Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drought-- National Drought Mitigation Center 2-7-2018 Factors Influencing Farmers ’ Adoption of Best Management Practices : A Review and Synthesis

Best management practices (BMPs) for reducing agricultural non-point source pollution are widely available. However, agriculture remains a major global contributor to degradation of waters because farmers often do not adopt BMPs. To improve water quality, it is necessary to understand the factors that influence BMP adoption by farmers. We review the findings of BMP adoption studies from both developed and developing countries, published after (or otherwise not included in) two major literature reviews from 2007 and 2008. We summarize the study locations, scales, and BMPs studied; the analytical methods used; the factors evaluated; and the directionality of each factor’s influence on BMP adoption. We then present a conceptual framework for BMP adoption decisions that emphasizes the importance of scale, the tailoring or targeting of information and incentives, and the importance of expected farm profits. We suggest that future research directions should focus on study scale, on measuring and modeling of adoption as a continuous process, and on incorporation of social norms and uncertainty into decision-making. More research is needed on uses of social media and market recognition approaches (such as certificate schemes and consumer labeling) to influence BMP adoption.
Long-term behaviour of moisture content in timber constructions – Relation to service classes

Due to the hygroscopic behaviour of wood, moisture content influences the physical and mechanical properties, when the wood is dried under the fibre saturation point (FSP). Therefore, the correct estimation of the moisture content is important for the design and life cycle of timber structures. The design standards consider this behaviour by three different service classes (SC) according to the annual average moisture content. According to EN 1995-1-1:2004, Eurocode 5 (2004): Service class 1 is characterized by an ambient climate of 20 °C temperature and 65% relative humidity and a moisture content in wood is in average less than 12 M%; in SC 2 the moisture content in wood is in average less than 20 M%; and SC 3 comprises cases with moisture content higher than 20 M%. In SC 1, the relative humidity can be higher than 65% for few weeks per year. National annexes specify the ranges for the service classes differently, e.g. Germany and France. These three classes are a simplification for the planning engineers, because different wood species and wood products react different on climate changes.
The association of inhibitor of Growth 4 with its prognostic value in osteogenic sarcoma.

BACKGROUND Osteosarcoma is one of the first two cause of cancer-related death in children and young adolescents. Inhibitor of Growth 4 (ING4) is a member of the ING tumor suppressor family and play an important role in many cellular processes. The purpose of this study was to explore the correlation between ING4 expression and the prognosis of osteosarcoma patients. METHODS ING4 mRNA and protein expressions in osteosarcoma and normal tissues were detected by quantitative real-time transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) method, respectively. Chi-square test was adopted to estimated the relationship of ING4 expression and clinical parameters of osteosarcoma patients. Besides, the overall survival of osteosarcoma patients was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier method. The potential of ING4 as a prognostic marker gene was addressed by Cox regression analysis. RESULTS Down-regulated expression of ING4 mRNA and protein were observed in osteosarcoma tissues. ING4 expression was significantly associated with metastasis (P = 0.030) and recurrence (P = 0.008), but not other clinical features (P > 0.05). Cox regression analysis indicated that ING4 can be used as an independent prognotic biomarker for osteosarcoma, in univariate and multivariate analysis (P = 0.004, HR = 3.945, 95 % CI = 1.565-9.940; P = 0.001, HR = 4.213, 95 % CI = 1.747-10.161). CONCLUSION Taken together, ING4 was down-regulated in osteosarcoma tissues. ING4 can act as an independent prognostic factor for osteosarcoma.
Poster: Design and Evaluation of a Time Efficient Vertical Handoff Algorithm between LTE-A and IEEE 802.11ad Wireless Networks

—LTE-A and IEEE 802.11ad are two of the networks that can have complementary roles in 5G networking. Thus, this paper proposes a time efﬁcient, predictive, and dynamic Handoff (HO) algorithm between these two protocols. The algorithm presented measures the Signal to Interference Plus Noise Ratio (SINR), the Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ), velocity, and the Time of Stay (ToS) for pedestrian mobile users and calculates the best Time to Trigger (TTT) value accordingly. One of the main advances of this algorithm is that the TTT value is calculated dynamically regarding user’s velocity and Handoff Failure Ratio (HoFR). Comparisons with other algorithms in this area determine that the algorithm proposed gains the least HoFR for these two protocols by avoiding unnecessary handoffs.
DIPLOMARBEIT / DIPLOMA THESIS

Searching through molecules in chemical patents has presented a challenge for decades. The ambiguity of representing molecules, their extraction from patents, and the sheer number of published patents all contribute to the complexity of the subject. This project attempts to fill a gap left by other patent searching systems. It creates a framework to allow automated processing of patent molecule associations. In addition, two user facing applications using this framework will be implemented. A data source had to be found to provide the associations, and the data set generated by the SureChEMBL platform was used. The data then had to be represented in a format that would allow for easy retrieval. A relational database was designed based on a provided template and modified to suit the needs of the intended functionality. Furthermore, an interface was required that would bridge the gap between a user facing application and the database backend. This interface was then used to create separate implementations in two different environments. One being a KNIME node extension and the other being a command line tool. A series of experiments was performed to determine whether the intended functionality had been achieved. The KNIME node implementation was used to test whether the node would correctly classify patented and not patented molecules. It was found that it did so with high accuracy. The reasons for incorrect molecule classification are discussed as well as some problems surrounding the test set up. Performance experiments describe the efficiency of the functionality. This varies depending on thread usage, size of the query data set, and the number of patents molecules are associated with. In general, approximately 1 second of average query time per molecule can be expected. Two use cases are included for illustration purposes and possible future features briefly discussed.
Composable Effects for Flexible and Accelerated Probabilistic Programming in NumPyro

NumPyro is a lightweight library that provides an alternate NumPy backend to the Pyro probabilistic programming language with the same modeling interface, language primitives and effect handling abstractions. Effect handlers allow Pyro's modeling API to be extended to NumPyro despite its being built atop a fundamentally different JAX-based functional backend. In this work, we demonstrate the power of composing Pyro's effect handlers with the program transformations that enable hardware acceleration, automatic differentiation, and vectorization in JAX. In particular, NumPyro provides an iterative formulation of the No-U-Turn Sampler (NUTS) that can be end-to-end JIT compiled, yielding an implementation that is much faster than existing alternatives in both the small and large dataset regimes.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-LA CROSSE

Paluch, E.C. Can commercial AMF inoculum improve prairie restoration? Colonization and growth effects of fungi on sand prairie plants and smooth brome in field soils. MS in Biology, May 2011, 61 pp. (T. Volk and M. Thomsen) Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) affect the species composition, structure, and function of prairie ecosystems, but prairie restorations are frequently located in sites with depauperate AMF communities. In this greenhouse study, four native sand prairie species (Schizachyrium scoparium, Elymus canadensis, Monarda punctata, and Aster ericoides) and an invasive grass (Bromus inermis) were grown in unsterilized field soils and treated with two brands of commercial AMF inoculum. Inocula were applied at the manufacturers’ suggested rate and at two times the recommended rate. Soil was collected from two locations: a meadow enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) that is dominated by Bromus inermis, and from an active agricultural field. At the rates used in this study, the commercial inoculum did not significantly increase biomass or percent colonization of any grass species. However, both biomass and percent colonization in Aster were influenced by inoculum type, although treated individuals were not significantly different from control groups in pairwise comparisons. Increased percent colonization in all three grasses and increased biomass in the native grasses was observed in individuals grown in the CRP soil. In terms of prairie restoration, an existing soil fungal community appears to be more productive in terms of percent colonization and plant biomass than an addition of commercial inocula.
Outdoor Image Segmentation Method Utilizing Color Cluster Elimination and Texture Sewn Response

Colour clustering is one of the colour reduction methods applicable for segmentation. Nevertheless, it has not been an appropriate method cause of colour and texture variety of outdoor image. Hence, customizing segmentation is necessary for outdoor image which can improve the quality of computer vision system to a large extent by recognizing the objects. This study focuses on customizing the colour clustering methods for segmentation and object recognition in the outdoor images by utilizing a multi-phase procedure through a multi-resolution platform, called Colour Cluster Elimination (CCE), where, the primary colour clusters are detected and then gradually eliminated, allowing the smaller clusters to emerge in much clearer versions of the image. Afterward, each colour region is examined to identify the adjacent homochromatic objects with different textures. A new texture feature: Texture Sewn Response (TSR) has been introduced to indicate the texture strength in different direction/resolutions. The strength has been shown by combining the energies of the detail images applying the Gabor filters bank. Finally, the proposed method has been applied for evaluating on outdoor images dataset namely BSDS500 and the results have been compared to PRI, NPR, and GCE statistical metrics of the latest segmentation methods which demonstrated that the proposed method has a satisfactory performance for the segmentation of the outdoor scenes.
Convergent descent methods for smooth multiobjective optimization Candidate

The thesis concerns the development of algorithms for smooth MultiObjective Optimization (MOO), where two or more objectives have to be simultaneously minimized. MOO plays a crucial role in several real-life applications like, for instance, portfolio selection problems, vehicle routing problems, traffic equilibrium problems. The main purpose of the work is to develop (in a rigorous way from a mathematical programming point of view) effective and efficient algorithms for smooth MOO problems based on a sound convergence theory. The first part of the thesis regards the design of algorithms for unconstrained MOO problems. Since the classical steepest descent algorithm generates a single Pareto-stationary point, a framework for the approximation of the Pareto front, using the steepest descent direction, is proposed. Convergence properties of the proposed algorithm are stated. The results of computational experiments performed on unconstrained MOO test problems have been reported. In the second part of the thesis, sparse MOO problems are considered, i.e. problems where one of the objectives is the so-called zero-norm. The proposed approach is that of approximating the zero-norm by a smooth concave function. Equivalence properties between the original and the approximated problem have been stated and an algorithm based on the steepest descent framework has been designed, implemented and tested on sparse portfolio selection problems. Finally, in the third part of the work, derivative-free MOO problems with box constraints have been considered. A method, that is a nontrivial extension of the well-known Implicit Filtering algorithm to the MOO case, is proposed. Global convergence results are stated under smooth assumptions on the objective functions. Numerical results on a set of test problems show the effectiveness of the MOO Implicit Filtering algorithm both when used to find a single Pareto solution of the problem and when used to reconstruct the whole Pareto front.
CARSO: Clustering Algorithm for Road Surveillance and Overtaking

Research and development on video streaming over vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have expanded rapidly in the last few years. High-quality video streaming in the vehicular environment is very challenging due to the high nodes mobility, frequently changed network topology as well as video streaming is a high-bandwidth-demanded service and causes network congestion when different vehicles are streaming it in the vehicular network at the same time. Clustering algorithms are effective techniques to reduce network congestion by organizing the work of the network nodes. This paper proposes a clustering algorithm for road surveillance and overtaking (CARSO) which takes in the consideration the vision area, direction, and distance parameters to increase the scalability and provide the video streaming service to the highest number of vehicles. We compared our proposed algorithm with another clustering algorithm in the term of scalability and stability to prove the effectiveness of CARSO.
Beyond traditional survey taking : adapting to a changing world Web panel surveys – a challenge for official statistics

During the last decade, web panel surveys have been established as a fast and cost-efficient method in market surveys. The rationale for this is new developments in information technology, in particular the continued rapid growth of internet and computer use among the public. Also growing nonresponse rates and prices forced down in the survey industry lie behind this change. However, there are some serious inherent risks connected with web panel surveys, not least selection bias due to the self-selection of respondents. There are also risks of coverage and measurement errors. The absence of an inferential framework and of data quality indicators is an obstacle against using the web panel approach for high-quality statistics about general populations. Still, there seems to be increasing challenges for some national statistical institutes by a new form of competition for ad hoc statistics and even official statistics from web panel surveys. This paper explores the question of design and use of web panels in a scientifically sound way. An outline is given of a standard from the Swedish Survey Society for performance metrics to assess some quality aspects of results from web panel surveys. Decomposition of bias and mitigation of bias risks are discussed in some detail. Some ideas are presented for combining web panel surveys and traditional surveys to achieve controlled cost-efficient inference.
ON THE USE OF PREPOSITIONS IN ENGLISH FREE RELATIVES : AN FDG ACCOUNT

After a brief characterization of the most important semantic and syntactic properties of (standard) free relatives1 (Section 2), an analysis is proposed within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (Section 3). Subsequently, in Section 4, an attempt is made, on the basis of examples from the British National Corpus (BYU-BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), to identify the circumstances under which a preposition can, has to or cannot appear within the FR. After a brief discussion of some relevant factors
Selection of Heat Tolerant Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) Cultivars Grown in Deep Water Culture and Their Marketability

Lettuce is a cool season vegetable often produced in greenhouses and other protective structures to meet market demands. Greenhouses are being increasingly adopted in warm climate zones where excessive heat often leads to physiological disorders of lettuce, such as tipburn and premature bolting. Greenhouse lettuce growers in warm climates need cultivar recommendations that can help improve production without ignoring marketability. In the current study, eighteen lettuce cultivars were grown in deep water culture and evaluated for growth, bolting, and tipburn in a greenhouse in Auburn, AL, starting on 30 June and 19 August 2016. Based on the severity of bolting and tipburn, nine cultivars were then selected and evaluated on 17 November 2016 for sensory attributes and marketability by 50 untrained consumer panelists. Cultivars ‘Adriana’, ‘Aerostar’, ‘Monte Carlo’, ‘Nevada’, ‘Parris Island’, ‘Salvius’, ‘Skyphos’, and ‘Sparx’ were selected as having higher heat tolerance than cultivars ‘Bambi’, ‘Buttercrunch’ ‘Coastal Star’, ‘Flashy Trout Back’, ‘Green Forest’, ‘Green Towers’, ‘Jericho’, ‘Magenta’, and ‘Truchas’. Higher crispness, lower bitterness, higher overall texture, and higher overall flavor each correlated to higher marketability, regardless of cultivar, but the strongest predictor of marketability was overall flavor. Overall flavor and overall texture were more strongly correlated to marketability than bitterness and crispness, respectively, suggesting that broader sensory categories may better capture human sensory perceptions of lettuce than narrower categories. Cultivars ‘Aerostar’, ‘Monte Carlo’, ‘Nevada’, ‘Parris Island’, ‘Rex’, ‘Salvius’, and ‘Sparx’ performed well in a hot greenhouse and were preferred by consumers. This step-wise experiment could be an adaptable tool for determining highest performing cultivars under any given production constraint, without ignoring marketability.
International Spillovers in Global Asset Markets # 696

The paper empirically estimates the financial transmission between bond and equity markets within and across the four largest global financial markets the United States, the Euro area, Japan, and the United Kingdom. We argue that international bond and equity markets are highly connected both within and across asset classes in a globalized world, where the complex transmission process across various financial assets is not restricted to just the domestic market. This paper employs identification through generalized forecast error variance decompositions to estimate spillovers across four systemic markets in a Vector Autoregression (VAR) framework. We find that asset prices react strongest to international shocks within the same asset class, but that there are also substantial international spillovers across asset classes. Rolling estimations analysis provides evidence that global asset markets have become more integrated and the bilateral relationships change over time. Our results are robust to specifications which take into account the monetary policy stance and include foreign exchange markets. JEL Classification: E52, E58, F42
A Comparison of Algorithms That Estimate the Effectiveness of Commercial Airline Boarding Strategies

The number of passengers carried by commercial aircraft has increased dramatically over the past 50 years, closely in-step with advances in aircraft design. This makes unloading and loading an aircraft, called turn-around time, critical to the success of the airport, the aircraft and the airlines. A number of mathematical algorithms have been developed over the years that purport to determine the most efficient boarding strategy for passengers by decreasing turn time. This thesis evaluated the boarding strategies most often used by the airlines and algorithms used to predict boarding efficiency. The models used were obtained from the literature and from personal communication with the authors. The strategy and the model associated with the greatest predicted reduction in turn-around time, and the amount of time to deplane and enplane commercial airliners was determined. The Kruskal-Wallis one way analysis of variance test was used to determine that the Random boarding strategy had the greatest boarding rate and the rotating zone strategy had the slowest. It was also determined that one of the models, the Ferarri and Nagel sensitivity analysis algorithm, was consistently predictive of the empirical observations of boarding strategies. Running Head: AIRLINE BOARDING STRATEGIES COMPARISON 4 Table of
Proposal for the Evaluation of Environmental Quality in Inhabited Indoor Facilities from Measurements of Carbon Dioxide Concentration "

The indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort in public and residential buildings is relevant when in operation. However, to date it is not regulated nor subject to control in Chile, despite the consequences of a poor IAQ due to high concentrations of CO2 on learning, concentration, productivity and health. At a first stage, the IAQ of 2 classrooms in the south of Chile (latitude 45°23’71’’S and 47°115’11’’S) was monitored and evaluated using the ASHRAE 62/2010 13,779UNE international standards, being finally contrasted with the results of occupant satisfaction polls. Starting from this point, a new methodology to rank campuses in a dynamic regime in accordance to indoor air quality is proposed, especially for those with a high density of occupation, which can be used to manage patterns of ventilation, to allow IAQ verification in a post-occupational regime, and to achieve a healthy environment adjusted to the space’s own profile. Document type : Communication à un colloque (Conference Paper) Référence bibliographique Molina, Constanza ; Veas Perez, Leonardo Eugenio ; Ossio, Felipe. Methodology Proposal for the Evaluation of Environmental Quality in Inhabited Indoor Facilities from Measurements of Carbon Dioxide Concentration.PLEA2012 28th Conference, Opportunities, Limits & Needs Towards an environmentally responsible architecture (Lima, Perú, du 07/11/2012 au 09/11/2012). PLEA2012 28th Conference, Opportunities, Limits & Needs Towards an environmentally responsible archi te ture Lima, Perú 7-9 November 2012 Methodology Proposal for the Evaluation of Environmental Quality in Inhabited Indoor Facilities from Measurements of Carbon Dioxide Concentration. CONSTANZA MOLINA C. , LEONARDO VEAS P., FELIPE OSSIO C. Escuela de Construcción Civil, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago. Architecture et Climat, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium ABSTRACT: The indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort in public and residential buildings is rele vant when in operation. However, to date it is not regulated nor subject to control in Chile, despite the consequen ces of a poor IAQ due to high concentrations of CO2 on learning, concentr ation, productivity and health. At a first stage, the IAQ of 2 classrooms in the so uth of Chile (latitude 45°23’71’’S and 47°115’11’’S ) was monitored and evaluated using the ASHRAE 62/2010 13,779UNE intern a io al standards, being finally contrasted with th e results of occupant satisfaction polls. Starting from this poi nt, a new methodology to rank campuses in a dynamic regime in accordance to indoor air quality is proposed, espec ially for those with a high density of occupation, which can be used to manage patterns of ventilation, to allow IAQ verifi cation in a post-occupational regime, and to achiev e a healthy environment adjusted to the space’s own profile.