Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Extreme‐learning‐machine‐based land cover classification

The extreme learning machine (ELM), a single hidden layer neural network based supervised classifier is used for remote sensing classifications. In comparison to the backpropagation neural network, which requires the setting of several user‐defined parameters and may produce local minima, the ELM requires setting of one parameter, and produces a unique solution for a set of randomly assigned weights. Two datasets, one multispectral and another hyperspectral, were used for classification. Accuracies of 89.0% and 91.1% are achieved with this classifier using multispectral and hyperspectral data, respectively. Results suggest that the ELM provides a classification accuracy comparable to a backpropagation neural network with both datasets. The computational cost using the ELM classifier (1.25 s with Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) and 0.675 s with Digital Airborne Imaging Spectrometer (DAIS) data) is very small in comparison to the backpropagation neural network.
FAST: Frequency-Aware Spatio-Textual Indexing for In-Memory Continuous Filter Query Processing

Many applications need to process massive streams of spatio-textual data in real-time against continuous spatio-textual queries. For example, in location-aware ad targeting publish/subscribe systems, it is required to disseminate millions of ads and promotions to millions of users based on the locations and textual profiles of users. In this paper, we study indexing of continuous spatio-textual queries. There exist several related spatio-textual indexes that typically integrate a spatial index with a textual index. However, these indexes usually have a high demand for main-memory and assume that the entire vocabulary of keywords is known in advance. Also, these indexes do not successfully capture the variations in the frequencies of keywords across different spatial regions and treat frequent and infrequent keywords in the same way. Moreover, existing indexes do not adapt to the changes in workload over space and time. For example, some keywords may be trending at certain times in certain locations and this may change as time passes. This affects the indexing and searching performance of existing indexes significantly. In this paper, we introduce FAST, a Frequency-Aware Spatio-Textual index for continuous spatio-textual queries. FAST is a main-memory index that requires up to one third of the memory needed by the state-of-the-art index. FAST does not assume prior knowledge of the entire vocabulary of indexed objects. FAST adaptively accounts for the difference in the frequencies of keywords within their corresponding spatial regions to automatically choose the best indexing approach that optimizes the insertion and search times. Extensive experimental evaluation using real and synthetic datasets demonstrates that FAST is up to 3x faster in search time and 5x faster in insertion time than the state-of-the-art indexes.
Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of U.S. House Elections, 1946–86

Analysis of both district-level and aggregate time-series data from postwar House elections supports the thesis that strategic political elites play a pivotal role in translating national conditions into election results and therefore in holding members of Congress collectively accountable for the government's performance. More high-quality candidates run when prospects appear to favor their party; they also win significantly more votes and victories than other candidates in equivalent circumstances. Thus, strategic career decisions both reflect and enhance national partisan tides. The electoral importance of strategic politicians has grown over time in tandem with the trend toward candidate-centered electoral politics. This has rendered the effects of national forces less automatic, more contingent, thus threatening the capacity of elections to enforce some degree of collective responsibility.
Effect of body mass index on early clinical outcomes after cardiac surgery

Background there are several reports on the outcomes of cardiac surgery in relation to body mass index. Some concluded that obesity did not increase morbidity or mortality after cardiac surgery, whereas others demonstrated that obesity was a predictor of both morbidity and mortality. Methods this was a retrospective study of 3370 adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery. The patients were divided into 4 groups according to body mass index. The 4 groups were compared in terms of preoperative, operative, and postoperative characteristics. Results obese patients had a significantly younger mean age. Diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia were significantly more common in obese patients. The crossclamp time was significantly longer in the underweight group. Reoperation for bleeding, and pulmonary, gastrointestinal, and renal complications were significantly more common in the underweight group. Wound complications were significantly more frequent in the obese group. Mortality was inversely proportional to body mass index. The adjusted odds ratios of the early clinical outcomes demonstrated a higher risk of wound complications in overweight and obese patients Conclusion body mass index has no effect on early clinical outcomes after cardiac surgery, except for a higher risk of wound complications in overweight and obese patients.
Tratamento contábil do câmbio flutuante no Brasil: uma proposta frente à grande volatilidade 2001/2002

In 2001 and 2002, the existence of transitory elevations in the value of the dollar as opposed to the real, which were reverted later on, caused the creation of distorted Financial Statements for Brazilian companies that owned assets or liabilities with an exchange variance clause, generating a high level of volatility in the presented results. This study presents a proposal for the adoption of a concept called "Fair Dollar", calculated on an economic base by means of the Exchange Parity Theory, using the calculation base that was developed by the World Bank.This treatment would allow for the accounting treatment of monetary variations in long-term assets and liabilities with an exchange variance clause in a linear way, avoiding the determination of temporary gains and losses. The parameter for equity valuation does not consider the current dollar rate as the only reference base, but a value linked up with the amount that will be used in perspective, at the realization date of the equity elements. The methodology for calculating and obtaining the values is demonstrated and exemplified. Various alternatives are approached for the disclosure and accounting treatment of the difference between the actual value of the dollar at the date of the Balance Sheet and the so-called "Fair Dollar". This article aims to broaden the debate about the effects of the adoption of the floating exchange rate for accounting, suggesting an alternative for change. This alternative must be evaluated carefully with respect to the practical viability of change, since it will not only signify an increase in the quality of Financial Statements but also a change in the current basic conceptual structure of accounting.
Challenges to the American Two-Party System: Evidence from the 1968, 1980, 1992, and 1996 Presidential Elections

Recent successes by independent presidential candidates raise questions about the stability of the American two-party system. Students of electoral behavior point to party decline, whereas analysts of party organization see growth and transformation. Analyses of the 1968, 1980, 1992, and 1996 National Election Study surveys are used to determine whether support for Wallace, Anderson, and Perot resulted from dissatisfaction with the current two-party system. We find that there has been little erosion of support for the major political parties between 1968 and 1996. Americans with low levels of support for the major political parties were more likely to support Wallace in 1968 and Perot in 1992 and 1996. But to a large extent, support for Wallace, Anderson, and Perot resulted from dissatisfaction with the major-party candidates. Support for the major parties themselves has not eroded enough to provide a systemic opportunity for an independent candidate or for a new political party to end the Republican and Democratic duopoly.
Preservice Teachers' Motivation and Leadership Behaviors Related to Career Choice.

The purpose of this descriptive survey was to explore and describe why graduates who were certified to teach agriculture in secondary education chose teaching as a career. Twenty-nine student teachers from four universities in a Midwestern state participated in the study. There were several findings from the study. First, the researchers found that 24 out of 29 preservice teachers in the study planned to become teachers. Second, career choice was related to intrinsic and extrinsic career choice motives. Preservice teachers choosing formal education as a career had intrinsic motives. On the other hand, preservice teachers who anticipated careers in non-formal education had extrinsic career choice motivation. Third, preservice teachers who plan to pursue formal education careers were more efficacious than their peers who planned to pursue nonformal education careers or were undecided about their careers. Third, the preservice teachers identified as having transformational and transactional leadership behaviors and these leadership behaviors were not related to career choice. Introduction and Theoretical Framework Recruiting and retaining quality teachers is crucial to attaining excellence in education (Darling-Hammond, 1999; McCampbell & Stewart, 1992). Preservice agricultural education teachers who possess the characteristics of being qualified, caring, and competent (NCTAF, 1996) are likely to be sought after by non-profit and business organizations, which could also benefit from these characteristics. The teaching profession competes against other important professions for the most talented people (McCampbell & Stewart, 1992), and changes that have occurred in agriculture in recent years have made it possible for qualified preservice agricultural education teachers to secure employment outside of the classroom at very competitive salaries (Miller & Muller, 1993).
Bank Control, Owner Control, or Organizational Dynamics: Who Controls the Large Modern Corporation?

There has been a long-standing debate over who controls the large American corporation. The results presented here indicate that existing power relations within the firm, the conception of control that dominates the firm's actions, and the actions of competitors account for the economic actions undertaken by large firms, while the differences in manager or owner or bank control and the presence of bank interlocks do not. A sociology of markets is therefore more likely to account for the courses of actions of large firms by considering these relations, rather than focusing on the construction of interests by bankers, owners, or board interlocks.
Strategic quality management for the construction industry

Purpose – As the key to value creation, construction firms should treat quality as a strategic issue. However, strategic quality management (SQM) is still a relatively new concept for construction firms. This paper aims to examine the application of the strategic treatise, Sun Tzu's Art of War with SQM in the construction industry.Design/methodology/approach – Two sets of 20 statements each from SQM principles and Sun Tzu's Art of War were identified. A pilot survey and a questionnaire survey of construction project managers in Singapore were conducted to establish the relative ratings as well as correlations in the rankings of these two sets of statements.Findings – The findings suggested that Sun Tzu's Art of War appears relevant for SQM thinking and practices for construction where appropriate lessons may be drawn.Research limitations/implications – There are, however, limits to the analogy between war and construction. Warfare represents an extreme situation that demands exceptional responses, espiona.
Age, Human Capital and the Quality of Work: New Evidence from Old Masters

The links between individual ability, human capital investment, and quality of output are generally hard to examine because in most situations output results from multiple inputs and often through complex contracting processes. We overcome these problems by examining life-cycle artistic output quality as reflected in art auction prices. First, we observe an inverted U-shaped age-quality of work profile similar to the conventional age–wage profile. Second, we find that the degree of concavity increases for those with higher native ability. Third, we find that working for a patron rather than selling directly to the market is associated with a flatter age profile. Fourth, we find evidence that formal education increases the concavity of the age-quality of work profile. These results are consistent with the theory and demonstrate that artists respond to incentives to invest in human capital.
Influence of Closed Skill and Open Skill Warm-ups on the Performance of Speed, Change of Direction Speed, Vertical Jump, and Reactive Agility in Team Sport Athletes

Gabbett, TJ, Sheppard, JM, Pritchard-Peschek, KR, Leveritt, MD, and Aldred, MJ. Influence of closed skill and open skill warm-ups on the performance of speed, change of direction speed, vertical jump, and reactive agility in team sports athletes. J Strength Cond Res 22(5): 1413-1415, 2008-In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of two different dynamic warm-up conditions, one that was inclusive of open skills (i.e., reactive movements) and one that included only preplanned dynamic activities (i.e., closed skills) on the performance of speed, change of direction speed, vertical jump, and reactive agility in team sport athletes. Fourteen (six male, eight female) junior (mean ± SD age, 16.3 ± 0.7 year) basketball players participated in this study. Testing was conducted on 2 separate days using a within-subjects cross-over study design. Each athlete performed a standardized 7-minute warm-up consisting of general dynamic movements and stretching. After the general warm-up, athletes were randomly allocated into one of two groups that performed a dynamic 15-minute warm-up consisting entirely of open or closed skills. Each of the warm-up conditions consisted of five activities of 3 minute duration. At the completion of the warm-up protocol, players completed assessments of reactive agility, speed (5-, 10-, and 20-m sprints), change of direction speed (T-test), and vertical jump. No significant differences (p > 0.05) were detected among warm-up conditions for speed, vertical jump, change of direction speed, and reactive agility performances. The results of this study demonstrate that either open skill or closed skill warm-ups can be used effectively for team sport athletes without compromising performance on open skill and closed skill tasks.
Scolex development, morphology and mode of attachment of Wenyonia virilis Woodland, 1923 (Cestoidea, Caryophyllidea)

Development and morphology of the scolex and mode of attachment of Wenyonia virilis Woodland, 1923, a caryophyllaeid cestode from the silurid Nile fish Synodontis schall (Bloch et Schneider, 1801), were studied by means of light and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Scolex and genital primordia changes through four stages of juvenile development are described. Longitudinal ridges do not appear on the scolex until the cestode has well defined genital primordia. This is in stark contrast to other caryophyllidean genera in which the basic morphology of the adult scolex becomes evident at the procercoid stage in the oligochaete intermediate host. The scolex of the adult has 13 to 19 prominent longitudinal ridges and deep furrows that come together at the apex to form an apical ring, a protrusible terminal introvert within the apical ring that forms a deep apical pouch when fully retracted, and a central group of Faserzellen. The scolex of W. virilis appears similar to the rugomonobothriate scolex of another African caryophyllid, Monobothrioides chalmersius (Woodland, 1924). Comparisons are made with other caryophyllideans having a scolex with a terminal structure: Monobothrium Diesing, 1863, Djombangia Bovien, 1926 and Caryoaustralus Mackiewicz et Blair, 1980. The terminal introvert may be responsible for attachment in early juvenile stages, but may be supplemented by the longitudinal ridges and furrows later in development. Host tissue appears to be drawn into these furrows that function as weak organs of attachment. We could not determine how the introvert of adult worms functions in attachment. At the site of attachment, the mucosa showed necrosis and degeneration and the submucosa exhibited vacuolization and infiltration with lymphocytes and leucocytes.
Flexible Working Practices In the Public, Not-For-Profit and Commercial Leisure Sectors In SCotland

Public sector leisure managers in the UK have been struggling, since the extension of compulsory competitive tendering to leisure management in 1989, to reconcile the conflicts between becoming more consumer led and satisfying the needs of the ‘recreationally deprived’. Rationalization has ensured that a fundamental priority for managers has been the introduction of more cost-effective working practices. This article examines the diversity in employment practices across the three sectors of the leisure industry, that is, the public, not-for-profit and private sectors. The case study evidence presented found clear differences between the sectors. Although managers in not-for-profit leisure facilities have more freedom to use greater flexibility in employment practices as compared with their public sector counterparts, they are still somewhat constrained by having to meet the social objectives set by their Board of Directors. Private sector managers were found to be providing the highest proportion of full-time jobs, although they offered lower conditions of employment. This was made possible by the funding certainties created by regular monthly/annual customer memberships.
Mapping a European Property Investment Strategy

Puts forward the case for European property in a multi‐asset portfolio. Presents a quantitative approach for the construction of a Euro‐property portfolio. Concludes that this preliminary mean‐variable analysis shows that European property does provide significant diversification benefits both within a multi‐asset portfolio and within a pure European property portfolio context.
An efficient spherical video sampling scheme based on Cube model

Virtual reality (VR) is rapidly arising in various fields, such as navigation, robotics, and documentation. Spherical panoramic video, instead of 3-dimensional (3D) modeling, provides immersive and omnidirectional views in a much more convenient way. However, state-of-the-art video encoding techniques such as HEVC cannot be applied directly to spherical videos. In traditional ways, spherical videos are often projected onto a plane or a cube for the convenience of encoding, but the mapping quality and encoding efficiency are not considered. In this paper, a Cube-Snyder (CS) projection is proposed, along with a gradually-varied sampling method, to generate panoramic video, with which visual quality is improved and a more uniform pixel distribution is obtained. By applying Cube-Snyder projection with gradually-varied sampling (GVCS) method, average PSNR is raised by 0.2 to 0.5, compared with traditional mapping schemes.
Alternatives for Distressed Banks during the Great Depression

Using data on individual banks during the Great Depression, I find that institutions that failed during periods in which failures were especially numerous, such as the banking panics, appear to have been at least as financially sound as banks that were able to pursue alternative resolution strategies, such as merging with another institution or suspending and recapitalizing, during less extreme periods. This result suggests that problems associated with having numerous banks in distress simultaneously during the Depression may have exacerbated the number of banks closed and the economic downturn. Copyright (c) 2010 The Ohio State University No claim to original US government works.
Prevalence of Diabetes and IGT in Yonchon County, South Korea

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) in Yonchon County of South Korea and to investigate their associated factors. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We performed a population-based cross-sectional study with random cluster sampling of residents ≥30 years of age. Among the 3,804 residents sampled, a total of 2,520 participants had a standard 75-g oral glucose tolerance test and answered a detailed questionnaire. We also collected standard anthropometric data. RESULTS If the data for participants in the age range of 30–64 years were adjusted to the standard world population, the prevalence of diabetes was 7.2% and the prevalence of IGT was 8.9%. It was observed that the significant factors associated with diabetes were waist-to-hip circumference ratio, serum triglyceride levels, age, systolic blood pressure, family history of diabetes, and locality. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of diabetes in Yonchon County was substantially higher than was previously suggested. The risk of diabetes increased with the increased central obesity and metabolic disturbances associated with insulin resistance.
Physical Activity, Affect, and Cognition in Children With Symptoms of ADHD

Objective: To examine the role of physical activity in determining the affect and executive functioning of children with symptoms of ADHD. Method: In Study 1, the association between physical activity and affect in the daily lives of children with varying degrees of hyperactivity was examined. In Study 2, children with ADHD were randomly assigned a physical activity or a sedentary task before working on a task requiring executive control. Results: Lack of physical activity was shown to relate to depressed affect, more strongly in participants with severe hyperactivity symptoms (Study 1). The physically active participants showed improved executive functioning after only 5 min of vigorous activity; the sedentary control participants showed no improvement (Study 2). Conclusion: These results indicate that interventions to increase the level of physical activity in children with and without ADHD might improve affect and executive functioning.
Parallel Binary Adders with a Minimum Number of Connections

An n-bit parallel binary adder consisting of NOR gates only in single-rail input logic is proved to require at least 17n + 1 connections for any value of n. Such an adder is proved to require at least 7n + 2 gates. An adder that attains these minimal values is shown. Also, it is concluded that some of the parallel adders with the minimum number of NOR gates derived by Lai and Muroga have the minimum number of connections as well as the minimum number of gates, except for the two modules for the two least significant bit positions.
Education Match and Job Match

Using a new data set, this paper gives evidence in support of the intuitive notion that overqualified workers are less satisfied with their jobs and are more likely to quit. However, training time is inversely related to overqualification, which suggests why such seeming mismatches occur and may in fact be optimal. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.