Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Surrounding Land Use and Vegetation on Single-Family House Prices

The aim of this paper is to assess the marginal effect of land-use locational externalities on the sale price of single-family houses, considering various spatial scales—in accordance with perception theories—and trade-off with accessibility to the city centre. From land-use and vegetation data derived from aerial photographs and Landsat TM satellite images, two sets of hedonic models, using OLS regression, are built from two samples of single-family properties sold in Quebec City. A standard model integrates property-specific factors, census factors, accessibility, and location attributes. In a second model, land-use and vegetation variables are considered on various spatial scales; a third step introduces the interaction effect of the surrounding land use with location, with car-time distance to the main activity centres being used as the main indicator. This allows for an analysis of the spatial variation of the environmental impact throughout the city considering relative proximity to the centre. The successful integration of environmental variables concerning location enhances our understanding of the local land-use and vegetation effects. It also improves the overall performance of the model while virtually removing spatial autocorrelation among residuals. Such models could be used in order to assess the fiscal impacts of various land zoning by law policies, thereby providing planning administrations with a useful decisionmaking tool.
On the Existence of Solutions for Stochastic Differential Equations under G-Brownian Motion

In this paper the existence theory for stochastic differential equations under G-Brownian motion (GSDEs) of the type 0 0 0 0 ( , ) ( , ) ( , ) , [0, ], t t t t v v v v v X X a v X dv b v X d B v X dB t T            is studied. It is valuated that G-SDEs have solutions even if the coefficient b is a discontinuous function. The method of upper and lower solutions is used to establish the above mentioned theory. As an example, a scalar G-SDE whose second coefficient is the sawtooth function is considered. [Faizullah F. , Khan W.A. , Arif M and Khan R.A. On the Existence of Solutions for Stochastic Differential Equations under G-Brownian Motion Life Sci J 2013;10(5s):255-260] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 46
A Cache Odyssey

This thesis describes the effect of write caching on overall file system performance. It will show through simulations that extensive write caching greatly reduces average file read latency. Extensive write caching reduces the number of disk writes and minimizes disk read/write contention. By taking a closer look at file system write semantics, it will also show that write optimized file systems are not the key issue for Unix like file systems. Write optimized file systems only reduce disk read/write contention without really solving the cause of disk contention. Simulations using the Sprite traces are used to guide the design of a client and server caching protocol for the Pegasus File Server (PFS). This protocol guarantees data persistency, without writing the data to disk, through replication.
Malaysian Employer Perceptions About Local and Foreign MBA Graduates

Abstract In this article, the authors examine employer perceptions of local and foreign MBA graduates along with the problems encountered and factors considered important in hiring them. Based on a sample of 91 respondents, the findings show significant differences in perceptions of local and foreign MBA graduates, as well as significant differences in employers' perceptions regarding the problems encountered with local and foreign MBAs. The key factors considered important in hiring MBA graduates included decision-making ability, written communication, oral communication, analytical skills, and interpersonal skills. The authors discuss the implications of their findings.
Acorn chemical composition depending on shedding date and Quercus species

Acorns from Quercus species are the main feed resource of free range Alentejano pigs during their fattening period. The animals have access to the acorns as they shed, along the “Montanheira” season. It is well known that chemical composition of acorns vary with species, botanical varieties, harvest year and shedding date. A better knowledge of the chemical composition of acorns along the “Montanheira” may result in a more rational utilization of acorns by pigs and therefore a better management of the “Montanheira”. The aim of this study was to evaluate the chemical composition of acorns from Q. rotundifolia and Q. suber, from October to December. Acorn samples from eight trees were collected from the ground every two weeks (6 collection dates). Acorns were separated into hull and kernel, freeze dried, ground and analyzed for dry matter, ashes, protein, fat, NDF, ADF, starch and tannins. There was an effect of species on the chemical composition, specially for protein content which was about twice as high in the seed of Q. suber (83,2 g/kgDM) than in that of Q. rotundifolia (39,8 g/kgDM). Date of shedding affected mostly tannin content of acorns, which decreases along maturation process, as it was observed by previous authors.
A 150 MIPS/W CMOS RISC processor for PDA applications

This CMOS microprocessor has performance of about 45MIPS at 50 MHz with about 300 mW power dissipation at 3.3 V power supply. It implements about 440 k transistors in a 25 mm/sup 2/ die fabricated by 0.41 /spl mu/m double metal CMOS. It is designed as a core processor for PDA applications, that require high speed graphical operation and digital signal processing functions as well as low power consumption from portability requirements.
Evaluation of Salmonella spp . specific primer-sets for the validation within the Food PCR project

A primer-set for the specific detection of Salmonella spp. was evaluated targeting the invA gene and published by Rahn et al. 1992. invA is located on the pathogenicity island 1 of Salmonella spp. encoding proteins of a type III secretion system (Collazo, C.M and J.E. Galán, 1997). For the indication of possible PCR inhibitors derived from the sample DNA, an internal control was constructed which is co-amplified with the invA target gene. 221 Salmonella strains and 132 non-Salmonella strains were tested for the specificity. The sensitivity was 1.5-15 cfu/ per reaction by the thermal cell digestion and 1-10 copies/ per reaction with purified DNA using Genomic-tip kit (Qiagen).
Dependence Modeling: Vine Copula Handbook

This book is a collaborative effort from three workshops held over the last three years, all involving principal contributors to the vine-copula methodology. Research and applications in vines have been growing rapidly and there is now a growing need to collate basic results, and standardize terminology and methods. Specifically, this handbook will (1) trace historical developments, standardizing notation and terminology, (2) summarize results on bivariate copulae, (3) summarize results for regular vines, and (4) give an overview of its applications. In addition, many of these results are new and not readily available in any existing journals. New research directions are also discussed.
CO 2 METHANATION : OPTIMAL DYNAMIC OPERATION OF A CATALYTIC WALL REACTOR FOR POWER-TOGAS APPLICATIONS

In contrast to the traditional steady state operation for chemical production systems, we consider dynamic operations for the purpose of utilizing volatile renewable energy sources (solar, wind). Taking the example of a methanation reactor in the context of power-to-gas applications, a dynamic optimization approach is used to identify optimal control trajectories when the hydrogen inlet stream of the reactor is changing over a reasonable time horizon (up to days). For the optimization, we develop a dynamic, twodimensional model of a catalytic wall tube reactor for CO2 methanation which is based on the reaction network of the underlying Sabatier reaction mechanism. With respect to past production scenarios of wind power, we prove the feasibility of our methodology and investigate the feasibility of dynamic CO2 methanation.
Autonomous Navigation of a Multirotor using Visual Odometry and Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance

In the present day, aerial vehicles such as micro fixed-wings or multirotor systems are important assets for industrial growth. These vehicles are generally autonomous or semi-autonomous and have a wide field of applications in military, mining or forest surveillance. All these applications are highly dependent on GPS (Global Positioning System) localization. Our project involves the design, assembly and configuration of a fully autonomous multirotor capable of manoeuvring in a GPS denied environment without the aid of large stationary points of reference. The multirotor is capable of interacting with external autonomous moving objects using a combination of control and computer vision algorithms. It creates efficient routes in flight for navigation whilst avoiding obstacles during the motion.
The effects of single and combined water , sanitation , handwashing and nutritional interventions on soil transmitted helminth infections in young children : a cluster-randomized controlled trial in rural Bangladesh

Soil transmitted helminth (STH) infections, including infections with Ascaris lumbricoides (roundworm), Trichuris trichiura (whipworm), and Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale (hookworms) affect more than one billion people worldwide (Campbell et al. 2016). Chemotherapy in the form of mass drug administration with anthelmintic drugs such as benzimidazoles is effective in reducing infection (Keiser and Utzinger 2008; Vercruysse et al. 2011). However, the risk of developing drug resistance is a concern given the limited number of currently available drugs (Campbell et al. 2016). Additionally, in the absence of environmental measures to reduce transmission from feces to new hosts, rapid reinfection following treatment is common; a systematic review and meta-analysis has shown that, 12 months post-treatment, the infection prevalence reverts to 94% of pretreatment levels for Ascaris, 82% for Trichuris and 57% for hookworm (Jia et al. 2012).
Latin squares and their applications

Latin Squares and Their Applications Second edition offers a long-awaited update and reissue of this seminal account of the subject. The revision retains foundational, original material from the frequently-cited 1974 volume but is completely updated throughout. As with the earlier version, the author hopes to take the reader 'from the beginnings of the subject to the frontiers of research'. By omitting a few topics which are no longer of current interest, the book expands upon active and emerging areas. Also, the present state of knowledge regarding the 73 then-unsolved problems given at the end of the first edition is discussed and commented upon. In addition, a number of new unsolved problems are proposed. Using an engaging narrative style, this book provides thorough coverage of most parts of the subject, one of the oldest of all discrete mathematical structures and still one of the most relevant. However, in consequence of the huge expansion of the subject in the past 40 years, some topics have had to be omitted in order to keep the book of a reasonable length. Latin squares, or sets of mutually orthogonal latin squares (MOLS), encode the incidence structure of finite geometries; they prescribe the order in which to apply the different treatments in designing an experiment in order to permit effective statistical analysis of the results; they produce optimal density error-correcting codes; they encapsulate the structure of finite groups and of more general algebraic objects known as quasigroups. As regards more recreational aspects of the subject, latin squares provide the most effective and efficient designs for many kinds of games tournaments and they are the templates for Sudoku puzzles. Also, they provide a number of ways of constructing magic squares, both simple magic squares and also ones with additional properties. * Retains the organization and updated foundational material from the original edition* Explores current and emerging research topics* Includes the original 73 'Unsolved Problems' with the current state of knowledge regarding them, as well as new Unsolved Problems for further study
Bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding

Bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) was originally suggested by Zehavi (1992) to increase the time diversity of coded modulation over Rayleigh fading channels. In its typical design with Gray signal labeling, BICM causes a degradation over Gaussian channels, compared with the conventional trellis-coded modulation. We show that bit interleaving can actually be used to increase the Euclidean distance between the codewords of a convolutional code. With iterative decoding and careful design of signal labeling and interleaving, BICM can provide great performance even for Gaussian channels.
Conservation Equations And Modeling Of Chemical And Biochemical Processes

System theory and chemical/biochemical engineering systems system theory steady state, unsteady state, and thermodynamic equilibrium modeling of systems fundamental laws governing the processes in terms of the state variables different classifications of physical models the story of chemical engineering in relation to system theory and mathematical modeling the present status of chemical industry and undergraduate chemical engineering education system theory and the mathematical modeling approach used in this book modeling and simulation in chemical engineering Amundson Report and the need for modern chemical engineering education system theory and mathematical modeling as tools for more efficient undergraduate chemical engineering education summary of the main topics in this chapter references problem material and energy balances material and energy balances single and multiple reactions - conversion, yield, and selectivity generalized material balance solved problems for mass balance heat effects overall heat balance with single and multiple chemical reactions solved problems for energy balance mathematical modeling (I) - homogeneous lumped systems mathematical modeling of homogeneous lumped processes mathematical models building - general concepts generic and customized models economic benefits of using high-fidelity customized models incorporation of rigorous models into flowsheet simulators and putting mathematical models into user-friendly software packages from material and energy balances to steady-state design equations (steady-state mathematical models) simple examples for the general equations modeling of biochemical systems references problems mathematical modeling (II) - homogeneous distributed systems and unsteady-state behaviour modeling of distributed systems the unsteady state terms in homogeneous and heterogeneous systems the axial dispersion model problems process dynamics and control various forms of process dynamic models formulation of process dynamic models state-space and transfer domain models introductory process control concepts process dynamics and mathematical tools the Laplace transformation characteristics of ideal forcing functions basic principles of block diagrams, control loops, and types of classical controls linearization second-order systems components of feedback control loops block diagram algebra some techniques for choosing the controller settings solved examples problems heterogeneous systems material balance for heterogeneous systems design equations (steady-state models) for isothermal, heterogeneous lumped systems design equations (steady state models) for isothermal, distributed heterogeneous systems nonisothermal heterogeneous systems examples of heterogeneous systems dynamic cases mathematical modeling and simulation of fluidized-bed reactors. (Part contents).
Scaling Learning to Rank to Big Data: Using MapReduce to Parallelise Learning to Rank

Learning to rank is an increasingly important task within the scientific fields of machine learning and information retrieval, that comprises the use of machine learning for the ranking task. New learning to rank methods are generally evaluated in terms of ranking accuracy on benchmark test collections. However, comparison of learning to rank methods based on evaluation results is hindered by non-existence of a standard set of evaluation benchmark collections. Furthermore, little research is done in the field of scalability of the training procedure of Learning to Rank methods, to prepare us for input data sets that are getting larger and larger. This thesis concerns both the comparison of Learning to Rank methods using a sparse set of evaluation results on benchmark data sets, as well as the speed-up that can be achieved by parallelising Learning to Rank methods using MapReduce. In the first part of this thesis we propose a way to compare learning to rank methods based on a sparse set of evaluation results on a set of benchmark datasets. Our comparison methodology consists of two components: 1) Normalized Winning Number, which gives insight in the ranking accuracy of the learning to rank method, and 2) Ideal Winning Number, which gives insight in the degree of certainty concerning its ranking accuracy. Evaluation results of 87 learning to rank methods on 20 well-known benchmark datasets are collected through a structured literature search. ListNet, SmoothRank, FenchelRank, FSMRank, LRUF and LARF were found to be the best performing learning to rank methods in increasing order of Normalized Winning Number and decreasing order of Ideal Winning Number. Of these ranking algorithms, FenchelRank and FSMRank are pairwise ranking algorithms and the others are listwise ranking algorithms. In the second part of this thesis we analyse the speed-up of the ListNet training algorithm when implemented in the MapReduce computing model. We found that running ListNet on MapReduce comes with a job scheduling overhead in the range of 150-200 seconds per training iteration. This makes MapReduce very inefficient to process small data sets with ListNet, compared to a single-machine implementation of the algorithm. The MapReduce implementation of ListNet was found to be able to offer improvements in processing time for data sets that are larger than the physical memory of the single machine otherwise available for computation. In addition we showed that ListNet tends to converge faster when a normalisation preprocessing procedure is applied to the input data. The training time of our cluster version of ListNet was found to grow linearly in terms of data size increase. This shows that the cluster implementation of ListNet can be used to scale the ListNet training procedure to arbitrarily large data sets, given that enough data nodes are available for computation.
ELECTRON SCANNER FOR SNS RING PROFILE MEASUREMENTS

An electron scanner has been commissioned to nondestructively measure the transverse profiles in the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) Ring. The SNS Ring is designed to accumulate on the order of 1.6e14 protons with a typical peak current of over 50 Amps. The electron scanner works by measuring the deflection of 50-75 kV electrons by the electric field of the proton beam. Two electron guns, one for each plane, with dipole correctors, quadrupole magnets and deflectors to shape the electron beam have been installed. This paper describes the system and the initial results.
Implementation and Management of ERP Systems : A Literature Review

ERP has attracted phenomenal interest in the recent years. Actually, an ERP System is considered as a backbone of most organizations across all the industries. It will usually cover all business functions on all management levels, supporting most or all functional areas in the daily operations of the enterprise, and it is considered as a source of competitive advantage for some organizations, if the system is set up at the right way. However, the chance of failure has always been high. Today, many companies fail to realize the full benefits of ERP systems due to their negligence of some aspects of management and implementation. Finally, the result is either the improvement of the performance or on the contrary a slowdown because of its powerful concept. To answer that we tried to do a literature review of “the implementation and management of ERP systems”. we have selected a certain number of papers of work published between 2010 and 2017 (1st September) . It seeks to define the general topics, to address some issues related to implementation and management of ERP , and point out overall trends.
UNDERGRADUATE PRIMARY TEACHERS ’ LEARNING STYLES AND THEIR USE OF ICT & NATIONAL MATHEMATICS SOFTWARE

This research project was conducted at the Department of Primary Education, at the University of Aegean. The 234 participants consisted of undergraduate primary school teachers. Their learning styles, their attitudes, as well as their self-efficacy in relation to ICT and the Mathematics Educational Software of the Pedagogical Institute were studied using four research instruments. The results show that students learning styles are mainly sensing, visual, sequential and active. Furthermore, it seems that students are well acquainted with the use of ICT and have, therefore, a positive attitude. Statistical significant differences were observed between the visual learning style and the use of ICT, and also between males and females. Introduction Over the past few decades, one of the most important issues related to educational change and educational innovation is the incorporation of ICT (Black & McClintock, 1996; Jonassen et al., 1999; Hoyles, Noss & Kent, 2004). ICT constitutes an essential tool for teachers of mathematics, too, since it can be used as: a) an educational method to support student learning; b) as a personal tool to prepare material for his lessons, to manage a variety of projects electronically and to search for information; c) as a tool to collaborate with other teachers or colleagues (Da Ponte, Oliveira & Varandas, 2002). According to NCTM (2000), ICT can encourage the development of significant abilities in students, develop a positive attitude towards maths and contribute to the way students view mathematics. In order to take advantage of ICT in mathematics, in-service and pre-service teachers must familiarise themselves with the potentials of ICT in the teaching of mathematics so as to become more confident. They must also know how to use such ICT tools as office management software as well as Mathematics Educational Software (NCTM, 1991). According to Mishra & Koehler (2006), to achieve the above goals it is essential that the relations among users, technologies, practices and tools be understood, since “. technology is a knowledge system that comes with its own biases, and affordances. ”. (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, p. 132). Recently, research in educational technology suggests the need for “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge” (TPCK), which is based on Shulman’s (1986) idea of “pedagogical content knowledge”, so as to incorporate technology in pedagogy (e.g., Keating & Evans, 2001; Niess, 2005; Mishra & Koehler 2006; Cavin, 2007, Angeli & Valanides, 2009). This interconnectedness among content, pedagogy and technology has important effects on learning as well as on professional development (Mishra & Koehler,
Choosing between lme and lmer for Growth Curve Analysis

Growth curve analysis in R can be carried out using either the nlme package or the lme4 package and, in general, the two packages produce nearly identical results. This document summarizes the syntax differences between the two packages and discusses technical reasons why researchers may wish to choose one or the other method. Specifically, the technical factors covered are: convergence reliability, model output, and running times. LCDL Technical Report 2011.01 Using lme and lmer in Growth Curve Analysis