Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Small Refinements to the DAM Can Have Big Consequences for Data-Structure Design

Storage devices have complex performance profiles, including costs to initiate IOs (e.g., seek times in hard drives), parallelism and bank conflicts (in SSDs), costs to transfer data, and firmware-internal operations. The Disk-Access Machine (DAM) model simplifies reality by assuming that storage devices transfer data in blocks of size B and that all transfers have unit cost. Despite its simplifications, the DAM model is reasonably accurate. In fact, if B is set to the half-bandwidth point, where the latency and bandwidth of the hardware are equal, the DAM approximates the IO cost on any hardware to within a factor of 2. Furthermore, the DAM explains the popularity of B-trees in the 70s and the current popularity of B-trees and log-structured merge trees. But it fails to explain why some B-trees use small nodes, whereas all B-trees use large nodes. In a DAM, all IOs, and hence all nodes, are the same size. In this paper, we show that the affine and PDAM models, which are small refinements of the DAM model, yield a surprisingly large improvement in predictability without sacrificing ease of use. We present benchmarks on a large collection of storage devices showing that the affine and PDAM models give good approximations of the performance characteristics of hard drives and SSDs, respectively. We show that the affine model explains node-size choices in B-trees and B+-trees. Furthermore, the models predict that the B-tree is highly sensitive to variations in the node size whereas B-trees are much less sensitive. These predictions are born out empirically. Finally, we show that in both the affine and PDAM models, it pays to organize data structures to exploit varying IO size. In the affine model, B-trees can be optimized so that all operations are simultaneously optimal, even up to lower order terms. In the PDAM model, B-trees (or B+-trees) can be organized so that both sequential and concurrent workloads are handled efficiently. We conclude that the DAM model is useful as a first cut when designing or analyzing an algorithm or data structure but the affine and PDAM models enable the algorithm designer to optimize parameter choices and fill in design details.
Pulmonary cement embolism in haemodialysis

Chronic care in haemodialysis patients usually requires a multi-system approach. Metabolic bone disorders in chronic kidney disease often cause physical disabilities and require new therapeutic strategies to maintain a good quality of life. Percutaneous cement vertebroplasty and balloon kyphoplasty are widely used to treat compressive vertebral fractures but higher rate of comorbidities in renal patients often cause some complications. We present an unusual case of late pulmonary cement embolism in an elderly haemodialysis patient. Curiously, in spite of a large number of vertebral augmentation procedures performed in the world, this is the first report of pulmonary cement embolism in a dialysis patient.
THE EFFECT OF UNCERTAINTY ON VENTURE CAPITALISTS’ INVESTMENT TRAJECTORIES IN THE CLEAN ENERGY SECTOR

This study investigates the effects of exogenous and endogenous uncertainty on venture capital (VC) firms� strategies when investing in an emerging sector. Using the real options logic, we theorize that greater levels of exogenous uncertainty increase VC firms� propensity to spread their investments across multiple new technologies, and that such effects are mitigated by the level of endogenous uncertainty they experience. Our empirical investigation of the strategies of 172 U.S. VC firms that invested in the emerging clean energy sector during the period 1990-2008 provides some support for these arguments. Our study contributes to entrepreneurship theory and practice by examining the interplay between exogenous and endogenous uncertainty in influencing VC investment strategies in emerging sectors.
DEMONSTRATION STUDY: TREATMENT OF HEAP LEACH PAD DRAIN DOWN SOLUTION: PROOF-OF-PRINCIPLE BENCH STUDY 1

A 20-week bench-scale study was conducted by Golder Associates to determine whether passive treatment could effectively remove weak and dissociable (WAD) cyanide and NO3 from the drain down solution emanating from a decommissioned gold heap leach pad. An anaerobic treatment scenario was chosen and three different substrates were chosen. Limestone at 10% by weight was in all three reactors, two of the reactors had between 80 and 90% hay/straw, and a third reactor had 45% hay/straw and 45 % potato mash. These are local agricultural products and by-products. Because the historic concentration of nitrate-N ranged from 142 to 297 mg/L, the flow rate into the reactors was based on the hydraulic retention time needed to remove nitrate-N down to 10 mg/L, and this was determined to be 20 days. All three substrates were effective at removing WAD cyanide and nitrate-N to below 0.04 mg/L and 1.0 mg/L, respectively. In the effluents, other constituents that could be the products of cyanide and nitrate-N degradation were analyzed and only ammonia- N was detected at concentrations from 5 to 10 mg/L. The most recent regulatory reference value has been set at 10 mg/L N for the total N in all nitrogen species. Under this monitoring requirement, the sum of nitrate-N and ammonia-N would be below the 10 mg/L N reference value.
Airborne lidar reflectance measurements

Airborne lidar reflectance measurements at 1. 57μm in support of the A-SCOPE mission for atmospheric CO2 A. Amediek, A. Fix, G. Ehret, J. Caron, and Y. Durand Deutsches Zentrum für Luftund Raumfahrt (DLR) Oberpfaffenhofen, Institut für Physik der Atmosphäre, 82234 Wessling, Germany ESA/ESTEC, Earth Observation Project Department, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands working as a contractor from RHEA System SA Received: 2 June 2009 – Accepted: 16 Jun 2009 – Published: 24 June 2009 Correspondence to: A. Amediek (axel.amediek@dlr.de) Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.
Information Flow and Causality between Price Change and Trading Volume in Silver and Platinum Futures Contracts

This study examines the joint relationship between the percentage price change and the trading volume of silver and platinum futures contracts traded on Commodity Exchange, Inc. (COMEX) using the daily time series which covering a period of ten years. We adopt the two -step procedures proposed by Cheung and Ng (1996) to detect the causality of information flow between price change and trading volume. We find that lagged causality in mean running from the price change to trading volume but not for opposite direction under the original AR -GARCH model. The causality in variance is not found in our results. After that, we find evidences of mild lagged causality in variance running from the percentage price change to the trading volume under the augmented AR-GARCH model, which supports the sequential information flow hypothesis and consistent with the previous study by Bhar and Hamori (2004) in gold futures contracts. However, the contemporaneous causality has been found in the gold futures contract is not consistent with our findings.
An Analytical Formulation for Pollutant Dispersion Simulation in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

In this work we present the solution of the two-dimensional advection-diffusion equation by the GILTT method. The GILTT approach uses, in the series expansion, eigenfunctions given in terms of cosine functions. Here, a different expansion for the solution of the advection-diffusion equation will be explored. In other words, a Sturm-Liouville problem carrying more information of the original problem is considered, given by Bessel functions. Numerical simulations and comparisons with experimental data are presented.
Specular reflection Surface Defects Detection by using Deep Learning

As you know that defects inspection of specular surface is very difficult because its specular reflection is very strong and defects' reflection is weaker. And the existing computer vision-based industrial parts surface defect detection methods are limited by environmental factors, and the image preprocessing process is complex. On the other hand, with the rapid development of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) that is one type of deep learning and has excellent performance for image processing, has led to the rapid development of computer vision research based on deep learning. In this paper, we proposed an ensemble CNN in which integrated two convolutional neural network models for surface defect detection, and obtained better results.
Chaotic advection in point vortex models and two-dimensional turbulence

The dynamics of passively advected particles in either integrable or chaotic point vortex systems and in two‐dimensional (2‐D) turbulence is studied. For point vortices, it is shown that the regular or chaotic nature of the particle trajectories is not determined by the Eulerian chaoticity of the vortex motion, but rather by pure Lagrangian quantities, such as the distance of an advected particle from the vortex centers. In fact, each point vortex turns out to be surrounded by a regular island, where the advected particles are trapped and their Lagrangian Lyapunov exponent is zero, even though the vortex itself may perform a chaotic trajectory. In the field between the vortices, passive particles undergo chaotic advection with an associated positive Lyapunov exponent. For well‐separated vortices, even at large times, the advected particles do not cross the boundary between the chaotic sea and the regular islands surrounding the vortices. A similar situation holds in the case of forced‐dissipative 2‐D turb.
Digital Watermarking as Content Protection Scheme

Nowadays, as the Internet grows rapidly, the copyright laws are not effective anymore, since a lot of copyrighted products (picture, audio, video, document, etc.) are available as digital data. Any unauthorized parties able to produce identical copies of digital data without degrading the original contents and to distribute the copies over the network. This condition has led to a strong demand for reliable and secure distribution of digital data over networks. Such a technique developed to overcome this problem is digital watermarking. Digital watermarking is a process in digital domain, which embeds a watermark into a copyrighted digital data, to protect its value, so that it cannot be used by unauthorized parties. This paper is intended to give an overview on digital watermarking. First, three application fields of watermarking are described and illustrated with some scenarios, namely watermarking for copyright protection, watermarking for copy protection, and watermarking for image authentication. Then watermarking techniques are discussed, starting from the basic watermarking procedure, followed by review of some watermarking techniques. And later, some attacks and obstacles to watermarking are highlighted. In conclusion, digital watermarking technology plays important role in content protection issues. Attacks and obstacles are also had to be faced by this technology. The main obstacle is that there is no standard available for watermarking techniques. Without any specific standard, it is difficult to determine how robust a watermarking technique should be.
Testing the Long-run Relationship between Export and Economic Growth: Evidence from Namibia

This study investigates the export-economic growth relationship for Namibia. The study was motivated by the contradicting results in the literature of the export and economic growth relationship despite the wide theoretical consensus among researchers that “export expansion is the engine of economic growth. ” Namibia was chosen as a case study since the Namibian government also put some weights on export promotion as one of its growth strategies. The study models the relationship through the augmented neoclassical production function framework. The Johansen co-integration test, the vector-error correction model (VECM) and the Granger causality tests were employed to test for the nature of the relationship. The Granger causality test indicates a uni-directional causation from export to economic growth. This allows us to confirm the validity of the export-led growth hypothesis in the case of Namibia. The findings also suggest that economic growth is dependent on export performance in a way. Therefore Namibia can enhance its economic growth by improving upon the competiveness of its exported items.
Some Computability-Theoretical Aspects of Reals and Randomness

We study computably enumerable reals (i.e. their left cut is computably enumerable) in terms of their spectra of representations and presentations. Then we study such objects in terms of algorithmic randomness, culminating in some recent work of the author with Hirschfeldt, Laforte, and Nies concerning methods of calibrating randomness. x
To apply Data Mining for Classification of Crowd sourced Software Requirements

Now a day's main focus of developers is to build quality software that works according to customer needs and for this reason it is necessary to gather right requirements as requirement elicitation is the critical step that impacts on the success of software project as misinterpreted requirements leads to the failure of software project. By keeping this in mind a research is carried out on improving requirements elicitation process and automating the process of classifying requirements. In this research, a model is proposed which will help in this scenario for requirements elicitation and requirement classification. This paper presents a model in which crowd sourcing approach is used so that customers, end users, stakeholders, developers and software engineers can make active participation for requirement elicitation process and requirements gathered using crowdsourcing approach are used by model for classification process i.e. classification of requirements into functional and non-functional requirements. For the proof of proposed model a case study is conducted. Results of case study provided the usefulness and efficiency of proposed model for classification of crowd sourced software requirements.
Food price volatility in developing countries and its determinants

The work at hand contributes to the ongoing discussion on the drivers of food price volatility. Based on theoretical considerations, economical, agricultural, and political determinants of domestic price volatility are identified and discussed. A dynamic panel is estimated to account for country fixed effects and persistence of volatility. Two approaches are followed in order to consistently estimate the impact of time-invariant variables. First, system GMM using levels instead of first differences and, second, a two step IV estimation using the residuals from the system GMM estimation. Findings suggest that stocks, production, international price volatility, and governance significantly affect domestic price variability. Furthermore, improved functionality of markets and reduced transaction costs can stabilise prices. With respect to agricultural policies, public stockholding seems to be associated with less volatility, whereas trade restrictions do not enhance price stabilisation. Lastly, landlocked countries experience less variability in grain prices, while African countries have more volatile prices than countries on other continents.
Preliminary Investigation of the Movements, Density, and Growth of Juvenile Queen Conch in a Nursery Area in Barbados

Conservation and sustainable use of queen conch (Strombus gigas) is a topic of considerable importance in the Caribbean and is supported by international (CITES) and regional (SPAW Protocol) treaties. Barbados, a conch range state with a small artisanal conch fishery and signatory to both legally binding treaties has recently begun investing in research and development of management plans for this species. To date, the fishery has been described, an island-wide conch abundance survey has been completed and on-going research is examining the reproductive characteristics and movement patterns of adult conch. The current pilot study compliments these efforts by investigating the movement patterns, density and growth of juvenile conch in a nursery area in Barbados over a 10-week period. Three juvenile conch aggregations within a nursery area were selected for study and over 100 individuals (mean shell length: 19.5 cm) from each aggregation were tagged using numbered disc tags (Floy Tag and Manufacturing Inc). A ‘key informant’ animal in each aggregation was also fitted with a Lotek MM-S-8-SO acoustic tag to assist in relocating the group. Animals were acoustically tracked and visually re-located every few days for 10 weeks. Position (depth, habitat and GPS co -ordinates) and density (number of individuals within 5m-radius) were recorded for key informants and a subsample of individuals within the aggregation were measured for shell length on each tracking dive. Summer home ranges, minimum distance travelled and movement speed were estimated for two key informants, and growth rates of the juvenile cohort within the aggregations were estimated. This preliminary study will inform the design of a larger scale study of the connectivity of juvenile and adult conch
Assessing the Impact of Renewable Energy on Regional Sustainability—A Comparative Study of Sogn og Fjordane (Norway) and Okinawa (Japan)

The drive to expand renewable energies is often in direct conflict with sustainable development goals. Thus, it is important that energy policies account for potential trade-offs. We assess the interlinkages between energy, food, water and land, for two case studies, Okinawa and Sogn og Fjordane. We apply a range of assessment methods and study their usefulness as tools to identify trade-offs and to compare the sustainability performance. We calculate cross-sectoral footprints, self-sufficiency ratios and perform a simplified Energy-Water-Food nexus analysis. We use the latter for assessing scenarios to increase energy and food self-sufficiency in Okinawa, while we use ecosystem service (ESS) accounting for Sogn og Fjordane. For Okinawa, we find that constraints on the energy, food and water sectors urgently call for integrated approaches to energy policy; for Sogn og Fjordane, the further expansion of renewables comes at the expense of cultural and supporting ESS, which could outweigh gains from increased energy exports. We recommend a general upgrade to indicators and visualization methods that look beyond averages and a fostering of infrastructure for data on sustainable development based on harmonized international protocols. We warn against rankings of countries or regions based on benchmarks that are neither theory-driven nor location-specific.
Virulence and antimicrobial susceptibility profile of Listeria monocytogenes isolated from frozen vegetables available in the Egyptian market

Listeria monocytogenes is among the most important foodborne pathogens. It may enter food-processing environments through raw materials, handlers or equipment and may persist due to ineffective cleaning or sanitation. The bacterium can be isolated from both frozen vegetables and fresh food substances. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of L. monocytogenes in spices and frozen vegetables and screen for some virulence factors and drug-resistance determinants of the isolated bacteria. First, conventional microbiological methods were used for the isolation and identification of bacteria. Next, the identity of isolated bacteria was confirmed by molecular techniques, and the virulence genes iap and hlyA were identified by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The hemolytic activity of the isolates was assessed by cultivation on sheep blood agar. Furthermore, the antimicrobial susceptibility of confirmed L. monocytogenes isolates was tested by the disk diffusion method against 10 antibiotics. Out of 331 vegetable samples, 47 isolates were confirmed to contain L. monocytogenes, whereas none of 40 spice samples tested positive. All isolates were positive for iap and hlyA genes. Susceptibility testing indicated that all isolates were sensitive to trimethoprim/ sulfamethoxazole, but only 36% were sensitive to penicillin G, while 100% and 70% showed intermediate resistance to chloramphenicol and erythromycin, respectively. All tested isolates were resistant to amoxicillin, gentamicin and norfloxacin; on the other hand, 90, 86 and 84% of the tested strains were resistant to ciprofloxacin, ceftazidime/clavulanic acid and amikacin, respectively. In summary, L. monocytogenes isolates disseminated in frozen vegetable samples from the Egyptian market were highly virulent, entirely multiple-drug resistant and were enriched in iron-containing vegetables. Since L. monocytogenes is primarily pathogenic to humans and causes a life-threatening disease, there is a potential infection risk for people who usually deal with frozen vegetables before cooking. Hence, surveillance to L. monocytogenes in frozen products, together with implementation of tight measures would be valuable in preventing listeriosis, and are highly recommended. Key words: Listeria monocytogenes, virulence gene, antibiotic resistance.
State of Australian Cities Conference 2015 Beach Erosion and Nourishment in Gold Coast: Perceptions, Policies and Prospects

The combination of ongoing urban development and forecasted impacts of the changing climate are projected to place many coastal areas at risk. One of the associated risks is beach erosion, and consequently, nourishment initiatives have become a costly sustainable development issue for local and state governments. For instance, the popular Palm Beach, a nearly four kilometres stretch of sandy beach on the southern Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia has been identified as being more susceptible to serious erosion than other beaches in the city. Consequently, the local council has spent millions of dollars on beach nourishment and is seeking ways to fund the initiative. In this context of coastal management, an exploratory pilot research project was undertaken to examine the question of “how do local residents and tourists perceive the problem of beach erosion and to what extent are they willing to support beach nourishment initiatives”? Results of quantitative analyses of 68 face to face survey responses of beach goers (local residents and tourists) are outlined in terms of Willingness to Donate (WTD) framework. Findings indicate: a) more than three-quarters of respondents perceived beach nourishment as an important issue, b) local residents were more willing to volunteer towards beach nourishment, and c) tourists were more willing to donate money to work towards resolving the problem. The financial and policy implications of these findings in the context of beach nourishment are discussed.