Controlling Entanglement Dynamics by Choosing Appropriate Ratio between Cavity-Fiber Coupling and Atom-Cavity Coupling

The entanglement characteristics including the so-called sudden death effect between two identical two-level atoms trapped in two separate cavities connected by an optical fiber are studied. The results show that the time evolution of entanglement is sensitive not only to the degree of entanglement of the initial state but also to the ratio between cavity-fiber coupling () and atom-cavity coupling (). This means that the entanglement dynamics can be controlled by choosing specific v and g.Comment: 14pages, 3figures, conferenc

An Empirical Study of Online Consumer Review Spam: A Design Science Approach

Because of the sheer volume of consumer reviews posted to the Internet, a manual approach for the detection and analysis of fake reviews is not practical. However, automated detection of fake reviews is a very challenging research problem given the fact that fake reviews could just look like legitimate reviews. Guided by the design science research methodology, one of the main contributions of our research work is the development of a novel methodology and an instantiation which can effectively detect untruthful consumer reviews. The results of our experiment confirm that the proposed methodology outperforms other well-known baseline methods for detecting untruthful reviews collected from amazon.com. Above all, the designed artifacts enable us to conduct an econometric analysis to examine the impact of fake reviews on product sales. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical study conducted to analyze the economic impact of fake consumer reviews

A Critical Analysis Of The State-Of-The-Art On Automated Detection Of Deceptive Behavior In Social Media

Recently, a large body of research has been devoted to examine the user behavioral patterns and the business implications of social media. However, relatively little research has been conducted regarding users’ deceptive activities in social media; these deceptive activities may hinder the effective application of the data collected from social media to perform e-marketing and initiate business transformation in general. One of the main contributions of this paper is the critical analysis of the possible forms of deceptive behavior in social media and the state-of-the-art technologies for automated deception detection in social media. Based on the proposed taxonomy of major deception types, the assumptions, advantages, and disadvantages of the popular deception detection methods are analyzed. Our critical analysis shows that deceptive behavior may evolve over time, and so making it difficult for the existing methods to effectively detect social media spam. Accordingly, another main contribution of this paper is the design and development of a generic framework to combat dynamic deceptive activities in social media. The managerial implication of our research is that business managers or marketers will develop better insights about the possible deceptive behavior in social media before they tap into social media to collect and generate market intelligence. Moreover, they can apply the proposed adaptive deception detection framework to more effectively combat the ever increasing and evolving deceptive activities in social medi

Internet-based Multiagent Architecture

Research in intelligent agents and multiagent systems that run on the Internet has received increased attention and importance in recent years. Since the Internet continues to grow, intelligent agent technology is progressively being introduced to many Internet-based applications for communications between different applications. The aim of this paper is to present an Internet-based architecture for multiagent systems which offers a communication infrastructure and coordination services for agents to achieve their goals. A structured architecture is proposed to support communication facilities among several agents and coordinate agent activities in distributed environments such as the Internet and Intranets. The architecture consists of 1) Application agents, 2) Communication handler, 3) Knowledge manager, and 4) Repository. (Yuen, et al. 1999; Leung, et al. 1999). These four layers cooperate together and provide common facilities necessary for typical multiagent systems or agent-based applications with various choices. An Internet-based prototype for auditing and detecting unauthorized transactions within an organization over the Internet or an Intranet is implemented to demonstrate the practicability and feasibility of the proposed Internet-based architecture for multiagent systems

Characterization, identification, and cloning of the S-layer protein from Cytophaga sp

We characterized, identified, and cloned a major protein which comprised 16% of the total proteins from Cytophaga sp. cell lysate. After French pressing, the fraction of cell envelope was treated with 0.2% Triton X-100 to remove cell membranes. Subsequent SDS-PAGE analysis of the Triton X-100-insoluble cell wall revealed a protein of 120 kDa with a pI of 5.4, which was identified by gold immunostaining as the surface (S)-layer protein of this soil bacterium. The nucleotide sequence of the cloned S-layer protein gene (slp) encoding this protein consisted of 3144 nucleotides with an ORF for 1047 amino acids, which included a typical 32-amino acid leader peptide sequence. Amino acid sequence alignment revealed 29-48% similarity between this protein and the S-layer proteins from other prokaryotic organisms. The 120-kDa protein from the Cytophaga sp. cell lysate has been characterized as a member of the S-layer proteins, and the slp gene was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. E. coli harboring the plasmid containing the 600- or 800-bp DNA fragment upstream of the initiation codon of the slp gene, in the presence of the reporter gene rsda (raw starch digesting amylase), showed amylase activity in starch containing plate. The putative promoter region of slp located 600 bp upstream of the initiation codon might be used for foreign gene expression

Glial activation involvement in neuronal death by Japanese encephalitis virus infection

Japanese encephalitis is characterized by profound neuronal destruction/dysfunction and concomitant microgliosis/astrogliosis. Although substantial activation of glia is observed in Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV)-induced Japanese encephalitis, the inflammatory responses and consequences of astrocytes and microglial activation after JEV infection are not fully understood. In this study, infection of cultured neurons/glia with JEV caused neuronal death and glial activation, as evidenced by morphological transformation, increased cell proliferation and elevated tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, interleukin (IL)-1 beta, IL-6 and RANTES (regulated upon activation, normal T-cell expressed and secreted) production. Replication-competent JEV caused all glial responses and neurotoxicity. However, replication-incompetent JEV lost these abilities, except for the ability to change microglial morphology. The bystander damage caused by activated glia also contributed to JEV-associated neurotoxicity. Microglia underwent morphological changes, increased cell proliferation and elevated TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta, IL-6 and RANTES expression in response to JEV infection. In contrast, IL-6 and RANTES expression, but no apparent morphological changes, proliferation or TNF-alpha/IL-1 beta expression, was demonstrated in JEV-infected astrocytes. Supernatants of JEV-infected microglia, but not JEV-infected astrocytes, induced glial activation and triggered neuronal death. Antibody neutralization studies revealed that TNF-alpha and IL-1 beta, but not RANTES or IL-6, released by activated microglia appeared to play roles in JEV-associated neurotoxicity. In conclusion, following JEV infection, neuronal death was accompanied by concomitant microgliosis and astrogliosis, and neurotoxic mediators released by JEV-activated microglia, rather than by JEV-activated astrocytes, had the ability to amplify the microglial response and cause neuronal death

Age, gender, neck circumference, and Epworth sleepiness scale do not predict obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): The challenge to predict OSA in advanced COPD

The combination of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. We hypothesized that predictors of OSA among patients with COPD may be distinct from OSA in the general population. Therefore, we investigated associations between traditional OSA risk factors (e.g. age), and sleep questionnaires [e.g. Epworth Sleepiness Scale] in 44 patients with advanced COPD. As a second aim we proposed a pilot, simplified screening test for OSA in patients with COPD. In a prospective, observational study of patients enrolled in the UCSD Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program we collected baseline characteristics, cardiovascular events (e.g. atrial fibrillation), and sleep questionnaires [e.g. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)]. For the pilot questionnaire, a BMI =25 kg/m2 and the presence of cardiovascular disease were used to construct the pilot screening test. Male: 59%; OSA 66%. FEV1 (mean ± SD) = 41.0±18.2% pred., FEV1/FVC = 41.5±12.7%]. Male gender, older age, and large neck circumference were not associated with OSA. Also, Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the STOP-Bang questionnaire were not associated with OSA in univariate logistic regression. In contrast, BMI =25 kg/m2 (OR = 3.94, p = 0.04) and diagnosis of cardiovascular disease (OR = 5.06, p = 0.03) were significantly associated with OSA [area under curve (AUC) = 0.74]. The pilot COPD-OSA test (OR = 5.28, p = 0.05) and STOP-Bang questionnaire (OR = 5.13, p = 0.03) were both associated with OSA in Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis. The COPD-OSA test had the best AUC (0.74), sensitivity (92%), and specificity (83%). A tenfold cross-validation validated our results. We found that traditional OSA predictors (e.g. gender, Epworth score) did not perform well in patients with more advanced COPD. Our pilot test may be an easy to implement instrument to screen for OSA. However, a larger validation study is necessary before further clinical implementation is warranted

A Month in the Life of Groupon

Groupon has become the latest Internet sensation, providing daily deals to customers in the form of discount offers for restaurants, ticketed events, appliances, services, and other items. We undertake a study of the economics of daily deals on the web, based on a dataset we compiled by monitoring Groupon over several weeks. We use our dataset to characterize Groupon deal purchases, and to glean insights about Groupon's operational strategy. Our focus is on purchase incentives. For the primary purchase incentive, price, our regression model indicates that demand for coupons is relatively inelastic, allowing room for price-based revenue optimization. More interestingly, mining our dataset, we find evidence that Groupon customers are sensitive to other, "soft", incentives, e.g., deal scheduling and duration, deal featuring, and limited inventory. Our analysis points to the importance of considering incentives other than price in optimizing deal sites and similar systems.Comment: 6 page

Integration of molecular biology tools for identifying promoters and genes abundantly expressed in flowers of Oncidium Gower Ramsey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Orchids comprise one of the largest families of flowering plants and generate commercially important flowers. However, model plants, such as <it>Arabidopsis thaliana </it>do not contain all plant genes, and agronomic and horticulturally important genera and species must be individually studied.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Several molecular biology tools were used to isolate flower-specific gene promoters from <it>Oncidium </it>'Gower Ramsey' (<it>Onc</it>. GR). A cDNA library of reproductive tissues was used to construct a microarray in order to compare gene expression in flowers and leaves. Five genes were highly expressed in flower tissues, and the subcellular locations of the corresponding proteins were identified using lip transient transformation with fluorescent protein-fusion constructs. BAC clones of the 5 genes, together with 7 previously published flower- and reproductive growth-specific genes in <it>Onc</it>. GR, were identified for cloning of their promoter regions. Interestingly, 3 of the 5 novel flower-abundant genes were putative trypsin inhibitor (<it>TI</it>) genes (<it>OnTI1</it>, <it>OnTI2 </it>and <it>OnTI3</it>), which were tandemly duplicated in the same BAC clone. Their promoters were identified using transient GUS reporter gene transformation and stable <it>A. thaliana </it>transformation analyses.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>By combining cDNA microarray, BAC library, and bombardment assay techniques, we successfully identified flower-directed orchid genes and promoters.</p