Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seasonal distribution of psocids in stored wheat.

Psocids are an emerging problem in stored grain and in grain processing facilities in the United States. We conducted preliminary studies to determine which species of psocids were present in a feed mill, a grain elevator, and wheat stored in steel bins. We then conducted a more extensive study in steel bins containing wheat to determine temporal and spatial distribution of psocids in the wheat. We also compared use of cardboard refuges and grain trier samples for sampling psocids in the wheat. The predominant psocid species found in all locations was Liposcelis entomophila . In the study on temperospatial distribution, infestation levels before the bins were filled with wheat were low, but some psocids were present in the empty bins. Numbers of psocids in cardboard refuges on the wheat surface were low immediately after bins were filled in July, peaked in late September, dropped to almost zero in December as temperatures dropped during autumn and winter, and then remained at low levels until the study was ended in March. More psocids were found deeper in the grain than closer to the surface. During periods when psocid numbers were high, more psocids were found closer to the bin wall. Numbers of psocids in cardboard refuges was indicative of number of psocids in grain samples. The results indicate that cardboard refuges may provide an efficient method for sampling psocids in bins of wheat, and that psocid populations can increase quickly to high levels during storage even though they are low early in the storage period.
The Economic Consequences of Data Privacy Regulation: Empirical Evidence from GDPR

This paper studies the effects of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the ability of firms to collect consumer data, identify consumers over time, accrue revenue via online advertising, and predict their behavior. Utilizing a novel dataset by an intermediary that spans much of the online travel industry, we perform a difference-in-differences analysis that exploits the geographic reach of GDPR. We find a 12.5% drop in the intermediary-observed consumers as a result of the new opt-in requirement of GDPR. At the same time, the remaining consumers are observable for a longer period of time. We provide evidence that this pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that privacy-conscious consumers substitute away from less efficient privacy protection (e.g, cookie deletion) to explicit opt out, a process that would reduce the number of artificially short consumer histories. Further in keeping with this hypothesis, we observe that the average value of the remaining consumers to advertisers has increased, offsetting most of the losses from consumers that opt out. Finally, we find that the ability to predict consumer behavior by the intermediary’s proprietary machine learning algorithm does not significantly worsen as a result of the changes induced by GDPR. Our results highlight the externalities that consumer privacy decisions have both on other consumers and for firms.
A fractal approach to the classification of Mediterranean vegetation types in remotely sensed images

A method is presented to assess fractal dimensions from remotely sensed images. The method is a three-dimensional version of the walking dividers method which has been applied to two digital images of southern France to distinguish various types of Mediterranean landscape units. The first image is a Landsat Thematic Mapper image, while the second image was acquired by the airborne Geophysical Environmental Research Imaging Spectrometer. The method has been tested on some artificial images to demonstrate procedures and results. The method can distinguish range-lands, maquis and closed garrigue and to a lesser extent agricultural regions on the TM image. Fractal dimensions for open garrigue and badlands are similar. However, the reflection properties of the land-cover units do not behave like real fractals at the scale considered, and different methods to compute the fractal dimension do not yield the same results. Results of the airborne image are disappointing, probably due to somewhat poor image quality. Finally, some advantages and disadvantages of the method are discussed.
Structural and physicochemical properties of mung bean starch as affected by repeated and continuous annealing and their in vitro digestibility

ABSTRACT Mung bean starch slurries (75% moisture) were respectively treated by repeated annealing (RANN) at 50°C for eight repetitions (every repetition was treated for 12 h) and continuous annealing (CANN) at the same temperature for 24, 48, 72 and 96 h. After RANN and CANN modifications, variations in the physicochemical properties, structures as well as digestive characteristics of mung bean starch were investigated. Scanning electron microscopy observed the grooves on the surfaces of starch granules became deeper after RANN and CANN modifications, and the cracks in the granule centers were monitored by light microscopy. However, there was no distinct change detected by confocal laser scanning microscopy. RANN and CANN modifications increased the crystallinity and degree of crystalline order, but the crystalline patterns were not changed. Under the same annealing time, RANN samples presented higher crystallinity, gelatinization temperature, enthalpy, peak time, pasting temperature, resistant starch (RS), slowly digestible starch (SDS) and SDS+RS values, but lower solubility, swelling power, peak viscosity, breakdown and rapidly digestible starch (RDS) values than CANN samples. Therefore, RANN could exert conspicuous impacts compared to CANN, which illustrates the annealing impact on starch modification and it could be applied in food processing as an innovative approach.
Energy Management Based On Charging Behavior Prediction

As mobile applications transition into providing richer content and supporting more use-cases, it has become increasingly apparent that smart-phones are constrained by battery life. Industry has put great effort into energy-aware hardware platforms, but little attention has been given to designing energy efficiency around user charging behavior. If smart-phones were to become capable of accurately predicting the time and duration of charging events of specific users, task scheduling could be more intelligently catered towards the user. Our project examines whether machine learning can be reliably implemented on smart-phones to infer aspects of charging behavior, as well as the appropriate classification schemes required to accurately predict future charging events.
From the “Other” to the “Self”: Turning Cameras Around in Lashi Hai (China)

This paper explores changing tourist practices in an ethnic tourism dans les domaines des loisirs et de la consommation. La fabrication de ces nouveaux « sois » et leur représentation dans la photographie touristique deviennent des aspects cruciaux du processus de place making et de la création de paysages touristiques modernes dans les destinations rurales.
Label-Consistent Transform Learning for Hyperspectral Image Classification

This letter proposes a new image analysis tool called label-consistent transform learning. Transform learning is a recent unsupervised representation learning approach; we add supervision by incorporating a label consistency constraint. The proposed technique is especially suited for hyperspectral image classification problems owing to its ability to learn from fewer samples. We have compared our proposed method with the state-of-the-art techniques such as label-consistent K-singular value decomposition, stacked autoencoder, deep belief network, convolutional neural network, and generative adversarial network. Our method yields considerably better results than all the aforesaid techniques.
Extraction and indexing of triplet-based knowledge using natural language processing

LANGUAGE PROCESSING by David C. Hooge Jr. (Under the Direction of Budak Arpinar) ABSTRACT A proper understanding of any document relies heavily upon two things: an understanding of the relationships between terms and a grasp of the manner in which language relates one term to another. For example a full comprehension of the sentence “Jane plays basketball” requires the reader to first understand that Jane is related to basketball by her taking part in this activity; second, the reader must have an understanding that of how basketball relates to other terms. Thus, for a full grasp of the sentence the reader must be aware that basketball is a sport among other things. These two understandings are missing from current search and storage methodologies and are instead largely replaced with word distance measures. As such the only relation stored by most modern methods is that the word “Jane” appears near the word “basketball. ” Our system remedies these two problems through both relationship recognition as well as a grasp of how concepts relate to one another as in the linking of “sports” to “basketball. ” This allows for automated semantic information storage and beyond this enables storage of information in a manner that resembles the structure of language.
SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS INVESTIGATING THE UTILITIES OF ECOLOGICAL MOMENTARY ASSESSMENTS TO UNDERSTAND SMOKING ENVIRONMENTS IN INDIA

In the 21 st century, India has become one of the most affected countries by tobacco mortality in the world (Perry, 2009). The aim of this secondary data analysis was to determine the utility of Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA) to better understand the perceived social and environmental cues that encourage and discourage tobacco use in India. However, published EMA studies have only been conducted in western countries. This thesis was shaped by three research questions: What are individuals' tobacco behaviors and environments in India, does tobacco use and tobacco environments reported at baseline differ from EMA and end of day (EOD) data, and are there differences by age, gender, education or work status in the average number of completed EMA and EOD? Univariate and bivariate analyses were conducted as part of the analysis plan. The analysis from this thesis will help direct future EMA research, particularly in non-western countries.
Teaching Reform of qSupply Chain Managementq Based on the Cultivation of Applied Talents

Supply chain management (SCM) is the core professional course for cultivating practical talents in logistics management and plays an important role in the teaching system of logistics management. According to the development trend of the industry in recent years and the requirements of the education reform Starting from the student's academic situation, a comprehensive and systematic teaching reform is carried out in three aspects: curriculum objectives, teaching methods, and course assessment methods. in line with the student-oriented and teacher-led teaching concept, the emphasis is to increase the practical link instead of the traditional classroom teaching and adopt a variety of teaching methods and multiple assessment, so as to provide reference for the cultivation of supply chain management applied talents.
Comparative Genomic Hybridization: Practical Guidelines

Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) is a technique used to identify copy number changes throughout a genome. Until now, hundreds of CGH studies have been published reporting chromosomal imbalances in a large variety of human neoplasms. Additionally, technical improvements of specific steps in a CGH experiment and reviews on the technique have appeared. However, full CGH protocols are only occasionally published. In this paper a review of CGH is presented, including technique, pitfalls, and difficulties. Our own protocol is completely described and discussed, including the different optimization experiments used to establish this protocol and points requiring special attention. Although this protocol results in reliable and sensitive CGH experiments in our hands, readers should keep in mind that other laboratories may prefer other protocols. Testing different options, among others, as discussed in the current paper generates the most appropriate protocol. This paper shows the complexity of the CGH technique and may serve as a guideline for starting CGH or as a troubleshooting guide for those who perform CGH.
Expansion of the wilderness values scale with three sub-scales: Personal maintenance, expression and learning, and societal maintenance

The purpose of this research was to expand the wilderness value scale administered in the 1994 and 2000 versions of the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment using questions included in the 2003 NSRE. A data set of 1,900 cases was randomly split in half. Validity of the additional questions was tested using principal component analysis, a confirmatory factor analysis cross validation procedure, Cronbach’s alpha and weighted omega reliability coefficients, and identification of a simplex pattern among the scales. Results revealed that the three sub-scales, personal maintenance, expression and learning, and societal maintenance have adequate levels of reliability and validity. Concluding sections include recommendations for further testing of the scales and definitions for the specific value measures to aid in understanding the intended theoretical meaning and foster consistent replication.
ob-Good Things Come in Threes: A Trio of Triple Kinases Essential for Cell Division in Arabidopsis

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphorylation cascade is a highly conserved signal transduction mechanism that plays a key role in regulating many aspects of growth and development in eukaryotes. In plants, MAPK cascades have been associated with hormonal, abiotic stress, and disease defense responses and with the regulation of the cell cycle (Tena et al., 2001). A MAPK cascade consists of a core module of three kinases that act in sequence: a MAPK kinase kinase (MAPKKK) that activates, via phosphorylation, a MAPK kinase (MAPKK), which activates a MAPK. Activated MAPKs phosphorylate a number of different target proteins; the majority of targets appear to be transcription factors, but other targets include various protein kinases, phospholipases, and cytoskeletal proteins, all of which effect changes in gene expression and/or physiological responses appropriate to the stimulus in question (Widmann et al., 1999). In this issue of The Plant Cell , Krysan et al. (pages 1109–1120) report on the isolation and analysis of knockout mutants of the ANP family of MAPKKK genes in Arabidopsis and show that the ANP kinases likely are involved in the control of cell division.
Lessons from South Africa on the Management and Development of Water Resources for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth

This paper served as a background paper to the European Report on Development 2011/2012: Confronting scarcity: Managing water, energy and land for inclusive and sustainable growth. The European Report on Development was prepared by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in partnership with the Deutsches Institut fur Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM).
The Pannonian Basin : a study in basin evolution

The Pannonian basin system is an integrap part of the Alpine mountain belts of east-central Europe. It is completely encircled by the Carpathian Mountains to the north and east, the Dinaric Alps to the south, and the Southern and Eastern Alps to the west. In 1912, Kober defined the Pannonian basin as one of the type “Zwischengebirge,” a relatively un-deformed region characterized by block faulting and situated between externally vergent thrust belts. More recent studies using subsurface data have shown that the Pannonian area was extensively deformed by Mesozoic thrusting and subsequently disrupted by a complex system of Cenozoic normal and wrench faults. Thus, the Pannonian “massif” has undergone several types of deformation, which are partly hidden by a thick sequence of sedimentary rocks of Neogene-Quaternary age. The Pannonian basin is actually a system of small, deep basins separated by relatively shallow basement blocks. The Neogene-Quaternary sedimentary rocks exceed 7 km in thickness in some areas, and the basin system (including the Transylvanian basin) is about 400 km from north to south and 800 km from east to west. It is currently interpreted by most workers as a Mediterranean back arc extensional basin of the middle Miocene age. The Carpathians, Eastern Alps, and Dinarides, which surround the Pannonian basin, are the result of Mesozoic and Cenozoic continental collision between Europe and several continental fragments to the south, including Africa. Thrusting was direted outward from the present Pannonian basin toward the European platform and the Adriatic region. In all the orogenic belts, the interior parts of the thrust belts were deformed in Mesozoic time, while the outer parts were deformed in Tertiary time. The volume presents 26 papers and eight regional maps resulting from a joint five-day symposium held in Veszprem, Hungary, in 1982 entitled “Evolution of Extensional Basins within Regions of Compression with Emphasis on the Intra-Carpathian Region. ” The symposium was sponsored jointly by the Hungarian Oil and Gas Trust, the Hungarian Geological Survey, and the U.S. National Science Foundation.
A Maxent-Stress Model for Graph Layout

In some applications of graph visualization, input edges have associated target lengths. Dealing with these lengths is a challenge, especially for large graphs. Stress models are often employed in this situation. However, the traditional full stress model is not scalable due to its reliance on an initial all-pairs shortest path calculation. A number of fast approximation algorithms have been proposed. While they work well for some graphs, the results are less satisfactory on graphs of intrinsically high dimension, because some nodes may be placed too close together, or even share the same position. We propose a solution, called the maxent-stress model, which applies the principle of maximum entropy to cope with the extra degrees of freedom. We describe a force-augmented stress majorization algorithm that solves the maxent-stress model. Numerical results show that the algorithm scales well, and provides acceptable layouts for large, nonrigid graphs. This also has potential applications to scalable algorithms for statistical multidimensional scaling (MDS) with variable distances.
Financial Incentives and Educational Investment: The Impact of Performance-based Scholarships on Student Time Use

We evaluate the effect of performance-based scholarship programs for postsecondary students on student time use and effort. We find evidence that financial incentives induced students to devote more time and effort to educational activities and allocate less time to other activities. Incentives did not generate impacts after eligibility ended and did not decrease students’ interest or enjoyment in learning. Evidence also suggests that students were motivated more by the incentives than simply the effect of additional money. A remaining puzzle is that larger scholarships did not generate larger responses in terms of effort.
Accuracy and Injection Force of the Gla-300 Injection Device Compared With Other Commercialized Disposable Insulin Pens

Background: To deliver insulin glargine 300 U/mL (Gla-300), the widely used SoloSTAR® pen has been modified to allow for accurate and precise delivery of required insulin units in one-third of the volume compared with insulin glargine 100 U/mL, while improving usability. Here we compare the accuracy and injection force of 3 disposable insulin pens: Gla-300 SoloSTAR®, FlexPen®, and KwikPen™. Methods: For the accuracy assessment, 60 of each of the 3 tested devices were used for the delivery of 3 different doses (1 U, half-maximal dose, and maximal dose), which were measured gravimetrically. For the injection force assessment, 20 pens of each of the 3 types were tested twice at half-maximal and once at maximal dose, at an injection speed of 6 U/s. Results: All tested pens met the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) requirements for dosing accuracy, with Gla-300 SoloSTAR showing the lowest between-dose variation (greatest reproducibility) at all dose levels. Mean injection force was significantly lower for Gla-300 SoloSTAR than for the other 2 pens at both half maximal and maximal doses (P < .0271). Conclusion: All tested pens were accurate according to ISO criteria, and the Gla-300 SoloSTAR pen displayed the greatest reproducibility and lowest injection force of any of the 3 tested devices.
Policy networks: conceptual developments and their European applications

Discussions on policy networks are becoming increasingly common in the analysis of public policy. However nowhere is to be found a common understanding of what policy networks are and how they operate. Little agreement exists even on whether policy networks are to be considered as a metaphor, a method or a proper theory with explanatory power. The paper will explore how the policy network approach has been developed to describe and explain the complexity of new forms of decision-making and policy implementation and their implications for democracy and effectiveness of the political system. The focus is on conceptual frames developed in the context of policy and public administration studies seen here as specific sector of organisational studies. It will then move forward to review how this concepts have been incorporated in studies on emerging forms of spatial governance, namely multilevel and transnational governance with particular reference to the European context. Methodological perspectives and quantitative analytical approaches such as those developed within Social Network Analysis studies or in the more traditional fields of quantitative modelling of political behaviours and power distributions are not investigated in this literature review. Discussions on policy networks are becoming increasingly common in the analysis of public policy. However nowhere is to be found a common understanding of what policy networks are and how they operate. Little agreement exists even on whether policy networks are to be considered as a metaphor, a method or a proper theory with explanatory power. The paper will explore how the policy network approach has been developed to describe and explain the complexity of new forms of decision-making and policy implementation and their implications for democracy and effectiveness of the political system. The focus is on conceptual frames developed in the context of policy and public administration studies seen here as specific sector of organisational studies. It will then move forward to review how this concepts have been incorporated in studies on emerging forms of spatial governance, namely multilevel and transnational governance with particular reference to the European context. Methodological perspectives and quantitative analytical approaches such as those developed within Social Network Analysis studies or in the more traditional fields of quantitative modelling of political behaviours and power distributions are not investigated in this literature review.
Variable selection for semiparametric random-effects conditional density models with longitudinal data

Abstract Variable selection using regularization approaches is an essential part of any statistical analysis and yet has been somewhat neglected for the semiparametric random-effects conditional density (RECD) models with longitudinal data. In this paper, we show how the regularization approach for variable selection can be adapted to the RECD models with longitudinal data. The computational and theoretical properties for variable selection consistency are established. Comprehensive simulation studies and a real data analysis further demonstrate the merits of our approach.