , Chen Hung-En , Lin Ji-Fan , Hwang Thomas I-Sheng
Published: April 2014

Zoledronic acid (ZA), a bisphosphonate used to prevent skeletal fractures in patients with cancers, was demonstrated to induce apoptosis in a number of cancer cells. Our previous study showed that ZA also induces autophagic cell death in metastatic prostate cancer cells. However, the clinical trials using ZA in the treatment of metastatic prostate cancer did not have a longer diseases-free period. Since most of ZA was attracted to the bone after administration, we hypothesized that local prostate cancer cells may evolve prosurvival pathways upon low concentration of ZA treatment. In this study, we investigated the inflammatory effects of ZA on osteolytic PC3 prostate cancer cell, since inflammation was reported to be related to cancer development and survival. Exposure of PC3 cells to various concentrations of ZA resulted in induction of apoptosis and autophagy. The expression of inflammatory biomarkers including interleukin 6 (IL-6), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and NF-κB was remarkably upregulated in response to ZA treatment in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The production of IL-6 was elevated upon ZA treatment. The antiapoptotic protein Bcl2 was increased with parallel increased level of IL-6. Our data suggest that treatment with low concentrations of ZA enhances the inflammatory profile and may serve as a prosurvival signaling pathway in PC3 cells.
Evaluation of Anti-CandidaActivity ofVitis viniferaL. Seed Extracts Obtained from Wine and Table Cultivars
Authors: Simonetti Giovanna , Santamaria Anna Rita , D'Auria Felicia Diodata , Mulinacci Nadia , Innocenti Marzia , Cecchini Francesca , Pericolini Eva , Gabrielli Elena , Panella Simona , Antonacci Donato , Palamara Anna Teresa , Vecchiarelli Anna , Pasqua Gabriella
Published: April 2014

For the first time, grape seed extracts (GSEs), obtained from wine and table cultivars ofVitis viniferaL., cultured in experimental fields of Lazio and Puglia regions of Italy and grown in different agronomic conditions, have been tested on 43Candidaspecies strains. We demonstrated a significant correlation between the content of the flavan-3-ols in GSEs extracts, with a polymerization degree ≥4, and anti-Candidaactivity. Moreover, we demonstrated that GSEs, obtained from plants cultured with reduced irrigation, showed a content of polymeric flavan-3-ols>250 mg/g with geometric mean MIC values between 5.7 and 20.2 mg/L againstCandida albicansreference strains. GSE, showing 573 mg/g of polymeric flavan-3-ols, has been tested in an experimental murine model of vaginal candidiasis by using noninvasivein vivoimaging technique. The results pointed out a significant inhibition ofCandida albicansload 5 days after challenge. These findings indicate that GSEs with high content of polymeric flavan-3-ols can be used in mucosal infection as vaginal candidiasis.
A Novel Resource Management Method of Providing Operating System as a Service for Mobile Transparent Computing
Authors: Xiong Yonghua , Huang Suzhen , Wu Min , Zhang Yaoxue , She Jinhua
Published: April 2014

This paper presents a framework for mobile transparent computing. It extends the PC transparent computing to mobile terminals. Since resources contain different kinds of operating systems and user data that are stored in a remote server, how to manage the network resources is essential. In this paper, we apply the technologies of quick emulator (QEMU) virtualization and mobile agent for mobile transparent computing (MTC) to devise a method of managing shared resources and services management (SRSM). It has three layers: a user layer, a manage layer, and a resource layer. A mobile virtual terminal in the user layer and virtual resource management in the manage layer cooperate to maintain the SRSM function accurately according to the user’s requirements. An example of SRSM is used to validate this method. Experiment results show that the strategy is effective and stable.
Visual Scheme Monitoring of Sensors for Fault Tolerance on Wireless Body Area Networks with Cloud Service Infrastructure
Authors: Jeong Young-Sik , Kim Hyun-Woo , Park Jong Hyuk
Published: April 2014

A wireless body area network (WBAN) refers to a topology of miniaturized embedded systems in and on a human body using wireless communication technology. Using the WBAN, human body data is collected to be used in various areas, including basic health information collection management, improvement of athletics capabilities, and systematic management of patients. To make use of the system in such areas efficiently, a fault or abnormal symptoms monitoring system for the sensors formed in the human body is required. Since data collection from a specific athlete can be taken care of by many people, malfunction or failure of sensors can be immediately treated. However, for patients with a variety of diseases, concentrating on their individual health information takes much effort and is time consuming. Further, when one patient is taken care of, other patients might be neglected. The present paper proposes a visual monitoring system for fault tolerance (VMSFT) that can monitor patients in a WBAN while also noticing the failure of sensors immediately. VMSFT can monitor persons who form a WBAN and infer a sensor's failure through the collected data. If VMSFT is interlinked with the emergency room, it is possible to take care of the patients proactively.
Unified Drain Current Model of Armchair Graphene Nanoribbons with Uniaxial Strain and Quantum Effect
Authors: Kang EngSiew , Ismail Razali
Published: April 2014

A unified current‐voltage I-V model of uniaxial strained armchair graphene nanoribbons (AGNRs) incorporating quantum confinement effects is presented in this paper. The I-V model is enhanced by integrating both linear and saturation regions into a unified and precise model of AGNRs. The derivation originates from energy dispersion throughout the entire Brillouin zone of uniaxial strained AGNRs based on the tight‐binding approximation. Our results reveal the modification of the energy band gap, carrier density, and drain current upon strain. The effects of quantum confinement were investigated in terms of the quantum capacitance calculated from the broadening density of states. The results show that quantum effect is greatly dependent on the magnitude of applied strain, gate voltage, channel length, and oxide thickness. The discrepancies between the classical calculation and quantum calculation were also measured and it has been found to be as high as 19% drive current loss due to the quantum confinement. Our finding which is in good agreement with the published data provides significant insight into the device performance of uniaxial strained AGNRs in nanoelectronic applications.
Prediction of the Flash Point of Binary and Ternary Straight-Chain Alkane Mixtures
Authors: Li X. , Duan P. P. , Sun K. N. , Yan X.
Published: April 2014

The flash point is an important physical property used to estimate the fire hazard of a flammable liquid. To avoid the occurrence of fire or explosion, many models are used to predict the flash point; however, these models are complex, and the calculation process is cumbersome. For pure flammable substances, the research for predicting the flash point is systematic and comprehensive. For multicomponent mixtures, especially a hydrocarbon mixture, the current research is insufficient to predict the flash point. In this study, a model was developed to predict the flash point of straight-chain alkane mixtures using a simple calculation process. The pressure, activity coefficient, and other associated physicochemical parameters are not required for the calculation in the proposed model. A series of flash points of binary and ternary mixtures of straight-chain alkanes were determined. The results of the model present consistent experimental results with an average absolute deviation for the binary mixtures of 0.7% or lower and an average absolute deviation for the ternary mixtures of 1.03% or lower.
Statistical Optimization of Media Components for Production of Fibrinolytic Alkaline Metalloproteases from Xenorhabdus indica KB-3
Authors: Pranaw Kumar , Singh Surender , Dutta Debjani , Chaudhuri Surabhi , Ganguly Sudershan , Nain Lata
Published: April 2014

Xenorhabdus indica KB-3, a well-known protease producer, was isolated from its entomopathogenic nematode symbiont Steinernema thermophilum. Since medium constituents are critical to the protease production, the chemical components of the selected medium (soya casein digest broth) were optimized by rotatable central composite design (RCCD) using response surface methodology (RSM). The effects of all five chemical components (considered as independent variables), namely tryptone, soya peptone, dextrose, NaCl, and dipotassium phosphate, on protease production (dependent variable) were studied, and it was found that tryptone and dextrose had maximum influence on protease production. The protease production was increased significantly by 66.31% under optimal medium conditions (tryptone—5.71, soya peptone—4.9, dextrose—1.45, NaCl—6.08, and dipotassium phosphate—0.47 in g/L). To best of knowledge, there are no reports on optimization of medium component for protease production by X. indica KB-3 using RSM and their application in fibrinolysis. This study will be useful for industrial processes for production of protease enzyme from X. indica KB-3 for its application in the field of agriculture and medicine.
WRF Model Methodology for Offshore Wind Energy Applications
Authors: Giannakopoulou Evangelia-Maria , Nhili Regis
Published: April 2014

Among the parameters that must be considered for an offshore wind farm development, the stability conditions of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) are of significant importance. Atmospheric stability is a vital parameter in wind resource assessment (WRA) due to its direct relation to wind and turbulence profiles. A better understanding of the stability conditions occurring offshore and of the interaction between MABL and wind turbines is needed. Accurate simulations of the offshore wind and stability conditions using mesoscale modelling techniques can lead to a more precise WRA. However, the use of any mesoscale model for wind energy applications requires a proper validation process to understand the accuracy and limitations of the model. For this validation process, the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model has been applied over the North Sea during March 2005. The sensitivity of the WRF model performance to the use of different horizontal resolutions, input datasets, PBL parameterisations, and nesting options was examined. Comparison of the model results with other modelling studies and with high quality observations recorded at the offshore measurement platform FINO1 showed that the ERA-Interim reanalysis data in combination with the 2.5-level MYNN PBL scheme satisfactorily simulate the MABL over the North Sea.
Multiple Solutions of Second-Order Damped Impulsive Differential Equations with Mixed Boundary Conditions
Authors: Liu Jian , Yan Lizhao
Published: April 2014

We use variational methods to investigate the solutions of damped impulsive differential equations with mixed boundary conditions. The conditions for the multiplicity of solutions are established. The main results are also demonstrated with examples.
Method of Multiobject Detecting and Tracking Based on DM643
Authors: Liang Yitao , Zhang Deshan , Wang Feng , Li Yonggang , Zhang Meng
Published: April 2014

The technology of moving objects detection has become an important research subject for its extensive application prospect. In this paper, it is presented that interframe difference algorithm and background difference algorithm are combined to update the background. The algorithm can deal with the flaw of background difference algorithm. The mathematical morphology method is employed to denoise the image, which may be helpful to improve the accuracy of the detection. The Pyramid algorithm is used to compress each frame data of video sequence. Then, the detecting and tracking of moving objects are tested on the hardware platform (DM643) and the software frame (RF5). The running speed is about 3 times faster than before. The result shows that the accuracy demanded by the detection is met. This method can provide a useful reference for similar application.
Certain Inequalities Involving the Fractionalq-Integral Operators
Authors: Baleanu Dumitru , Agarwal Praveen
Published: April 2014

We establish some inequalities involving Saigo fractionalq-integral operator in the theory of quantum calculus by using the two parameters of deformation,q1andq2, whose special cases are shown to yield corresponding inequalities associated with Riemann-Liouville and Kober fractionalq-integral operators, respectively. Furthermore, we also consider their relevance with other related known results.
Microarray Analysis of Serum mRNA in Patients with Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma at Whole-Genome Scale
Authors: Čapková Markéta , Šáchová Jana , Strnad Hynek , Kolář Michal , Hroudová Miluše , Chovanec Martin , Čada Zdeněk , Šteffl Martin , Valach Jaroslav , Kastner Jan , Vlček Čestmír , Smetana Karel , Plzák Jan
Published: April 2014

With the increasing demand for noninvasive approaches in monitoring head and neck cancer, circulating nucleic acids have been shown to be a promising tool. We focused on the global transcriptome of serum samples of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients in comparison with healthy individuals. We compared gene expression patterns of 36 samples. Twenty-four participants including 16 HNSCC patients (from 12 patients we obtained blood samples 1 year posttreatment) and 8 control subjects were recruited. The Illumina HumanWG-6 v3 Expression BeadChip was used to profile and identify the differences in serum mRNA transcriptomes. We found 159 genes to be significantly changed (Storey’sPvalue<0.05) between normal and cancer serum specimens regardless of factors including p53 and B-cell lymphoma family members (Bcl-2, Bcl-XL). In contrast, there was no difference in gene expression between samples obtained before and after surgery in cancer patients. We suggest that microarray analysis of serum cRNA in patients with HNSCC should be suitable for refinement of early stage diagnosis of disease that can be important for development of new personalized strategies in diagnosis and treatment of tumours but is not suitable for monitoring further development of disease.
Feller Property for a Special Hybrid Jump-Diffusion Model
Authors: Tong Jinying
Published: April 2014

We consider the stochastic stability for a hybrid jump-diffusion model, where the switching here is a phase semi-Markovian process. We first transform the process into a corresponding jump-diffusion with Markovian switching by the supplementary variable technique. Then we prove the Feller and strong Feller properties of the model under some assumptions.
On the Differences in the Intraseasonal Rainfall Variability between Western and Eastern Central Africa: Case of 10–25-Day Oscillations
Authors: Sandjon Alain Tchakoutio , Nzeukou Armand , Tchawoua Clément , Siddi Tengeleng
Published: April 2014

In this paper, we analyze the space-time structures of the 10–25 day intraseasonal variability of rainfall over Central Africa (CA) using 1DD GPCP rainfall product for the period 1996–2009, with an emphasis on the comparison between the western Central Africa (WCA) and the eastern Central Africa (ECA) with different climate features. The results of Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) analysis have shown that the amount of variance explained by the leading EOFs is greater in ECA than WCA (40.6% and 48.1%, for WCA and ECA, resp.). For the two subregions, the power spectra of the principal components (PCs) peak around 15 days, indicating a biweekly signal. The lagged cross-correlations computed between WCA and ECA PCs time series showed that most of the WCA PCs lead ECA PCs time series with a time scale of 5–8 days. The variations of Intraseasonal Oscillations (ISO) activity are weak in WCA, when compared with ECA where the signal exhibits large annual and interannual variations. Globally, the correlation coefficients computed between ECA and WCA annual mean ISO power time series are weak, revealing that the processes driving the interannual modulation of ISO signal should be different in nature or magnitude in the two subregions.
Research on Energy‐Saving Design of Overhead Travelling Crane Camber Based on Probability Load Distribution
Authors: Yifei Tong , Zhaohui Tang , Song Mei , Guomin Shen , Feng Gu
Published: April 2014

Crane is a mechanical device, used widely to move materials in modern production. It is reported that the energy consumptions of China are at least 5–8 times of other developing countries. Thus, energy consumption becomes an unavoidable topic. There are several reasons influencing the energy loss, and the camber of the girder is the one not to be neglected. In this paper, the problem of the deflections induced by the moving payload in the girder of overhead travelling crane is examined. The evaluation of a camber giving a counterdeflection of the girder is proposed in order to get minimum energy consumptions for trolley to move along a nonstraight support. To this aim, probabilistic payload distributions are considered instead of fixed or rated loads involved in other researches. Taking 50/10 t bridge crane as a research object, the probability loads are determined by analysis of load distribution density functions. According to load distribution, camber design under different probability loads is discussed in detail as well as energy consumptions distribution. The research results provide the design reference of reasonable camber to obtain the least energy consumption for climbing corresponding to different P0; thus energy‐saving design can be achieved.
Optimality Conditions for Fuzzy Number Quadratic Programming with Fuzzy Coefficients
Authors: Zhou Xue-Gang , Cao Bing-Yuan , Nasseri Seyed Hadi
Published: April 2014

The purpose of the present paper is to investigate optimality conditions and duality theory in fuzzy number quadratic programming (FNQP) in which the objective function is fuzzy quadratic function with fuzzy number coefficients and the constraint set is fuzzy linear functions with fuzzy number coefficients. Firstly, the equivalent quadratic programming of FNQP is presented by utilizing a linear ranking function and the dual of fuzzy number quadratic programming primal problems is introduced. Secondly, we present optimality conditions for fuzzy number quadratic programming. We then prove several duality results for fuzzy number quadratic programming problems with fuzzy coefficients.
Approximate Periodic Solutions for Oscillatory Phenomena Modelled by Nonlinear Differential Equations
Authors: Bota Constantin , Căruntu Bogdan , Bundău Olivia
Published: April 2014

We apply the Fourier‐least squares method (FLSM) which allows us to find approximate periodic solutions for a very general class of nonlinear differential equations modelling oscillatory phenomena. We illustrate the accuracy of the method by using several significant examples of nonlinear problems including the cubic Duffing oscillator, the Van der Pol oscillator, and the Jerk equations. The results are compared to those obtained by other methods.
Nonlinear Modeling and Analysis of Pressure Wave inside CEUP Fuel Pipeline
Authors: Hayat Qaisar , Fan Liyun , Song Enzhe , Ma Xiuzhen , Tian Bingqi , Farouk Naeim
Published: April 2014

Operating conditions dependent large pressure variations are one of the working characteristics of combination electronic unit pump (CEUP) fuel injection system for diesel engines. We propose a precise and accurate nonlinear numerical model of pressure inside HP fuel pipeline of CEUP using wave equation (WE) including both viscous and frequency dependent frictions. We have proved that developed hyperbolic approximation gives more realistic description of pressure wave as compared to classical viscous damped wave equation. Frictional effects of various frequencies on pressure wave have been averaged out across valid frequencies to represent the combined effect of all frequencies on pressure wave. Dynamic variations of key fuel properties including density, acoustic wave speed, and bulk modulus with varying pressures have also been incorporated. Based on developed model we present analysis on effect of fuel pipeline length on pressure wave propagation and variation of key fuel properties with both conventional diesel and alternate fuel rapeseed methyl ester (RME) for CEUP pipeline.
A New Proposal for Learning Curve of TEP Inguinal Hernia Repair: Ability to Complete Operation Endoscopically as a First Phase of Learning Curve
Authors: Hasbahceci Mustafa , Basak Fatih , Acar Aylin , Alimoglu Orhan
Published: April 2014

Background. The exact nature of learning curve of totally extraperitoneal inguinal hernia and the number required to master this technique remain controversial.Patients and Methods. We present a retrospective review of a single surgeon experience on patients who underwent totally extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair.Results. There were 42 hernias (22 left- and 20 right-sided) in 39 patients with a mean age of48.8±15.1years. Indirect, direct, and combined hernias were present in 18, 12, and 12 cases, respectively. The mean operative time was55.1±22.8minutes. Peritoneal injury occurred in 9 cases (21.4%). Conversion to open surgery was necessitated in 7 cases (16.7%). After grouping of all patients into two groups as cases between 1–21 and 22–42, it was seen that the majority of peritoneal injuries (7 out of 9, 77.8%,P=0.130) and all conversions (P=0.001) occurred in the first 21 cases.Conclusions. Learning curve of totally extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair can be divided into two consequent steps: immediate and late. At least 20 operations are required for gaining anatomical knowledge and surgical pitfalls based on the ability to perform this operation without conversion during immediate phase.
Corrosion of Steel in High-Strength Self-Compacting Concrete Exposed to Saline Environment
Authors: Yousif Hana A. , Al-Hadeethi Farqad F. , Al-Nabilsy Bashar , Abdelhadi Amani N.
Published: April 2014

A research work was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of high-strength self-compacting concrete (SF-R) in controlling corrosion of embedded steel. Reinforced concrete cylinders and plain cubes were subjected to 5% NaCl solution. Slump flow, J-ring, V-funnel, compressive strength, electrical resistance, and electrochemical tests were conducted. Corrosion resisting characteristics of steel were examined by monitoring corrosion potential, polarization resistance, corrosion currents, and Tafel plots. The relationship between corrosion current density and corrosion potential was established. Results were compared with characteristics of a grade 40 MPa reference concrete (R) and grade 70 MPa conventional self-compacting concrete (SP). Results indicated that at 270 days of exposure, the corrosion currents for steel in SF-R were 63- and 16-fold lower compared to those of steel in R and SP concretes, respectively. This concrete showed a considerable increase in electrical resistance and compressive strength of 96 MPa at 28 days of exposure. Relying on corrosion risk classification based on corrosion current densities and corrosion potentials, the steel in SF-R concrete is definitely in the passive condition. The splendid durability performance of steel in SF-R concrete linked to adorable self-compacting features could furnish numerous opportunities for future structural applications in severe environmental conditions.
Cross-Modality 2D-3D Face Recognition via Multiview Smooth Discriminant Analysis Based on ELM
Authors: Jin Yi , Cao Jiuwen , Ruan Qiuqi , Wang Xueqiao
Published: April 2014

In recent years, 3D face recognition has attracted increasing attention from worldwide researchers. Rather than homogeneous face data, more and more applications require flexible input face data nowadays. In this paper, we propose a new approach for cross-modality 2D-3D face recognition (FR), which is called Multiview Smooth Discriminant Analysis (MSDA) based on Extreme Learning Machines (ELM). Adding the Laplacian penalty constrain for the multiview feature learning, the proposed MSDA is first proposed to extract the cross-modality 2D-3D face features. The MSDA aims at finding a multiview learning based common discriminative feature space and it can then fully utilize the underlying relationship of features from different views. To speed up the learning phase of the classifier, the recent popular algorithm named Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is adopted to train the single hidden layer feedforward neural networks (SLFNs). To evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed FR framework, experimental results on a benchmark face recognition dataset are presented. Simulations show that our new proposed method generally outperforms several recent approaches with a fast training speed.
Mechanical Augmentation Channel Design for Turbine Current Generators
Authors: García E. , Pizá R. , Benavides X. , Quiles E. , Correcher A. , Morant F.
Published: April 2014

We present the design and analysis of augmentation channels to increase the efficiency of shrouded marine current turbines in conditions of low intensity flows. These turbines are part of a prototype of a floating device composed of wind and marine current generators for generating renewable energy. It intends to exploit renewable energy resources in an integrated manner using wind and current turbines in offshore plants optimizing the economic investment.
Selecting Large Portfolios of Social Projects in Public Organizations
Authors: Litvinchev Igor , Lopez-Irarragorri Fernando , Arratia-Martínez Nancy Maribel , Marmolejo José Antonio
Published: April 2014

We address the portfolio selection of social projects in public organizations considering interdependencies (synergies) affecting project funds requirements and tasks. A mixed integer linear programming model is proposed incorporating the most relevant aspects of the problem found in the literature. The model supports both complete (all or nothing) and partial (a certain amount from a given interval of funding) resource allocation policies. Numerical results for large‐scale problem instances are presented.
Extensive VZV Encephalomyelitis without Rash in an Elderly Man
Authors: Lynch Karen , Agarwal Prakhar , Paranandi Anu , Hadley Susan , Vullaganti Mithila
Published: April 2014

Introduction.Varicella zoster virus (VZV) encephalomyelitis with cranial nerve involvement is rare. Characteristically it is preceded by a rash and primarily presents in the immunocompromised. The spectrum of VZV neurologic disease is extensive and it is not uncommon to present without rash. We report the case of an elderly otherwise immunocompetent patient who presented with diverse manifestations of VZV CNS infection all occurring without rash.Case Report.A 78-year-old man presented with 1 week of progressive paraparesis and sensory loss, malaise, and fevers. MRI of the neuraxis demonstrated numerous enhancing lesions: intramedullary, leptomeningeal, pachymeningeal, and cranial nerves. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) showed a white blood cell count of 420/μL with elevated protein (385 mg/dL). CSF VZV qualitative PCR was positive and CSF VZV immunofluorescence assay detected IgM antibody, confirming the diagnosis of VZV encephalomyelitis. Clinical and radiological improvement was observed after intravenous acyclovir treatment.Conclusion.This is a rare report of an immunocompetent patient with extensive VZV encephalomyelitis. We highlight the importance of considering this diagnosis even in the absence of the characteristic rash, and the potential risk of premature discontinuation of antiviral therapy once HSV has been excluded. Prompt recognition and treatment can dramatically reduce morbidity and mortality in patients.