Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Adaptive Fitness-Dependent Optimizer for the One-Dimensional Bin Packing Problem

In recent years, the one-dimensional bin packing problem (1D-BPP) has become one of the most famous combinatorial optimization problems. The 1D-BPP is a robust NP-hard problem that can be solved through optimization algorithms. This paper proposes an adaptive procedure using a recently optimized swarm algorithm and fitness-dependent optimizer (FDO), named the AFDO, to solve the BPP. The proposed algorithm is based on the generation of a feasible initial population through a modified well-known first fit (FF) heuristic approach. To obtain a final optimized solution, the most critical parameters of the algorithm are adapted for the problem. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to apply the FDO algorithm in a discrete optimization problem, especially for solving the BPP. The adaptive algorithm was tested on 30 instances obtained from benchmark datasets. The performance and evaluation results of this algorithm were compared with those of other popular algorithms, such as the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, crow search algorithm (CSA), and Jaya algorithm. The AFDO algorithm obtained the smallest fitness values and outperformed the PSO, CS, and Jaya algorithms by 16%, 17%, and 11%, respectively. Moreover, the AFDO shows superiority in terms of execution time with improvements over the execution times of the PSO, CS, and Jaya algorithms by up to 46%, 54%, and 43%, respectively. The experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive algorithm for solving the 1D-BPP.
Adventure or amusement? Image and identity challenges for the aerial adventure industry and implications for positioning and policy

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to address the changing image and identity of the aerial adventure industry as it becomes increasingly commercialized, which has led to uncertainty over its positioning within either adventure tourism or amusement rides. Such a positioning is critical in order to mitigate the problems caused by an inappropriate identification and image that contributes to poor inspections, poor procedures and policies, and ultimately, poor perceived risks and safety. In an industry where one serious injury impacts all operators, it is essential for all stakeholders to have collective “buy in” to effective policies that are standardized across the entire industry. The current identity confusion has merely led to misconceptions from public stakeholders. Through a qualitative case-study, this paper finds that aerial adventure parks share characteristics with adventure tourism and amusement rides and so resembles a hybrid. This is largely due to the presence of inherent risk and the role of the participant, both of which are less present on amusement rides. The paper therefore calls for state agencies to identify the activity as a stand-alone activity and for the subsequent regulations and policies to reflect this hybrid status.
The Global Economic Barometers: Composite indicators for the world economy

This paper presents a coincident and a leading composite monthly indicator for the world business cycle âˆ’ the Global Economic Barometers. Both target the worldâ€™s output growth rate cycle. The calculation of these indicators comprises two main stages. The first consists of a variable selection procedure, in which a pre-set correlation threshold and the targeted leads to a reference series are used as selection criteria. In the second stage, the selected variables are combined and transformed into the respective composite indicators, computed as the first partial least squares factor with the reference series as response variable. In the last vintage referred to in this paper (December 2018), out of 6605 transformations from 1681 variables tested in the first stage, 1275 are selected to enter into the coincident and 1228 into the leading composite indicator. We analyse the characteristics of the two new indicators in a pseudo real-time setting and demonstrate that both are useful additions to the small number of indicators for the global business cycle published so far.
Seasonality in Primates: Energetic responses to food availability in the great apes: implications for hominin evolution

The past 40 years of great-ape field research have seen the accumulation of a wealth of data that can be used tomake predictions about the behavior of early hominins. We have only just begun, however, to undertake great-ape field studies that incorporate a physiological component in the wild. Understanding how the energetic and reproductive systems of living hominoids respond to environmental variation allows us to build more informed models with which to reconstruct the behavior, morphology, and responses to ecological pressures that were present in great-ape and human ancestors. Fruit is the favored, although not always the most common, food of the great apes, and all ape populations that rely on fruit experience fluctuations in its availability. Given the importance of fruit in ape diets, such fluctuations are likely to have a major impact on these animals’ biology and behavior. The primary goal of this chapter is to discuss how differences in overall fruit availability and fallback foods play a central role in shaping energetic and reproductive responses of the great apes, and then to examine the implications of this for hominin evolution. A review of the literature reveals that relatively few studies present quantitative data on changes in diet or energetics over time. Descriptions are more likely to be statements about how diet or behavior changes in response to fluctuations in food availability. Thus, a secondary aim is to suggest ways in which data from both previous and future research can be presented in order to facilitate truly comparative studies of food availability and energetics.
Methods for dilution antimicrobial susceptibility tests for bacteria that grow aerobically : approved standard

Susceptibility testing is indicated for any organism that contributes to an infectious process warranting antimicrobial chemotherapy, if its susceptibility cannot be reliably predicted from knowledge of the organism’s identity. Susceptibility tests are most often indicated when the causative organism is thought to belong to a species capable of exhibiting resistance to commonly used antimicrobial agents. A variety of laboratory methods can be used to measure the in vitro susceptibility of bacteria to antimicrobial agents. This document describes standard broth dilution (macrodilution and microdilution [the microdilution method described in M07 is the same methodology outlined in ISO 20776-1]) and agar dilution techniques, and it includes a series of procedures to standardize the way the tests are performed. The performance, applications, and limitations of the current CLSI-recommended methods are also described. The supplemental information (M100 tables) presented with this standard represents the most current information for drug selection, interpretation, and QC using the procedures standardized in M07. These tables, as in previous years, have been updated and should replace tables published in earlier years. Changes in the tables since the previous edition (M100-S24) appear in boldface type and are also summarized in the front of the document. Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). Methods for Dilution Antimicrobial Susceptibility Tests for Bacteria That Grow Aerobically; Approved Standard—Tenth Edition. CLSI document M07-A10 (ISBN 1-56238-987-4 [Print]; ISBN 1-56238-988-2 [Electronic]). Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, 950 West Valley Road, Suite 2500, Wayne, Pennsylvania 19087 USA, 2015. The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute consensus process, which is the mechanism for moving a document through two or more levels of review by the health care community, is an ongoing process. Users should expect revised editions of any given document. Because rapid changes in technology may affect the procedures, methods, and protocols in a standard or guideline, users should replace outdated editions with the current editions of CLSI documents. Current editions are listed in the CLSI catalog and posted on our website at www.clsi.org. If you or your organization is not a member and would like to become one, and to request a copy of the catalog, contact us at: Telephone: 610.688. 0100; Fax: 610.688. 0700; E-Mail: customerservice@clsi.org; Website: www.clsi.org.
Broadleaf Weed Control with Clomazone in Pickling Cucumber (Cucumis sativus)

Broadleaf weed control ranged from 80% with clomazone at 0.14 kg/ha to 100% with clomazone at 1.12 kg/ha. Broadleaf weed control was higher with clomazone than naptalam or ethalfluralin. The combination of clomazone at 0.14 kg/ha and naptalam at 5 kg/ha or ethalfluralin at 1.25 kg/ha gave more than 90% broadleaf weed control. Clomazone caused chlorosis and bleaching on cucumber leaves but plants rapidly recovered. Cucumber yields were higher in plots treated with clomazone alone at 0.14 to 0.56 kg/ha than with ethalfluralin or naptalam alone. Clomazone dose response studies were conducted in weed-free plots with five cucumber varieties. The 0.28 kg/ha rate caused low levels of visible injury and did not decrease yields. Cultivar differences were more pronounced at higher clomazone rates. The five cucumber cultivars were, in order of increasing clomazone tolerance, ‘Sunre 3537,’ ‘Pioneer,’ ‘Quest,’ ‘Prince,’ and ‘Calypso. ’ We concluded that clomazone is an effective and selective herbicide for broadleaf weed control in pickling cucumber.
Improved Probability Modelling for Exception Handling in Lossless Screen Content Coding

Competitive methods for lossless screen content coding are based on modelling of probability distributions. The most effective approach for losslessly compressing images with up to 90 000 colours is known as ‘soft context formation’ (SCF). It scans the image to be compressed for repeating patterns and creates corresponding colour histograms. This yields excellent compression results as long as the actual pattern-based histogram contains the colour of the next pixel to be processed. If this colour is not contained, an exception handling is required by sending a special non-colour symbol (escape). This paper proposes an enhanced version of this exception handling coding. Instead of only using a pattern-based estimation, the probability of the escape symbol is now additionally modelled based on local dependencies of exception events. The combination of both estimates leads to 2.0% decrease of bitrate. In comparison to FLIF, FP8v3, and HEVC (HM-16.20+SCM-8.8), the entire SCF method achieves savings of about 26%, 8%, and 12% on average for images with less than 90 000 different colours (for 720p format).
Earthworm Succession in Afforested Colliery Spoil Heaps in the Sokolov Region, Czech Republic

Earthworm communities were studied at six heap sites representing a chronosequence of Alnus glutinosa (black alder) stands (age 3–62 years) and compared with those on an unameliorated heap and in an alder stand (60 years old) on natural soil. Spoil heaps in the open‐cast coal mining area near Sokolov (northwestern Bohemia) were mainly reclaimed using afforestation. No earthworms were found on the virgin heap. Young plots were colonized by euryecious epigeic earthworms (i.e., those living above soil surface), but higher proportions of endogeic species (i.e., soil dwellers), did not appear until after more than 30 years of succession. The density and biomass of earthworms increased from the youngest stand (67 individuals/m2; 5 g/m2) to the older ones (e.g., 407 ind/m2; 13 g/m2 in the 23‐year‐old stand). However, both parameters were low in the oldest stand (35 ind/m2; 3 g/m2), but this may have been the result of extensive soil disturbance. Earthworm populations were often higher in reclaimed sites than in the control alder stand (150 ind/m2; 7 g/m2). However, the community structures were different, with the control being dominated by the litter‐feeding species, Dendrobaena vejdovskyi.
Class waivers to the non-manufacturer rule: Effects on small business utilization in public procurement

ABSTRACT Public procurement officials frequently purchase through indirect marketing and distribution channels, separating buyers from manufacturers. Normally to fulfill small business set-aside requirements, product manufacturers must also be a small business. When no small business manufacturers exist for a product, class waivers to the non-manufacturer rule (NMR) allow small business distributors and wholesalers to provide products that are not made by small businesses. This study models the effectiveness of class NMR waivers for increasing small business utilization. A time series panel found that NMR waivers increased small business utilization in industries characterized by low levels of firm concentration and price inflation.
Dynamic Pricing for Electric Vehicle Extreme Fast Charging

Significant developments and advancement pertaining to electric vehicle (EV) technologies, such as extreme fast charging (XFC), have been witnessed in the last decade. However, there are still many challenges to the wider deployment of EVs. One of the major barriers is its availability of fast charging stations. A possible solution is to build a fast charging sharing system, by encouraging small business owners or even householders to install and share their fast charging devices, by reselling electricity energy sourced from traditional utility companies or their own solar grid. To incentivize such a system, a smart dynamic pricing scheme is needed to facilitate those growing markets with fast charging stations. The pricing scheme is expected to take into account the dynamics intertwined with pricing, demand, and environment factors, in an effort to maximize the long-term profit with the optimal price. To this end, this paper formulates the problem of dynamic pricing for fast charging as a Markov decision process and accordingly proposes several algorithmic schemes for different applications. Experimental study is conducted with useful and interesting insights.
Unpacking the advanced producer services complex in world cities: Charting professional networks, localisation economies and markets

Limited empirical evidence in support of world-city formation has been the ‘dirty little secret’ of the eponymous research area. Since the late 1990s, inspired by Sassen’s account of The Global City, the field focused on advanced producer services (APS) firms as primary actors in world-city formation. While generating robust insights into the shifting geographies of world cities, empirical attention has mostly focused on mapping inter-urban world city networks formed by APS firms. Despite a rich literature on APS clusters, the degree to which specific intra-urban agglomerations and their inter-firm connections shape up has received little systematic attention. Based on a company survey in Brussels (Belgium), our study charts interactions between APS professionals to better understand the geographies, quality and intensity of their encounters. Our findings reveal that the Brussels-based APS cluster constitutes a hybrid of an industrial complex with stable formal ties and a social network based on informal exchange. Financial services assume a central position in what might be called ‘a para-financial services complex’, revealing close ties with legal services, accountancy and audit, and ICT. Geographically, we find that the APS complex depends on fine-grained localisation economies, which allow a small share of APS professionals to service both domestic and international clients. We conclude that APS actors in Brussels exhibit a strong domestic anchoring, indicative of the continued relevance of world cities as national financial centres amidst financial globalisation.
An international comparison of the second derivative of COVID-19 deaths after implementation of social distancing measures

This work compares deaths for confirmed COVID-19 cases in China to eight other countries, Italy, Spain, France, USA, UK, Germany, Netherlands and South Korea. After implementing varying intensities and timing of social distancing measures, several appear to be converging onto the decline in the daily growth rate of deaths, or relative second derivative of total deaths, seen in China after the implementation an aggressive social distancing policy. By calculating future trajectories in these countries based on the observed Chinese fatality statistics, an estimate of the total deaths and maximum daily death rates over a defined period of time is made. Our lower bound estimate for the United Kingdom based on the real data approximates the lower bound estimate of the recent modelling study of Ferguson et al. [1]. These results suggest there may be a threshold of effective public health intervention. Our method of viewing the data may be helpful in monitoring the course of the epidemic, judging the effectiveness of implementation, and monitoring the relaxation of social distancing.
Light Grazing Significantly Reduces Soil Water Storage in Alpine Grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The degradation of alpine grasslands directly affects their ability to conserve water, but changes in soil water storage in grassland under different degrees of degradation are poorly understood. Here, we selected four grassland plots along a degradation gradient: no-degradation grassland (NG), lightly degraded grassland (LG), moderately degraded grassland (MG) and severely degraded grassland (SG). We then applied an automatic soil moisture monitoring system to study changes in soil water storage processes. Results revealed significant (p < 0.05) differences in soil water storage among NG, LG, MG and SG. Specifically, LG lost 35.9 mm of soil water storage compared with NG, while soil water storage in LG, MG and SG decreased by 24.5%, 32.1% and 36.7%, respectively. The shallow groundwater table, air temperature and grass litter were the key controlling factors of soil water storage in the grassland. Grazing and future global warming will significantly reduce soil water storage in alpine grasslands.
Factors determining behavioral intentions to use Islamic financial technology

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influential factors on behavioral intentions toward Islamic financial technology (FinTech) use in Indonesia, for all types of FinTech services as follows: payments, peer to peer lending and crowdfunding. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted structural equation modeling using the partial least squares approach to test the hypotheses. Based on purposive sampling, the questionnaire was distributed through an online survey and received 1,262 responses. Findings The results demonstrate that the latent variables, planned behavior, acceptance model and use of technology, have a significant impact on encouraging behavioral intentions to use Islamic FinTech. The “acceptance model” latent variable is the most influential factor. Research limitations/implications This study was conducted only in Indonesia; therefore, the results cannot be generalized to other countries. However, the study provides important strategic guidelines for policymakers in designing a framework to enhance the development of Islamic FinTech and to achieve financial inclusion. It is suggested that future studies include samples from FinTech users in different countries. Originality/value This study adds to the literature especially on the factors affecting behavioral intentions to use Islamic FinTech. There are limited studies concerning this topic, especially for Indonesia. The unique feature of this study is the use of a large primary data set that covers most provinces in Indonesia. Furthermore, this study focuses on three types of Islamic FinTech, namely, payments, peer to peer lending and crowdfunding.
AEB Online Calculator for Assessing Technology Maturity: IMATEC

This paper exposes initially the motivations for developing a TRL online calculator by AEB (Brazilian Space Agency; in Portuguese, Agência Espacial Brasileira). Such motivations demand the tool to be a way not only to assess the TRL condition of operational space missions and systems, but also as a method of evaluating and sharing proposals with new technological content. The TRL methodology and its relation to risk management are discussed. The development phases of the IMATEC Lite application are then described, with emphasis to the data handling structure capable of storing the user product model. A result of technology assessment using the software is detailed by presenting the PBS of the SERPENS 1 mission nanosatellite. The prospects of using the tool for judging the acceptability of new missions and projects are discussed, as well as some of the encountered difficulties.
Supervised Canonical Correlation Analysis of Data on Symmetric Positive Definite Manifolds by Riemannian Dimensionality Reduction

Most computer vision problems entail data that reside on Riemannian manifolds. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) is a powerful method that captures correlations between any two sets of matrices. In this paper, we propose a framework for a supervised CCA of manifold-based data. This framework aims to find the optimal dimensionality reduction maps that maximize the discriminative power of any classifier in the reduced dimensional space and the correlation between the projected sets. This allows to incorporate the CCA into a classifier that analyzes multichannel or multimodal data on separate manifolds. The proposed method is evaluated on the challenging task of segmenting cardiac adipose tissues on fat-water (2-channel) magnetic resonance images.
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of Australian rice cultivars Jarrah and Amaroo using modified promoters and selectable markers

We report the first successfulAgrobacterium-mediated transformation of Australian elite rice cultivars, Jarrah and Amaroo, using binary vectors with our improved promoters and selectable markers. Calli derived from mature embryos were used as target tissues. The binary vectors contained hph(encoding hygromycin resistance) or bar (encoding herbicide resistance) as the selectable marker gene and uidA (gus) or sgfpS65T as the reporter gene driven by different promoters. Use of Agrobacterium strain AGL1 carrying derivatives of an improved binary vector pWBVec8, wherein the CaMV35S driven hph gene is interrupted by the castor bean catalase 1 intron, produced a 4- fold higher number of independent transgenic lines compared to that produced with the use of strain EHA101 car-rying the binary vector pIG121-Hm wherein the CaMV35S driven hph is intronless. The Ubiquitin promoter produced 30-fold higher s-glucuronidase (GUS) activity (derivatives of binary vector pWBVec8) in transgenic plants than the CaMV35S promoter (pIG121-Hm). The two modified SCSV promoters produced GUS activity com-parable to that produced by the Ubiquitin promoter. Progeny analysis (R1) for hygromycin resistance and GUS activ-ity with selected lines showed both Mendelian and non-Mendelian segregation. Lines showing very high levels of GUS activity in T0 showed a reduced level of GUS activity in their T1 progeny, while lines with moderate levels of GUS activity showed increased levels in T1 progeny. Stable heritable green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression was also observed in few transgenic plants produced with the binary vector pTO134 which had the CaMV35S promoter-driven selectable marker gene bar and a modified CaMV35S promoter-driven reporter gene sgfpS65T.