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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the attractiveness or unattractiveness of cyberloafing in the workplace using Q methodology and the Kano model. Design/methodology/approach The perception of employees towards cyberloafing was investigated based on Q methodology, and then they were prioritized using Kano model. Ten IT companies were selected for the case study. In this study, a mixed method was used. First, 30 participants were interviewed. Next, after extracting the comments, Q-matrix was presented to 30 participants and they completed the matrix cells. Finally, Kano questionnaire was designed using the items obtained from Q methodology and distributed among 30 participants. Findings Q methodology led to nine perceptions, and the priorities of Kano model were proponents of increasing employees' dependence on the internet, economic thinkers, the indifferent, dissatisfied, proponents of receiving information, self-control proponents, the profit-minded, mind destroyer and satisfaction-oriented. Cyberloafing is considered unattractiveness with adverse effects. The combination of Q methodology and Kano model can improve the analysis of the results. Originality/value This study is one of the few studies in which Q methodology is improved by Kano model. In the past, Q methodology alone examined people’s perception, but by combining these two methods, it is determined which perception is more satisfying and which one is more important, and then a general result can be reached.

Content delivery networks (CDNs) provide efficient content distribution over the Internet. CDNs improve the connectivity and efficiency of global communications, but their caching mechanisms may be breached by cyber-attackers. Among the security mechanisms, effective anomaly detection forms an important part of CDN security enhancement. In this work, we propose a multi-perspective unsupervised learning framework for anomaly detection in CDNs. In the proposed framework, a multi-perspective feature engineering approach, an optimized unsupervised anomaly detection model that utilizes an isolation forest and a Gaussian mixture model, and a multi-perspective validation method, are developed to detect abnormal behaviors in CDNs mainly from the client Internet Protocol (IP) and node perspectives, therefore to identify the denial of service (DoS) and cache pollution attack (CPA) patterns. Experimental results are presented based on the analytics of eight days of real-world CDN log data provided by a major CDN operator. Through experiments, the abnormal contents, compromised nodes, malicious IPs, as well as their corresponding attack types, are identified effectively by the proposed framework and validated by multiple cybersecurity experts. This shows the effectiveness of the proposed method when applied to real-world CDN data., Comment: Accepted and to Appear in IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management

Purpose Green brands are those brands that obtain attributes and benefits related to the reduction of the brands’ environmental impact. Green brand love is a very important issue for marketing managers. One of the main reasons for this degree of importance is because of the many positive outcomes that green brand love will have for organizations. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of green brand image, trust and attitude on green brand love among Muslim consumers. Design/methodology/approach In this study, a cross-sectional survey is conducted based on the questionnaire method to collect data from a sample of 201 consumers of various automobile brands in Isfahan, Iran. Structural equation modeling is used to test the research hypotheses. Findings The findings show that green brand image has a significant direct effect on green brand attitude, love and trust. In addition, the results indicate that green brand attitude and trust have a significant direct effect on green brand love. Practical implications Considering the importance of the issue of automobility and environmental harm, this paper offers new insights to marketing managers of the automotive industry in Iran. Originality/value This study is among the first to explore the effect of green brand image, trust and attitude on green brand love.

Piles are structural members made of steel, concrete, or wood installed into the ground to transfer superstructure loads to the soil. Nowadays, many structures are built on poor lands, and therefore piles have crucial roles in such structures. Performing in-situ tests such as cone penetration (CPT) and piezocone penetration tests (CPTu) have always been of great importance in designing piles. These tests have a brilliant consistency with reality, and as a result, the outcome data can be used in order to achieve reliable pile designing models and reduce uncertainty in this regard. In this paper, the capability of various CPT and CPTu based methods developed from 1961 to 2016 has been investigated using four statistical methods. Such CPT and CPTu based methods are adopted for direct prediction of axial bearing capacity of piles using CPT and CPTu field data. For this purpose, 61 sets of field data prepared from CPT and CPTu have been collected. The data sets were utilized in order to calculate the axial bearing capacity of piles (QE) through 25 different methods. In addition, the measured axial pile capacities (QM) have been collected, recorded and prepared from field static load tests, respectively. Then, four different statistical approaches have been applied to assess the accuracy of these methods. Finally, the most reliable and accurate methods are presented.

Purpose Trust and impersonal trust, in particular, are of significant importance both for organizations and for innovative personnel, who are regarded human assets to organizations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the antecedents and consequences of impersonal trust in organizations. Design/methodology/approach The population of this study constituted the managers, specialists and personnel of a pharmaceutical company in Iran. Out of a total of 200 questionnaires having been administered, 187 were returned; and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used for data analysis. Findings The findings of the study indicate that personal learning has a significant positive effect (β = 0.64) on impersonal trust, that interpersonal communication has a significant positive effect (β = 0.14) on impersonal trust, and that organizational justice perception, also, has a significant positive effect (β = 0.14) on impersonal trust. In addition, the findings show that impersonal trust has a significant positive effect both on job satisfaction (β = 0.47) and on innovation (B = 0.42) and job satisfaction has a significant positive effect (β = 0.39) on innovation. Moreover, impersonal trust, through job satisfaction, has a significant indirect effect (β = 0.18) on innovation; and personal learning, through organizational justice perception, does not have a significant indirect effect (β = 0.014) on impersonal trust. Originality/value This study is among only a few studies having investigated the antecedents and consequences of impersonal trust together. Also, in a developing country like Iran, impersonal trust has rarely been studied.

This study aims at investigating the effect of psychological empowerment on job burnout and competitive advantage with the mediating role of organizational commitment and creativity.,The statistical population included all the managers and staffs of Tooka Company in Iran, and for data analysis, 120 completed questionnaires were used. Data analysis was carried out by SPSS 18 and Amos 20 software and structural equation modeling method. To test the mediating relationships, bootstrap method was used.,The findings showed that psychological empowerment has a significant direct effect on job burnout and competitive advantage. Also, psychological empowerment has a significant indirect effect on job burnout through the mediating role of organizational commitment. In addition, psychological empowerment has a significant indirect effect on competitive advantage through the mediating role of organizational creativity.,This study is among the first to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment, job burnout, competitive advantage, organizational commitment and creativity.,El trabajo tiene como objetivo investigar el efecto del empoderamiento psicologico en el burnout y la ventaja competitiva, junto con el papel mediador del compromiso y la creatividad de la organizacion.,La poblacion incluyo a todos los gerentes y personal de la Compania Tooka en Iran. Para el analisis de datos se utilizaron 120 cuestionarios completos. El analisis de los datos se realizo mediante el software SPSS 18 y Amos 20 y el metodo de modelado de ecuaciones estructurales. Para probar las relaciones de mediacion, se utilizo el metodo bootstrap.,Los resultados muestran que el empoderamiento psicologico tiene un efecto directo significativo en el burnout y la ventaja competitiva. Ademas, el empoderamiento psicologico tiene un efecto indirecto significativo en el burnout a traves del papel mediador del compromiso organizacional. Ademas, el empoderamiento psicologico tiene un efecto indirecto significativo sobre la ventaja competitiva a traves del papel mediador de la creatividad organizacional.,Este trabajo es uno de los primeros en investigar la relacion entre empoderamiento psicologico, burnout, ventaja competitiva, compromiso organizacional y creatividad.,A pesquisa atual teve como objetivo investigar o efeito do empoderamento psicologico na sindrome de Burnout no trabalho e na vantagem competitiva com o papel mediador do compromisso organizacional e da criatividade.,A populacao estatistica inclui todos os gestores e funcionarios da Tooka Company no Ira e para a analise de dados, foram utilizados 120 questionarios. A analise de dados foi realizada em SPSS 18 e amos 20 e com a metodologia de equacoes estruturais. Para testar os relacionamentos mediadores, o metodo bootstrap foi usado.,Os resultados mostraram que o empoderamento psicologico tem um efeito direto significativo no Burnout no trabalho e na vantagem competitiva. Alem disso, o empoderamento psicologico tem um efeito indireto significativo no Burnout no trabalho atraves do papel mediador do compromisso organizacional. Alem disso, o empoderamento psicologico tem um efeito indireto significativo na vantagem competitiva atraves do papel mediador da criatividade organizacional.,Esta pesquisa esta entre as primeiras a investigar a relacao entre empoderamento psicologico, Burnout no trabalho, vantagem competitiva, compromisso organizacional e criatividade.

We describe the framework for capturing the internal view of complex anatomical spaces via multiple media and haptic platforms, exemplified by realistic and conceptual representations of the pterygopalatine fossa (PPF). A realistic three-dimensional (3D) mesh of the PPF was developed by segmenting the osseous anatomy on computed tomography (CT) using Materialize InPrint. Subsequently in Autodesk 3D Studio Max, the realistic mesh was enhanced with graphically designed neurovascular anatomy and additionally a conceptual representation of the PPF with its connections and contents was created. An interactive web-compatible Adobe Flash tutorial using ActionScript was developed, allowing users to advance through a series of educational slides that contained interactive rotatable interior camera views and scrollable CT cross-sectional content, incorporating both the realistic and conceptual models. Both models were also 3D printed using polyamide material. In the realistic model, the neurovasculature was colored with water-based acrylic paint. A 3-piece modular design with embedded magnets allows for internal visualization and seamless assembly. A serious gaming environment of the conceptual PPF was also developed using Truevision3D application programming interface, where users can freely move around rooms and hallways that represent various spaces. Lastly, the realistic model was incorporated into a headset-based virtual reality environment, Surgical Theater, allowing visualization and fly-through inside and outside the model. Multiple 3D techniques for visualization of complex 3D anatomical spaces from within were described, with the necessary software and skills detailed. A rough estimate of the time and cost needed to develop these tools as well as multiple supplementary source and end result files are also made available. Educators could utilize multiple advanced delivery methods to incorporate custom digital 3D models of complex anatomical spaces understood from inside.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of stroke patients presenting in an extended time window who have a thrombolytic treatment target. BACKGROUND: Patients presenting up to 24 h after stroke onset have been found to have penumbral tissue on multimodal imaging. Stroke patients presenting in this extended time window without a large vessel occlusion (LVO) may benefit from reperfusion therapy using thrombolysis. METHODS: Patients seen at our institutions from 2011 through 2015 were reviewed to identify those who presented >4 h and 1.2. Patients with a mismatch presented earlier (P = 0.012), were more likely to be female (P = 0.03), and had higher National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Almost half of the patients presenting 4–24 h from LSN had a target for thrombolysis in our study. Multimodal imaging may be able to expand the population of treatable stroke patients given the results of recent clinical trials.

One of the main complaints of older adults is difficulty understanding speech in noise. For older adults with audiometric thresholds within the normal range this difficulty may partly reflect deficits in temporal processing. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of age on the rate of recovery from forward masking. There were seven young participants (four females; mean age 26 years) and seven older participants (six females; mean age 62 years) with normal audiometric thresholds, designated YNH and ONH groups. Signal frequencies of 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz were used. The level of the 20-ms signal was fixed at 15 dB SL for each participant and frequency. The 200-ms masker was a band of noise centered at the signal frequency with a bandwidth equal to the center frequency. The masker level was varied to determine the masker-to-signal ratio (MSR) required for threshold for masker-signal intervals (MSIs) of 5, 10, 20, 30, and 50 ms. The MSRs were smaller for the ONH group than for the YNH group, perhaps indicating lower processing efficiency for the former. Importantly, there was a significant interaction between MSI and the group. The change in MSR with increasing MSI was greater for the YNH than for the ONH group, indicating poorer temporal resolution for the latter.

Background: Penumbral brain tissue identified with multimodal imaging can be salvaged with reperfusion in an extended time window. The risk of severe hemorrhagic complications after reperfusion therapy increases with worsening disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The relationship between penumbral tissue and BBB disruption has not been previously studied.Methods: Stroke patients presenting in an extended time window without a large vessel occlusion who underwent diffusion-perfusion MRI within 24 h of last-seen-normal were included. The volume of penumbral tissue was calculated using mismatch on MRI. Mean permeability derangement (MPD) of the BBB was measured within the ischemic lesion. A target profile (TP) for treatment was defined based on the EXTEND trial.Results: 222 patients were included with a median age of 73 and 55% women. The median NIHSS was 6, the mean core volume was 14 ml, the mean ischemic volume was 47 mL and the mean mismatch volume was 33 mL. Higher MPD was significantly associated with less mismatch volume (p = 0.001). A target profile was associated with lower MPD (OR 0.97; CI 0.96:0.99; p < 0.001). Of the 105 patients who had a TP, 31 (30%) had a MPD > 20% suggesting an increased risk of hemorrhage. Thus, 33% (74/222) of patients had a favorable profile for benefit and safety.Conclusions: Patients presenting in an extended time window with a favorable penumbral profile for treatment have less severe BBB disruption. Up to a third of patients who currently go untreated could be considered for enrollment in a clinical trial of thrombolysis in an extended time window.

Deploying V2X services has become a challenging task. This is mainly due to the fact that such services have strict latency requirements. To meet these requirements, one potential solution is adopting mobile edge computing (MEC). However, this presents new challenges including how to find a cost efficient placement that meets other requirements such as latency. In this work, the problem of cost-optimal V2X service placement (CO-VSP) in a distributed cloud/edge environment is formulated. Additionally, a cost-focused delay-aware V2X service placement (DA-VSP) heuristic algorithm is proposed. Simulation results show that both CO-VSP model and DA-VSP algorithm guarantee the QoS requirements of all such services and illustrates the trade-off between latency and deployment cost., 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, 1 algorithm pseudocode, Accepted & presented in IEEE 16th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob 2020)

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication and services have been garnering significant interest from different stakeholders as part of future intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). This is due to the many benefits they offer. However, many of these services have stringent performance requirements, particularly in terms of the delay/latency. Multi-access/mobile edge computing (MEC) has been proposed as a potential solution for such services by bringing them closer to vehicles. Yet, this introduces a new set of challenges such as where to place these V2X services, especially given the limit computation resources available at edge nodes. To that end, this work formulates the problem of optimal V2X service placement (OVSP) in a hybrid core/edge environment as a binary integer linear programming problem. To the best of our knowledge, no previous work considered the V2X service placement problem while taking into consideration the computational resource availability at the nodes. Moreover, a low-complexity greedy-based heuristic algorithm named "Greedy V2X Service Placement Algorithm" (G-VSPA) was developed to solve this problem. Simulation results show that the OVSP model successfully guarantees and maintains the QoS requirements of all the different V2X services. Additionally, it is observed that the proposed G-VSPA algorithm achieves close to optimal performance while having lower complexity., Comment: 13 pages, 16 figures (including 5 bio pictures), accepted and to be published in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing

Glioblastoma multiform (GBM) is described as one of the most frequent primary brain tumors. These types of malignancies constitute only 15% of all primary brain tumors. Despite, extensive developments on effective therapeutic methods during the 20th century as well as the first decade of the present century (21st), the median survival rate for patients suffering from GBM is only approximately 15 months, even in response to multi-modal therapy. numerous types of reticuloendothelial system cells such as macrophages and microglial cells occupied within both GBM and also normal surrounding tissues. These immune cells acquire an otherwise activated phenotype with potent tumor-tropic functions that contribute to the glioma growth and invasion. The CC chemokine, CCL2 (previously named MCP-1) is of the most important CC chemokines family member involving in regulation of oriented migration and penetrative infiltration of mainly reticuloendothelial system cells specifically monocyte/macrophage phenotypes. Fundamental parts are played by CCL2 and its related receptor (the CCR2) in brain tumors and obviously in migration of monocytes from the bloodstream through the vascular endothelium. Therefore, CCL2/CCR2 axis is required for the routine immunological surveillance of tissues, in accordance with response to inflammation. Briefly, in this review, we have tried our best to collect the latest, straightened and summarize literature reports exist within data base regarding the interaction between microglia/macrophages and CCL2/CCR2 axis in GBM. We aimed to discuss potential application of this chemokine/receptor interaction axis for the expansion of future anti-glioma therapies as well.

Surgical evaluation of medically refractory epilepsy frequently necessitates implantation of multiple intracranial electrodes for the identification of the seizure focus. Knowledge of the individual brain's surface anatomy and deep structures is crucial for planning the electrode implantation. We present a novel method of 3D printing a brain that allows for the simulation of placement of all types of intracranial electrodes. We used a DICOM dataset of a T1-weighted 3D-FSPGR brain MRI from one subject. The segmentation tools of Materialise Mimics 21.0 were used to remove the osseous anatomy from brain parenchyma. Materialise 3-matic 13.0 was then utilized in order to transform the cortex of the segmented brain parenchyma into a mesh-like surface. Using 3-matic tools, the model was modified to incorporate deep brain structures and create an opening in the medial aspect. The final model was then 3D printed as a cerebral hemisphere with nylon material using selective laser sintering technology. The final model was light and durable and reflected accurate details of the surface anatomy and some deep structures. Additionally, standard surgical depth electrodes could be passed through the model to reach deep structures without damaging the model. This novel 3D-printed brain model provides a unique combination of visualizing both the surface anatomy and deep structures through the mesh-like surface while allowing repeated needle insertions. This relatively low-cost technique can be implemented for interdisciplinary preprocedural planning in patients requiring intracranial EEG monitoring and for any intervention that requires needle insertion into a solid organ with unique anatomy and internal targets.

Background and Aim: Investigations have shown that the patient’s attitudes toward hearing loss and hearing aids impact hearing aid benefits and its use. In this regard, Saunders and Cien­kowski (1996) developed the “attitudes towards loss of hearing questionnaire” to examine some of the psychosocial factors underlying the use of hearing aids. This study has focused on pre­paring a Persian version of this questionnaire and analyzing its validity and reliability. Methods: The original English version of the questionnaire was translated into Persian, and its content and face validities were determined by related experts. The final questionnaire was administered to 100 hearing impaired people (52 males and 48 females) aged 30 to 65 years with the mean (SD) age of 54.54 (12.05) years. The test-retest reliability was assessed in 20 pat­ients. Results: The results of face validity assessment revealed that our questionnaire has a high quality in translation, intelligibility, and cultural compatibility. The mean scores of the content validity ratio and content validity index of this questionnaire was 0.71 and 0.98, respectively. The mean (SD) total score of this questionnaire was 60.46 (10.02) and the mean scores of denial of hearing loss, negative associations, negative coping strategies, manual dexterity and vision and hearing-related esteem were 15.58, 12.10, 20.40, 5.30, and 7.08, respectively. The overall Cronbach α value was 0.798. The test-retest reliability showed good results for the global score (Intraclass correlation = 0.989). Conclusion: Based on the obtained results, the Persian version of the questionnaire possesses satisfactory validity and reliability.

In this paper, we present our proof-of-concept of a workload aware storage platform. The POC demonstrates the feasibility of building a machine learning technics facilitated middleware for storage management. The middleware is capable of providing optimal assignments of storage workloads to backends as well as continuously on-the-fly optimization thereafter. Experiment indicates that the proposed middleware can efficiently and dynamically adapt the storage backend to satisfy the SLA requirements with minimum impact on the workloads.

High availability is a critical requirement for cloud deployed services. Cloud providers offer different availability zones with geo-redundancy to protect their infrastructure and consequently their tenants against failures and natural disasters. Nevertheless, different zones may have different reliability levels depending on the hardware equipment, the geo-location, the energy source powering the facility, etc. Hence, the ability to assess the expected availability of a given deployment is extremely important for both the cloud tenants and providers that are bound by a service level agreement. Due to the stochastic nature of failures, a formal stochastic model is needed to quantify the expected availability offered by an application deployment. This paper presents a Stochastic Petri Net model to evaluate the availability of cloud services and their deployment in geographically distributed data centers. The proposed Stochastic Petri Net model captures the characteristics of the cloud provider and user. It translates them into elements of an availability model that can be solved to calculate the expected availability and subsequently be used to guide the cloud scheduling solution.