Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MEDIAN AND AVERAGE AS TOOLS FOR MEASURING, ELECTING AND RANKING: NEW PROSPECTS

Impossibility theorems expose inconsistencies and paradoxes related to voting systems. Recently, Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki proposed a new voting theory called Majority Judgment which tries to circumvent this limitation. In Majority Judgment, voters are invited to evaluate candidates in terms taken in a well-known common language. The winner is then the one that obtains the highest median. Since the Majority Judgment proposal was made, authors have detected insufficiencies with this new voting system. This article aims at reducing these insufficiencies by proposing a voting system to decide between the median-based voting and the mean-based one. It proposes, moreover, a new tie-breaking method computing intermedian ranks mean.
SOME MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WATER SCORPION NEPA CINEREA (HETEROPTERA: NEPOMORPHA) ARE ASSOCIATED WITH HABITAT TYPE*

Morphological variation can enable species to successfully survive and reproduce in distinct habitats. Water scorpion (Nepa cinerea Linnaeus, 1758) occurs in different aquatic habitats from lentic to lotic conditions. We examined the morphology of N. cinerea collected from a diverse array of habitat types (creeks, canals, ponds) in order to explore possible morphological adaptations to the habitat. We addressed the following specific questions: (i) is there any morphological differences between specimens collected from distinct habitats, and if so, (ii) is it possible to relate differences in morphology of the N. cinerea to characteristics of the habitat structure? Altogether 121 individuals (69 males and 52 females) were sampled from 17 sampling sites in the catchment area of Lake Balaton (Hungary). 54 body parameters were determined on all individuals. According to five habitat parameters (bottom quality, current velocity of the water, water depth, submerse plant density, shading) sampling sites were clustered into two distinct groups. Submerse plant density proved to be the most important discriminating factor between the two groups. The morphology of the N. cinerea (both males and females) sampled from the two contrasting habitat types were different. No relationship was found between geographical position of the habitat type and body morphology of N. cinerea. Leg morphology, especially claws on the third leg and some body shape parameters showed relationships with habitat characteristics. These morphological variations, which may be the result of phenotypic plasticity, could contribute to an opportunistic habitat choice of the species.
Historical decline in the Japanese Eel Anguilla japonica in northern Taiwan inferred from temporal genetic variations

Mei-Chen Tseng, Wann-Nian Tzeng and Sin-Che Lee (2003) Historical decline in the Japanese eel Anguilla japonica in northern Taiwan inferred from temporal genetic variations. Zoological Studies 42(4): 556-563. The existence of temporal genetic variations was tested for in 6 polymorphic microsatellite DNA loci of 89 Japanese eel Anguilla japonica collected from a single location in the Tanshui River Estuary, northern Taiwan during 19971999. The high Nei’s genetic identity coefficients (0.868-0.941) and exact test of temporal genetic structure revealed no significant differentiation (p > 0.05) among cohorts. Parameters of genetic diversity were examined including mean observed heterozygosity (H o ) (0.695-0.732) and change in the total number of alleles per year (na) (73-81). Significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium appeared in 5 of 6 loci, due to an insufficient number of heterozygous individuals in all cohorts. Totals of 22 private and 14 solitary missing alleles were found in all 6 loci. The decrease in numbers of total alleles and private alleles and the increased number of solitary alleles in consecutive years suggested that genetic polymorphism was gradually decreasing. By Bayesian parameters assay, we found that the effective population size was declining. The demographic decline estimated to be 3500-8000 years ago, is significant due to large-scale events such as oceangeographic changes since the most recent glacial stage. http://www.sinica. edu.tw/zool/zoolstud/42.4/556.pdf
Highly Sensitive ZnO(Ga, In) for Sub-ppm Level NO2 Detection: Effect of Indium Content

Nanocrystalline ZnO, ZnO(Ga), and ZnO(Ga, In) samples with different indium contents were prepared by wet-chemical method and characterized in detail by ICP-MS and XRD methods. Gas sensing properties toward NO2 were studied at 150–450 °C by DC conductance measurements. The optimal temperature for gas sensing experiments was determined. The dependence of the ZnO(Ga, In) sensor signal to NO2 at 250 °C correlates with the change of conductivity of the samples. The introduction of indium into the system leads to an increase in the values of the sensor signal in the temperature range T < 250 °C. The investigation of the local sample conductivity by scanning spreading resistance microscopy demonstrates that, at high indium content, the sensor properties are determined by the In–Ga–Zn–O layer that forms on the ZnO surface.
Analyses of Abscisic Acid and Jasmonate crosstalk signaling via interaction of a PYR/PYL ABA receptor and the bHLH transcription factor MYC2

The phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays several critical roles in plant development when induced by abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, heavy metals, and extreme temperatures. Some of these responses include stomatal closure, inhibition of seed germination, and regulation of root growth, and these responses likely occur due to interactions between ABA and other plant hormones. The crosstalk networks between ABA and other plant hormones are not yet fully understood although several studies have been underway in order to understand the mechanisms by which several signaling pathways respond to abiotic stresses. We have studied a recently discovered involvement of a PYR/PYL ABA receptor, PYL6, and a basic- helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor (TF), MYC2, in ABA and jasmonic acid (JA) signaling. In order to gain insight on the developmental and spatial expression of PYL6, the [beta]-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter system was utilized to analyze the activity of the promoter and full length gene of PYL6 in plant tissue. GUS expression was detected in the anther of adult transgenic pyl6 mutant plants but not in wild type background plants. Protein- protein-interaction analyses were performed to characterize a potential structural basis of interaction between PYL6 and MYC2. It was seen that several amino acid point mutations in the PYL6 protein sequence have the potential to establish a constitutive interaction between PYL6 and MYC2 with and without enhancement by ABA. Phenotypical assays with two different pyl6 T-DNA insertion mutants displayed ABA and JA hypersensitivity during germination and cotyledon greening but no significantly altered response during root growth
Study on Measuring Mechanical Properties of Sport Shoes Using an Industrial Robot

Abstract This paper introduces a measurement system for mechanical properties of sport shoes using an industrial robot. The robot system used in this paper is a commercial Puma type robot system(FARA AT2 made by SAMSUNG Electronics) with 6 joints and the end-effector is modified to produce a human walking motion. After analyzing human walking with a high speed video camera, each joint angle of the robot system is extracted to be used in the robot system. By using this system, ground impact forces were measured during stepping motion with 3 different shoe specimens made of 3 different hardness outsoles, respectively. As other mechanical properties, both bending moments to bend the toe part of the same specimen shoes and pronation quantities during walking motion were measured as well. In the impact test with the same depth of deformation under the ground level, the effect of the outsole hardness was clearly appeared such that the harder outsole produces the higher ground reaction force. The bending test and the pronation test also show proportional increments in the bending stiffness and the moment Mx according to the outsole hardness. Throughout such experiments, the robot system has produced consistent results so that the system could be used in obtaining valuable informations for a shoe designing process. 요 약
Association of Striga Infestation to Basic Chemical and Physical Properties of the Soil in Tigray Region, Northern Ethiopia

A survey was conducted in 2014 to determine the association of striga with major chemical and physical properties of the soil. Similarly, strong association was observed between striga infestation and soil pH (r(22)=-0.213, P 0.05) and soil texture . The influence of soil organic matter on level of striga infestation was observed superior (84%) to other soil chemical and physical properties. In conclusion, the highest level of striga infestation was recorded at kebeles which had got low soil organic matter and available phosphorous and sandy textured soils. Therefore management practices channeled towards improving these limitations have been suggested for controlling of Striga hermonthica in the region. Keywords : striga infestation, sorghum population, soil properties, correlation, Tigray region
Hierarchical Bayesian premium rating with latent structure

We propose a fully Bayesian approach to non-life risk premium rating, based on hierarchical models with latent variables for both claim frequency and claim size. Inference is based on the joint posterior distribution and is performed by Markov Chain Monte Carlo. Rather than plug-in point estimates of all unknown parameters, we take into account all sources of uncertainty simultaneously when the model is used to predict claims and estimate risk premiums. Several models are fitted to both a simulated dataset and a small portfolio regarding theft from cars. We show that interaction among latent variables can improve predictions significantly. We also investigate when interaction is not necessary. We compare our results with those obtained under a standard generalized linear model and show through numerical simulation that geographically located and spatially interacting latent variables can successfully compensate for missing covariates.
Robust bonding and one-step facile synthesis of tough hydrogels with desirable shape by virtue of the double network structure

Robust bonding of a hydrogel in aqueous environment, either to another hydrogel or to a solid, is one of the major unsolved issues for the practical applications of hydrogels in various fields. Here we report robust bonding between a pair of hydrogel sheets, containing over 90 wt% of water, by applying the double-network (DN) structure. In the optimal condition, the peeling energy of the united gel sheets reaches 1200 J m−2, which is comparable to the bulk fracture energy of a normal type of tough DN gels. This hydrogel bonding technique is also applied to form tough bonding between hydrogel and plastic plates. Furthermore, based on this technique, we have developed a facile method to synthesize robust double network hydrogels with any desirable free-shape from micro-gel precursors. These novel techniques will substantially merit the applications of the tough hydrogels in various fields, such as an artificial meniscus.
Reckoning before Writing

Sur les vraies origines de l'ecriture: les petits objets en argile portant des signes, trouves a Tepe Asiab, Ganj-Dareh Tepe (Iran), Beldibi (Turquie) servant il y a env. 10.000ans av. J.-C. a la comptabilite ou correspondant peut-etre a un mot. Billes, cones, triangles, disques d'usage courant vers 5.500, epoque proto-urbaine ou apparait egalement la bulle spherique contenant ces pieces, couverte d'empreintes de sceaux commerciaux, expediee avec les diverses denrees. Les premiers caracteres cuneiformes.
A variable iterated greedy algorithm based on grey relational analysis for crew scheduling

Public transport crew scheduling is a worldwide problem, which is NP-hard. This paper presents a new crew scheduling approach, called GRAVIG, which integrates grey relational analysis (GRA) into a Variable Iterated Greedy (VIG) algorithm. The GRA is served as a solver for the shift selection during the schedule construction process, which can be considered as a multiple attribute decision making (MADM) problem, since there are multiple static and dynamic criteria governing the efficiency of a shift to be selected into a schedule. Moreover, in the GRAVIG, a biased probability destruction strategy is elaborately devised to keep the ‘good’ shifts remained in the schedule without compromising the randomness. Experiments on eleven real-world crew scheduling problems show that the GRAVIG can generate high-quality solutions close to the lower bounds obtained by the CPLEX in terms of the number of shifts.
Operational performance of two-stage food production systems : process interactions and capacitated storage

The food sector has seen several important developments in recent years. First, competition has become fiercer because of the increased market power of food retailing. Secondly, quality legislation has become more stringent due to a growing concern for food safety throughout the society. Third, sustainable production has become more important, and organizations are held responsible for the environmental performance of their production system. In this thesis, several aspects of these developments are studied from an Operations Management perspective. Specific questions that are addressed are: * What are the implications of capacity- and time-constrained intermediate storage on production performance? * What are the performance implications of demand characteristics like high product mix variability and lead time reductions? * How do planning decisions and process configurations influence the realization of product losses The results provide insight in the operational performance of two-stage food production systems with intermediate storage. This performance not only entails competitiveness (through the insights on lead time performance), but also sustainability (through the insight in realization of product losses).
Fourier multipliers for peridynamic Laplace operators

Fourier multiplier analysis is developed for peridynamic Laplace operators, which are defined for scalar fields in $\mathbb{R}^n$. The focus is on operators $L_{\delta,\beta}$ which are commonly used in peridynamic models. The Fourier multipliers $m(\nu)$ of $L_{\delta,\beta}$ are given through an integral representation, which is shown to be well-defined for $\beta<n+2$. The integral representation of the Fourier multipliers is recognized explicitly through a unified and general formula in terms of the hypergeometric function $_2F_3$ in any spatial dimension $n$ and for any $\beta<n+2$. The new general formula for the multipliers is well-defined for any $\beta\in\mathbb{R}\setminus\{n+4,n+6,n+8,\ldots\}$ and is utilized to extend the definition of the peridynamic Laplacians to the case when $\beta\ge n+2$. Some special cases are presented. The multipliers $m(\nu)$ converge to the multipliers of $\Delta$ as $\beta\rightarrow n+2$. Moreover, as $\beta\rightarrow -\infty$, the multpliers $m(\nu)$ converge to the multipliers of a limit integral operator $L_{\delta,-\infty}$ with kernel supported in the $(n-1)$-sphere. Asymptotic analysis of $_2F_3$ is utilized to identify the asymptotic behavior of the Fourier multipliers as $\|\nu\|\rightarrow \infty$. We show that the multipliers are bounded when the peridynamic Laplacian has an integrable kernel (i.e., when $\beta n$. The bounds and decay rates are presented explicitly in terms of $n$, $\beta$, and the nonlocality $\delta$. In the special case of periodic domains, the Fourier multipliers are the eigenvalues of $L_{\delta,\beta}$ and therefore the presented results provide characterization formulas and asymptotic behavior for the eigenvalues.
The Impact of Merger and Acquisition on Karachi Stock Exchange–Testing Semi-Strong Efficient Market Hypothesis

This paper particularly addresses the impact of mergers and acquisition (M&A) announcements on share prices in Pakistani stock market from 2006 to 2014. It uses event study method for a sample of 32 M&A announcements from both financial and non-financial sectors. The result shows that M&A declarations do not signal any significant information to Pakistani market. Therefore, the findings show statistically insignificant abnormal returns on announcements of M&A, however a significant positive abnormal return just before proclamation of merger and acquisitions is noted. Similarly, the bidder firms show significant share price reaction and also some gains before the announcement which may be because of leakage of information (Khan, 2011). While after the declaration both target and bidder firms experience losses but overall conclusion detects that the target companies get fewer abnormal earnings as compared to acquirer firms in case of acquisitions. The insignificant unexpected returns on announcement date of M&A do not support semi-strong form of EMH. The findings of this study help investors in devising their investment strategies based on the timing of important announcements by companies such as M&A.
Learning Representations for Utility and Privacy : An Information-Theoretic Based Approach

Protecting a secret while disclosing related information (utility) is a well known challenge in privacy; both users and service providers can and should collaborate to protect privacy, and this paper addresses this paradigm. Here we analyze the limits of information-theoretic privacy, and use these to design a data-driven privacypreserving representation of the disclosed data X that is maximally informative about the utility variable U and minimally informative about the secret variable S. We describe important use-case scenarios where the utility providers are willing to collaborate, at least partially, with the sanitization process. In this setting, we limit the possible sanitization functions to space-preserving transformations, where the same algorithm can be used to infer the utility variable on both sanitized and unsanitized data. We illustrate this approach though two use cases; subject-withinsubject, where we tackle the problem of having an identity detector (from facial images) that works only on a consenting subset of users; and emotion-and-gender, where we tackle the issue of hiding independent variables, as is the case of hiding gender while preserving emotion detection.
Image-Based Pothole Detection System for ITS Service and Road Management System

Potholes can generate damage such as flat tire and wheel damage, impact and damage of lower vehicle, vehicle collision, and major accidents. Thus, accurately and quickly detecting potholes is one of the important tasks for determining proper strategies in ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) service and road management system. Several efforts have been made for developing a technology which can automatically detect and recognize potholes. In this study, a pothole detection method based on two-dimensional (2D) images is proposed for improving the existing method and designing a pothole detection system to be applied to ITS service and road management system. For experiments, 2D road images that were collected by a survey vehicle in Korea were used and the performance of the proposed method was compared with that of the existing method for several conditions such as road, recording, and brightness. The results are promising, and the information extracted using the proposed method can be used, not only in determining the preliminary maintenance for a road management system and in taking immediate action for their repair and maintenance, but also in providing alert information of potholes to drivers as one of ITS services.
The Applied Research on the Virtualization Technology in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is emerging as a new business model, it continues to be researched and practiced with. And the virtualization technology is the foundation to achieve cloud computing resource isomerism, pooling and on-demand services. The paper discusses the cloud computing virtualization technology: server virtualization, storage virtualization, network virtualization. Virtualization technology also packages hardware, operating systems, and together with applications into a virtual machine. Then these problems in the cloud computing also are researched: how to deploy quickly a virtual machine, how to optimize the placement of the virtual machine, how to migrate the virtual
A gradual data acquisition replacement strategy for the Laguna Verde nuclear power plant

This paper focuses on the strategy applied in the gradual integration of a new data acquisition system with the online Plant Process Computer of the Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant. Due to the fact that the data acquisition modules needed to be replaced, the need for a New Acquisition System arose. The issue of whether or not to embark on a complete or modular replacement of its elements required careful consideration. At Laguna Verde, we opted for a phased migration approach, considering two main aspects: that the plant monitoring must remain online during the whole process, because it is required for plant operation and that human machine interfaces and computations design basis must be maintained, in order to minimize regulatory impact. The core of a phased migration strategy hinges on a flexible modular system capable of accepting data streams from multiple data acquisition systems and computers and consolidating this data for their presentation in control room displays and in the power plant historical archive. This paper describes the methodology that was applied to integrate the new data acquisition system into the legacy system, which is based on a real-time mechanism and historical data stream transfer.
A P ] 5 J an 2 01 8 MULTIPLICITY RESULTS AND QUALITATIVE PROPERTIES FOR SEMILINEAR ELLIPTIC PROBLEMS WITH NEUMANN BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

In this paper we study multiplicity and qualitative behavior of solutions for semilinear elliptic problems with neumann boundary condition and asymptotically linear smooth nonlinearity. We provide sufficient conditions on the number of eigenvalues the derivative of the nonlinearity crosses to guarantee existence of at least five nontrivial solutions. The techniques we use are a combination of minimization, Leray-Schauder degree, Morse Theory and Reduction method a la Castro-Lazer.