Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Data-Driven Trajectory Representation for Nonlinear Systems under quasi-Linear Parameter Varying Embeddings

—Recent literature has shown how linear time-invariant (LTI) systems can be represented through trajectory-based features, relying on a single measured input-output (IO) trajectory dictionary, as long as the input is persistently exciting. The so-called behavioural framework is a promising alternative for controller synthesis without the necessity of system identiﬁcation. In this paper, we extend and translate previous results to a wide class of nonlinear systems, using quasi-Linear Parameter Varying (qLPV) embeddings along suitable IO coordinates. Accordingly, we show how nonlinear data-driven simulation and predictions can be made based on the proposed qLPV approach. A parameter-dependent dissipativity analysis veriﬁcation setup is also given. Realistic results are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the tools.
Environmental Factors affecting the Settlement and Growth of the Freshwater Bryozoan, Fredericella Indica (Ectoprocta), In One Harbor of Southern Lake Michigan

Important factors which affect the settlement and growth of the freshwater bryozoan, Fredericella Indica (Ectoprocta) in one harbor in southern Lake Michigan are identified in this paper. Plastic plates are attached at two different depths on randomly chosen dock posts in Michigan City, Indiana. Weekly photographs of these plates are analyzed to determine the proportion coverage of Fredericella Indica on these plates. Also, a number of environmental variables including lake water temperature, pH level, secchi reading, nitrate level, total phosphate level, water hardness, amount of ammonia, oxygen level, amount of total dissolved solids in the water and water conductivity, are all measured on a weekly basis. A statistical analysis reveals that the date of measurement, post location, length of post, depth of plates, as well as lake temperature, nitrate level and the phosphate level are the most important factors that affect the settlement and growth of Fredericella Indica on the plastic plates. Interactions between various explanatory factors in the study are also found to be significant. A discussion is given which centers on the significance of, in particular, the depth of the plates and the temperature of the water on the settlement and growth of Fredericella Indica.
Regional income disparities and convergence clubs in Indonesia: new district-level evidence

Abstract This article aims to re-examine the regional convergence hypothesis on income in Indonesia over the 2000–2017 period. By applying a non-linear dynamic factor model, this article tests the club convergence hypothesis using a novel dataset of income at the district level. The results show significant five convergence clubs in Indonesian districts’ income dynamics, implying the persistence of income disparity problems across districts even after implementing the decentralization policy. The subsequent analysis reveals two appealing features regarding the convergence clubs. First, districts belonging to the same province tend to be in the same club, and second, districts with specific characteristics (i.e. big cities or natural resources-rich regions) dominate the highest income club. Overall, our findings suggest some insightful policy implications, including the importance of differentiated development policies across convergence clubs and inter-provincial development strategies.
Shoreline Changes on an Urban Atoll in the Central Pacific Ocean: Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands

Abstract FORD, M. , 2012. Shoreline changes on an urban atoll in the central Pacific Ocean: Majuro atoll, Marshall Islands. Majuro is the capital and most populated atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and is located approximately 3700 km W–SW of Oahu, Hawaii. Like other atolls, Majuro is considered highly vulnerable to sea level rise. One of the widely perceived impacts of sea level rise on atoll islands is widespread chronic erosion. Using a combination of aerial photos and satellite imagery, this study presents an analysis of shoreline change over a 34- to 37-year study period, characterized by rapidly increasing population, coastal development, and rising sea level (3.0 mm y−1). Results show most (93%) urban and rural villages have increased in size over the study period. Shoreline change analysis indicates the urban area has expanded both toward the lagoon and onto the ocean-facing reef flat. Shoreline change within the urban area of Majuro has been largely driven by widespread reclamation for a mix of residential, commercial, and industrial activities. Rural areas of the atoll typically have lower rates of shoreline change relative to those of urban areas. Analysis indicates that the rural lagoon shore is predominantly eroding, whereas the ocean-facing shore is largely accreting. Any shoreline response to sea level rise along the Majuro coast is likely masked by widespread anthropogenic impacts to the coastal system.
Optical 3D reconstruction of retinal blood vessels from a sequence of views

This article presents improvements on a methodology for the estimation of the 3D structure of retinal blood vessels from a sequence of fundus images taken from the same subject. The following problems are addressed: the use of a self-calibration method in order to find the intrinsic and extrinsic camera parameters based on correspondences between images, the extraction of blood vessels skeletons from fundus images, the matching of corresponding points of two labelled skeleton trees, the triangulation of matched points in and generation of surface model for visualisation. An image mapping was defined in order to correct optic distortions of the fundus camera, and a new set of fundus images was used.
Growth of zinc oxide nanowires on various semiconductor wafers by using hydrothermal synthesis

GROWTH OF ZINC OXIDE NANOWIRES ON SEMICONDUCTOR WAFERS BY HYDROTHERMAL SYNTHESIS Mounika Kodali, M.S Department of Electrical Engineering Northern Illinois University, 2018 Michael Haji Sheikh, Director Our aim is to grow zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires on various semiconductor substrates by hydrothermal synthesis. To obtain porous silicon, electrochemical etching on the silicon substrate was performed. Electrochemical etching is the process of etching where a cathode, anode and an electrolyte are used. Here, we etch the samples using 1:3 HF: Acetonitrile and 1:3 HF: Ethanol. No nanowire growth is observed on the samples etched with HF: Acetonitrile. Very few nanowires are formed on the samples etched with HF: Ethanol. Very dense growth of nanowires is observed on non-porous silicon substrates. An equimolar mixture of Hexamethylenetetramine and Zinc Nitrate Hexahydrate is prepared and constantly stirred for about 5-10 min to obtain a pH ranging from 6.5-6.85. The samples are then dipped in the equimolar mixture of Hexamethylenetetramine and Zinc Nitrate Hexahydrate maintained at a constant temperature. At a longer growth rate, i.e. at after 16 hours we could grow nanowires on the porous silicon samples. The samples were then characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and a uniform growth of Nanowires was obtained. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DEKALB, ILLINOIS
Antifouling Strategies-Interference with Bacterial Adhesion

Biofilm refers to a viable bacterial community wrapped in self-produced extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) matrix. As bacteria shielded by EPS are viable and can resist broad hostile environments and antimicrobial agents, biofilm poses a massive challenge to industries and human health. Currently, biofilm has accounted for widespread and severe safety issues, infections, and economic loss. Various antifouling strategies have been designed and developed to prevent biofilm formation. As bacterial biofilm is perceived as a dynamic multistage process in which bacterial attachment on solid surfaces is the prerequisite for biofilm formation, the interference with the attachment is the most promising environmentally benign option to antifouling. The chapter summarizes and discusses the antifouling strategies that interfere with the adhesion between bacteria and substrate surfaces. These strategies primarily focus on modifying the substrate surface’s topographical and physicochemical properties.
Temporal data visualizations for Air Traffic Controllers ( ATC ) Introduction

In current Air Traffic Control (ATC) environments, Air Traffic Controllers (ATCo) use several visualization systems: radar views, timelines, electronic strips, meteorological views, supervisions etc. The information displayed is intrinsically temporal: aircraft positions that evolve over time, conflicts between aircraft at a given time, airspace congestions. Each of these visualizations is rich and dynamic: it displays numerous visual entities that move and evolve over time. Furthermore, this considerable volume of information must be understandable with a minimum cognitive workload. As traffic increases and safety criteria become more demanding ATC requires this new kind of visualizations.
A rigorous assessment of tree height measurements obtained using airborne lidar and conventional field methods

Tree height is an important variable in forest inventory programs but is typically time-consuming and costly to measure in the field using conventional techniques. Airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) provides individual tree height measurements that are highly correlated with field-derived measurements, but the imprecision of conventional field techniques does not allow for definitive assessments regarding the absolute accuracy of lidar tree height measurements and the relative influence of beam divergence setting (i.e., laser footprint size), species type, and digital terrain model (DTM) error on the accuracy of height measurements. In this study, we developed a methodology for acquiring accurate individual tree height measurements (<2 cm error) using a total station survey and used these measurements to establish the expected accuracy of lidar- and field-derived tree height measurements for two of the most ecologically and commercially significant species in western North America, Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). Tree height measurements obtained from narrow-beam (0.33 m), high-density (6 points/m2) lidar were more accurate (mean error ± SD = –0.73 ± 0.43 m) than those obtained from wide-beam (0.8 m) lidar (–1.12 ± 0.56 m). Lidar-derived height measurements were more accurate for ponderosa pine (–0.43 ± 0.13 m) than for Douglas-fir (–1.05 ± 0.41 m) at the narrow beam setting. Although tree heights acquired using conventional field techniques (–0.27 ± 0.27 m) were more accurate than those obtained using lidar (–0.73 ± 0.43 m for narrow beam setting), this difference will likely be offset by the wider coverage and cost efficiencies afforded by lidar-based forest survey.
Optical and particle signatures of magnetospheric boundary layers near magnetic noon: Satellite and ground-based observations

In this paper we present a set of satellite and ground-based observations suggesting that energetic magnetospheric electrons cannot be used as an unambiguous discriminator between open and closed field lines on the dayside. Using two data sets from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F13 and NOAA 12 satellites flying through dayside Type 1 cusp aurora (both close in time and space), we reach two apparently incompatible conclusions. Cusp/mantle precipitation, stepped cusp signatures, and antisunward convection in the DMSP F13 data set strongly suggest open magnetic field lines. On the other hand, NOAA 12 observed a mixture of magnetosheath and isotropic energetic particles. Trapped energetic electrons are traditionally regarded as being on closed flux. However, in addition to earlier proposed trapping on open field lines, we suggest that transmission lines connecting merging sites near the cusp in the Southern Hemisphere with the northern auroral ionosphere can be several tens of RE long. Alfven wave transit times of several minutes may make it impossible to determine from satellite measurements in the ionosphere whether magnetic field lines threading low-latitude boundary layer (LLBL) plasmas are open or closed. New research tools will be needed to unify understanding of complementary particle measurements from the DMSP and NOAA satellites.
Supplementary Materials for The Devil is in the Points: Weakly Semi-Supervised Instance Segmentation via Point-Guided Mask Representation

Labeling Budget Calculation. Seminar works [2, 3] offered the annotation time of various labeling sources (e.g., full mask, bounding box, point, image-level labels) on Pascal VOC dataset [7]. Since the COCO dataset [14] we used has more categories and instances per image than the VOC dataset, we estimate the labeling budget for the COCO dataset following their budget calculation method. The COCO 2017 trainset has a total of 80 categories and contains 118,287 images and 860,001 instances. Also, it has an average of 7.2 instances and 2.9 categories per image. By considering this statistic of COCO dataset, we calculate the labeling budget as follows:
Non-Ionotropic NMDA Receptor Signaling Drives Activity-Induced Dendritic Spine Shrinkage

© 2015 the authors. The elimination of dendritic spine synapses is a critical step in the refinement of neuronal circuits during development of the cerebral cortex. Several studies have shown that activity-induced shrinkage and retraction of dendritic spines depend on activation of the NMDAtype glutamate receptor (NMDAR), which leads to influx of extracellular calcium ions and activation of calcium-dependent phosphatases that modify regulators of the spine cytoskeleton, suggesting that influx of extracellular calcium ions drives spine shrinkage. Intriguingly, a recent report revealed a novel non-ionotropic function of the NMDAR in the regulation of synaptic strength, which relies on glutamate binding but is independent of ion flux through the receptor (Nabavi et al., 2013). Here, we tested whether non-ionotropic NMDAR signaling could also play
A semianalytical solution for steady infiltration in unsaturated fractured rock

A semianalytical solution is developed for an equivalent continuum model of one‐dimensional steady infiltration in unsaturated fractured rock. The differential form of the mass conservation equation is integrated to yield an analytical expression relating elevation to a function of capillary pressure and relative permeability of the fracture and rock matrix. Constitutive relationships for unsaturated flow in this analysis are taken from van Genuchten [1980] and Mualem [1976], but alternative relations can also be implemented in the integral solution. Expressions are presented for the liquid saturations and pore velocities in the fracture, matrix, and effective continuum materials as a function of capillary pressure and elevation. Results of the analytical solution are applied to examples of infiltration in fractured rock consisting of both homogeneous and composite (layered) domains. The analytical results are also compared to numerical simulations to demonstrate the use of the analytical solution as a benchmarking tool to address computational issues such as grid refinement.
Tight Money in a Post-Crisis Defense of the Exchange Rate

Critics of the tight monetary policies pursued by some of the countries hurt by the 1997 Asian financial crisis have questioned the presumption that tight money can help sustain the value of a currency. The issue is actually an empirical one because theory does not unambiguously predict the effect of tight money on the exchange rate under the circumstances faced by the crisis countries. This article reviews the empirical research and shows that the evidence does not yet support strong statements about post-crisis links between monetary policy and the exchange rate. Proposed deviations from a sustainable medium-term monetary policy stance should thus be viewed with skepticism.
Appendix to “No One Left Behind: Improving the Worst Categories in Long-Tailed Learning”

The imbalance ratio of a dataset is defined as the number of training images of the most frequent class divide by the number of images of the least frequent class. CIFAR100-LT. CIFAR100 [3] is a balanced dataset for image recognition, which has 50,000 training images and 10,000 test images from 100 categories. The CIFAR100LT dataset used in our experiments are obtained by downsampling the original training set while keeping the test set unchanged. Following Zhou et al. [7], we use the exponential function Ni = N0 × μ to determine the number of training images for each category, where N0 = 500. By varying μ , we are able to construct datasets with different imbalance ratios. In our experiments, we only use the one with imbalance ratio 100. ImageNet-LT and Places-LT. ImageNet [2] and Places [8] are also two balanced dataset. Unlike CIFAR, these two datasets have larger scale and are more difficult. ImageNet-LT and Places-LT are their long-tailed version constructed by Liu et al. [4]. The number of training images for each class is determined using the Pareto distribution with a power value α = 6. Their original test sets are left unchanged.
Increasing aridity over the past 223 years in the Nepal Himalaya inferred from a tree-ring δ18O chronology

A tree-ring δ18O chronology of Abies spectabilis from the Nepal Himalaya was established to study hydroclimate in the summer monsoon season over the past 223 years (ad 1778–2000). Response function analysis with ambient climatic records revealed that tree-ring δ18O was primarily controlled by the amount of precipitation and relative humidity during the monsoon season (June–September). Since tree-ring δ18O was simultaneously correlated with temperature, drought history in the monsoon season was reconstructed by calibrating against the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Our reconstruction that accounts for 33.7% of the PDSI variance shows a decreasing trend of precipitation/moisture over the past two centuries, and reduction of monsoon activity can be found across different proxy records from the Himalaya and Tibet. Spatial correlation analysis with global sea surface temperatures suggests that the tropical oceans play a role in modulating hydroclimate in the Nepal Himalaya. Although the dynamic mechanisms of the weakening trend of monsoon intensity still remain to be analyzed, rising sea surface temperatures over the tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean could be responsible for the reduction of summer monsoon.
Estimation of local magnitude of rockbursts using strong motion accelerograms in the mines of Kolar Gold Fields

Rockbursts are minor earthquakes induced due to mining operations. The seismic signals recorded using geophones in the near field are generally saturated and are not suitable for estimating the true magnitudes. The strong-motion accelerograms recorded due to rockbursts are therefore used to obtain the Wood-Anderson synthetic seismograms for getting accurate and reliable values of the local magnitudes. Using several typical strong-motion accelerograms of rockbursts in the mines of Kolar Gold Fields, the magnitudes have been computed in the present study. Correlations of peak ground acceleration and peak ground velocity with the magnitude, studied for the rockbursts vis-à-vis the natural earthquakes in the Koyna dam area, suggest the mechanical similarity between the two different types of events. The results and findings are described in this paper.
An Antecedents of Middle-Line Manager’s Job Performance: A Case Study of MFIs in Cambodia

-In Cambodia, Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) operate in a competitive market. Employee job satisfaction plays a very important role in business sustainability. This paper aims to assess the link among talent management practices, social job resources, and job insecurity through the mediating role of person-job fit and job performance on employee job satisfaction in Cambodia's MFIs context. A structured questionnaire has been delivered to study a research sample of 396 purposively selected middle-line managers from MFIs operating in seven potential provinces in Cambodia. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the presented hypotheses. The finding of this study indicated a significant positive relationship between talent management practices on person-job fit. Also, social job resources strongly and positively influence person-job fit. Interestingly, person-job fit and job performance are critical in mediating employee job satisfaction. Hence, the study encourages organizations to take advantage of talent management practices within their institutions to develop their competitive achievement further and enhance their employee job satisfaction and performance
Edinburgh Research Explorer Text

How can computational methods illuminate the relationship between a leading intellectual, and their lifetime library membership? We report here on an international collaboration that explored the interrelation between the reading record and the publications of the British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill, focusing on his relationship with the London Library, an independent lending library of which Mill was a member for thirty-two years. Building on detailed archival research of the London Library’s lending and book donation records, a digital library of texts borrowed and publications produced was assembled, which enabled natural language processing approaches to detect textual reuse and similarity, establishing the relationship between Mill and the Library. Text mining the books Mill borrowed and donated against his published outputs demonstrates that the collections of the London Library influenced his thought, transferred into his published oeuvre and featured in his role as political commentator and public moralist. We reconceive archival library issue registers as data for triangulating against the growing body of digitized historical texts and the output of leading intellectual figures. We acknowledge, however, that this approach is dependent on the resources and permissions to transcribe extant library registers, and on access to previously digitized sources. Related copyright and privacy restrictions mean our approach is most likely to succeed for other leading 18 th and 19 th century figures.
Frontiers of Biogeography

Macroecology focuses on ecological questions at broad spatial and temporal scales, providing a statistical description of patterns in species abundance, distribution and diversity. More recently, historical components of these patterns have begun to be investigated more deeply. We tentatively refer to the practice of explicitly taking species history into account, both analytically and conceptually, as ‘evolutionary macroecology’. We discuss how the evolutionary dimension can be incorporated into macroecology through two orthogonal and complementary data types: fossils and phylogenies. Research traditions dealing with these data have developed more-or-less independently over the last 20–30 years, but merging them will help elucidate the historical components of diversity gradients and the evolutionary dynamics of species’ traits. Here we highlight conceptual and methodological advances in merging these two research traditions and review the viewpoints and toolboxes that can, in combina-tion, help address patterns and unveil processes at temporal and spatial macro-scales.
Çocuk Edebiyatıyla Bütünleştirilmiş Matematik Dersinin Problem Çözme Tutumuna, Matematiksel İlişkilendirmeye ve Matematik Özyeterliğine Etkisi 1 The Effect of Integrated Maths Lessons with Children’s Literature on Problem Solving Attitudes and Self-Efficacy

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of mathematics courses integrated with children’s literature on the problem-solving skills and strategies, the attitudes towards mathematical problem solving, the mathematical connection self-efficacy and mathematical self-efficacy levels of 8th grade students. The quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group was used. The research was conducted with