Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elementary reformulation and succinct certificates in conic linear programming

MINGHUI LIU: Elementary Reformulation and Succinct Certificates in Conic Linear Programming (Under the direction of Gábor Pataki) The first part of this thesis deals with infeasibility in semidefinite programs (SDPs). In SDP, unlike in linear programming, Farkas’ lemma may fail to prove infeasibility. We obtain an exact, short certificate of infeasibility in SDP by an elementary approach: we reformulate any equality constrained semidefinite system using only elementary row operations, and rotations. When a system is infeasible, the reformulated system is trivially infeasible. When a system is feasible, the reformulated system has strong duality with its Lagrange dual for all objective functions. The second part is about simple and exact duals, and certificates of infeasibility and weak infeasibility in conic linear programming that do not rely on any constraint qualification and retain most of the simplicity of the Lagrange dual. Some of our infeasibility certificates generalize the row echelon form of a linear system of equations, as they consist of a small, trivially infeasible subsystem. The “easy” proofs – as sufficiency of a certificate to prove infeasibility – are elementary. We also derived some fundamental geometric corollaries: 1) an exact characterization of when the linear image of a closed convex cone is closed, 2) an exact characterization of nice cones, and 3) bounds on the number of constraints that can be dropped from, or added to a (weakly) infeasible conic LP while keeping it (weakly) infeasible. Using our infeasibility certificates we generated a public domain library of infeasible and weakly infeasible SDPs. The status of our instances is easy to verify by inspection in exact arithmetic, but they turn out to be challenging for commercial and research codes.
Valuation of Water Quality Improvements in the Karapiro Catchment: A Choice Modelling Approach

Water pollution is widely considered to be one of the most important environmental issues facing New Zealand. Waikato region residents have reported that water pollution is easily their most important environmental concern in each of four attitude surveys conducted by Environment Waikato. Technical and regulatory mechanisms to reduce water pollution, especially non-point source pollution from agriculture are the focus of an intensive research effort both in New Zealand and internationally. This work should assist farmers and policy makers to identify the most cost effective options for achieving any given improvement in water quality. Research described in this paper aims to complement existing research projects by developing appropriate methodology for valuation of water quality improvements in New Zealand. It is envisaged that this type of information will inform the policy process by allowing decision makers to consider both the costs and the benefits of different levels of water quality improvements. This paper describes the first phase focussed on the Karapiro catchment which used focus groups and choice modelling in order to understand and quantify the value of water quality improvements in the catchment.
Rupture characteristics of the 2005 Tarapaca, northern Chile, intermediate-depth earthquake: Evidence for heterogeneous fluid distribution across the subducting oceanic plate?

[1] We examined the rupture of the 2005 Tarapaca, northern Chile, earthquake at about 110 km depth with respect to both kinematic and dynamic characteristics by using regional and teleseismic waveforms. The earthquake has a downdip tensional focal mechanism. The subhorizontal rupture is characterized by two patches of large slip and high stress drop which are aligned nearly in the east-west direction, being perpendicular to the direction of the Chile Trench. Rupture initiated in the eastern patch and then propagated to the western patch. Between the two patches, there exists a region of nonpositive stress drop and high strength excess, which can cause subshear rupture to propagate from the eastern to the western patches but radiates little seismic waves. Seismic radiation energy from this earthquake tends to be low, which is consistent with the nonpositive stress drop and high strength excess between the two patches. While the physical mechanism of intermediate-depth earthquakes is still controversial, current leading hypotheses are associated with dehydration within subducting plates. The rupture characteristics of the Tarapaca earthquake can be related to heterogeneous fluid distribution due to the dehydration. The spatial separation and dominant stress of the two large-slip patches agree with the characteristics of the previously reported double seismic zone beneath Chile. The two patches may be the manifestation of the double seismic zone where dehydration reactions can release fluid. Using a numerical simulation of 3-D dynamic rupture, we have shown that weakening due to fluid can account for the rupture characteristics of the Tarapaca earthquake.
Giant congenital anterior urethral diverticulum with left side vesicoureteral reflux: A case report

Anterior urethral diverticulum is a rare entity. A 12 year old boy presented with poor stream, recurrent urinary tract infection and fluctuant penile swelling at penoscrotal junction. Diagnosis of anterior urethral diverticulum with the left vesicoureteral reflux was made by retrograde urethrogram and micturating cystourethrogram. A giant diverticulum requires open diverticulectomy with urethral reconstruction which was done successfully without any complication in this case.
SPEAKER IDENTIFICATION AND SPEECH READING USING LIP MOTION

There have been many applications made for security which consists of password which needs to be entered by user with their hands. The existing system uses lip motion on the large scale. This paper proposes to use the motion of the user’s lip instead of entering a password. It consists of few algorithms that detects the motion of the user’s lip by creating a grid around the lip region.
Lightness Constancy in Edge Detection : A Simple Approach using Luminance Ratios

Reliable edge detection is of utmost importance to many sophisticated computer vision methods and has been historically computed using luminance differences, which are quite sensitive to changes in illumination. It is argued here that using luminance ratios for edge detection in computer vision, rather than luminance differences, results in more robust edge information with respect to changes in illumination, which is in line with theoretical models for the lightness constancy observed in human visual perception. In order to test this hypothesis, a simple technique that converts luminance differences into luminance ratios with minimal effort is proposed. Experiments regarding edge detection and image segmentation under simulated changes in illumination show promising results for the luminance ratio approach.
The Evaluation of Selected Ghanaian Medicinal Plants for Cytotoxic Activities

Cancer is still responsible for many deaths worldwide. Therefore, the need for an effective management, treatment and cure of cancer is undoubtedly crucial. In Ghana, several plants or herbal products are used by traditional healers for the management and/or the treatment of various cancers. However, the efficacies of these plant products as anticancer agents are often ill defined. In this study, the methanolic extracts of ten plant species were evaluated for cytotoxicity against three human cancer cell lines, DLD- 1, MCF-7 and M14, using the MTT assay. Extracts of Adenia lobata root, Clerodendrum capitatum leaves, Garcinia kola stem bark, Plumbago zeylanica leaves and Vernonia conferta root, showed relatively low cytotoxic activities while extracts of Ficus asperifolia leaves, Paullinia pinnata root and Thonningia sanguinea root exhibited moderate activity (IC50 values 40 – 55μg/ml against at least one of the three cell lines). Croton membranaceus root extract exhibited markedly higher cytotoxic activities, particularly against the DLD-1 and MCF-7 cells (IC50 = 16.0 and 17.4μg/ml respectively), while Zanthoxylum xanthoxyloides bark extract was 2-3 fold more active against DLD-1 cells (IC50 = 16μg/ml), than against the other cell lines. These results lend some support for the use of these species in traditional medicines for the treatment of cancer, especially for C. membranaceus and Z. xanthoxyloides. Journal of Science & Technology (Ghana) Vol. 27 (2) 2007: pp. 16-22
A meshless IRBFN-based numerical simulation of adiabatic shear band formation in one dimension

[Abstract]: In this paper, we describe an integrated radial basis function network (IRBFN) method for the numerical modelling of the dynamics of strain localization in elasto-thermo-viscoplastic materials with coupled heat conduction. A new coordinate mapping for the IRBFN method is introduced in this paper to resolve the steep temperature, velocity, strain and strain-rate gradients associated with the strain localization (shear band). The discrete governing PDEs are integrated in time using an implicit 5th-order Runge-Kutta method with automatic time step selection. Numerical results demonstrate the e±ciency of the present IRBFN approach in solving steep (singularity-like behaviour) nonlinear PDEs encountered.
Proximal SCOPE for Distributed Sparse Learning: Better Data Partition Implies Faster Convergence Rate

Distributed sparse learning with a cluster of multiple machines has attracted much attention in machine learning, especially for large-scale applications with high-dimensional data. One popular way to implement sparse learning is to use L1 regularization. In this paper, we propose a novel method, called proximal SCOPE (pSCOPE), for distributed sparse learning with L1 regularization. pSCOPE is based on a cooperative autonomous local learning (CALL) framework. In the CALL framework of pSCOPE, we find that the data partition affects the convergence of the learning procedure, and subsequently we define a metric to measure the goodness of a data partition. Based on the defined metric, we theoretically prove that pSCOPE is convergent with a linear convergence rate if the data partition is good enough. We also prove that better data partition implies faster convergence rate. Furthermore, pSCOPE is also communication efficient. Experimental results on real data sets show that pSCOPE can outperform other state-of-the-art distributed methods for sparse learning.
International Business Cycles, Financial Markets and Household Production

This paper investigates the properties of an international real business cycle model with household production. We show that a model with disturbances to both market and household technologies reproduces the main regularities of the data and improves existing models in matching international consumption, investment and output correlations without irrealistic assumptions on the structure of international financial markets. Sensitivity analysis shows the robustness of the results to alternative specifications of the stochastic processes for the disturbances and to variations of unmeasured parameters within a reasonable range.
Formal Methods for Mobile Robots: Current Results and Open Problems

Mobile robot networks emerged in the past few years as a promising distributed computing model. Existing work in the literature typically ensures the correctness of mobile robot protocols via ad hoc handwritten proofs, which are both cumbersome and error-prone. This paper surveys state-of-the-art results about applying formal methods approaches (namely, model-checking, program synthesis, and proof assistants) to the context of mobile robot networks. Those methods already proved useful for bug-hunting in published literature, designing correct-bydesign optimal protocols, and certifying impossibility results. We also present related open questions to further develop this path of research.
GTM-IRLab Systems for Albayzin 2018 Search on Speech Evaluation

This paper describes the systems developed by the GTM-IRLab team for the Albayzin 2018 Search on Speech evaluation. The system for the spoken term detection task consists in the fusion of two subsystems: a large vocabulary continuous speech recognition strategy that uses the proxy words approach for out-of-vocabulary terms, and a phonetic search system based on the probabilistic retrieval model for information retrieval. The query-by-example spoken term detection system is the result of fusing four subsystems: three of them are based on dynamic time warping search using different representations of the waveforms, namely Gaussian posteriorgrams, phoneme posteri-orgrams and a large set of low-level descriptors; and the other one is the phonetic search system used for spoken term detection with some modiﬁcations to manage spoken queries.
The Opinions and Experiences of Obstetricians and Midwives About The Elective Caesarean Birth

Background: At the present time, the most frequent reason for the application of caesarean birth is the caesareans without medical indications (elective). Becoming a routine of caesarean application brings along various ethical discussions. Objectives: This cross-sectional descriptive study was planned to analyze the opinions and experiences of obstetricians and midwives about the elective caesarean birth. Methods: The samples of the research consisted 36 obstetricians and 84 midwives who accept to participate the study. Results: 100% of the obstetricians (elective=40.9%, medical indication=59.1%) and 48.7% of midwives (elective=47.4%, medical indication=52.6%) were determined to have experienced caesarean in their birth. 58.3% of the obstetricians and 39.3% of the midwives said they or their wives would choose elective caesarean birth if they were pregnant now. In both groups, the primer reason for the choice of elective caesarean births was “unwillingness and fear of dissertation/pain” among the obstetricians and midwives with 33.3% and 78.7% respectively. It was found that 54.8% of the midwives and 80.5% of the obstetricians partly or totally agreed with the idea of “caesarean is a birth type that is preferred by the obstetricians nowadays since it saves more time to health professionals”(p = .024). Conclusion: This study indicates that obstetricians and midwives are tendency to elective caesarean birth. It is thought that opinions and experiences of health professionals may be router choose the type of birth of families. Key Words: Elective Caesarean Birth, Experiences, Midwives, Obstetricians, Opinions.
Recovery of a mining-damaged stream ecosystem

This paper presents a 30+ year record of changes in benthic macroinvertebrate communities and fish populations associated with improving water quality in mining-influenced streams. Panther Creek, a tributary to the Salmon River in central Idaho, USA suffered intensive damage from mining and milling operations at the Blackbird Mine that released copper (Cu), arsenic (As), and cobalt (Co) into tributaries. From the 1960s through the 1980s, no fish and few aquatic invertebrates could be found in 40 km of mine-affected reaches of Panther Creek downstream of the metals contaminated tributaries, Blackbird and Big Deer Creeks. Efforts to restore water quality began in 1995, and by 2002 Cu levels had been reduced by about 90%, with incremental declines since. Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were early colonizers, quickly expanding their range as areas became habitable when Cu concentrations dropped below about 3X the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s biotic ligand model (BLM) based chronic aquatic life criterion. Anadromous Chinook Salmon (O. tshawytscha) and steelhead (O. mykiss) have also reoccupied Panther Creek. Full recovery of salmonid populations occurred within about 12-years after the onset of restoration efforts and about 4-years after the Cu chronic criteria had mostly been met, with recovery interpreted as similarity in densities, biomass, year class strength, and condition factors between reference sites and mining-influenced sites. Shorthead Sculpin (Cottus confusus) were slower than salmonids to disperse and colonize. While benthic macroinvertebrate biomass has increased, species richness has plateaued at about 70 to 90% of reference despite the Cu criterion having been met for several years. Different invertebrate taxa had distinctly different recovery trajectories. Among the slowest taxa to recover were Ephemerella, Cinygmula and Rhithrogena mayflies, Enchytraeidae oligochaetes, and Heterlimnius aquatic beetles. Potential reasons for the failure of some invertebrate taxa to recover include competition, and high sensitivity to Co and Cu.
TREADING THE SOFTER AREAS OF CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF CULTURE

Culture has to a large extent been utilised as the ‘black box’ reason for many of the construction industry ills, with many parties, through reports and other means, calling for a ‘cultural change’ in the industry. Fundamental to such change is the need to fully investigate and understand the manifestations and effects of culture in the industry. However, relatively little, by way of research, has been done in this area due mainly to the generally recognised complexity of the subject and its ‘soft’ and subjective nature. As a prelude to an investigation into the impact of organisational culture on the performance of UK contractors in furtherance of research in this genre, this study presents an overview of culture and a critique of current research into culture in the construction industry. The common theme from the review is that culture comprises the practices peculiar to a group and the underlying values shaping them. Within construction, culture is perceived as comprising the characteristics of the industry, approaches to construction, competence of craftsmen and people who work in the industry, and the goals, values and strategies of the organisations they work in. A few studies within the construction domain have touched on national, industry, organisational and occupational culture, highlighting such critical issues as antagonism and international cultural diversity and their potential impact on the practices and output of the industry, and this provides evidence of a growing awareness of the importance of culture in the overall performance improvement agenda of the industry.
Fracture Resistance Enhancement in Hard Mo-B-C Coatings Tailored by Composition and Microstructure

State-of-the-art protective coatings often suffer from brittleness. Therefore, the coatings are intensively sought which would simultaneously exhibit high hardness and stiffness with moderate ductility and fracture resistance. In this paper, we report on the nanostructure designing of coatings containing metal, boron, and carbon enabling the simultaneous presence of stiff boridic and carbidic bonds together with weaker metallic bonds to provide coatings with these desirable properties. Three designs are presented with different relative amounts of nanocrystalline and amorphous phases, ranging from near-amorphous to prevalently crystalline microstructure. All presented coatings exhibit an unusual combination of high fracture resistance and high hardness that cannot be achieved with state-of-the-art protective coatings. Indentation tests at high loads revealed that no cracks are present at the surface of the investigated coatings while state-of-the-art ceramic protective coatings already exhibit significant cracking. Cracks in the bulk of the presented coating are detected only when the deformation is so severe that the substrate itself fails.
Epigenetic modification and analysis of natural product gene clusters to enhance drug discovery from bacteria

Natural products, and molecules derived from them, have played an extremely large role in the field of medicine and have contributed as therapies for numerous disease states. Unfortunately, the rate of discovery of medically relevant molecules from natural sources is slowing as secondary metabolite studies from microbes are increasingly yielding the re-isolation of previously known compounds. This study focused on isolating new secondary metabolites through the usage of two different techniques: (1) treatment of fungi and bacteria with epigenetic modifying compounds to induce natural product production, and (2) genome mining/bioinformatic analysis of natural product gene clusters to enhance the isolation of new compounds from previously uninvestigated species. Previous studies in the literature have shown treatment with chemical epigenetic modifiers to be successful in inducing new secondary metabolite production in fungi. At the start of my research, no natural product studies involving epigenetic modifiers had been performed in bacteria, and, to date, only one publication has appeared in the peerreviewed literature. The approach used during my investigation was to induce new metabolite formation in the bacterium Bacillus pumilus strain RI06-95 via epigenetic modification using agents that target several epigenetic regulatory mechanisms. Reproducibility proved a difficulty as treatment of the same organism induced the production of different metabolites in repeat experiments. The second focus of this study utilized genome mining and bioinformatic analysis of natural product gene clusters in order to isolate new secondary metabolites from organisms previously unstudied for natural product synthesis. The Secondary Metabolite Online Repository (SMOR) is a new tool that rapidly analyzes the well-curated complete microbial genome sequences located on the National Center for Biotechnology Information Genome Database and flags natural product gene clusters. Many organisms are sequenced for reasons other than determination of their biosynthetic potential, and thus have been largely overlooked for their secondary metabolite production. By using SMOR and other bioinformatic tools, this study sought to isolate natural products, particularly predicted cyclic lipopeptide antibiotics, from the potentially overlooked microorganism Bradyrhizobium sp. BTAi1. Extract fractions showed bioactivity against methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus and structural characterization of a purified bioactive molecule indicated the potential presence of one of the predicted cyclic lipopeptides. Unfortunately due to insufficient material and long culturing times, structural elucidation of the bioactive molecules was not possible.