196,124 research outputs found
Anthropogenic effects on the feeding habits of wolves in an altered arid landscape of central Iran
No full textWe determined the diet of the poorly-studied Middle Eastern wolves (Canis lupus) in central Iran in 2009-2010. Food items consisted mainly of farmed chicken and domestic goat (i.e., anthropogenic resources) using both qualification and quantification methods. In contrast, we identified the remains of wild ungulates in negligible quantities. Our data simulations showed that poultry and goats are both primary food items of wolves in the study area. The relative importance of main prey items did not vary seasonally, and, although there were some minor differences in secondary food items, we did not reveal any seasonal effect in diet composition. The negligible consumption of wild prey strongly suggests that wolves are not, at present, a limiting factor for wild prey in our study area. Appropriate management of illegal dumping, in conjunction with excluding wolves and other carnivores from human refuse, would minimize the chance of human-carnivore encounters, wolf-livestock conflicts and, in turn, the persecution of carnivores. Our study contributed to our knowledge of the feeding ecology of the Middle Eastern wolves in areas with a relatively high abundance of anthropogenic foods and a moderately low abundance of wild prey
The Unfairness of Active Users and Popularity Bias in Point-of-Interest Recommendation
No full textPoint-of-Interest (POI) recommender systems provide personalized recommendations to users and help businesses attract potential customers. Despite their success, recent studies suggest that highly data-driven recommendations could be impacted by data biases, resulting in unfair outcomes for different stakeholders, mainly consumers (users) and providers (items). Most existing fairness-related research works in recommender systems treat user fairness and item fairness issues individually, disregarding that RS work in a two-sided marketplace. This paper studies the interplay between (i) the unfairness of active users, (ii) the unfairness of popular items, and (iii) the accuracy (personalization) of recommendation as three angles of our study triangle. We group users into advantaged and disadvantaged levels to measure user fairness based on their activity level. For item fairness, we divide items into short-head, mid-tail, and long-tail groups and study the exposure of these item groups into the top-k recommendation list of users. Experimental validation of eight different recommendation models commonly used for POI recommendation (e.g., contextual, CF) on two publicly available POI recommendation datasets, Gowalla and Yelp, indicate that most well-performing models suffer seriously from the unfairness of popularity bias (provider unfairness). Furthermore, our study shows that most recommendation models cannot satisfy both consumer and producer fairness, indicating a trade-off between these variables possibly due to natural biases in data. We choose the POI recommendation as our test scenario; however, the insights should be trivially extendable on other domains
Dr. Duane M. Jackson, Morehouse College, July 2011
No full textThis video is a conversation with Dr. Duane M. Jackson. Dr. Jackson talks about his paper, "Recall and the Serial Position Effect: The Role of Primacy and Recency on Accounting Students' Performance." Jackie Daniel, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer
"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States" By M. Carey.
No full text"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States: containing bried sketches of the moral and political character of those states.
By M. Carey, member of the American philosophical, and of the American Antiquarian Society, and author of The Olive Branch, Cindiciae Hibernicae, essays on banking, on political economy, and on internal improvement.
To which are now added the English editor's comments on the subject; together with Important Advice to Emigrants, and Cautions Against Impositions Practiced in the Outports
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Dr. Glendon Swarthout
No full textHosted by Roger M. Busfield, MSU Assistant Professor of Speech and Theater, Meet the Author is designed to introduce a general audience to a contemporary author and their work through in-depth interviews. This episode features a conversation between Dr. Glendon Swarthout, prolific author and English professor at MSU, and assistant professors Sam S. Baskett and Theodore B. Strandness
Are bullies more productive? Empirical study of affectiveness vs. issue fixing time
No full textHuman Affectiveness, i.e., The emotional state of a person, plays a crucial role in many domains where it can make or break a team's ability to produce successful products. Software development is a collaborative activity as well, yet there is little information on how affectiveness impacts software productivity. As a first measure of this impact, this paper analyzes the relation between sentiment, emotions and politeness of developers in more than 560K Jira comments with the time to fix a Jira issue. We found that the happier developers are (expressing emotions such as JOY and LOVE in their comments), the shorter the issue fixing time is likely to be. In contrast, negative emotions such as SADNESS, are linked with longer issue fixing time. Politeness plays a more complex role and we empirically analyze its impact on developers' productivity
Simulation of thermal plant optimization and hydraulic aspects of thermal distribution loops for large campuses
No full textFollowing an introduction, the author describes Texas A&M University and its utilities system. After that, the author presents how to construct simulation models for chilled water and heating hot water distribution systems. The simulation model was used in a $2.3 million Ross Street chilled water pipe replacement project at Texas A&M University. A second project conducted at the University of Texas at San Antonio was used as an example to demonstrate how to identify and design an optimal distribution system by using a simulation model. The author found that the minor losses of these closed loop thermal distribution systems are significantly higher than potable water distribution systems. In the second part of the report, the author presents the latest development of software called the Plant Optimization Program, which can simulate cogeneration plant operation, estimate its operation cost and provide optimized operation suggestions. The author also developed detailed simulation models for a gas turbine and heat recovery steam generator and identified significant potential savings. Finally, the author also used a steam turbine as an example to present a multi-regression method on constructing simulation models by using basic statistics and optimization algorithms. This report presents a survey of the author??s working experience at the Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL) at Texas A&M University during the period of January 2002 through March 2004. The purpose of the above work was to allow the author to become familiar with the practice of engineering. The result is that the author knows how to complete a project from start to finish and understands how both technical and nontechnical aspects of a project need to be considered in order to ensure a quality deliverable and bring a project to successful completion. This report concludes that the objectives of the internship were successfully accomplished and that the requirements for the degree of Degree of Engineering have been satisfied
Intern experience at CH���M Hill, Inc.: an internship report
No full textIncludes author's vita"Submitted to the College of Engineering of Texas A&M University in partial
fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Engineering."Includes bibliographical referencesA review of the author's internship experience with CH���M HILL, Inc.
during the period September 1975 through May 1976 is presented. During this nine month
internship the author worked as an Engineer II in the Industrial Processes discipline of this
large consulting engineering firm... The author's prime responsibility was as one of three
lead design engineers on the design of a large wastewater treatment facility for a pulp mill
in Hoquiam, Washington owned by ITT Rayonier Inc. The work generally consisted of the design
of individual treatment units and associated piping and pumping. The purpose of the project
was to provide wastewater treatment capabilities that would satisfy the effluent limitations
(standards) imposed upon the mill by the State of Washington Department of Ecology and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The author's assignment also entailed necessary
interaction with the project manager and other CH���M HILL design engineers and support staff
members, the client's representatives, and representatives of two other consulting engineering
firms working on the project. Thus, the internship position at CH���M HILL provided considerable
experience coordinating the author's work with the work of other engineers, guiding the design
and administrative efforts of a support staff, and interacting regularly with the client and
other consulting firms. This broad exposure to a variety of engineering and organizational
problems provided a valuable educational experience
Transition to turbulence in a qblique shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction at M=15
No full textDirect numerical simulations are carried out for different forcing techniques to trigger transition during the interaction between an oblique shock-wave and a laminar boundary-layer at M = 1.5. Three forcing methods are used: a) forcing of oblique unstable modes, whose shape and behaviour are determined by the local linear stability theory, b) broadband free-stream acoustic disturbances, and c) a cold plasma flow control device. While the oblique-mode breakdown is dominant for low-amplitude forcing, long streaky structures drive the transition process in a high-amplitude disturbance environment. LES are also performed on the experimental setup by the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) from Novosibirsk State University with cold plasma actuation. As well as the disturbance type, the effect of Reynolds number and forcing amplitude will be investigated
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