An alternative,layout‐driven approach to the clustering of documents

Internet has become a huge repository of information and knowledge, based on the sharing of the electronic documents. Last trends in knowledge management focus on the knowledge representation based on the document content. In fact, most accustomed approaches achieve the document understanding by analyzing the “portions of information'' in the document which describe the content, through techniques of text parsing and extraction. This paper presents an alternative approach that departs from the consolidated techniques of document management and focuses on the logical structure of a PDF document as a discriminating source of document knowledge. The main idea is based on the fact, when the reader looks at a paper, his first perception is related to the layout of the document. The analysis of layout, typesetting, paginating, and graphical arrangement of a document provides interesting information about its content understanding; in general, the documents that are in the same category present similar page layout, fonts, and figures arrangement. In this sense, this work presents an alternative way to deal with documents recognition and understanding, through the analysis of the layout of electronic PDF documents and their classification. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Platform‐independent profiling in a virtual execution environment

Virtual execution environments, such as the Java virtual machine, promote platform‐independent software development. However, when it comes to analyzing algorithm complexity and performance bottlenecks, available tools focus on platform‐specific metrics, such as the CPU time consumption on a particular system. Other drawbacks of many prevailing profiling tools are high overhead, significant measurement perturbation, as well as reduced portability of profiling tools, which are often implemented in platform‐dependent native code. This article presents a novel profiling approach, which is entirely based on program transformation techniques, in order to build a profiling data structure that provides calling‐context‐sensitive program execution statistics. We explore the use of platform‐independent profiling metrics in order to make the instrumentation entirely portable and to generate reproducible profiles. We implemented these ideas within a Java‐based profiling tool called JP. A significant novelty is that this tool achieves complete bytecode coverage by statically instrumenting the core runtime libraries and dynamically instrumenting the rest of the code. JP provides a small and flexible API to write customized profiling agents in pure Java, which are periodically activated to process the collected profiling information. Performance measurements point out that, despite the presence of dynamic instrumentation, JP causes significantly less overhead than a prevailing tool for the profiling of Java code. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Textures on Rank‐1 Lattices

Storing textures on orthogonal tensor product lattices is predominant in computer graphics, although it is known that their sampling efficiency is not optimal. In two dimensions, the hexagonal lattice provides the maximum sampling efficiency. However, handling these lattices is difficult, because they are not able to tile an arbitrary rectangular region and have an irrational basis. By storing textures on rank‐1 lattices, we resolve both problems: Rank‐1 lattices can closely approximate hexagonal lattices, while all coordinates of the lattice points remain integer. At identical memory footprint texture quality is improved as compared to traditional orthogonal tensor product lattices due to the higher sampling efficiency. We introduce the basic theory of rank‐1 lattice textures and present an algorithmic framework which easily can be integrated into existing off‐line and real‐time rendering systems.     

How Does Corporate Reputation Affect Customer Loyalty in a Corporate Crisis?

It is widely accepted that corporate reputation plays an important role in determining the impact of crises on firms. Crises may erode corporate reputation. However, reputation may also attenuate the negative effects of crises. This study investigates how corporate reputation moderates the relationship between crisis occurrence and customer loyalty which is expected to decrease given a crisis. Drawing on opposing theories, namely dissonance theory and expectancy‐violation, we conduct a scenario experiment set in the airline industry. Results demonstrate that the moderating effect is weaker in the case of a favourable corporate reputation. This may indicate that a pre‐existing favourable reputation does not shield the firm from the negative effects of the crisis, but may rather present a liability because customers have higher expectations with regard to well‐reputed firms. Contrary to that, ill‐reputed firms have less to lose in the case of a crisis and suffer comparatively smaller decreases in customer loyalty. Marketing management might take into account the role of crisis and reputation management for customer bonding strategies while crisis management should recognize the importance of reputation effects in crises given their impact on customer loyalty and firm profitability.     

Study of phase equilibria in the Nb-Ti-Al system theoretical study: CVM calculation of the phase diagram of bcc Nb-Ti-Al

The cluster variation method (CVM) in the irregular tetrahedron approximation has been used to calculate the temperature and composition limits of the ordered-cubic-centered B2 phase field in the Nb-Ti-Al system. Results show that this B2 domain is large and particularly extended toward the Nb-rich compositions. The order-disorder B2 → A2 transition temperature and the occupation probabilities of sites of the B2 phase are strongly dependent on composition that is in agreement with experimental results [98Cha].     

Effect of excitatory amino acid, dopamine, and oxytocin receptor antagonists on noncontact penile erections and paraventricular nitric oxide production in male rats.

In male rats, noncontact erections occur concomitantly with an increase in NO?- and NO?- in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN). In the present study, both responses were reduced by the blockade of PVN excitatory amino acid receptors by dizocilpine, (+)-MK-801(1 and 5 μg), but not by 6-cyano-7-nitro-quinoxaline-2,3-dione (5 μg) or (±)-2-amino-4-phosphono-butanoic acid (5 μg). Also ineffective when injected into the PVN were the dopamine antagonists SCH 23390 (5 μg), S(+)-raclopride (10 μg), and cis-flupenthixol (10 μg), and the oxytocin antagonist d(CH?)?Tyr(Me)2-Orn?-vasotocin (1 μg). However, when the last was given into the lateral ventricles, it reduced noncontact erections without modifying NO?- and NO?- increases. These results suggest that excitatory amino acid transmission increases in the PVN during noncontact erections. This may contribute to increased NO production in the PVN, and it may activate oxytocin neurons mediating this sexual response. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of the pressure-temperature treatment on the polymerization of C60 single crystals at 2 GPa-700 K

X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy have been used to characterize the structures obtained when C₆₀ single crystals are treated at 2 GPa-700 K. Two different experimental procedures have been applied: the temperature is raised before the pressure is applied, or the opposite. The “heating-then-pressing” path leads to the tetragonal polymer structure (P4₂/mmc) together with a minor fraction of rhombohedral structure, which confirms previous results. In contrast, the “pressing-then-heating” path leads to a different state presenting similarities with both the rhombohedral and the disordered dimer structures. The results are discussed in light of the orientational and dynamical aspects of the C₆₀ polymerization.     

Carbamazepine reduces dopamine-mediated behavior in chronic neuroleptic-treated and untreated rats: Implications for treatment of tardive dyskinesia and hyperdopaminergic states.

Chronic treatment with neuroleptic drugs such as haloperidol (HAL) can result in a syndrome of abnormal involuntary movements known as tardive dyskinesia (TD). The authors have obtained evidence that TD in humans is reduced in patients also taking anticonvulsant drugs, primarily carbamazepine (CBZ). To test for a causal role of CBZ in this effect, the authors quantified abnormal movements elicited by dopamine (DA) receptor stimulation in rats (Rattus norvegicus) withdrawn from chronic treatment with HAL or CBZ alone or in combination. The expected increased behavioral responsiveness to combined D1/D2 stimulation in rats treated with HAL for 8 weeks was significantly attenuated by chronic CBZ, which also attenuated behavioral responsiveness in otherwise untreated rats. Striatal D2 DA receptor density was elevated in rats treated chronically with HAL but unaffected by CBZ. Striatal D1 DA receptor density was elevated by chronic CBZ but unaffected by HAL. These findings suggest that by reducing DA supersensitivity, CBZ may be useful in treating TD and other hyperdopaminergic states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Probiotic potential and sensory properties of coconut flan supplemented with Lactobacillus paracasei and Bifidobacterium lactis

The effect of probiotic cultures on sensory performance of coconut flan during storage at 5 °C and the viability of these micro organisms for up to 28 days were investigated. Sensory analyses of the product were performed after 7, 14 and 21 days of storage. Coconut flans were produced with no addition of cultures (T1, control), or supplemented with Bifidobacterium lactis (T2), Lactobacillus paracasei (T3) and B. lactis  +  L. paracasei (T4). Populations of L. paracasei and B. lactis as single or in co-culture remained above 7 log CFU g⁻¹ during the entire storage period. Viability of L. paracasei was higher for T3. All products were well accepted and no significant differences ( P  > 0.05) were detected between the coconut flans studied. The addition of L. paracasei and B. lactis to coconut flan resulted in its having great potential as a functional food, which has high sensory acceptability.