Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A BRATTELI DIAGRAM FOR COMMUTING HOMEOMORPHISMS OF THE CANTOR SET

This paper presents a construction of a sequence of Kakutani-Rohlin Towers and a corresponding simple Bratteli Diagram, B, for a general minimal aperiodic Z d action on a Cantor Set, X, with d 2. This is applied to the description of the orbit structure and to the calculation of the ordered group of coinvariants. For each minimal continuous Z d action on X there is a minimal continuous Z action on X which has the same orbits on the set X nY , where Y is of the form v2Z dT v Y ] , where Y ] is closed and nowhere dense, and Y is null with respect to every probability measure invariant under the action. Also the ordered top cohomology of (X; Z d), H d , is a simple dimension group. There is a positive order embedding surjection K 0 (B) ? H d which becomes an order isomorphism upon quotienting by the innnitessimals. So there is no ordered cohomological obstruction to continuous orbit equivalence between minimal Z d actions and Z actions in general. Note This is a rewrite of an October 1997 script of the same title. The content is the same, but the presentation has been changed completely, and I hope for the better. This new presentation reeects ideas which have grown only in the intervening 15 months-or-so as a result of seminars and informal discussion. In this connection, I am particularly grateful to the members of Christian Skau's Operator Algebras Seminar at NTNU Lade, Trondheim. x1 Introduction The construction of Kakutani-Rohlin Tower partitions for Z actions on topological or measurable spaces is a well-established and eeective tool in the study and construction of dynamical systems (see Kak] R] or any modern elementary text in Ergodic Theory). In the category of continuous actions on the Cantor set (which this paper considers exclusively) the construction of Kakutani-Rohlin towers is the starting point for the description of a complete invariant for topological orbit-equivalence for minimal Cantor Z actions, a deep investigation completed by Giordano, Herman, Puntam and Skau HPS] GPS]. These same tower constructions make this invariant eeectively computable in many interesting cases, Pu] Fo] DHS]. These techniques also show that the phenomenon of topological orbit equivalence is at least as rich as the theory of countably generated torsion-free abelian ordered groups with simple dimension group order and unit. 1 2 ALAN FORREST The connection between …
Urban heat Island mitigation strategies in an arid climate. In outdoor thermal comfort reacheable

Numerous studies over the past several decades focused on the effect of the Urban Heat Island. Initial efforts on understanding the factors affecting UHI contributed to proceed the appropriate solutions and mitigation strategies. Mitigation strategies comprise increase both urban albedo (reflectivity to solar radiation), and evapotranspiration. Albedo increases are obtained through high albedo roofing and paving technologies. An increase in evapotranspiration is achieved through a combination of decreasing the fraction of impervious surfaces and planting vegetation in urban areas. The outdoor thermal comfort is influenced by the perception and satisfaction of the pedestrians, especially in hot and arid climates. Consequently, this work focuses on the appropriate methods for reducing the Urban Heat Island and thus to enhance the pedestrians outdoor thermal comfort. However, there is limited research conducted on the outdoor thermal comfort in hot and arid climate. The studies on the mitigation the Urban Heat Island and the outdoor thermal comfort are almost non-existent for Baghdad city. Baghdad has a complex urban fabric with modern design constructions buildings, traditional and heritage houses. The climate in summer is hot, and summer months are considered the longest season with nearly 7 months of the year. This study focuses on investigating possible mitigation strategies to ensure how pedestrian comfort is affected by the constructions design choices comparing a traditional district to a modern one, and on how vegetation and shading patterns contribute to reducing the effect of UHI and improving the outdoor thermal comfort. Four different scenarios are designed to assess the role of vegetation elements such as trees, grass, and different shading patterns. The evaluation was performed on the hottest day in summer, the mean radiant temperature, specific humidity, air temperature, and wind speed distributions have been analyzed using ENVI-met software. Thermal comfort is assessed using the thermal indices the Physiological Equivalent Temperature PET and the Predicted Mean Vote PMV. Also, a proposal model is designed to evaluate the thermal comfort on the hottest day and the typical day in summer. The results revealed an improvement on thermal comfort in the typical day in summer. The study shows how the urban factors such as the aspect ratio, vegetation cover, shadings, and geometry of the canyon are crucial elements that urban planners and municipalities have to take into account, especially for new urban developments in hot, arid climate.
Optimal stochastic linear systems with exponential performance criteria and their relation to deterministic differential games

Two stochastic optimal control problems are solved whose performance criteria are the expected values of exponential functions of quadratic forms. The optimal controller is linear in both cases but depends upon the covariance matrix of the additive process noise so that the certainty equivalence principle does not hold. The controllers are shown to be equivalent to those obtained by solving a cooperative and a noncooperative quadratic (differential) game, and this leads to some interesting interpretations and observations. Finally, some stability properties of the asymptotic controllers are discussed.
Compensating for low frame rates

Experiments were conducted to investigate the interdependency of frame rates (30, 15, 10 fps) and audio-visual skew (from +163 to -233 ms1). Noised nonsense words like 'abagava' were presented to 20 participants who were asked to identify the middle consonant. At low frame rates (10 fps) consonant perception was impaired when audio ran ahead of video content (skew of ? 113 to ? 233ms). When audio lagged video, performance improved monotonically to a maximum at +167ms, where performance equaled 30fps in synch. The results suggest that frame rate and skew are not orthogonal parameters but must both be taken into consideration for AV-delivery. The findings do not support the current notion that 10 fps videos do not adequately capture visual content for speech perception. Participants were able to integrate the given bi-modal information as well as the 30 fps condition if the audio channel was subjected to an additional 167ms delay.
Combinatorics of Partial Derivatives

The natural forms of the Leibniz rule for the $k$th derivative of a product and of Faa di Bruno's formula for the $k$th derivative of a composition involve the differential operator $\partial^k/\partial x_1 \cdots \partial x_k$ rather than $d^k/dx^k$, with no assumptions about whether the variables $x_1,\dots,x_k$ are all distinct, or all identical, or partitioned into several distinguishable classes of indistinguishable variables. Coefficients appearing in forms of these identities in which some variables are indistinguishable are just multiplicities of indistinguishable terms (in particular, if all variables are distinct then all coefficients are 1). The computation of the multiplicities in this generalization of Faa di Bruno's formula is a combinatorial enumeration problem that, although completely elementary, seems to have been neglected. We apply the results to cumulants of probability distributions.
Comparison of quantitative genetic variation and allozyme diversity within and between populations of Scabiosa canescens and S. columbaria

We quantified allozyme diversity and quantitative genetic variation within and between six populations of the locally rare Scabiosa canescens and the more common and widespread S. columbaria (Dipsacaceae). For the within-population component, we quantified allozyme diversity as the expected heterozygosity (He), followed by a sib analysis to estimate the heritability (h2) for eight vegetative and floral characters. There was no consistent association between h2 and He, or between h2 and current population size. Regarding the between-population component, we compared the overall level of population differentiation for the allozymes (FST), assumed to be selectively neutral, with the corresponding estimates for the quantitative traits (QST) to determine if the marker genes and the polygenic characters have been influenced by the same evolutionary force(s). Differences between estimates of FST and QST for S. canescens were too small to be declared as significant, indicating that neutral phenotypic evolution has led to the observed differentiation in this species. Our data indicate higher levels of phenotypic differentiation in S. columbaria with values of QST exceeding the allozymic FST for all traits. This finding indicates a great potential for S. columbaria to respond to local selection pressures, perhaps explaining why this species has a broader ecological amplitude than S. canescens.
The individual and organizational commitments needed for a successful diabetes care community of practice

Through a qualitative case study of a regional diabetes care programme in New South Wales, Australia, this article examines the phenomenon of communities of practice (CoPs) within organizations, with a specific focus on identifying the commitments required from both individuals and organizations in order to produce a successful CoP. The CoP literature suggests that ‘commitment’ is essential, yet the exact nature of this ‘commitment’ has not been identified. This study aims to discover what these commitments are. From the research data, key individual and organizational commitments are identified. The individual commitments needed are (in rank order of significance): a personal commitment to the aim of the CoP; a commitment to knowledge-sharing with others; a commitment to knowledge-seeking from others; effective management of personal relationships with others in the CoP; and understanding of the roles of other members. At the organizational level, the commitments needed are a good fit between the purposes of the CoP and the aims of the organizations employing the CoP members, a commitment to research regarding the CoP's activities, sufficient funding of the work of CoP members, continuing practical and political support to the CoP and facilitation of innovation within the CoP. Recommendations are made relating to the practical significance of the findings of the study. The implications of the findings are assessed relative to other health-service CoPs.
Propagule pressure determines recruitment from a commercial shipping pier

Artificial structures associated with shipping and boating activities provide habitats for a diverse suite of non-indigenous marine species. Little is known about the proportion of invader success in nearby waters that is attributable to these structures. Areas close to piles, wharves and piers are likely to be exposed to increasing levels of propagule pressure, enhancing the recruitment of non-indigenous species. Recruitment of non-indigenous and native marine biofouling taxa were evaluated at different distances from a large commercial shipping pier. Since artificial structures also represent a desirable habitat for fish, how predation on marine invertebrates influences the establishment of non-indigenous and native species was also evaluated. The colonisation of several non-indigenous marine species declined rapidly with distance from the structure. Little evidence was found to suggest that predators have much influence on the colonisation success of marine sessile invertebrate species, non-indigenous or otherwise. It is suggested that propagule pressure, not predation, more strongly predicts establishment success in these biofouling assemblages.
The Mixture of Multi-kernel Relevance Vector Machines Model

We present a new regression mixture model where each mixture component is a multi-kernel version of the Relevance Vector Machine (RVM). In the proposed model, we exploit the enhanced modeling capability of RVMs due to their embedded sparsity enforcing properties. %The main contribution of this %work is the employment of RVM models as components of a mixture %model and their application to the time series clustering problem. Moreover, robustness is achieved with respect to the kernel parameters, by employing a weighted multi-kernel scheme. The mixture model is trained using the maximum a posteriori (MAP) approach, where the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm is applied offering closed form update equations for the model parameters. An incremental learning methodology is also presented to tackle the parameter initialization problem of the EM algorithm. The efficiency of the proposed mixture model is empirically demonstrated on the time series clustering problem using various artificial and real benchmark datasets and by performing comparisons with other regression mixture models.
Effect of Inhibitors on Alanine Transport in Isolated Rabbit Ileum

The effects of metabolic inhibitors and ouabain on alanine transport across rabbit ileum, in vitro, have been investigated. Net transport of alanine and Na across short-circuited segments of ileum is virtually abolished by cyanide, 2,4-dinitrophenol, iodoacetate, and ouabain. However, these inhibitors do not markedly depress alanine influx from the mucosal solution, across the brush border, into the intestinal epithelium, and they do not significantly affect the Na dependence of this entry process. The results of this investigation indicate that: (a) the Na dependence of alanine influx does not reflect a mechanism in which the sole function of Na is to link metabolic energy directly to the influx process; and (b) the inhibition of net alanine transport across intestine is, in part, the result of an increased rate coefficient for alanine efflux out of the cell across the brush border. Although these findings do not exclude a direct link between metabolic energy and alanine efflux, the increased efflux may be the result of the increased intracellular Na concentration in the presence of these inhibitors. The results of these studies are qualitatively consistent with a model for alanine transport across the brush border which does not include a direct link to metabolic energy.
Reticulocyte binding protein homologues are key adhesins during erythrocyte invasion by Plasmodium falciparum

The Apicomplexan parasite responsible for the most virulent form of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, invades human erythrocytes through multiple ligand–receptor interactions. The P. falciparum reticulocyte‐binding protein homologue (PfRh or PfRBL) family have been implicated in the invasion process but their exact role is unknown. PfRh1 and PfRh4, members of this protein family, bind to red blood cells and function in merozoite invasion during which they undergo a series of proteolytic cleavage events before and during entry into the host cell. The ectodomain of PfRh1 and PfRh4 are processed to produce fragments consistent with cleavage in the transmembrane domain and released into the supernatant, at about the time of invasion, in a manner consistent with rhomboid protease cleavage. Processing of both PfRh1 and PfRh4, and by extrapolation all membrane‐bound members of this protein family, is important for function and release of these proteins on the merozoite surface and they along with EBA‐175 are important components of the tight junction, the transient structure that links the erythrocyte via receptor–ligand interactions to the actin–myosin motor in the invading merozoite.
Correlated evolution of self and interspecific incompatibility across the range of a Texas wildflower

Plant species have repeatedly evolved recognition systems between pollen and pistils that identify and reject inappropriate matings. Two of the most important systems recognize self-pollen and interspecific pollen. Outstanding questions are whether and how these two recognition systems are linked and if this association could constrain the evolution of mate choice. Our study characterizes variation in self and interspecific incompatibility in the native range of the Texas wildflower Phlox drummondii. We found quantitative variation in self-incompatibility and demonstrate that this variation is significantly correlated with variation in incompatibility with its close congener P. cuspidata. Furthermore, we find strong evidence that self and interspecific incompatibility involve common mechanisms of pollen adhesion or early pollen-tube germination. Finally, we show that P. drummondii populations that co-occur and hybridize with P. cuspidata have significantly higher interspecific incompatibility and self-incompatibility than isolated P. drummondii populations. This geographic variation suggests that the evolution of self-compatibility is constrained by selection favoring interspecific incompatibility to reduce maladaptive hybridization. To our knowledge this is the strongest evidence that a correlation between variation in self and interspecific incompatibilities could influence the evolution of pollen recognition across the range of a species.
Car driver skills assessment based on driving postures recognition

Recent developments of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) technologies allow for a natural integration of car drivers in their vehicle environments. Using a driving assisting system based on HCI interfaces novice drivers can interact naturally in various driving situations and they can develop skills and abilities. One of the novelties of our on-going driving assistant project is represented by a multi-tracking HCI system based on a set of markerless sensors. In this paper we present how the proposed system enables us to recognize novice driver postures in various driving situations. Unlike previous approaches we do not consider body postures alone, but in relation with the following cues: eyes and head dynamics and contextual environmental information, i.e., states of the car and traffic information about driving situations. We built a rule-based expert system for driving posture detection that uses inputs from the data fusion of sensors. By analyzing the sequence of postures we can assess if the novice drivers maneuvers are performed in a correct manner and order, in relation to the car driving skills. The feasibility of the proposed system is verified through experiments. Results show that driver postures are recognized with an average of 96.43% accuracy and that car driver skills are enhanced using the proposed system.
Lunar Tidal Modulation of Periodic Meridional Movement of Equatorial Ionization Anomaly Crest During Sudden Stratospheric Warming

Using the location of equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) crest derived from GPS observations in China and Brazilian sector, we investigated the longitudinal dependence of periodic meridional movement of EIA crest during sudden stratospheric warming events in 2003, 2006, and 2009. The solar activity was from high to low for the three events. Results show that the locations of EIA crests in both China and Brazilian sectors exhibit obvious and constant 14‐ to 15‐day periodic oscillation being in‐phase in two sectors, which coincide with the half of the lunar revolution period (29.53 days) and the lunar phase. The temporal extent of wave power at 14–15 days is consistent with the temporal extent of stratospheric zonal wind, indicating that 14‐ to 15‐day periodic meridional movement of EIA crest is due to enhanced lunar tide modulated by zonal wind. In addition, it is also found that the amplitude of 14‐ to 15‐day periodic oscillation of EIA crest in China sector is larger than that in Brazilian sector, which may be caused by the longitudinal variation of tides and neutral wind pattern.
A Kinematics Analysis Of Three Best 100 M Performances Ever

The purpose of this investigation was to compare and determine the relevance of the morphological characteristics and variability of running speed parameters (stride length and stride frequency) between Usain Bolt’s three best 100 m performances. Based on this, an attempt was made to define which factors determine the performance of Usain Bolt's sprint and, therefore, distinguish him from other sprinters. We analyzed the previous world record of 9.69 s set in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the current record of 9.58 s set in the 2009 Berlin World Championships in Athletics and the O lympic record of 9.63 s set in 2012 London Olympics Games by Usain Bolt. The application of VirtualDub Programme allowed the acquisition of basic kinematical variables such as step length and step frequency parameters of 100 m sprint from video footage provided by NBC TV station, BBC TV station. This data was compared with other data available on the web and data published by the Scientific Research Project Office responsible on behalf of IAAF and the German Athletics Association (DVL). The main hypothesis was that the step length is the main factor that determines running speed in the 10 and 20 m sections of the entire 100 m distance. Bolt’s anthropometric advantage (body height, leg length and liner body) is not questionable and it is one of the factors that makes him faster than the rest of the finalists from each three competitions. Additionally, Bolt’s 20 cm longer stride shows benefit in the latter part of the race. Despite these factors, he is probably able to strike the ground more forcefully than rest of sprinters, relative to their body mass, therefore, he might maximize his time on the ground and to exert the same force over this period of time. This ability, combined with longer stride allows him to create very high running speed - over 12 m/s (12.05 -12.34 m/s) in some 10 m sections of his three 100 m performances. These assumption confirmed the application of Ballerieich's formula for speed development. In most 10 m sections of the 100 m sprint, the step length was the parameter that significantly determined the increase of maximal running speed, therefore, distinguishing Bolt from the other finalists.
24-Hour Neural Network Congestion Models for High-Frequency Broadcast Users

This paper presents the development of Neural Network models to predict the likelihood of interference experienced by Broadcast users in the HF spectrum (3-30 MHz). The models are based upon several years of measurements recorded at Linkoping (Sweden) across the HF band, covering a substantial part of a sunspot cycle. The dataset used for the model development is a result of a long-term project being undertaken jointly by the University of Manchester and by the Swedish Defence Research Establishment, to measure systematically and to analyze the occupancy of the entire HF spectrum. The measure of occupancy used is congestion, which is defined as the fraction of channels within a certain frequency allocation with signals exceeding a given threshold. The procedures for measuring and modeling congestion as a function of solar activity, time of day, day of year and incident field strength threshold are briefly presented. The accuracy of the predictions produced by the developed models demonstrate their ability to successfully capture the 24-hour, seasonal and long-term trend in the variability of congestion. These models can be used to advise operators on typical interference occupancy levels and assist the HF broadcast service in the planning of frequency usage and management by assessing the interference effect to short-wave broadcasting in an effort to alleviate spectral congestion in the HF broadcast bands.