bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Efficient online handwritten Chinese character recognition system using a two-dimensional functional relationship model
Authors: Chang Yun , Lee Jia , Rijal Omar , Bakar Syed 
Published: December 2010

Efficient online handwritten Chinese character recognition system using a two-dimensional functional relationship modelThis paper presents novel feature extraction and classification methods for online handwritten Chinese character recognition (HCCR). TheX-graph andY-graph transformation is proposed for deriving a feature, which shows useful properties such as invariance to different writing styles. Central to the proposed method is the idea of capturing the geometrical and topological information from the trajectory of the handwritten character using theX-graph and theY-graph. For feature size reduction, the Haar wavelet transformation was applied on the graphs. For classification, the coefficient of determination (R2p) from the two-dimensional unreplicated linear functional relationship model is proposed as a similarity measure. The proposed methods show strong discrimination power when handling problems related to size, position and slant variation, stroke shape deformation, close resemblance of characters, and non-normalization. The proposed recognition system is applied to a database with 3000 frequently used Chinese characters, yielding a high recognition rate of 97.4% with reduced processing time of 75.31%, 73.05%, 58.27% and 40.69% when compared with recognition systems using the city block distance with deviation (CBDD), the minimum distance (MD), the compound Mahalanobis function (CMF) and the modified quadratic discriminant function (MQDF), respectively. High precision rates were also achieved.
Reduction in the number of LUT elements for control units with code sharing
Authors: Barkalov Alexander , Titarenko Larysa , Bieganowski Jacek 
Published: December 2010

Reduction in the number of LUT elements for control units with code sharingTwo methods are proposed targeted at reduction in the number of look-up table elements in logic circuits of compositional microprogram control units (CMCUs) with code sharing. The methods assume the application of field-programmable gate arrays for the implementation of the combinational part of the CMCU, whereas embedded-memory blocks are used for implementation of its control memory. Both methods are based on the existence of classes of pseudoequivalent operational linear chains in a microprogram to be implemented. Conditions for the application of the proposed methods and examples of design are shown. Results of conducted experiments are given.
Development and optimization of metoprolol succinate gastroretentive drug delivery system
Authors: Boldhane Sanjay , Kuchekar Bhanudas 
Published: December 2010

Development and optimization of metoprolol succinate gastroretentive drug delivery systemMetoprolol succinate (MS) gastroretentive (GR) controlled release system was formulated to increase gastric residence time leading to improved drug bioavailability. Box-Behnken model was followed using novel combinations of sodium alginate (SA), sodium carboxymethylcellulose (NaCMC), magnesium alumino metasilicate (MAS) as independent variables. Floating lag time (Flag),t25,t50,t75, diffusion exponent as dependent variables revealed that the amount of SA, NaCMC and MAS have a significant effect (p< 0.05) ont25,t50,t75and Flag. MSGR tablets were prepared and evaluated for mass, thickness, hardness, friability, drug content and floating property. Tablets were studied for dissolution for 24 h and exhibited controlled release of MS with floating for 16 h. The release profile of the optimized batch MS01 fitted first-order kinetics (R2= 0.9868,n= 0.543), indicating non-Fickian diffusion or anomalous transport by diffusion and swelling.
A novel analytical approach for reducing the consumption of organic solvents in the charge transfer-based spectrophotometric analysis: Application in the analysis of certain antihypertensive drugs
Authors: Darwish Ibrahim , Mahmoud Ashraf , Al-Majed Abdul-Rahman 
Published: December 2010

A novel analytical approach for reducing the consumption of organic solvents in the charge transfer-based spectrophotometric analysis: Application in the analysis of certain antihypertensive drugsThe present study describes the development of a novel analytical approach that can reduce by 50-fold the consumption of organic solvents in the charge transfer (CT)-based spectrophotometric analysis. The proposed approach employed 96-microwell assay plates for carrying out the reaction. The CT reaction between the electron-donating analyte and electron-accepting reagent was performed in microwells (200-μL of organic solvent) and the color signals were measured with a microwell-plate reader. Optimum conditions for the proposed approach were established for two antihypertensive drugs, namely ramipril (RML) and lisinopril (LSL) as model compounds for the electron-donating analytes, and 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ) as a π-electron acceptor. Under the optimum conditions, Beer's law was obeyed in the concentration range of 6-100 and 6-60 μg mL-1for RML and LSL, respectively. The limits of detection were 0.97 and 1.10 μg mL-1for RML and LSL, respectively. The precision of the methods was satisfactory; the values of relative standard deviations did not exceed 1.1 %. The proposed approach was successfully applied to the analysis of pharmaceutical dosage forms with good accuracy and precision. The results were comparable with those of the reported methods. The approach described herein is of great practical value in pharmaceutical analysis because it reduces the exposure of analysts to the toxic effects of organic solvents, lowers the analysis cost by 50-fold, and it has a high throughput property. Although the approach was validated for RML and LSL, the same methodology could be used for any electron-donating analyte for which a CT-reaction can be performed.
J. S. Mill and the Art of Compromise
Authors: Cejudo Rafael 
Published: December 2010

J. S. Mill and the Art of CompromiseThe wordcompromisemeans a kind of agreement and a concession to something harmful or wrong. I argue that particularly this second sense is quite relevant in the ethics of political action. John Stuart Mill focused upon this issue in hisThoughts on Parliamentary Reform 1859.I outline Mill's doctrine on compromise looking at the external and internal features of an acceptable measure of compromise. These features provide a set of conditions necessary in order for compromise to take place, but they do not guarantee sufficient conditions. In order to assess Mill's political coherence and to draw a general distinction between strategic and ethical compromises the paper concludes by considering two compromise measures that Mill adopted while he was a Member of Parliament.
Moral Judgments, Moral Virtues, and Moral Norms
Authors: Popper Miroslav 
Published: December 2010

Moral Judgments, Moral Virtues, and Moral Norms
The paper consists of two basic parts. In the first, contemporary approaches to moral judgments and their relations with moral virtues and moral norms are analyzed. The focus is on comparing the role of the emotions and reason, and conscious and unconscious processes in forming and/or justifying moral judgments. The second part examines views on the current broader socio-political situation in Western countries and points to the growing feelings of insecurity among people mainly due to the fact that traditional ways of life have been losing solid ground, settled (social) norms and ethical systems are weakening and at the same time the social trust in various state institutions and bureaucratic structures involved in power is decreasing. In conclusion the author argues for the potential of the ethic of autonomy that would lead to still greater cooperation in globalized ethic, primarily thanks to our moral emotions and moral judgments.
Calling Citizens to a Moral Way of Life: A Dutch Example of Moralized Politics
Authors: Ossewaarde Marinus 
Published: December 2010

Calling Citizens to a Moral Way of Life: A Dutch Example of Moralized Politics
This article offers a sociological analysis of the moral revisions that accompany welfare state reforms in the Netherlands. It is argued that Dutch welfare state reforms after the Cold War rely on moral discourses in particular and moral language in general to legitimize and effectuate policy measures. The Dutch reformers have been pursuing a set of strategies of moralization designed to adjust the Dutch welfare state to the new, post-Cold War situation, in which social policies are redesigned to support the operation of global markets. This article seeks to show how this "moral revision" has been taking place by consulting data sources provided by Dutch media, policy documents, council reports, advices, speeches, and newspaper interviews. This implies that special attention is paid to the rhetoric, language, tones, symbolism, metaphors and moral images used and propagated by moral revisionists, elites and media, their definitions of the prevailing moral situation and of the desired one, their formulation of desired values and norms and the ways in which moral panics are aroused. Three recent Dutch policy innovations, namely the national debate on norms and values, the Charter Responsible Citizenship and the family policy memorandum, are interpreted as political strategies to re-engineer the new morality that can sustain a reformed state.
Social Conformity and Response Bias Revisited: The Influence of "Others" on Japanese Respondents
Authors: Kondo Chisuzu , Saito Chiaki , Deguchi Ayaka , Hirayama Miki , Acar Adam 
Published: December 2010

Social Conformity and Response Bias Revisited: The Influence of "Others" on Japanese Respondents
This study was undertaken to investigate the impact of other respondents' answers on individual responses in survey studies. The study employed four different conditions and manipulated the direction and the level of social pressure. The results have confirmed that social desirability bias hugely impacts individual answers. It was found that respondents are seven times more likely to choose a socially unacceptable option if majority of the preceding respondents also have chosen the same option. Additionally, the existence of an interviewer during data collection was found to be a factor pressuring respondents to give more socially acceptable responses.
Racism and Its Presuppositions: Towards a Pragmatic Ethics of Social Change
Authors: Lanre-Abass B. 
Published: December 2010

Racism and Its Presuppositions: Towards a Pragmatic Ethics of Social Change
Racism has been described as a litmus test or a barium meal which reveals other disorders and injustices within the body politic. It presupposes the legitimacy of racial classifications and the metaphysical reality of races and therefore provides a vital area of scrutiny for philosophical traditions. This paper examines racism and its anti-social effects both on the individual and the society at large. It argues that racism is generally driven by fear and hatred hence all forms of racism are dangerous, socially harmful and morally wrong in practice. The paper recommends ways of overcoming the evil of racism by emphasizing social intelligence and self-realization as moral ideals drawing on John Dewey's pragmatism in ethics. It concludes by stressing Dewey's moral pragmatism as a potent instrument of social change.
Some of the Main Factors of Innovative Renewal of Companies' Operations
Authors: Hustič Igor , Mulej Matjaž 
Published: December 2010

Some of the Main Factors of Innovative Renewal of Companies' Operations
Problems cannot be solved by the mentality that has caused them, such as neglecting the non-technological innovation. Often, innovative renewal of companies' operations is urgently needed. Overcoming the consequences of the global economic and financial crisis cannot be successful without innovation of the values, culture, business ethics and norms of all their important stakeholders. We suggest a new synergy of methods aimed at renewal of business processes in an innovative way by using the dialectical systems theory approach. We combine BSC, ISO 9000, the method ‘learning company’ and USOMID. Literature so far has not made it clear that those approaches can complement each other and jointly contribute to renewal of business operations according to the requirement of the requisite holism.
Entrepreneurial Conative Component of Competences: the Case of Slovenia
Authors: Kovač Darko , Meško Maja , Bertoncelj Andrej 
Published: December 2010

Entrepreneurial Conative Component of Competences: the Case of Slovenia
Competitive pressures, globalization and economic growth have brought Slovenian enterprises to enhance the role of entrepreneurial competences. The present paper aims to study conative component of entrepreneurial competences as a crucial part of human capital in Slovenian enterprises. The focus of this paper is any eventual disparity of non-teachable attributes of conative component of competences of Slovene enterpreneuer with learned ones rather than the concept of entrepreneurship itself. Authors seperate entrepreneurial competences into three components: cognitive, affective and conative. The purpose of this study is to assess the entrepreneurial conative traits and to investigate the correlation between different conative components of entrepreneurial competences and compare the results to their job-related self-expetations. The conative component of entrepreneurial competences was measures with the Kolbe A™ Index. The study was conducted with 43 Slovenian entrepreneuers from three different enterprises. Independet sample t-test and Pearson's correlation were used to test research aims. SPSS 16.0 was used to analyse the data. The results show conative components of Slovenian entrepreneurial competences, difference between them and individual's job-related self expectations and that the correlation between conative components exist.
Higher Education Demand Factors and the Demand for Tourism Education in Slovenia
Authors: Čepar Žiga , Bojnec Štefan 
Published: December 2010

Higher Education Demand Factors and the Demand for Tourism Education in Slovenia
This paper investigates the higher education demand in Slovenia, which is investigated in general and in the field of tourism, using regression analysis on selected time-series data. We find a positive and significant association between the higher education demand in general and the demographic and socio-economic circumstances. Demographic trends in general slow down or even decrease the demand for higher education, while socio-economic factors mostly encourage the demand for higher education. However, unfavourable demographic factors are already prevailing over the favourable socio-economic factors, meaning that growth rates of absolute demand for higher education are starting to decline. We analyze the movements of demand for higher education in the field of tourism in recent years and compare them to the movements of the demand for higher education in general and to the movements of the demand for tourism in Slovenia. The demand for tourist services is a factor that encourages demands for higher education in the field of tourism. Finally, we derive some conclusions about higher education demand determinants in Slovenia in general and in the field of tourism, and propose some recommendations for national educational policy.
Stem Cells of Adult Organisms in Biology and Medicine
Authors: Kawiak Jerzy 
Published: December 2010

SummaryThe life span of adult cells is restricted, becoming senescent and eventually undergoing apoptosis. Cells are replaced by new ones which originate from a population of stem cells. An example is provided by the hemopoietic system in the bone marrow. In an adult body, stem cells may be identified by markers present in both embryonic and tissue-specific stem cells. Oct3/4, CXCR4, Nanog, CD133 and CD34 are examples of such markers. The stem cells share several properties, such as they may: 1) replicate and give rise to new stem cells, 2) differentiate into heterogenous tissue and organ specific cells and, finally, 3) stem cells are self-protected against various toxic agents and radiation. In adult tissues, stem cells reside in specialized sites (niches), for example in the bone marrow, skin, digestive tract epithelium, and skeletal muscles. Stem cells residing in these stem cell niches are anchored there by chemokines and adhesion molecules. Stroma-Derived Factor-1 (SDF-1), α-chemokine and stem-cell expressed receptor CXCR4 play an important role in the retention of stem cells in such niches. Several stress factors may attenuate the SDF-1-CXCR4 axis in the bone marrow, which leads to the release of stem cells from their niches into circulation. Another important stem cell niche-anchoring mechanism is the interaction of Wnt (a ligand) with Frizzled LRP (receptor). The recently accumulated evidence suggests that malignancy arises from an arrest in maturation and mutation of stem cells. Cancer stem cells are responsible for tumor growth, its relapse and metastasis.The first direct evidence for the existence of cancer stem cells came from observations of acute myeloblastic leukemia. Currently, cell populations enriched for cancer stem cells have been isolated from several tumors. The cancer stem cells represent less than 1% of tumor cells in the mouse models.
Hutsulshchyna and Public Progress
Authors: Kibych Anna 
Published: December 2010

Hutsulshchyna and Public Progress
The article describes the public-demographic changes in Hutsulshchyna in the light of political and economic surroundings of a changing Ukraine. There are indications proving that structural shifts in Hutsuls' ethnic culture, caused by cultural globalization, are about to happen. Preservation of ethnographic features in present-day conditions, as well as Hutsuls' adaptation to new social realities, appears to become a complex socio-cultural problem of this region of Ukraine.
Spatial Diversification of the Balance on the Labour Market in Rural areas in Poland
Authors: Stanny Monika 
Published: December 2010

Spatial Diversification of the Balance on the Labour Market in Rural areas in Poland
The purpose of the study is to present the spatial diversification of the level of the balance on the local labour market in the rural areas. The spatial unit of the analysis is constituted by rural communes (gminas) and the rural areas of the urban-rural communes in Poland according to the administrative division into town and village. This means that the research concerns the spatial diversification observed according to 2,171 units. It was accepted in the research that a balanced labour market occurs where favourable demographic structures are located around the largest regional centres in Poland. This is connected with the development of the communes' non-agricultural economic functions and a strong dependence on urban markets.
Tectonic evolution of the southeastern part of the Pohorje Mountains (Eastern Alps, Slovenia)
Authors: Kirst Frederik , Sandmann Sascha , Nagel Thorsten , Froitzheim Nikolaus , Janák Marian 
Published: December 2010

Tectonic evolution of the southeastern part of the Pohorje Mountains (Eastern Alps, Slovenia)Field relations and deformation structures in the southeastern part of the Pohorje Mountains constrain the tectonic evolution of the Austroalpine high-pressure/ultrahigh pressure (HP/UHP) terrane. The Slovenska Bistrica Ultramafic Complex (SBUC) forms a large (ca. 8 × 1 km size) body of serpentinized harzburgite and dunite including minor garnet peridotite and is associated with partly amphibolitized eclogite bodies. The SBUC occurs in the core of an isoclinal, recumbent, northward closing antiform and is mantled by metasedimentary rocks, mostly gneisses and a few marbles, including isolated eclogite/amphibolite lenses. Before this folding, the SBUC formed the deepest part of the exposed terrane. We interpret the SBUC to be derived from near-MOHO, uppermost mantle which was intruded by gabbros in the subsurface of a Permian rift zone. During Cretaceous intracontinental subduction, the SBUC was most likely part of the footwall plate which experienced HP to UHP metamorphism and was folded during exhumation. In the Miocene, the Pohorje Pluton intruded and, subsequently, the metamorphic rocks together with the pluton were deformed probably due to east-west extension and contemporaneous north-south shortening, thus forming an antiformal metamorphic core complex.
New Middle Miocene Bryozoa from Gârbova de Sus (Romania) and their relationship to the sedimentary environment
Authors: Zágoršek Kamil , Filipescu Sorin , Holcová Katarína 
Published: December 2010

New Middle Miocene Bryozoa from Gârbova de Sus (Romania) and their relationship to the sedimentary environmentThe section of Gârbova de Sus contains diverse fossil groups and rich bryozoan assemblages, with 77 species altogether. Several taxa have been recognized as very important in the assemblage and two new taxa are described in detail:Poricella garbovensissp. nov. andTherenia transylvanicasp. nov. Foraminifera and calcareous nannofossil assemblages were used for biostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental interpretations. On the basis of sedimentological features and micropaleontological data, the sequence of paleoenvironments can be subdivided into two intervals indicating slightly different climatic conditions.
Paleofloristic and paleofaunistic analysis of Dudváh River oxbow and implication for Late Holocene paleoenvironmental development of the Žitný ostrov Island (SW Slovakia)
Authors: Pišút Peter , Břízová Eva , Čejka Tomáš , Pipík Radovan 
Published: December 2010

Paleofloristic and paleofaunistic analysis of Dudváh River oxbow and implication for Late Holocene paleoenvironmental development of the Žitný ostrov Island (SW Slovakia)Žitný ostrov, the largest island of the Danube River (SW Slovakia) gained its present shape in the Neoholocene period. As a result of increased flood and geomorphological Danube river activity dated to 1378-1528 AD, the Lower Dudváh River was abandoned and its alluvium became a part of the Žitný ostrov. Study of a Dudváh terrestrialized paleomeander by means of pollen and macrofossil analysis provides new information about the paleoenvironments of the Danubian Plain. The meander under study was cut-off during the Sub-Boreal period when the land was mostly covered by oak-dominated mixed forest with a notable high frequency ofFagusandAbies.In low-lying depressions,Alnus glutinosaformed typical alder carrs. The largest decline of the mixed forest occurred during the Sub-Atlantic period. Until the mid-19thcentury the region was strongly influenced by shallow groundwater and periodical floods, as reflected by pollen of aquatics and marsh species. Amongst non-arboreal taxa, pollen of Cyperaceae, Brassicaceae/Cuscuta, Poaceae and Apiaceae prevailed. Local successional changes started with i) stage of abandoned oxbow still with influx of moving water, poor in both macrophytes and molluscs, ii) shallow eutrophic oxbow lake with slowly flowing or stagnant water overgrown with aquatics (Ranunculussubgen.Batrachium, Potamogetonsp.,Ceratophyllum demersumetc.) and abundant molluscs, iii) an open marsh dominated by Cyperaceae (mainlyCarex riparia) withAtriplex prostrata, supporting diverse molluscan and Ostracod fauna. Present-day habitat is a result of landscape changes, which have been associated with draining, intensified agriculture, ruderalisation and spread of invasive species.