Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Market Power Mitigation in Electricity Markets . Can We Do Better in New York ?

Market power mitigation has been an integral part of wholesale electricity markets since deregulation. In wholesale electricity markets, different regions in the US take different approaches to regulating market power. While the exercise of market power has received considerable attention in the literature, the issue of market power mitigation has attracted scant attention. I examine the market power mitigation rules used in New York ISO (Independent System Operator) and California ISO (CAISO) with respect to day-ahead and real-time energy markets. I test whether markups associated with New York in-city generators would be lower with an alternative approach to mitigation, the CAISO approach. Results indicate the difference in markups between these two mitigation rules is driven by the shape of residual demand curves for suppliers. Analysis of residual demand curves faced by New York in-city suppliers show similar markups under both mitigation rules when no one supplier is necessary to meet the demand (i.e., when no supplier is pivotal). However, when some supplier is crucial for the market to clear, the mitigation rule adopted by the NYISO consistently leads to higher markups than would the CAISO rule. This result suggest that market power episodes in New York is confined to periods where some supplier is pivotal. As a result, I find that applying the CAISOs’ mitigation rules to the New York market could lower wholesale electricity prices by 18%.
End of Life of Electronic Communication Devices in the Context of Strategies to Decouple Resources Use from Economic Growth

Electronic waste (E-Waste), also called Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE), is a topic of high concern due to increasing amounts, possible hazardous effects, but also with view to significant amounts of potentially recoverable materials and especially of elements with limited natural resources such as precious metals. This is particularly the case for electronic communication devices, which represent an essential equipment of our modern professional and private lifestyles, while however being characterized by short lifetimes. WEEE – and again in particular waste electronic communication devices – is a waste stream which is difficult to predict, and recycling is a challenge, but WEEE holds high potential to make significant contributions towards decoupling waste generation and resource consumption from economic growth. Implementation of decoupling approaches in developed and developing countries is significantly different due to unequal levels in availability of data on material streams, state-of-the-art of waste management and recycling, and regulatory frameworks. Keywordselectronic communication devices, recycling, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), precious metals, recovery, decoupling, dematerialization
IoT Based Green House Monitoring Using Data Compressive Sensing Technique in WSN

Compressive Sampling is one of the important techniques for energy proficient transmission in wireless sensor. It is also utilized for low-sampling in several applications. Compressive sensing may reduce energy cost when sensor development is taken in to consideration. Green house farming is need of hour. Efficient management of resources is vital. An IOT based green house monitoring is intended to screen and control the different elements received from a farm field, like stickiness, water level and temperature. The data is gathered through wireless sensor network. Large data is generated through different sensors which required considerable storage space and increase transmission time over network from slave to master. Compression is effective in compressing such data. In this paper, we propose an energy effective transmission approach based on compression sensing for
ON THE ECOLOGY OF SNOW LEOPARD IN WEST NEPAL

Almost nothing is known about the endangered snow leopard Panthera uncia in the wild because its secretive habits, low numbers, sparse distribution and inaccessible habitat have discouraged attempts at study. Knowledge of snow leopard behavior and ecology is primarily anecdotal (Guggisberg, 1975; Schaller, 1977). More information has been published in recent years, but it mostly concerns captive snow leopards. This is the first successful attempt at in-depth study of this elusive carnivore. His Majesty's Government (HMG) took far-sighted action in approving the application to study snow leopards in Nepal's Langu Valley in cooperation with biologists of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) in October 1981. Field work was conducted between January 1982 and June 1985.
A Cyclic Genetic Algorithm to Model Use Patterns in an Intelligent Environment

This work involves the use of learning algorithms to model the use schedule of an academic building with the intent of intelligently controlling the environment. A sensor network of motion sensors is used to monitor and record the activity of each of the rooms in the building. After a basic preprocessing of the data, the patterns of use of the rooms are determined using a Cyclic Genetic Algorithm (CGA). The CGA has a unique ability to find repetitive cyclic patterns in data, making it ideal for such a problem. Our results show that a CGA has the ability to pick out these patterns and construct a model of the use schedule of a room.
A Study to Evaluate the Intraocular Pressure Variations in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Aim of the study was to evaluate the intraocular pressure variations in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Objectives of the study was 1. To establish if there is an increase of intraocular pressure in type 2 diabetes mellitus. 2. To evaluate if the increase in intraocular pressure has any relation to the glycosylated hemoglobin levels. 3. To study the types of primary glaucoma and establish the most common type of glaucoma seen in the study group. The findings of this study are as follows: The mean IOP in the study group was found to be 14.54±3.69 mmHg.2. 5% of patients had IOP 20mmHg In our study group, patients diagnosed to have POAG, the mean HbA1c was 6.92±1.40 %, indicating good-fair glycemic control. The patients diagnosed to have OHT, mean HbA1c was 6.67±0.31%, indicating good glycemic control. The patients diagnosed to have NTG, the mean HbA1c was 6.65±0.35 %. The present study showed prevalence of POAG of 6.0%, OHT 3.0% and NTG 2.0% Conclusion: Diabetics are more prone for developing raised IOP. POAG being the most common type in the study group which constituted 6 % there by showing a strong association between POAG and diabetes. The strength of the association between diabetes and glaucoma did not vary by the degree of glycemic control. The regular screening for glaucoma in type 2 diabetic patients is strongly recommended.
The Influence of Rewards on Games Flow, Challenge, and Its Effects Towards the Engagement of Malaysian Digital Traditional Games

Games engagement has become one of the main concerns in game industry. Early study revealed that Malaysian digital traditional games are suffering with the same issue due to several factors. One of it is the lack of the game itself. Although many Malaysian traditional games have been digitized, none of them has incorporated rewards despite its importance in games engagement. Realizing the importance of rewards in games engagement, one of Malaysian traditional Congkak has been chosen to be enhanced by incorporating rewards. Experiments have been conducted among 50 gamers among the Millennials. Prior interview, game demo and human test are conducted. Experiments focused on the influence of rewards on games flow, games challenge, and its effects which covers both positive and negative effects through four hypotheses. Findings show that three hypotheses are supported by the experiments thus suggested that rewards have significant influence on the measured constructs. The findings can be useful to new psychologists to obtain more understanding pertaining to games engagement through some experiments of rewards in traditional games. Ideas of incorporating rewards in digital traditional games can useful and beneficial to game developers in attracting gamer and make them hooked to the games.
Social Media and Depression among Adolescents in Ekiti State of Nigeria : Counselling Implications

F. O. Ibimiluyi (Ph. D) Department of Guidance and Counselling Faculty of Education Ekti State University, Ado Ekiti fibimiluyi@gmail.com Abstract: The number of adolescents experiencing symptoms of depression and depressed seems to increase in Ekiti State, Nigeria despite the devastating effects. Many of these people seem addicted to the use of social media at the expense of other activities at home, school and community at large. This seems to put them at risks thus affecting their health leading to depressive symptoms and depression. This study explored the association of exposure to social media and depression among the adolescents in Ekiti State of Nigeria. The study was a descriptive survey. A sample of 600 adolescents were selected using multi-stage sampling technique from the 16 local government areas of Ekiti State from a population of 5000. A self designed questionnaire – Social Media and Depression Scale (SMDS) (r= 0.75), was used to collect data. Data were analysed using frequency and percentage to find out the level of depression. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and t-test were used to test the two hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results show that there was evidence of depressive symptoms and even depression among adolescents. Exposure to social media was not significantly related to the development of depression among adolescents. There was statistically significant difference in the incidence of depression among male and female adolescents on the use of social media in Ekiti State of Nigeria. It was recommended among others that school counsellors should design effective methods for detecting, assessing and treating adolescent depression in schools where most of the adolescents are found
Resonant Converter For High-Power , Low-Voltage , High-Current Power Applications

LCC thunderous converter with inductive channel working in spasmodic current mode (DCM) can accomplish zero-current exchanging (ZCS) for both the force switches and rectifier diodes. In this way, it is appropriate for high-control, low-voltage, high-current force supplies. The DCM LCC resounding converter with inductive channel may work in various working modes when info voltage or burden changes, which challenges the outline. This paper infers a mode limit map, from which the working method of the converter can be effectively decided. In light of the mode limit outline, summed up ideal configuration technique is proposed and an arrangement of ideal and standardized converter parameters is resolved, which can be effectively changed over into genuine parameters as indicated by the converter detail. Three 5 kW models with various converter parameters are created and tried in the lab, and the exploratory results demonstrate that with the arrangement of ideal parameters, the converter can accomplish the most astounding proficiency over the whole info voltage and burden range.
Model Learner Sample B Aggregates Query Interface learn probability distributions Attributes W sample reweight Reweighted Sample Bayesian Network Pr t ∈ P Query Evaluator

Openworld databasemanagement systems assume tuples not in the database still exist and are becoming an increasingly important area of research. We present Themis, the first openworld database that automatically rebalances arbitrarily biased samples to approximately answer queries as if they were issued over the entire population. We leverage apriori population aggregate information to develop and combine two different approaches for automatic debiasing: sample reweighting and Bayesian network probabilistic modeling. We build a prototype of Themis and demonstrate thatThemis achieves higher query accuracy than a baseline uniform reweighting, an alternative sample reweighting technique, and a variety of Bayesian network probabilistic models while maintaining interactive query response times. We also show that Themis is robust to differences in the support between the sample and population. ACM Reference Format: . 2019. Sample Debiasing in the Themis Open World Database System. In Proceedings of ACM Conference (Conference’17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 16 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/nnnnnnn.nnnnnnn
Game Theoretic Planning for Self-Driving Cars in Competitive Scenarios

—We propose a nonlinear receding horizon game-theoretic planner for autonomous cars in competitive scenarios with other cars. The online planner is speciﬁcally formulated for a two car autonomous racing game in which each car tries to advance along a given track as far as possible with respect to the other car. The algorithm extends previous work on game-theoretic planning for single integrator agents to be suitable for autonomous cars in the following ways: (i) by representing the trajectory as a piecewise-polynomial, (ii) incorporating bicycle kinematics into the trajectory, (iii) enforcing constraints on path curvature and acceleration. The game theoretic planner iteratively plans a trajectory for the ego vehicle, then the other vehicle until convergence. Crucially, the trajectory optimization includes a sensitivity term that allows the ego vehicle to reason about how much the other vehicle will yield to the ego vehicle to avoid collisions. The resulting trajectories for the ego vehicle exhibit rich game strategies such as blocking, faking, and opportunistic overtaking. The game-theoretic planner is shown to signiﬁcantly out-perform a baseline planner using Model Predictive Control which does not take interaction into account. The performance is validated in high-ﬁdelity numerical simulations, in experiments with two scale autonomous cars, and in experiments with a full-scale autonomous car racing against a simulated vehicle.
A Study on the Correlations among Leisure Lifestyle , Leisure Resourcefulness and Forest Sports Parks ’ Use Intention of Residents in Taichung City , Taiwan

The purpose of the study is to investigate the correlations among leisure lifestyles, leisure resourcefulness, and use intention for forest sports park, of the residents in Taiping District, Taichung City. For the study, the researchers utilized purposive sampling and administered 300 questionnaires. After filtering 20 invalid questionnaires, the study collected 280 valid questionnaires, yielding a 93 percent survey response rate. In terms of data analysis, the researchers first processed demographic variables with descriptive statistics in SPSS 20.0, followed by multivariate analysis and model rationality validation in AMOS 20.0. The results indicated firstly, leisure lifestyle has significant influence on leisure resourcefulness; secondly, leisure resourcefulness has significant influence on use intention. In conclusion, based on the findings, the researchers then made recommendations for future studies on leisure lifestyles, leisure resourcefulness, and use intention for leisure facilities.
Saliency detection using adaptive background template

Since most existing saliency detection models are not suitable for the condition that the salient objects are near at the image border, the authors propose a saliency detection approach based on adaptive background template (SCB) despite of the position of the salient objects. First, a selection strategy is presented to establish the adaptive background template by removing the potential saliency superpixels from the image border regions, and the initial saliency map is obtained. Second, a propagation mechanism based on K-means algorithm is designed for maintaining the neighbourhood coherence of the above saliency map. Finally, a new spatial prior is presented to integrate the saliency detection results by aggregating two complementary measures such as image centre preference and the background template exclusion. Comprehensive evaluations on six benchmark datasets indicate that the authors’ method outperforms other state-of-the-art approaches. In addition, a new dataset containing 300 challenging images is constructed for evaluating the performance of various salient object detection methods.
V / hat Have Happened to Export Intermediaries ?

The Internet has changed significantly business operation across national borders. However, existing literature about its impacts on export channels remains limited. This inductive study explored the Internet's impacts on the relations between 13 Chinese manufacturers and their export intermediaries in Canada. Findings from this study suggest that export intermediaries that provide financing and credit, intensive after-sales services, and important distribution infrastructure survive the Internet while those that offer traditional market-sensing and customer-linking services can hardly survive the Internet.
Silicon Carbide BJT ’ s in Boost Applications

Efficiency is becoming more and more important as well as size and cost. In boost DC/DC converters, typically used in PV inverters and PFC circuits, increased switching frequency makes a big impact on both size and cost. Silicon Carbide (SiC) bipolar junction transistors (BJT’s) offer low-loss high speed switching combined with low conduction losses enabling higher switching frequency and maintaining high efficiency. SiC BJT’s combine the best properties from Silicon unipolar and Bipolar technologies in a normally-off device. The design and performance of a 1kW boost circuit based on the SiC BJT is presented in this article. Peter Haaf and Martin Domeij, Fairchild Semiconductor Germany and Sweden
Camera System Support For Highway Transportation Using Mobile Devices

With the very fast growing technology in wireless, advancement in hardware and the dramatically falling cost of mobile computing devices such as PDA, handheld device, People nowadays can have a personal device that fits in their hand but has computing power as a desktop did few years ago. The same device now is able to communicate over a wireless network and view office document at the same time. The combination of size, power and flexibility makes the personal devices increasingly appear in many aspects of life. In this proposal, we focus on a simple yet useful application of mobile devices and wireless capabilities. The application can help commuters in traffic system to find an optimal route based on video camera surveillance information. This surveillance information is made available to the user through his/her handheld devices. As an example, suppose we have installed several cameras along the expressway. If commuters can access to these cameras, they can observe the situation currently happening along the way, and decide which path would be the most effective to avoid the traffic congestion. This application will eventually improve the effectiveness of current traffic system since it will help to reduce traffic congestions.
NANOPARTICLES AS AGENTS FOR TARGETED DELIVERY IN THE TREATMENT OF VASCULAR PATHOLOGIES

Inflammation in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. Inflammation is the cornerstone of CVD. Systemic inflammation can lead to activation of the endothelium characterized by increased expression of endothelial adhesion molecules and chemokines (e.g., vascular adhesion molecules [VCAM] and monocyte chemotactic protein [MCP-1]), as well as reduced expression of anti-atherogenic molecules. Statins are the most effective treatment for hyperlipidemia and remain the gold standard for the treatment of vascular inflammation and CVD. New strategies and approaches to targeted delivery of drugs. These approaches are mainly based on two main aspects: 1) pharmaceutical composition which allows to encapsulate therapeutic agents; 2) surface functionalization with the help of a target agent (i.e., antibodies and small molecules) for drug delivery to endothelium. Nanostructured mesoporous silicon vectors (MSV) charged with 10-nm polymer micelles are used as a tool for the treatment of chronic heart failure. Another approach is the development of carriers that are analogues of natural adhesion molecules (CAM) or selectin ligands. The strategy of treatment of cardiovascular diseases with preparations based on nanoparticles. For the visualization of atherosclerotic plaques, nanoparticles conjugated with indium (111In) based on antibodies bound to LOX-1 receptors of low density were used in mice. New ideas and opportunities for drug development. 1) development of carrier-based microorganisms (such as bacteria or viruses), or cells (e.g. leukocytes, erythrocytes, platelets and stem cells); 2) development of nanoparticles with analogues of biologically active molecules that bind to cell membranes. Additional approaches include lacto-glycolic acid polymers (PLGA). Another approach to delivering drugs to the endothelium is to create a nanocapsule based on high molecular weight polymers with a nucleus containing a drug substance. This may allow switching from a three-compartment pharmacokinetic model to a one-cell model.
CPU-GPU2Trigeneous Computing for Iterative Reconstruction in Computed Tomography

In this paper, we present methods to efficiently parallelize iterative 3D image reconstruction by exploiting trigeneous devices (three different types of device) at the same time: a CPU, an integrated GPU, and a discrete GPU. We first present a technique that exploits single instruction multiple data (SIMD) architectures in GPUs. Then, we propose a performance estimation model, based on which we can easily find the optimal data partitioning on trigeneous devices. We found that the performance significantly varies by up to 6.23 times, depending on how SIMD units in GPUs are accessed. Then, by using trigeneous devices and the proposed estimation models, we achieve optimal partitioning and throughput, which corresponds to a 9.4% further improvement, compared to discrete GPU-only execution.
Learning for Tightly Coupled Multiagent Systems Extended

In this paper, we leverage curriculum learning (CL) to improve the performance of multiagent systems (MAS) that are trained with the cooperative coevolution of artificial neural networks. We design curricula to progressively change two dimensions: scale (i.e. domain size) and coupling (i.e. the number of agents required to complete a subtask). We demonstrate that CL can successfully mitigate the challenge of learning on a sparse reward signal resulting from a high degree of coupling in complex MAS. We also show that, in most cases, the combination of difference reward shaping with CL can improve performance by up to 56%. We evaluate our CL methods on the tightly coupled multi-rover domain. CL increased converged system performance on all tasks presented. Furthermore, agents were only able to learn when trained with CL for most tasks.