From big data to big performance – exploring the potential of big data for enhancing public organizations’ performance : a systematic literature review

This article examines the possibilities for increasing organizational performance in the public sector using Big Data by conducting a systematic literature review. It includes the results of 36 scientific articles published between January 2012 and July 2019. The results show a tendency to explain the relationship between big data and organizational performance through the Resource-Based View of the Firm or the Dynamic Capabilities View, arguing that perfor-mance improvement in an organization stems from unique capabilities. In addition, the results show that Big Data performance improvement is influenced by better organizational decision making. Finally, it identifies three dimensions that seem to play a role in this process: the human dimension, the organizational dimension, and the data dimension. From these findings, implications for both practice and theory are derived

Stuck in Traffic (SiT) Attacks: A Framework for Identifying Stealthy Attacks that Cause Traffic Congestion

Recent advances in wireless technologies have enabled many new applications in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) such as collision avoidance, cooperative driving, congestion avoidance, and traffic optimization. Due to the vulnerable nature of wireless communication against interference and intentional jamming, ITS face new challenges to ensure the reliability and the safety of the overall system. In this paper, we expose a class of stealthy attacks -- Stuck in Traffic (SiT) attacks -- that aim to cause congestion by exploiting how drivers make decisions based on smart traffic signs. An attacker mounting a SiT attack solves a Markov Decision Process problem to find optimal/suboptimal attack policies in which he/she interferes with a well-chosen subset of signals that are based on the state of the system. We apply Approximate Policy Iteration (API) algorithms to derive potent attack policies. We evaluate their performance on a number of systems and compare them to other attack policies including random, myopic and DoS attack policies. The generated policies, albeit suboptimal, are shown to significantly outperform other attack policies as they maximize the expected cumulative reward from the standpoint of the attacker

Culture, Self-Regulation, and Academics in Preschool Ruth Guirguis

The development of self-regulation in early childhood students is imperative for the development of higher level thinking skills Thus the ability to self-regulate has been link to academic achievement and as a better indicator of school readiness However the research does not look into culture or cultural factorsas a variable that may influence the development of self-regulation Minority students such as Latino and African Americans are considered to be at a higher risk for not developing these regulatory skills Hence this research looks at the associations between early childhood students self-regulation academics and culture Specifically the research analyzes results from candidates that were either Latino American culture and African American culture A one-way ANCOVA was conducted to compare the development academics for both cultures while controlling for self-regulation A total of 60 preschool students participated in this study The overall ANCOVA was significant F 1 66 11 50 p 000 The strength of the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable was very strong as assessed b

Presence of metals in herbal extracts

This is the pre-peer-reviewed version of the following article: Amira Guirguis, et al, 'Presence of metals in herbal extracts', The Pharmaceutical Journal, Vol. 289, p. 536, November 2012, URI: 11110858, which has been published in final form at : http://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/news/presence-of-metals-in-herbal-extracts/11110858.article.Do metals from raw herbs transport into herbal preparations during manufacture? Amira Guirguis and colleagues take a look at the issue using St John’s wort as an example.Non peer reviewe

A note on the effect of expected changes in monetary policy on long-term interest rates

The ability of monetary policy to affect long-term interest rates is of central importance for economics and finance. Several recent studies have shown that long-term interest rates are virtually unaffected by monetary policy. This paper develops a statistical methodology to identify the expected and unexpected changes in monetary policy as measured by the federal funds rate. The empirical evidence shows that expected changes in the funds rate cause stronger and more significant movements in the long-term rates. Further, ignoring such asymmetry can erroneously generate the insignificant responses of long-term interest rates to the changes in the monetary policy.Long-term interest rate, monetary policy, asymmetry

Assessing the 2004-2018 fentanyl misusing issues reported to an international range of adverse reporting systems

© 2019 Schifano, Chiappini, Corkery and Guirguis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Submitted 2 October 2018, Accepted 14 January 2019, published 1 February 2019.Objective: A recent, global, increase in the use of opioids including the prescribing, highly potent, fentanyl has been recorded. Due its current popularity and the potential lethal consequences of its intake, we aimed here at analyzing the fentanyl misuse, abuse, dependence and withdrawal-related adverse drug reactions (ADRs) identified within the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the United Kingdom Yellow Card Scheme (YCS), and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) databases. Methods: Descriptive analysis of both ADRs and related cases. Results: The analysis of fentanyl-related misuse, abuse, dependence and withdrawal cases reported during years 2004-2018 to the EMA, the YCS, and the FAERS showed increasing levels overtime, specifically, EMA-related data presented two peaks (e.g., in 2008 and 2015), whilst the FAERS dataset was characterized by a dramatic increase of the ADRs collected over the last 18 months, and particularly from 2016. Some 127,313 ADRs (referring to n = 6,161 patients/single cases) related to fentanyl's misuse/abuse/dependence/withdrawal issues were reported to EMA, with 14,287 being judged by the reporter as "suspect." The most represented ADRs were: "drug dependence "(76.87%), "intentional product misuse" (13.06%), and "drug abuse" (7.45%). Most cases involved adult males and the concomitant use of other prescribing/illicit drugs. A range of idiosyncratic (i.e., ingestion/injection of transdermal patches' fentanyl) and very high-dosage intake cases were here identified. Significant numbers of cases required either a prolonged hospitalization (192/559 = 34.35%) or resulted in death (185/559 = 33.09%). Within the same time frame, YCS collected some 3,566 misuse/abuse/dependence/withdrawal ADRs, corresponding to 1,165 single patients/cases, with those most frequently reported being "withdrawal," "intentional product misuse," and "overdose" ADRs. Finally, FAERS identified a total of 19,145 misuse/abuse/dependence/withdrawal-related cases, being "overdose," withdrawal, and "drug use disorder/drug abuse/drug diversion" the most represented ADRs (respectively, 43.11, 20.80, and 20.29%). Conclusion: Fentanyl abuse may be considered a public health issue with significant implications for clinical practice. Spontaneous pharmacovigilance reporting systems should be considered for mapping new trends of drug abuse.Peer reviewe

Nuovi dati dalla necropoli fenicia e punica di Monte Sirai (Sardegna): la tomba 248

La tomba 248, necropoli fenicia e punica di Monte Sirai, rappresenta un caso isolato nella pur ampia casistica offerta dalla necropoli e appare caratterizzata da quello che potremmo definire un alto tasso di potenzialità informativa. La sepoltura, anche in virtù della sua collocazione topografica ai margini dell’area di scavo nel punto più vicino in linea d’aria all’abitato, sembrerebbe essere una delle deposizioni più arcaiche di questo particolare settore della necropoli. La monumentalità e l’alto grado di visibilità funeraria della tomba 248 risulta evidente se si considera l’impianto generale del sepolcro e la sua complessità architettonica e ideologica. La sepoltura si distingue soprattutto per l’esistenza di uno specifico e ben definito spazio fisico destinato alla ricezione di offerte in onore del defunto

The Acute Effects of Nicotine and Exercise on Working Memory

Nicotine, an alkaloid found in tobacco leaves, has been used by humans for its psychoactive properties for centuries. Specifically, nicotine has been consistently shown to improve cognitive performance (Heishman, Kleykamp, & Singleton, 2010). Similar effects also have been shown with exercise (Chang, Labban, Gapin, & Etnier, 2012). The purpose of the present study was to examine whether a 20 min bout of moderate-intensity exercise enhances cognitive performance (working memory) as effectively as 4 mg of NICORETTE® gum in a non-smoker population. Twenty-three non-smokers (M age = 25.87; 13 female) underwent a three-week randomized counterbalanced procedure. The N-Back Task was used to measure working memory after administration of nicotine or exercise. Findings showed significant improvements in reaction time after both treatments. However, accuracy significantly improved only for exercise. The author recommends exercise over nicotine as a safe and effective strategy for non-smokers to enhance cognitive performance. Implications for future studies are discussed

War Powers in the American Constitutional Scheme: A Legal-Historical Inquiry

Since World War II, there has been a significant shift in the balance of war­ making power between the executive and legislative branches. Although the Constitution reserves the formal power of declaring war exclusively for Congress, modern presidents have increasingly mm·ginalized Congress in times of international tension or conflict by acting unilaterally without congressional authorization. Congress has lent impetus to this problematic trend by failing to take decisive action whenever its war-making power is usurped by the executive. The War Powers Act of 1973 has not been successful in curbing the exercise and expansion of executive war- making power because Congress gave little or no attention to presidential violations of the Act, thereby undermining its own constitutional role and shifting the power equation in favor of the executive. This paper attempts to delineate the roles that the Framer expected the two political branches to play in regard to war-making and to demonstrate that only Congress has the power to authorize the use of military force