nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
A Linear Time Algorithm for the Geodesic Center of a Simple Polygon
Venue: Discret. Comput. Geom.

Let P be a closed simple polygon with n vertices. For any two points in P, the geodesic distance between them is the length of the shortest path that connects them among all paths contained in P. The geodesic center of P is the unique point in P that minimizes the largest geodesic distance to all other points of P. In 1989, Pollack et al. ( 1989) showed an $O(n\log n)$O(nlogn) time algorithm that computes the geodesic center of P. Since then, a longstanding question has been whether this running time can be improved. In this paper we affirmatively answer this question and present a deterministic linear time algorithm to solve this problem.
A new parallelization scheme for adaptive mesh refinement
Venue: J. Comput. Sci.

We present a new method for parallelization of adaptive mesh refinement called Concurrent Structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement (CSAMR) This new method offers the lower computational cost (i.e. wall time x processor count) of subcycling in time, but with the runtime performance (i.e. smaller wall time) of evolving all levels at once using the time step of the finest level (which does more work than subcycling but has less parallelism) We demonstrate our algorithm's effectiveness using an adaptive mesh refinement code, AMSS NCKU, and show performance on Blue Waters and other high performance clusters. For the class of problem considered in this paper, our algorithm achieves a speedup of 1.7 1.9 when the processor count for a given AMR run is doubled, consistent with our theoretical predictions.
SoK: Lessons Learned from Android Security Research for Appified Software Platforms
Venue: 2016 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP)

Android security and privacy research has boomed in recent years, far outstripping investigations of other appified platforms. However, despite this attention, research efforts are fragmented and lack any coherent evaluation framework. We present a systematization of Android security and privacy research with a focus on the appification of software systems. To put Android security and privacy research into context, we compare the concept of appification with conventional operating system and software ecosystems. While appification has improved some issues (e.g. market access and usability) it has also introduced a whole range of new problems and aggravated some problems of the old ecosystems (e.g. coarse and unclear policy, poor software development practices) Some of our key findings are that contemporary research frequently stays on the beaten path instead of following unconventional and often promising new routes. Many security and privacy proposals focus entirely on the Android OS and do not take advantage of the unique features and actors of an appified ecosystem, which could be used to roll out new security mechanisms less disruptively. Our work highlights areas that have received the larger shares of attention, which attacker models were addressed, who is the target, and who has the capabilities and incentives to implement the countermeasures. We conclude with lessons learned from comparing the appified with the old world, shedding light on missed opportunities and proposing directions for future research.
Commodity Price Shocks and Financial Sector Fragility

This paper investigates the impact of commodity price shocks on financial sector fragility. Using a large sample of 71 commodity exporters among emerging and developing economies, it shows that negative shocks to commodity prices tend to weaken the financial sector, with larger shocks having more pronounced impacts. More specifically, negative commodity price shocks are associated with higher non performing loans, bank costs and banking crises, while they reduce bank profits, liquidity, and provisions to nonperforming loans. These adverse effects tend to occur in countries with poor quality of governance, weak fiscal space, as well as those that do not have a sovereign wealth fund, do not implement macro prudential policies and do not have a diversified export base. These findings are robust to a battery of robustness checks.
A Study of Solid Waste Management in Karachi City

There is a growing problem of waste management faced by developing countries. Karachi is the biggest city of Pakistan having a population of approximately 24 million. Statistics indicate that on a daily basis, about 12,000 tons of solid waste is generated in Karachi alone, of which forty percent can be found on the city streets. Improper management of solid waste is causing the spread of infectious diseases and environmental pollution. This study examines how the solid waste management process is implemented in Karachi and the challenges faced by the responsible authorities. Solid waste management combines all activities performed in order to keep the city clean on a regular basis and handle waste collection and disposal, sewerages, water treatment, recycling, and health and hygiene issues. This study is qualitative in nature and the mediums of observations and interviews were used to collect data. A total of twenty respondents were interviewed using both structured and unstructured questions. These included residents of selected areas of Karachi as well as municipal officials who are responsible for solid waste management in the city. Results revealed that the citizens are dissatisfied with the current strategies of solid waste management implemented by the municipalities. The public thinks that the municipalities are illequipped to handle the developing situation of substantial waste in the city due to which they have to confront many problems. The municipalities, on the other hand, were found to be underfunded and ineffective in the department of solid waste management and therefore, they lack the proper instruments to ensure their efficiency. Residents of Karachi were also a contributing element in the growing waste problem by means of their participation in activities such as illegal dumping and violation of laws. With the ratio of solid waste, increasing per day in the urban center, there is an immediate need to implement major steps to improve the current situation. A more consolidated strategy for solid waste management needs to be designed and implemented which streamlines the processes of waste collection and disposal. Citizens of Karachi also need to be educated on how they can play their part in reducing the quantity of solid waste through the promotion of habits
Relationship between job satisfaction and organisational performance

The purpose of this study is to explore the link between job satisfaction and organisational performance and to determine if there is an empirically provable relationship between these two variables, and the direction and the intensity of this relationship. Empirical research was conducted on a research sample of 40 large and medium sized Croatian companies, with 5806 employees surveyed. The results of this study show the existence of a clear link between employees' job satisfaction and organisational performance in both directions, but with pretty weak intensity. Detailed analysis showed that the connection between job satisfaction and organisational performance is stronger than the connection between organisational performance and job satisfaction. It could be stated that job satisfaction determines organisational performance, rather than organisational performance determining job satisfaction.
Young Children's Curiosity About Physical Differences Associated with Race: Shared Reading to Encourage Conversation

Many have called for re examination of the "colorblind" philosophy to which some early educators have, tacitly or explicitly, adhered (e.g. Boutte et al. 2011; Derman Sparks and Edwards 2010; Husband 2012) It has been argued that, while colorblind approaches may appear to be politically neutral, they actually exacerbate racial oppression. In this article, we advocate for a direct and active approach to raising conversations about race with younger preschool children. Based on the developmental nature of young children's concepts of self and of other, our focus is on initiating discussions about concrete and observable physical aspects of human diversity associated with race. Young children notice and are curious about differences in skin color, hair texture, and facial features. Because these differences are salient, are accessible, and are of interest to young children they can serve as an effective starting point. We suggest shared reading of high quality illustrated children's books, incorporating the principles of dialogic reading, as a potent springboard for discussions about race with very young children. Our purpose is to equip children, very early in their schooling, with a color filled appreciation for and comfort with physical diversity of appearance. On that foundation, children may better proceed on the course of developing anti racist attitudes.
Teachers Moving Forward on a Cultural Self Awareness Spectrum: Diverse Children, Museums, and Young Adult Literature

This case study research investigated preservice and in service teachers' (N 23) experiences and understandings as they participated in a multicultural children and young adults' literature course that incorporates visits to a Holocaust museum. A graduate level course was redesigned within a framework of social justice pedagogy by focusing on critical analysis of multicultural literature, teacher inquiry, as well as a civic engagement project. Findings from this study illuminated how this course design encouraged teachers to move beyond a focus on tolerance and acceptance, and toward a social justice orientation through critical exploration of issues such as racism, oppression, and the ways bias and privilege operate within their own lives, schools, and society.
A Review of the Application of Optical and Radar Remote Sensing Data Fusion to Land Use Mapping and Monitoring
Venue: Remote. Sens.

The wealth of complementary data available from remote sensing missions can hugely aid efforts towards accurately determining land use and quantifying subtle changes in land use management or intensity. This study reviewed 112 studies on fusing optical and radar data, which offer unique spectral and structural information, for land cover and use assessments. Contrary to our expectations, only 50 studies specifically addressed land use, and five assessed land use changes, while the majority addressed land cover. The advantages of fusion for land use analysis were assessed in 32 studies, and a large majority (28 studies) concluded that fusion improved results compared to using single data sources. Study sites were small, frequently 300 3000 km 2 or individual plots, with a lack of comparison of results and accuracies across sites. Although a variety of fusion techniques were used, pre classification fusion followed by pixel level inputs in traditional classification algorithms (e.g. Gaussian maximum likelihood classification) was common, but often without a concrete rationale on the applicability of the method to the land use theme being studied. Progress in this field of research requires the development of robust techniques of fusion to map the intricacies of land uses and changes therein and systematic procedures to assess the benefits of fusion over larger spatial scales.
Influence of Spectral Bandwidth and Position on Chlorophyll Content Retrieval at Leaf and Canopy Levels
Venue: Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing

Foliar chlorophyll content in vegetation ecosystems plays an important role in plant photosynthesis and it also can indicate vegetation stress and disturbance. Vegetation indices (VIs) which derived from the hyperspectral remote sensing data offer a nondestructive method for quick estimation of leaf and canopy chlorophyll content. However, the accuracy of chlorophyll retrieved by VIs depends on the spectral band information. It is a big problem how to select the suitable band and how to effectively evaluate the band position and bandwidth in chlorophyll estimation using remote sensing data. This study was focused on the impact of spectral band position and bandwidth on the chlorophyll retrieval at leaf and canopy levels. One hundred leaf spectral reflectance samples which were measured with an ASD spectroradiometer and 954 canopy reflectance samples which were simulated with the PROSAIL model were used in the study. First, the variable interval spectral average method was used to generate the plant spectra with different band position and bandwidth at leaf and canopy level. And then, linear regression model was used to build the relationship between chlorophyll (Chl) and two band VIs (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI; Chlorophyll Index CI; Simple Ratio Index SR) With this model, the accuracy of Chl was evaluated when varying spectral band position and bandwidth. At last, by comparing accuracies, the optimized spectral band position and bandwidth for Chl retrieval were identified. The results showed that the bandwidth and position of the spectral data could significantly affect the accuracy on Chl retrieval at both leaf and canopy levels. The optimal bandwidth on retrieval Chl would be less than 30 nm and greater than 10 nm at both leaf and canopy levels when using linear regression model. At leaf level, the optimal bands were in 748 786 nm and in 713 732 nm respectively. At canopy level, the optimal bands were in 770 750 and 765 738 nm respectively when using two band VIs (NDVI, SR, and CI) to estimate Chl.
Coronary Centerline Extraction via Optimal Flow Paths and CNN Path Pruning
Venue: MICCAI

We present a novel method for the automated extraction of blood vessel centerlines. There are two major contributions. First, in order to avoid the shortcuts to which minimal path methods are prone, we find optimal paths in a computed flow field. We solve for a steady state porous media flow inside a region of interest and trace centerlines as maximum flow paths. We explain how to estimate anisotropic orientation tensors which are used as permeability tensors in our flow field computation. Second, we introduce a convolutional neural network (CNN) classifier for removing extraneous paths in the detected centerlines. We apply our method to the extraction of coronary artery centerlines found in Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA) The robustness and stability of our method are enhanced by using a model based detection of coronary specific territories and main branches to constrain the search space [15] Validation against 20 comprehensively annotated datasets had a sensitivity and specificity at or above 90 Validation against 106 clinically annotated coronary arteries showed a sensitivity above 97
Review on the management of red palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus olivier in date palm Phoenix dactylifera L

Red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier) is a key pest of date palm Phoenix dactylifera L and continues to spread among and within date palm plantation countries. Globally, R. ferrugineus has the widest geographical range among the genus of Rhynchophorus weevils and is known to cause complete destruction of palms often resulting in widespread damage to entire grooves of cultivated date palms. Since R. ferrugineus was first recognized as a threat to date palm production in the mid 1980s for GCC countries, scientists and growers have deployed several methods to control this destructive pest, with the use of chemical insecticides being the main strategy until the synthesis of the male aggregation pheromone in 1993. This article reviews the current literature on different control methods to evaluate the effectiveness of various control options and proposes an overall strategy to manage R. ferrugineus in date palm. The R. ferrugineus control methods include prospects of early detection techniques, role of phyto sanitation and agro techniques (palm and field sanitation, palm injury prevention, elimination of hidden breeding sites including abandoned date plantations) semiochemicals and insecticide applications in preventive and curative treatments. Further, case studies of area wide R. ferrugineus management in date palm besides the potential of biological control methods particularly with regard to the use of entomopathogenic fungi and nematodes and also the role of regulatory methods to regulate transport and transfer of infested palm trees (domestic and international quarantine) is presented. A review of the available control methodologies suggests that R. ferrugineus can be managed by deploying an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy comprising of several tactics including regulatory methods, behaviour manipulation involving insect aggregation pheromones for monitoring and mass trapping adult weevils, chemical and biological control, crop and field sanitation ,eliminating hidden breeding sites, manipulation of cultural practices involving in groove humidity and palm density, frond and offshoot removal, besides regular dissemination of R. ferrugineus IPM technologies among farmers and pest managers.
Initiating Sustained Silent Reading

a simple objective of any school's reading program is to develop each student's ability to read silently without interruption for a relatively long period of time. Dr. Lyman C. Hunt, Jr. of the University of Vermont designated such a goal as early as 1960 and soon thereafter introduced Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading with the acronym USSR. The acronym was to command attention; we found it commanded too much attention so we dropped the U and SSR evolved. Initially, the sustaining power was thought to be a goal reached through months or years of practice. We discovered that the goal can be reached almost instantly if SSR is viewed as a complement of a teaching program. Since SSR takes school time, it supplants some part of each student's existing school program. It may supplant part of a student's reading program, but it is more effective when it becomes a part of each teacher's program. SSR is the drill of silent reading; it is the drill or practice necessary in learning to read, not a total reading program. SSR requires no special machines or materials other than a timer; it requires no special teacher training or expertise.
Cultural Diversity Climate and Psychological Adjustment at School Equality and Inclusion Versus Cultural Pluralism.
Venue: Child development

The present study is concerned with cultural diversity climate at school and how it relates to acculturation orientations and psychological school adjustment of early adolescent immigrants. Specifically, the distinct role of two types of diversity policy is investigated, namely (a) fostering equality and inclusion and (b) acknowledging cultural pluralism. Longitudinal multilevel analyses based on 386 early adolescent immigrant students (Mage 10.49 years) in 44 ethnically heterogeneous classrooms in Germany revealed that the manifestations of both types of policies promote psychological school adjustment (i.e. better well being and fewer psychological and behavioral problems) at the individual level. However, they differ in their effects on acculturation orientations. At the classroom level, equality and inclusion promote assimilation. Implications for research and educational practice are discussed.
Challenging racism through schools: teacher attitudes to cultural diversity and multicultural education in Sydney, Australia

How school teachers act to challenge racism in schools is a vital concern in an immigrant society like Australia. A 10% response from a self administered online survey of government (public) primary and secondary school teachers across Sydney, Australia's largest EthniCity, examines attitudes of classroom teachers towards cultural diversity, goals of multicultural education, and strategies to implement anti racist strategies. Principal components analysis (PCA) of attitudes tease out the varied influence of opinion on multicultural education, diversity, and anti racism. Classroom teachers are overwhelmingly supportive of cultural diversity, multicultural education and strategies to combat racism and discrimination, and these views hardly vary across the different geographic zones of the city, unlike attitudes within the general community. However, teacher knowledge about the implementation of multicultural policy does vary, and is positively associated with the extent of population diversity and socio economic status (SES) of the communities surrounding the schools.
MULTI CULTURAL TEAMS AS SOURCES FOR CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: THE ROLE OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY ON TEAM PERFORMANCE

Multi cultural teams are seen as a wellspring of creativity and innovativeness. Yet, we still miss an in depth study of their potential and challenges during the innovation process in firms. This is a serious omission as many international firms are in need of improving their global innovation position by the inclusion of insights from team members of different nationalities with knowledge about markets and culture. To derive first insights, we conducted a longitudinal qualitative study in a large global company with 70 personal interviews in five innovation teams over a period of two years. These data, based on semi structured interviews, provide us with rich information about effects of cultural diversity in teams in the innovation process. Data were analysed through a thematic network analysis and two coders inductively forming categories. Results indicate that cross cultural teams have a high potential of creativity, but are confronted with difficulties arising from different working and communication styles which have to be proactively managed from the beginning. While progressing, teams learn to cope with this diversity related to some more surface level cultural dimensions and members even align. Yet, diversity of power distance induces conflicts that deeply impact the innovation process. Based on these findings, we develop a set of propositions, which lead into a conceptual model on the effects of multi cultural team work on creativity and innovation. Finally, we discuss further implications for research and practice.
The near field method: a modified equivalent linear method for dynamic soil structure interaction analysis. Part II: verification and example application
Venue: Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering

Usually for modeling of soil in a direct soil structure interaction (SSI) problem, the equivalent linear soil properties are used. However, this approach is not valid in the vicinity of a foundation, where the soil experiences large strains and a high level of nonlinearity because of structural vibrations. The near field method was developed and described in a companion paper to overcome this limitation. This method considers the effects of large strains and suggests a shear modulus and a damping ratio further modified in the near field of a foundation. Validity and performance of this approach are evaluated, application examples are explained and the results of a parametric study about the role of soil and structure parameters in the extent of SSI effects on the nonlinear seismic response of structures are presented in this paper. One real existing and five, ten, fifteen and twenty story moment resisting frame steel buildings with two different site conditions corresponding to firm and soft soils are considered and the responses obtained from the near field method are compared with the recorded and rigorous responses. Moreover, various SSI modeling techniques are employed to investigate the accuracy and performance of each approach. The results show that the near field method is a simple yet accurate enough approach for analysis of direct SSI problems.