A Quantitative Method for Measuring Health of Authoritative Name Servers

The Domain Name System - DNS is regarded as one of the critical infrastructure component of the global Internet because a large-scale DNS outage would effectively take a typical user offline. Therefore, the Internet community should ensure that critical components of the DNS ecosystem - that is, root name servers, top-level domain registrars and registries, authoritative name servers, and recursive resolvers - function smoothly. To this end, the community should monitor them periodically and provide public alerts about abnormal behavior. The authors propose a novel quantitative approach for evaluating the health of authoritative name servers – a critical, core, and a large component of the DNS ecosystem. The performance is typically measured in terms of response time, reliability, and throughput for most of the Internet components. This research work proposes a novel list of parameters specifically for determining the health of authoritative name servers: DNS attack permeability, latency comparison, and DNSSEC validation.

Customer Value of Smart Grid Application

The authors investigate customer value of smart grid application in smart city from the perspective of main research paradigms of customer value. Data is based on questionnaire for customers (N=131), deep interviews among specialists (7=N), and two months of observation. The results show that the typical user of smart grid technology is a male aged between 30 and 69 who considers that using the application is interesting because of the perceived benefits. Developing strong customer relationship is formed through the provision of e-service quality that has a key role in maintaining customer trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. End-product and service process paradigms to measure customer value do not fully take the complex context of smart cities into consideration, and the ecosystem paradigm must be developed to analyze customer value in smart cities in interactive dynamic decentralized environment where cumulative big data is used to match the customer needs with new digital services.

Subtask A: User perspective and requirements - A.3 Personas

The consumption of energy for lighting in buildings depends very much on the way people interact with the build environment. In this study the following building types were studied, office, school, university, commercial and industry buildings. For each building type typical user groups were identified. Then, Personas have been created for each group. As opposed to describing users with numbers and statistics, a single Persona reflects a group and is presented with a narrative. The Persona has a name, a family and living conditions that are representative for the group, also her/his values and interests are not uncommon. The Personas “typical day” includes a time schedule typical for the group. Visual conditions are common for the group, but some specific challenges connected to the visual conditions that may occur in the group are also mentioned.

EXPRESS: Is Nestlé a Lady? The Feminine Brand Name Advantage

A brand name’s linguistic characteristics convey brand qualities independent of the name’s denotative meaning. For instance, name length, sounds, and stress can signal masculine or feminine associations. This research examines the effects of such gender associations on three important brand outcomes: attitudes, choice, and performance. Across six studies using both observational analyses of real brands and experimental manipulations of invented brands the authors show that linguistically feminine names increase perceived warmth, which improves brand outcomes. Feminine brand names enhance attitudes and choice share–both hypothetically and consequentially–and are associated with better brand performance. The authors establish boundary conditions, showing that the feminine brand name advantage is attenuated when the typical user is male and when products are utilitarian.

Evaluating Public Library Events using a Combination of Methods

Public libraries hold an increasing number of events, where they face the very important, but often neglected, challenge of evaluation. This paper presents various studies performed to evaluate events for adults at the largest public library in Slovenia, Mestna knjižnica Ljubljana (Ljubljana City Library). A combination of methods was used: content analysis of library website and promotional brochures, interviews with both attendees and librarians, observation of events and a relatively large survey. Additionally, based on this research, seven personas representing typical user groups of events for adults were developed. While attendees were generally highly satisfied with the existing events, our research found room for improvement, especially regarding planning for particular user groups, scheduling and topical diversity of events and promotion aimed at both existing and potential visitors. Based on this research, Ljubljana City Library prepared guidelines for their future events for adults. Additionally, the general outline of the evaluation should be of benefit to any library regardless of type, size or location.

Customer Value of Smart Grid Application

The authors investigate customer value of smart grid application in smart city from the perspective of main research paradigms of customer value. Data is based on questionnaire for customers (N=131), deep interviews among specialists (7=N), and two months of observation. The results show that the typical user of smart grid technology is a male aged between 30 and 69 who considers that using the application is interesting because of the perceived benefits. Developing strong customer relationship is formed through the provision of e-service quality that has a key role in maintaining customer trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. End-product and service process paradigms to measure customer value do not fully take the complex context of smart cities into consideration, and the ecosystem paradigm must be developed to analyze customer value in smart cities in interactive dynamic decentralized environment where cumulative big data is used to match the customer needs with new digital services.

SIR Meta Distribution in the Heterogeneous and Hybrid Networks

With the development of the technology, the wireless systems are becoming more heterogeneous with the introduction of various power nodes including femtocells, relays, or distributed antennas. Among the research of wireless network performance, the meta distribution of the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) has attracted significant attention. Compared to the standard success (coverage) probability, the meta distribution provides much more fine-grained information about the network performance. In this paper, we analyze the meta distribution of the SIR in the multi-tier heterogeneous and hybrid networks, where each tier is based on a homogeneous independent Poisson point process model. For the open tiers (the users can associate with any tier) and the closed tiers (the users can only associate with a certain tier), we study the b th moment of the conditional success probability for the typical user and give the beta approximation of the meta distribution from analysis and simulations. Furthermore, we analyze the per-link rate control for open tiers and closed tiers, which answers the question: “how to set the SIR threshold to meet a target reliability?”. We give the approximate value of the SIR threshold to meet a target reliability and show how the value is related to the path loss exponent and densities.

Język pism Józefa Piłsudskiego – Rok 1920

Rok 1920 (1920) is the most extensive text by Józef Piłsudski. The image of the author inferred from the linguistic features of the text is one of a typical user of general Polish in the interwar period, that is a representative of the Polish intelligentsia of those days. The idiolectal and regional characteristics are infrequent or occasional (in the phonetic, grammatical, and lexical layers). The stylistics of the treaty is primarily the stylistics of a realistic description and the author’s narrative, used effi ciently and displaying a great narrative talent and the knowledge of realities.

Inside the Decentralised Casino: A Longitudinal Study of Actual Cryptocurrency Gambling Transactions

Decentralised gambling applications are a new way for individuals to engage in online gambling. Decentralised gambling applications are distinguished from traditional online casinos in that individuals use cryptocurrency as a stake. Furthermore, rather than being stored on a traditional server, decentralised gambling applications are stored on a cryptocurrency’s blockchain.Previous work in the player behaviour tracking literature has examined the spending profiles of gamblers on traditional online casinos. However, parallel work has not taken place in the decentralised gambling domain. The profile of gamblers on decentralised gambling applications are therefore not known.This paper explores 2,232,741 transactions from 24,234 unique addresses to three such applications operating atop the Ethereum cryptocurrency network over 583 days. We present spending profiles across these applications, providing the first detailed summary of spending behaviours in this technologically advanced domain. We find that the typical user spends approximately \$110 equivalent across a median of 6 bets in a single day, although heavily involved bettors spend approximately \$100,000 equivalent over a median of 644 bets across 35 days. Our findings suggest that the use of decentralised gambling applications typically involves lower and less frequent expenditures than other online casinos, but that the most heavily involved players in this new domain spend substantially more. Our findings also demonstrate the use of these applications as a research platform, specifically for large scale longitudinal in-vivo data analysis.

Anabolic androgenic steroid abuse in young males

This review summarizes 10 years experience with male abusers of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS). The typical user of AAS is male, aged between 20 and 40 and lifting weights. Illegal AAS are cheap and easily obtained via internet or local suppliers. AAS are mostly used in cycles with a duration between 6 and 18 weeks. Most AAS cycles contain multiple agents, used simultaneously in a dose vastly exceeding a substitution dose. A variety of other performance and image-enhancing drugs are commonly used, including human growth hormone, thyroid hormone, tamoxifen, clomiphene citrate and human chorionic gonadotrophin. Short-term clinical and biochemical side effects are well established. Long-term side effects are uncertain, but may include heart failure, mood-and anxiety disorders, hypogonadism and subfertility. We share our views on the management of common health problems associated with AAS abuse.