Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automated Monitoring of Operation-Level Construction Progress Using 4D BIM and Daily Site Photologs

Recent research efforts on improving construction progress monitoring have mainly focused on model-based assessment methods. In these methods, the expected performance is typically modeled with 4D BIM and the actual performance is sensed through 3D image-based reconstruction method or laser scanning. Previous research on 4-Dimensional Augmented Reality (D4AR) models– which fuse 4D BIM with point clouds generated from daily site photologs– and also laser scan-vs.-BIM have shown that it is possible to conduct occupancy-based assessments and as an indicator of progress, detect whether or not BIM elements are present in the scene. However, to detect deviations beyond typical Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in 4D BIM, these method also need to capture operation-level details (e.g., current stage of concrete placement: formwork, rebars, concrete). To overcome current limitations, this paper presents methods for sampling and recognizing construction material from image-based point cloud data and using that information in a statistical form to infer the state of progress. The proposed method is validated using the D4AR model generated for a building construction site. The preliminary experimental results show that it is feasible to sample and detect construction materials from the images that are registered to a point cloud model and use frequency histograms of the detected materials to infer the actual state of progress for BIM elements.
Detecting Activation in fMRI Data: An Approach Based on Sparse Representation of BOLD Signal

This paper proposes a simple yet effective approach for detecting activated voxels in fMRI data by exploiting the inherent sparsity property of the BOLD signal in temporal and spatial domains. In the time domain, the approach combines the General Linear Model (GLM) with a Least Absolute Deviation (LAD) based regression method regularized by the pseudonorm to promote sparsity in the parameter vector of the model. In the spatial domain, detection of activated regions is based on thresholding the spatial map of estimated parameters associated with a particular stimulus. The threshold is calculated by exploiting the sparseness of the BOLD signal in the spatial domain assuming a Laplacian distribution model. The proposed approach is validated using synthetic and real fMRI data. For synthetic data, results show that the proposed approach is able to detect most activated voxels without any false activation. For real data, the method is evaluated through comparison with the SPM software. Results indicate that this approach can effectively find activated regions that are similar to those found by SPM, but using a much simpler approach. This study may lead to the development of robust spatial approaches to further simplifying the complexity of classical schemes.
Evaluating climate model performance with various parameter sets using observations over the recent past

Abstract. Many sources of uncertainty limit the accuracy of climate projections. Among them, we focus here on the parameter uncertainty, i.e. the imperfect knowledge of the values of many physical parameters in a climate model. Therefore, we use LOVECLIM, a global three-dimensional Earth system model of intermediate complexity and vary several parameters within a range based on the expert judgement of model developers. Nine climatic parameter sets and three carbon cycle parameter sets are selected because they yield present-day climate simulations coherent with observations and they cover a wide range of climate responses to doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration and freshwater flux perturbation in the North Atlantic. Moreover, they also lead to a large range of atmospheric CO2 concentrations in response to prescribed emissions. Consequently, we have at our disposal 27 alternative versions of LOVECLIM (each corresponding to one parameter set) that provide very different responses to some climate forcings. The 27 model versions are then used to illustrate the range of responses provided over the recent past, to compare the time evolution of climate variables over the time interval for which they are available (the last few decades up to more than one century) and to identify the outliers and the "best" versions over that particular time span. For example, between 1979 and 2005, the simulated global annual mean surface temperature increase ranges from 0.24 °C to 0.64 °C, while the simulated increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration varies between 40 and 50 ppmv. Measurements over the same period indicate an increase in global annual mean surface temperature of 0.45 °C (Brohan et al., 2006) and an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration of 44 ppmv (Enting et al., 1994; GLOBALVIEW-CO2, 2006). Only a few parameter sets yield simulations that reproduce the observed key variables of the climate system over the last decades. Furthermore, our results show that the model response, including its ocean component, is strongly influenced by the model sensitivity to an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration but much less by its sensitivity to freshwater flux in the North Atlantic. They also highlight weaknesses of the model, in particular its large ocean heat uptake.
The evolution of a craft : post-Byzantine bookbinding between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth century from the libraries of the Iviron Monastery in Mount Athos/Greece and the St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai/Egypt

The thesis investigates the ways through which the Greek-style bookbinding was gradually supplanted by European bookbinding, a process which occurred between the late fifteenth century, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, and the early eighteenth century. The Greek-style bookbinding is a distinctive typological binding structure confined in the milieu of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine civilization. The research is based on two major monastic libraries, those of the Iviron monastery in Mount Athos/Greece and of the St. Catherine's monastery in Sinai/Egypt. The primary material of the research consists of a detailed survey of 419 bookbindings dated between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth century. To collect and store the collected data a survey methodology had to be devised and a computer database appositely built. Through the analysis of the collected data twelve major bookbinding ateliers are identified and described in full detail, representing both monastic communities, providing the most extensive body of information on bindings of the Greek-Orthodox Christian monastic communities so far. It is through the description of these ateliers that the various influences, both from the West and the East, under which the aforementioned evolution occurred, are identified, considered, and interpreted. A statistical analysis is provided at the end of the thesis using tables and graphics in the effort to illustrate the major changes in time and space of the most significant bookbinding features, both technical and decorative. Except providing a full photographic survey of the bookbindings described in the examination of twelve different bookbinding ateliers, graphic representations of many technical and decorative features, and a complete indexed list of all the 593 decorative motifs recorded, the thesis also tries to explore, whenever possible, how these bookbindings reflect the social, religious and commercial life of the time. Since there is only little, isolated and dispersed, information published, and practically no systematic research on this specific subject and for the specific period considered here, the thesis aims to contribute in filling in a gap as well as providing a methodology for further research in the subject.
Use of MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry for Specificity Studies of Biomedically Important Proteases

Proteases play crucial role starting from fertilization until to cell death. Our studies of the two Viperidae venoms (Levantine viper Vipera lebetina, Common viper Vipera berus) have demonstrated the existence of biomedically important proteases, both coagulants and anticoagulants that may be useful as diagnostic tools or potential therapeutics. We showed that venoms of both snakes contain: (i) metalloproteases and serine proteases that degrade fibrinogen, but not fibrin; (ii) factor X activators (VLFXA, VBFXAE); (iii) bradykinin-releasing serine proteases. Additionally Vipera lebetina snake venom contains thrombolytic fibrin degrading metalloenzyme (lebetase), HUVEC cell apoptosis inducing metalloprotease (VLAIP), factor V activator (VLFVA), thermostable β-fibrinogenase and α-fibrinogenase which has no homolog among known serine proteases. We examined the activity of snake venom proteases against bradykinin, substance P, insulin B-chain and 6–10 amino acid residues containing peptides synthesized according to potential cleavage regions of fibrinogen, factor X, factor IX, factor V, α2-macroglobulin bait region and pregnancy zone protein (PZP). We used MALDI TOF mass spectrometry technique for the discovery and identification of peptides released by protease hydrolysis. The sensitive and quick MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry methodology allows us to obtain the primary information about the substrate specificity of different proteases against various peptides and proteins.
PWL Approximation for Dense Mapping and Associated Dijkstra Processes for the Concurrent Synthesis of Multiple Full Cost-to-Go Functions

This work proposes and illustrates the synthesis of multiple cost-to-go functions based on PWL approximation of a dense environment. The goal is to create a data structure based on PWL quadtree that accurately describes the working space allowing optimisation algorithms to explore greater areas of the working space in an ecient manner. To illustrate the proposed approach, a Dijsktra algorithm will be used to compute cost-to-go functions in both, the working space and the data structure and the results will be presented. The methodology includes adaptations to the algorithms used in order to achieve higher eciency of the computational cost.
The relative importance of religious denominations for life satisfaction

This paper estimates the importance of religious denomination (we differ between Christians, Muslims, Chinese Universists, Buddhists, Hindus, Non-religious and others) for life satisfaction across countries, after controlling for a set of quality of life variables. We use a sample of 144 countries, covering approximately 96 percent of world population. Our results indicate that religion does have a significant influence on life satisfaction. It was shown that pertaining to one of the following denominations: Christian, Muslim or Hindu significantly influences satisfaction and that these categories are more satisfied with their lives than the reference category. Separating our sample even further, the results show that Catholics are the most satisfied group among Christians, and Sunnis among Muslims. We take the analysis one step further and examine the relative importance of the religions with most adherents on life satisfaction. Our results indicate that Christians are the most satisfied, followed by the Muslim and Hindu.
Models of stability, stiffness, pain catastrophizing, fear of movement and changes in these outcome measures due to a capsaicin experimental neck pain protocol.

MODELS OF STABILITY, STIFFNESS, PAIN CATASTROPHYZING, FEAR OF MOVEMENT AND CHANGES IN THESE OUTCOME MEASURES DUE TO A CAPSAICIN EXPERIMENTAL NECK PAIN PROTOCOL. Brendan L. Pinto University of Guelph, 2018 Advisor: Dr. Stephen H.M. Brown The purpose of our investigation was to determine the changes in upper back and lower back local dynamic stability (LDS) and lumbar rotational stiffness after experiencing neck pain, and to examine the models used to measure LDS and stiffness as well as the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) and Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK). We found significant changes immediately after capsaicin/heat induced neck pain, in upper back LDS but not lower back LDS or lumbar rotational stiffness. Contrary to previous evidence LDS and rotational stiffness did not relate with one another. PCS and TSK were moderately correlated with LDS but weakly negatively correlated with stiffness. PCS scores significantly changed between baseline and experiencing pain. This suggests that lower back stability may not be influenced by pain similar to our experimental protocol and provides further avenues for continued research of the models we use to determine stability, catastrophizing and fear of motion.
Reliability modelling for the GIL subject to competing failure modes

Due to necessity of enforcing the electrical transmission network, a long distance gas insulated transmission line (GIL) has been developed as a new alternative underground technology, and has shown an ever-increasing usage worldwide. The main failure modes of the GIL are performance degradation due to air leakage, and random shocks caused by partial discharge. The failure of the GIL subject to both soft failure and hard failure is the result of their competition. Considering that the degradation occurs only after a certain delay, i.e. there is a random degradation initiation time before the air in the GIL begins to leak, this paper presents a new reliability model for the GIL subject to competing failure modes. Its reliability is assessed through analytical derivation and numerical calculation methods. And a numerical study is conducted to illustrate the implementation of the proposed model.
The Sense of Being 'There': a Model for the Space of Presence

With respect to the common definition of presence as the ‘sense of being there’, most studies concentrate on the ‘sense of being’ part of the concept, addressing users’ interior state during the technologically mediated experience. In this work, we would like to emphasize the role of the ‘there’ part, introducing a model for the “space of presence” not as a component but as a defining dimension of presence itself. The paper starts by emphasizing the central role of place in the constitution of presence, and then elaborates on this concept in the light of recent developments in human geography, ethnography and cognitive science. Such space consists of physical, cognitive and cultural resources dynamically structured by the unfolding action and is then very different from physical or even mental spaces. The conclusive section illustrates some of the main implications of the proposed model, that do justice to the richness of the concept of presence and show its potential insightfulness in the study of mediated experiences.
A supervised Multi-Spectral Image Classification for Remote Sensing Data

With the advent of photography equipment and techniques combination to revolution of computer and digitalization in both hardware and software, it takes another dimension. This research shade s o m e light on the Multi- Spectral Image Classification and the importance of this field in Image processing. The supervised classification approach was considered in this research where three of its types were explained, Minimum Distance (MD), Maximum Likelihood (ML), and Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN). The research involves designing a package for Multi-Spectral Image classification. This includes reading data, apply Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as a feature extraction, then apply False Colour Composite (FCC) as one of the classification techniques in multi-spectral images. The research focuses on the supervised method throughout.
Differences in measures of the fiscal multiplier and the reduced-form vector autoregression

ABSTRACT The literature has recently asked whether the effects of fiscal policy vary with the state of the economy (Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Rebelo 2011; Rendahl 2014; Auerbach and Gorodnichenko 2012). We study this question in the context of vector autoregression (VAR) estimation. We show formally that, if (asymptotically) the parameters of the reduced-form VAR differ, then the dynamic effects of fiscal policy differ as well, generically and for any set of identification assumptions. Thus, in theory, the econometrician can detect these differences (either across time or space) generically just by relying on reduced-form VAR estimation.
Tracer particles in two-dimensional elastic networks diffuse logarithmically slow

Several experiments on tagged molecules or particles in living systems suggest that they move anomalously slow—their mean squared displacement (MSD) increase slower than linearly with time. Leading models aimed at understanding these experiments predict that the MSD grows as a power law with a growth exponent that is smaller than unity. However, in some experiments the growth is so slow (fitted exponent ∼0.1–0.2) that they hint towards other mechanisms at play. In this paper, we theoretically demonstrate how in-plane collective modes excited by thermal fluctuations in a two dimensional membrane lead to logarithmic time dependence for the the tracer particle’s MSD.
The Causal Relationship Between Economic Policy Uncertainty and Stock Returns in China and India: Evidence from a Bootstrap Rolling Window Approach

Abstract This article applies a bootstrap rolling-window causality test to assess the causal relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and stock returns in China and India. Empirical literature examining causality between two time series may suffer from inaccurate results when the underlying full-sample time series have structural changes. However, the bootstrap rolling-window approach enables us to identify possible time-varying causalities between time series based on sub-sample data. Using a twenty-four-months rolling window over the period 1995:02 to 2013:02 in China and 2003:02–2013:02 in India, we do find that there are bidirectional causal relationships between EPU and stock returns in several sub-periods rather than in the whole sample period. However, the association between EPU and stock returns is, in general, weak for these two emerging countries. Our findings have important implications for policy makers and investors.
UNSERIALIZABLE INTERLEAVING DETECTION USING HARDWARE COUNTERS

Concurrent programs are needed to take advantage of multicore computers. Debugging such concurrent programs is very difficult due to their nondeterminism. So, error detection tools need to be used in production environments. One very popular detection technique is interleaving analysis, which detects atomicity violations in shared memory programs. Unfortunately, the algorithms that implement this technique can be very costly at runtime, restricting its use to the software testing stage. This paper shows how to use the hardware counters present in today's processors to detect the occurrence of unserializable interleavings. This optimization will reduce the overhead introduced by concurrency bug detection tools.
GRAPH THEORY AND ANT COLONY OPTIMIZATION APPROACH FOR FOREST PATCH CONNECTIVITY ANALYSIS

Forest connectivity is necessary for prioritizing biodiversity conservation. Connectivity indices facilitate to predict the movement pattern of species across complex landscapes. Change in area and inter-patch distance in forest affects the biodiversity, wildlife movement, seed dispersal and other ecological factors. In graph theory components play an important role to analyze the group of patches and its impact with reference to the threshold distance between the patches. The study on link, threshold distance and components showed that with the increase in threshold distance, number of components decreased and number of links increased. Also Integral index of connectivity importance value (dIIC > 0.05) is high for big forest patches and considered to be intact forest. For those less than 0.05 importance value requires protection and conservation. Hence dIIC is categorised into Very low, low, Medium, high and Very high to analyze the degree of connectivity. Choosing correct threshold distance based on the requirement of species movement is preferred. Based on the selection of potential habitat patches shortest path between them is determined using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) Technique. Vegetation type Map, Slope, Elevation, Disturbance Index, Biological Richness Map and DIIC layers facilitated to analyze the optimal path of the species through ACO for connectivity. Graph Theory and ACO works as a robust tool for Biodiversity Conservation.
On trade and economic growth: further evidence

The relationship between exports and economic growth occupy pivotal positions in current policy discussions. In view of the diametrically opposite results obtained by Bahmani-Oskooee et al. (1991) and Axfentiou and Serlitis (1991) the relationship remain largely unsettled. We have tried to resolve the growth-trade nexus by studying twelve countries of South Asia, Far-East and Australia. Utilising the Granger concept of causality, and using the Finite Prediction Error (FPE) and Hocking’s Sp criterion of model selection we were able to find substantial evidence in favour of the hypothesis that trade causes economic growth. This result was achieved by using a different data source and model selection criteria from those mentioned in the above studies. I have benefitted enormously from discussions with D.P. Chaudhri, Clive Granger, Amnon Levy and Ed Wilson. However, I am alone responsible for the errors.
Mitochondrial phylogeny of the Darevskia saxicola complex: two highly deviant evolutionary lineages from the easternmost part of the range

The rock lizards of the Darevskia saxicola complex are found exclusively in the west of the Greater Caucasus and in southern Crimea. The earliest split within this group occurred between D. saxicola from the northern and D. brauneri from the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus, followed by the split between D. brauneri and the Crimean D. lindholmi, and the expansion of D. saxicola to the westernmost slopes of the Greater Caucasus. We collected nominal D. brauneri from the two easternmost populations of the species range: the valleys of the Tekhuri and Enguri rivers in Georgia. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA showed that the lizards from both valleys are deeply differentiated from each other and from previously characterised D. brauneri. Lizards from Tekhuri keep a basal position within the clade D. saxicola (excluding D. praticola), and lizards from Enguri are closer matrilineally to the northern Caucasian D. saxicola than to either of the populations of nominal D. brauneri. Tekhuri lizards have broader heads and more small scales between the inner and outer rows of supraoculars than the other populations of the group. We suggest that the taxonomy of the group requires revision, considering the multiple deeply divergent mitochondrial lineages and introgressive gene flow between the continental populations of nominal D. saxicola and D. brauneri. The D. saxicola complex in the Caucasus resembles a “ring species” arrangement as described for other taxa and mountain regions.