Investigating the Effects of TBDF Regulations on Multinational Firms\u27 Operation

The far advance in computer and telecommunication technology, and the evolution of Multinational corporations (MNCs) have led to an era of global economy. While MNCs strive for competitive advantage via their global information systems, diverse barriers on transborder data flow (TBDF) work in the opposite direction. Many researchers indicated that TBDF restrictions not only affected the operation of MNCs, but also the management of international information systems. Some others argued that transborder data laws were either found too vague to follow, or unable to seriously hamper some MNCs due to their smooth relationship with local telecommunication authorities at host countries. This paper aims to investigate the context and causes of the discrepancy. The results indicated that vendor’ s support, deregulation of telecommunication restrictions, and the areas in which MNCs operated accounted for the discrepancy and thus alleviated the impact of TBDF regulations on MNCs\u27 operation

Stair Negotiation Made Easier using Novel Interactive Energy-Recycling Assistive Stairs

Here we show that novel, energy-recycling stairs reduce the amount of work required for humans to both ascend and descend stairs. Our low-power, interactive, and modular steps can be placed on existing staircases, storing energy during stair descent and returning that energy to the user during stair ascent. Energy is recycled through event-triggered latching and unlatching of passive springs without the use of powered actuators. When ascending the energy-recycling stairs, naive users generated 17.4 ± 6.9% less positive work with their leading legs compared to conventional stairs, with the knee joint positive work reduced by 37.7 ± 10.5%. Users also generated 21.9 ± 17.8% less negative work with their trailing legs during stair descent, with ankle joint negative work reduced by 26.0 ± 15.9%. Our low-power energy-recycling stairs have the potential to assist people with mobility impairments during stair negotiation on existing staircases

Floating Point Arithmetic Protocols for Constructing Secure Data Analysis Application

AbstractA large variety of data mining and machine learning techniques are applied to a wide range of applications today. There- fore, there is a real need to develop technologies that allows data analysis while preserving the confidentiality of the data. Secure multi-party computation (SMC) protocols allows participants to cooperate on various computations while retaining the privacy of their own input data, which is an ideal solution to this issue. Although there is a number of frameworks developed in SMC to meet this challenge, but they are either tailored to perform only on specific tasks or provide very limited precision. In this paper, we have developed protocols for floating point arithmetic based on secure scalar product protocols, which is re- quired in many real world applications. Our protocols follow most of the IEEE-754 standard, supporting the four fundamental arithmetic operations, namely addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We will demonstrate the practicality of these protocols through performing various statistical calculations that is widely used in most data analysis tasks. Our experiments show the performance of our framework is both practical and promising

EBV-positive Hodgkin lymphoma is associated with suppression of p21cip1/waf1 and a worse prognosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>About 30-50% of Hodgkin lymphomas (HLs) harbor the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), but the impact of EBV infection on clinical outcomes has been unclear. EBV-encoded small RNAs (<it>EBER</it>s) are presented in all EBV-infected cells, but their functions are still less understood.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>EBER1 </it>was transfected into two HL cell lines, KMH2 and L428, and microarrays were used to screen for <it>EBER1</it>-induced changes. We found that <it>EBER1 </it>suppressed <it>p21</it>^cip1/waf1transcription in HL cell lines. In addition, positive regulators of <it>p21</it>^cip1/waf1transcription, such as p53, EGR1, and STAT1, were decreased. Suppression of <it>p21</it>^cip1/waf1in the <it>EBER1</it>⁺HL cell lines was associated with increased resistance to histone deacetylase inhibitors or proteasome inhibitors, drugs known to cause apoptosis by increasing p21^cip1/waf1levels. On biopsy specimens, EBV⁺HLs had weaker expression of both p21^cip1/waf1and active caspase 3. Clinically, suppression of p21^cip1/waf1in EBV⁺HLs was associated with a worse 2-year disease-free survival rate (45% for EBV⁺HLs <it>vs</it>. 77% for EBV^-HLs, <it>p </it>= 0.002).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although the underlying mechanisms are still relatively unclear, <it>EBER1 </it>inhibits <it>p21</it>^cip1/waf1transcription and prevents apoptosis through down-regulation of p53, EGR1, and STAT1. The anti-apoptotic activity of <it>EBER1 </it>may be important in the rescue of Reed-Sternberg cells from drug-induced apoptosis and in the clinical behaviors of EBV⁺HLs.</p