Perceived usefulness of expert systems for MBA advisement: A discriminant model

Based on questionnaire data collected from 123 AACSB-accredited business schools, a discriminant model was developed to generate a descriptive profile of MBA Advisors in regard to their perceived usefulness of expert systems (ESs) for advising MBA students. Characteristics related to organization, advisee, advisor, and job/task structures were considered in formulating the model. Stepwise discriminant analysis resulted in 8 out of 15 independent variables entering the model

Comparing Methods of Detecting Mind Wandering While Driving

Driver distraction is a persistent threat to traffic safety. External distraction has been examined extensively, but few studies have focused on internal distraction such as mind wandering. Equivocal results from the few existing studies are likely due, at least in part, to different experimental methods. Mind wandering is commonly assessed using either a self-caught or probe-caught method. The current investigation sought to better understand the effects of mind wandering on driving performance using the self-caught method and the probecaught method. In the Self-Caught Experiment, lateral control measures such as, lateral position variability and steering reversal rate were greater when drivers reported on-task thoughts versus mind wandering. In the Probe-Caught Experiment, these results were not replicated using the traditional probe-caught analysis. Instead, when analyzing the results of the Probe-Caught Experiment in a similar manner as the Self-Caught Experiment, the results were replicated. These results highlight methodological concerns in detecting mind wandering while driving. Additional research is needed to determine which method should be employed in future studies

Enhancing the FAIRness of Arctic Research Data Through Semantic Annotation

The National Science Foundation’s Arctic Data Center is the primary data repository for NSF-funded research conducted in the Arctic. There are major challenges in discovering and interpreting resources in a repository containing data as heterogeneous and interdisciplinary as those in the Arctic Data Center. This paper reports on advances in cyberinfrastructure at the Arctic Data Center that help address these issues by leveraging semantic technologies that enhance the repository’s adherence to the FAIR data principles and improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability of digital resources in the repository. We describe the Arctic Data Center’s improvements. We use semantic annotation to bind metadata about Arctic data sets with concepts in web-accessible ontologies. The Arctic Data Center’s implementation of a semantic annotation mechanism is accompanied by the development of an extended search interface that increases the findability of data by allowing users to search for specific, broader, and narrower meanings of measurement descriptions, as well as through their potential synonyms. Based on research carried out by the DataONE project, we evaluated the potential impact of this approach, regarding the accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of measurement data. Arctic research often benefits from having additional data, typically from multiple, heterogeneous sources, that complement and extend the bases – spatially, temporally, or thematically – for understanding Arctic phenomena. These relevant data resources must be ‘found’, and ‘harmonized’ prior to integration and analysis. The findings of a case study indicated that the semantic annotation of measurement data enhances the capabilities of researchers to accomplish these tasks

Noncommutativity from the string perspective: modification of gravity at a mm without mm sized extra dimensions

We explore how the IR pathologies of noncommutative field theory are resolved when the theory is realized as open strings in background B-fields: essentially, since the IR singularities are induced by UV/IR mixing, string theory brings them under control in much the same way as it does the UV singularities. We show that at intermediate scales (where the Seiberg-Witten limit is a good approximation) the theory reproduces the noncommutative field theory with all the (un)usual features such as UV/IR mixing, but that outside this regime, in the deep infra-red, the theory flows continuously to the commutative theory and normal Wilsonian behaviour is restored. The resulting low energy physics resembles normal commutative physics, but with additional suppressed Lorentz violating operators. We also show that the phenomenon of UV/IR mixing occurs for the graviton as well, with the result that, in configurations where Planck's constant receives a significant one-loop correction (for example brane-induced gravity), the distance scale below which gravity becomes non-Newtonian can be much greater than any compact dimensions.Comment: 30 pages. Slight revision: clarified some points and added a referenc

The Influence of Cardiorespiratory Fitness on Lung Cancer Mortality

Purpose—Previous studies have suggested that higher levels of physical activity may lower lung cancer risk; however, few prospective studies have evaluated lung cancer mortality in relation to cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), an objective marker of recent physical activity habits. Methods—Thirty-eight thousand men, aged 20 to 84 years without history of cancer, received a preventive medical examination at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, TX, between 1974 and 2002. CRF was quantified as maximal treadmill exercise test duration and was grouped for analysis as low (lowest 20% of exercise duration), moderate (middle 40%), and high (upper 40%). Results—A total of 232 lung cancer deaths occurred during follow-up (mean=17 years). After adjustment for age, examination year, BMI, smoking, drinking, physical activity, and family history of cancer, hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) for lung cancer deaths across low, moderate and high CRF categories were: 1.0, 0.48 (0.35–0.67), and 0.43 (0.28–0.65) respectively. There was an inverse association between CRF and lung cancer mortality in former (P for trend = 0.005) and current smokers (P for trend \u3c0.001), but not in never smokers (trend P = 0.14). Joint analysis of smoking and fitness status revealed a significant 12-fold higher risk of death in current smokers (HR: 11.9; 95% CI: 6.0–23.6) with low CRF as compared with never smokers who had high CRF. Conclusions—Although the potential for some residual confounding by smoking could not be eliminated, these data suggest that CRF is inversely associated with lung cancer mortality in men. Continued study of CRF in relation to lung cancer, particularly among smokers, may further our understanding of disease etiology and reveal additional strategies for reducing its burden

A Development Framework for Rapid Metaheuristics Hybridization

While meta-heuristics are effective for solving large-scale combinatorial optimization problems, they result from time-consuming trial-and-error algorithm design tailored to specific problems. For this reason, a software tool for rapid prototyping of algorithms would save considerable resources. This paper presents a generic software framework that reduces development time through abstract classes and software reuse, and more importantly, aids design with support of user-defined strategies and hybridization of meta-heuristics. Most interestingly, we propose a novel way of redefining hybridization with the use of the “request and response ” metaphor, which form an abstract concept for hybridization. Different hybridization schemes can now be formed with minimal coding, which gives our proposed Metaheuristics Development Framework its uniqueness. To illustrate the concept, we restrict to two popular metaheuristics Ants Colony Optimization and Tabu Search, and demonstrate MDF through the implementation of various hybridized models to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem. 1

The \u3cem\u3eChlamydomonas\u3c/em\u3e Genome Reveals the Evolution of Key Animal and Plant Functions

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga whose lineage diverged from land plants over 1 billion years ago. It is a model system for studying chloroplast-based photosynthesis, as well as the structure, assembly, and function of eukaryotic flagella (cilia), which were inherited from the common ancestor of plants and animals, but lost in land plants. We sequenced the ∼120-megabase nuclear genome of Chlamydomonas and performed comparative phylogenomic analyses, identifying genes encoding uncharacterized proteins that are likely associated with the function and biogenesis of chloroplasts or eukaryotic flagella. Analyses of the Chlamydomonas genome advance our understanding of the ancestral eukaryotic cell, reveal previously unknown genes associated with photosynthetic and flagellar functions, and establish links between ciliopathy and the composition and function of flagella

The predictive mirror: interactions of mirror and affordance processes during action observation

An important question for the study of social interactions is how the motor actions of others are represented. Research has demonstrated that simply watching someone perform an action activates a similar motor representation in oneself. Key issues include (1) the automaticity of such processes, and (2) the role object affordances play in establishing motor representations of others’ actions. Participants were asked to move a lever to the left or right to respond to the grip width of a hand moving across a workspace. Stimulus-response compatibility effects were modulated by two task-irrelevant aspects of the visual stimulus: the observed reach direction and the match between hand-grasp and the affordance evoked by an incidentally presented visual object. These findings demonstrate that the observation of another person’s actions automatically evokes sophisticated motor representations that reflect the relationship between actions and objects even when an action is not directed towards an object

A Novel Molecular Microbiologic Technique for the Rapid Diagnosis of Microbial Invasion of the Amniotic Cavity and Intra‐Amniotic Infection in Preterm Labor with Intact Membranes

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106726/1/aji12189.pd