Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Convex relaxations of the maximin dispersion problem

Recently, convex relaxations have achieved notable success in solving NPhard optimization problems. This thesis studies semidefinite and secondorder cone programming convex relaxations of the maximin dispersion problem. Providing nontrivial approximation bounds, we believe that our SDP and SOCP relaxation methods are useful in large-scale optimization. The thesis is organized as follows. We begin by recalling some basic concepts from convex analysis, nonsmooth analysis, and optimization. We then introduce the weighted maximin dispersion optimization problem; locating point(s) in a given region X ⊆ Rn that is/are furthest from a given set of m points. Also given are several reformulations of the original problem, including a convex relaxation problem and semidefinite and second order cone programming relaxations. Using well known results on Lipschitz functions and subdifferentials of Lipschitz functions we then derive a theoretical characterization of the optimal solutions for a given convex region X and equal weights. Next, we provide a proof that the weighted maximin dispersion problem is NP-hard even in the case where X is is a box and the weights are equal. We then propose an algorithm for finding an approximate solution using the SDP relaxation, and derive an approximation bound that depends on the subset X . In the case that X is a box or a product of low-dimensional spheres, we show that the convex relaxation reduces to a second-order cone program, and provide further results on the bound provided. Lastly, we provide numerical examples using the SDP and SOCP relaxations, and suggest future work.
BENCHMARKING CARAVAN AND TOURIST PARK OPERATIONS

There are an estimated 1,825 caravan and tourist parks spread throughout Australia. Collectively they are the second largest provider of short term accommodation (19.7%) after motels (37.6%) (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2004). These caravan and tourist parks vary in scale, complexity and level of service provision; much like other sectors of the accommodation industry. However, while there has been ongoing interest, expansion and upgrading of caravan and tourist parks throughout Australia, particularly along the Pacific Coast, there has been relatively little attention paid to caravanning (and caravan parks) as social phenomenon and even less in terms of their business dimensions. Partly this is a consequence of the dispersed nature of the industry but also a reflection of its perceived status within the overall accommodation sector.
Novel Circularly Polarized SIW Cavity - Backed Antenna with Wide CP Beamwidth by Using Dual Orthogonal Slot Split Rings

A circularly polarized (CP) substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity-backed antenna based on dual concentric, orthogonal slot split ring resonators is proposed and experimentally studied. The circularly polarized wave is generated by two split ring-slots etched in the upper metal layer of the SIW cavity resonator. These two slots are excited by a coaxial probe located in the gap of the external slot split ring to radiate the right-handed circularly polarized (RHCP) wave. By rotating the dual split slot ring resonators and the probe by 45 degrees relative to the backed cavity, a better match characteristic and a slightly higher radiation gain are obtained. Because of the concentricity of radiant split ring slots, the beamwidth of the circular polarization is obviously increased. From the experimental results, the impedance bandwidth was 10.8% for the reflection coefficient less than −10 dB, the axial ratio (AR) bandwidth was 1.54% for the AR less than 3 dB, and the RHCP gain was 4.44 dBic. Moreover, the 3-dB axial ratio beamwidth at the centre frequency of 10.40 GHz has been extended to 142◦ in the angular range from −78◦ to +64◦.
Project-based Approach to Teaching Standardized Test Construction: A Model for Pre-Service Education Students on How to Standardize a Test

The article is a descriptive case study of a project-based approach to simulate test construction in a pre-service undergraduate training program for future teachers. The curriculum for pre-service teachers (PSTs) in the training program involved learning how to develop tests, how to practice using standardized assessment instruments, and to how to interpret the results from testing. The PSTs completed an educational project to acquire hands on teaching skills in relation to test construction and standardizing a test of a sample population. This article discusses the use of a project-based instructional approach by having students develop a standardized test, rather than using a traditional lecture-based approach, to teach basic assessment skills. Results revealed that PSTs learned the necessary foundational knowledge required in the curriculum and enjoyed the hands-on approach to learning. Practical implications and areas in need of future research are discussed.
Acoustic analysis and characterization of Indian musical instrument: Ghumot

The study conducted was to characterize the acoustic features and spectrum of the Ghumot, a membranophone type musical instrument indigenous to Western India. This instrument is part of the dying culture of Goan traditional music; hence it has been studied to give it a scientific understanding. The instrument was played with both conditions of the resonance cavity taken into account (open and closed), and the frequency domain spectra were determined for each. The variation in the acoustics characteristics of the instrument was plotted according to position of impact and position of measurement. The Ghumot membrane displayed non-linear characteristics as compared to a uniform, isotropic circular membrane. A comparative study was also made for the Ghumot and the Tabla to determine the number of unique tones or ‘bols’ that the instrument can produce.
Effect of Administration of Root Ethanolic Extract of Aristolochia Ringens on the Liver Functional Indices of Male Wistar Rats

Background: The alcoholic decoction of root ethanolic extract of Aristolochia ringens is taken orally to treat various ailments in South-west Nigeria without prior knowledge of its potential toxic effect. Therefore, this study aimed at assessing the toxicity potentials of root ethanolic extract of A. ringens on functional indices and histology of the liver. Methods: Twenty male rats were randomized into four groups of five animals each. Group A (control) received 0.5 ml of distilled water, group B, C and D received 75, 150 and 300 mg/kg b. wt. of the extract respectively. The administration was done orally and lasted for fourteen days. Results: The extract significantly reduced the activities of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) as well as reduction in the level of serum albumin and direct bilirubin (P<0.05) while the level of total bilirubin increased. The activities of these enzymes i.e. ALP, ALT and AST increased in the serum at all the doses investigated. Conclusion: Ethanolic extract from A. ringens root may not be completely safe when administered repeatedly.
COLOR IMAGE SEGMENTATION BASED ON BAYES CLASSIFICATION AND CLUSTERING

- With a specific end goal to loosen the division corruption phenomenon when the quantity of super pixels is low, we propose a novel shading picture division calculation in luminosity of Grab-Cut. The technique coordinates Bayes classification with simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC) and afterward utilizes the Grab-Cut strategy to get the division. The SLIC is connected to group the high luminosity’s of a shading picture and incorporated it into the Grab-Cut system to beat the issue of the picture division crumbling when the quantity of super pixels is low. Also, we expand the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to SLIC high luminosity’s and GMM in luminosity of SLIC is built to portray the vitality work. The shading grouping can be appropriately coordinated into the Grab-Cut structure and intertwined with the shading high luminosity to accomplish more predominant picture division execution than the first Grab-Cut technique. For simpler execution and more efficient calculation, the Bayes classification is decided for reproduction of the simplified chart cut model rather than the first diagram cut in luminosity of the SLIC demonstrate. The min-cut calculation procedure filled in as the division measure in the simplified picture space for additionally segregating power. A classification system is introduced, to viably alter the vitality work with the goal that the Bayes classification and SLIC high luminosity’s are efficiently coordinated to accomplish more powerful division execution. At last, limit enhancement is proposed to significantly lessen the limit harshness of the Grab-Cut calculation with palatable division exactness. As a handy application, the predominant execution of our proposed technique was exhibited through a vast number of near tests
CHARACTERISTICS OF RAIN INFILTRATION IN SOIL LAYERS ON THE HILLSLOPE BEHIND IMPORTANT CULTURAL ASSET

Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan, 2,6 College of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Japan, 3 Research Organization of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University, Japan, 4 Department of Storm Flood and landslide Research, National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, Japan, Institute of Disaster Mitigation for Urban Cultural Heritage, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
DEOS - The German Robotics Approach to Secure and De-Orbit Malfunctioned Satellites from Low Earth Orbits

There are many concepts how to serve and lift malfunctioning satellites from their operational orbit to avoid large scale damage caused by uncontrollable satellites. For many years now Germany has been developing robotic techniques especially to handle its spacecraft to the very end of life – just until their disposal. The German approach is based on berthing techniques using a manipulator system accommodated on a servicing satellite (Servicer) operated semi-autonomously and from Earth.
Choice of Aircraft Size - Explanations and Implications

To keep load factors high while offering high frequency service, airlines tend to reduce the size of the aircraft they use. At many of the world’s largest airports there are fewer than 100 passengers per air transport movement, although congestion and delays are growing. Furthermore, demand for air transport is predicted to continue growing but aircraft size is not. This paper aims to investigate and explain this phenomenon, the choice of relatively small aircraft. It seems that this choice is associated mainly with the benefits of high frequency service, the competitive environment in which airlines operate and the way airport capacity is allocated and priced. Regression analysis of over 500 routes in the US, Europe and Asia provides empirical evidence that the choice of aircraft size is mainly influenced by route characteristics (e.g. distance, level of demand and level of competition) and almost not at all by airport characteristics (e.g. number of runways and whether the airport is a hub or slot coordinated). We discuss the implications of this choice of aircraft size and suggest that some market imperfections exist in the airline industry leading airlines to offer excessive frequency on some routes and too low frequency on others.
A UNIVERSAL COMPENSATOR FOR POWER QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN LV DISTRIBUTION GRIDS

A Universal Compensator (UC) for Power Quality improvement is presented in the paper. It can compensate harmonic currents, reactive power and unbalances of disturbing loads and supply in island mode sensitive loads. In case of grid disturbances, a static switch is open and the UC restores the voltages before disturbance occurrence at the load connection point. A 50 kVA UC model has been designed and a digital simulation model is used to assess its performances. Simulation results of compensation of different type of loads are reported both for grid connected and island operations.
Implementation Steps to Optimize Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Results for Small and Medium Sized E-Commerce Companies

In terms of Internet marketing, search engines are the channel of choice for most of the internet advertisers in nowadays online-market. Considering its growth as an online advertising media, online marketers exploit this media using Search Engine Marketing (SEM) together with its strategies and implementation steps. This paper suggests some implementation steps for SEM to facilitate startups websites to be visible and competitive throughout this media. Delicate search engine mechanisms regarding indexing and web crawling develop Search Engine Marketing into the implementation steps including short-term and long-term marketing strategies. Search engine mechanisms schemes with the aid of author’s experience in organizing SEM contribute to the steps implication and conceptualization. In the light of implementation steps, marketers are competent to constantly advance their websites with the direction.
Epidemiology of Human Rabies Cases in Kolkata With Its Application to Post Prophylaxis

Rabies is a disease which is almost 100% fatal. This epidemiological surveillance study of rabies is conducted to know the true figure of rabies fatality and its distribution in Kolkata. 65478 dog bite cases and 156 human rabies cases were investigated. All 156 human rabies cases admitted to hospital died. Adolescent males suffered most. Semi-urban, farmers and illiterates were most vulnerable. Amongst various animal bites, dog is the main culprit. Class III bite and bite at lower limb were the most effected. Incubation period of ninety days were most common. Hydrophobia and aerophobia were found to be pathognomonic signs for rabies. 4.48% of rabies cases died of neuroparalysis due to nerve tissues vaccine complication.
A Lower Bound for the Critical Probability of the Square Lattice Site Percolation

Throughout this note N and N* will denote the square lattice and its matching pair (the graph obtained from the first one by adding edges on every diagonal of elementary squares) respectively. Pc and p* will denote the critical probability of the Bernoulli site percolation on these graphs. In [3] and [4] Russo proved that p c + p * = l (1) (see also [2]). Due to the fact that N is a subgraph of N*, from (1.1) trivially follows that pc__> 89 Higuchi [1] improved this, showing that
Unemployment insurance/severance payments and informality in developing countries

We analyze whether the introduction or an increase of unemployment insurance (UI hereafter) benefits in developing countries reduces the e¤ort made by unemployed workers to secure a new job in the formal sector. We adopt a comparative static approach and we consider the consequences of an increase of current UI benefits on unemployed workers? decision variables in this same period, i.e. we focus on an intra-temporal trade-off, allowing us to assume away moral hazard complications. When there is no informal sector, unemployed workers may devote their time between effort to secure a new job in the formal sector and leisure. In the presence of an informal sector, unemployed workers may also devote time to remunerated informal activities. Consequently, the amount of effort devoted to secure a new (formal) job generates an opportunity cost, which ceteris paribus, reduces the amount of time devoted to remunerated activities in the informal sector. We show that in the presence of an informal sector, an increase of current UI benefits decreases this marginal opportunity cost and therefore unambiguously increases the effort undertaken to secure a new job in the formal sector. This intra-temporal effect is the only one at play in presence of one-shot UI benefits or with severance payments mechanism.
Shifting Governance Structures in Global Commodity Chains, With Special Reference to the Internet

There are three main drivers of economic globalization in the latter half of the 20th century: investment by transnational corporations, international trade, and the Internet. Whereas producer-driven and buyer-driven commodity chains characterize the phases of investment-based and trade-based globalization, respectively, the emergence of the Internet in the mid-1990s heralds a new age of digital globalization. The explosion in connectivity that is enabled by the Internet has launched an e-commerce revolution that is beginning to transform the structure of business-to-business (B2B) as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions in global industries. New infomediaries that navigate access to rich information and greater reach by businesses and consumers are prominent in B2C digital networks. The Internet's most significant impact to date, however, has been in B2B markets, where e-commerce is reshaping the competitive dynamics and power alignments in traditional producer-driven and buyer-driven commodity chains such as automobiles and apparel.
Ageing of Electric Vehicle Battery considering Mobility Needs for Urban Areas

This work seeks to analyse battery wear in electric vehicles (EV) based on daily usage and battery temperature. An agent-based model (ABM) was built, using Matlab® software, in order to evaluate users’ behaviour and represent the output data. Travel input data is obtained from Barcelona’s driving survey, and different models of battery electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), and electric motorcycles (EM) have been taken into consideration. Battery size characteristics and consumption are different for every model of vehicle, although only lithium ion (Li-ion) battery technology has been modelled and the same voltage profile has been used in all of them. The model successfully represents battery wear as a function of temperature and battery usage.
Perceptions of Entrepreneurial Success Factors: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of 27 Countries

This study examines how perceptions of entrepreneurial attributes differ across countries. Results from 27 countries all over the world indicate more similarities in features inhibiting to a person being a successful entrepreneur between countries than in characteristics contributing to a person being a successful entrepreneur. In countries with population less than 20 million, people see successful entrepreneurs more as innovative opportunity seeker and turn less attention to their behaviour than people in bigger countries. From cultural dimensions future orientation practices had higher predicting power. In Latin-American countries team building, open mind and innovativeness are considered to be important success factors.
Calcium homeostasis and signaling in fungi and their relevance for pathogenicity of yeasts and filamentous fungi

Though fungi show peculiarities in the purposes and specific traits of calcium signaling pathways, the general scheme and the most important players are well conserved if compared to higher eukaryotes. This provides a powerful opportunity either to investigate shared features using yeast as a model or to exploit fungal specificities as potential targets for antifungal therapies. The sequenced genomes from yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe and the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa were already published more than ten years ago. More recently the genome sequences of filamentous fungi of Aspergillus genus, some of which threatening pathogens, and dimorphic fungi Ustilago maydis were published, giving the chance to identify several proteins involved in calcium signaling based on their homology to yeast or mammalian counterparts. Nonetheless, unidentified calcium transporters are still present in these organisms which await to be molecularly characterized. Despite the relative simplicity in yeast calcium machinery and the availability of sophisticated molecular tools, in the last years, a number of new actors have been identified, albeit not yet fully characterized. This review will try to describe the state of the art in calcium channels and calcium signaling knowledge in yeast, with particular attention to the relevance of this knowledge with respect to pathological fungi.
Knowledge-Based Simulation System for Reliability and Performance Analysis of Computer Networks

Modeling and analysis of performance of computer networks is essential for ensuring smooth operation of an organization’s networks and preventing major failures. Mathematical analysis and simulation modeling are the common procedures for network system performance analysis. In this paper, a knowledge-based simulation system is developed that can be used for assessment and prediction of network performance and reliability.
Using building and bridge information for adapting roads to ALS data by means of network snakes

In the German Authoritative Topographic Cartographic Information System (ATKIS), the 2D positions and the heights of objects such as roads are stored separately in the digital landscape model (DLM) and digital terrain model (DTM), which is often acquired by airborne laser scanning (ALS). However, an increasing number of applications require a combined processing and visualization of these two data sets. Due to different kinds of acquisition, processing, and modelling discrepancies exist between the DTM and DLM and thus a simple integration may lead to semantically incorrect 3D objects. For example, roads may be situated on strongly tilted DTM parts and rivers sometimes flow uphill. In this paper we propose an algorithm for the adaptation of 2D road centrelines to ALS data by means of network snakes. Generally, the image energy for the snakes is defined based on ALS intensity and height information and derived products. Additionally, buildings and bridges as strong features in height data are exploited in order to support the road adaptation process. Extracted buildings as priors modified by a distance transform are used to create a force of repulsion for the road vectors integrated in the image energy. In contrast, bridges give strong evidence for the correct road position in the height data. Therefore, the image energy is adapted for the bridge points. For that purpose bridge detection in the DTM is performed starting from an approximate position using template matching. Examples are given which apply the concept of networksnakes with new image energy for the adaptation of road networks to ALS data taking advantage of the prior known topology.
A Growth Model with Gender Inequality in Employment, Human Capital, and Socio-Political Participation

This paper proposes an endogenous growth model in which gender inequality in employment has an important role in explaining different development dimensions such as socio-political participation, educational attainments, and working hours, in developed countries. Starting from a theoretical framework a la Lucas, we model the decision to participate in determining a society’s values as a game in which the existence of gender inequalities in the labor market may affect the time spent by men and women in social activities. Although we assume gender inequality and population growth to be exogenous factors, relationships among our main variables become extremely complex. Our model’s predictions are in line with some stylized facts observed in developed economies, in particular across the European regions: more equal societies have higher socio-political participation, devote less time to work, and present higher educational attainments and rates of economic growth than less equal ones. Our model’s main policy implications are immediate: political interventions designed to promote female employment must be accompanied by pro-family policies in order to sustain economic growth and improve quality of life, by reducing time for work and increasing time for other activities.