Comparison of methods for classification of the coefficient of variation in papaya

ABSTRACT The objective of this work was to study the distribution of values of the coefficient of variation (CV) in the experiments of papaya crop (Carica papaya L.) by proposing ranges to guide researchers in their evaluation for different characters in the field. The data used in this study were obtained by bibliographical review in Brazilian journals, dissertations and thesis. This study considered the following characters: diameter of the stalk, insertion height of the first fruit, plant height, number of fruits per plant, fruit biomass, fruit length, equatorial diameter of the fruit, pulp thickness, fruit firmness, soluble solids and internal cavity diameter, from which, value ranges were obtained for the CV values for each character, based on the methodology proposed by Garcia, Costa and by the standard classification of Pimentel-Gomes. The results obtained in this study indicated that ranges of CV values were different among various characters, presenting a large variation, which justifies the necessity of using specific evaluation range for each character. In addition, the use of classification ranges obtained from methodology of Costa is recommended.

A JOINT EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF INVESTOR BEHAVIOR IN IPO PRICING METHODS

This article jointly examines the differences of laboratory versions of the Dutch clock open auction, a sealed-bid auction to represent book building, and a two-stage sealed bid auction to proxy for the “competitive IPO”, a recent innovation used in a few European equity initial public offerings. We investigate pricing, seller allocation, and buyer welfare allocation efficiency and conclude that the book building emulation seems to be as price efficient as the Dutch auction, even after investor learning, whereas the competitive IPO is not price efficient, regardless of learning. The competitive IPO is the most seller allocative efficient method because it maximizes offer proceeds. The Dutch auction emerges as the most buyer welfare allocative efficient method. Underwriters are probably seeking pricing efficiency rather than seller or buyer welfare allocative efficiency and their discretionary pricing and allocation must be important since book building is prominent worldwide.

Preliminary Overview over Requirements Regarding Tools and Methods Derived from LUDA Cases

LUDA is a research project of Key Action 4 "City of Tomorrow & Cultural Heritage" of the programme "Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development" within the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission

Surgical correction of scoliosis: Numerical analysis and optimization of the procedure

A previously developed model is used to numerically simulate real clinical cases of the surgical correction of scoliosis. This model consists of one-dimensional finite elements with spatial deformation in which (i) the column is represented by its axis; (ii) the vertebrae are assumed to be rigid; and (iii) the deformability of the column is concentrated in springs that connect the successive rigid elements. The metallic rods used for the surgical correction are modeled by beam elements with linear elastic behavior. To obtain the forces at the connections between the metallic rods and the vertebrae geometrically, non-linear finite element analyses are performed. The tightening sequence determines the magnitude of the forces applied to the patient column, and it is desirable to keep those forces as small as possible. In this study, a Genetic Algorithm optimization is applied to this model in order to determine the sequence that minimizes the corrective forces applied during the surgery. This amounts to find the optimal permutation of integers 1, ... , n, n being the number of vertebrae involved. As such, we are faced with a combinatorial optimization problem isomorph to the Traveling Salesman Problem. The fitness evaluation requires one computing intensive Finite Element Analysis per candidate solution and, thus, a parallel implementation of the Genetic Algorithm is developed.

Seasonal variation of total particulate matter and children respiratory diseases at Lisbon primary schools using passive methods

In this work, 14 primary schools of Lisbon city, Portugal, followed a questionnaire of the ISAAC - International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood Program, in 2009/2010. The questionnaire contained questions to identify children with respiratory diseases (wheeze, asthma and rhinitis). Total particulate matter (TPM) was passively collected inside two classrooms of each of 14 primary schools. Two types of filter matrices were used to collect TPM: Millipore (IsoporeTM) polycarbonate and quartz. Three campaigns were selected for the measurement of TPM: Spring, Autumn and Winter. The highest difference between the two types of filters is that the mass of collected particles was higher in quartz filters than in polycarbonate filters, even if their correlation is excellent. The highest TPM depositions occurred between October 2009 and March 2010, when related with rhinitis proportion. Rhinitis was found to be related to TPM when the data were grouped seasonally and averaged for all the schools. For the data of 2006/2007, the seasonal variation was found to be related to outdoor particle deposition (below 10 μm).

Epidemiological methods for research with drug misusers: review of methods for studying prevalence and morbidity

Epidemiological studies of drug misusers have until recently relied on two main forms of sampling: probability and convenience. The former has been used when the aim was simply to estimate the prevalence of the condition and the latter when in depth studies of the characteristics, profiles and behaviour of drug users were required, but each method has its limitations. Probability samples become impracticable when the prevalence of the condition is very low, less than 0.5% for example, or when the condition being studied is a clandestine activity such as illicit drug use. When stratified random samples are used, it may be difficult to obtain a truly representative sample, depending on the quality of the information used to develop the stratification strategy. The main limitation of studies using convenience samples is that the results cannot be generalised to the whole population of drug users due to selection bias and a lack of information concerning the sampling frame. New methods have been developed which aim to overcome some of these difficulties, for example, social network analysis, snowball sampling, capture-recapture techniques, privileged access interviewer method and contact tracing. All these methods have been applied to the study of drug misuse. The various methods are described and examples of their use given, drawn from both the Brazilian and international drug misuse literature.

Kdd, semma crisp-dm: a parallel overviee

In the last years there has been a huge growth and consolidation of the Data Mining field. Some efforts are being done that seek the establishment of standards in the area. Included on these efforts there can be enumerated SEMMA and CRISP-DM. Both grow as industrial standards and define a set of sequential steps that pretends to guide the implementation of data mining applications. The question of the existence of substantial differences between them and the traditional KDD process arose. In this paper, is pretended to establish a parallel between these and the KDD process as well as an understanding of the similarities between them.

KDD, SEMMA and CRISP-DM: a parallel overview

In the last years there has been a huge growth and consolidation of the Data Mining field. Some efforts are being done that seek the establishment of standards in the area. Included on these efforts there can be enumerated SEMMA and CRISP-DM. Both grow as industrial standards and define a set of sequential steps that pretends to guide the implementation of data mining applications. The question of the existence of substantial differences between them and the traditional KDD process arose. In this paper, is pretended to establish a parallel between these and the KDD process as well as an understanding of the similarities between them.

Structural and Microanalytical Studies of CrO2 Thin Films on c-Sapphire by High Resolution Electron Microscopy Methods

Chromium dioxide (CrO2) has been extensively used in the magnetic recording industry. However, it is its ferromagnetic half-metallic nature that has more recently attracted much attention, primarily for the development of spintronic devices. CrO2 is the only stoichiometric binary oxide theoretically predicted to be fully spin polarized at the Fermi level. It presents a Curie temperature of ∼ 396 K, i.e. well above room temperature, and a magnetic moment of 2 mB per formula unit. However an antiferromagnetic native insulating layer of Cr2O3 is always present on the CrO2 surface which enhances the CrO2 magnetoresistance and might be used as a barrier in magnetic tunnel junctions.

PHYLOViZ: phylogenetic inference and data visualization for sequence based typing methods

Background: With the decrease of DNA sequencing costs, sequence-based typing methods are rapidly becoming the gold standard for epidemiological surveillance. These methods provide reproducible and comparable results needed for a global scale bacterial population analysis, while retaining their usefulness for local epidemiological surveys. Online databases that collect the generated allelic profiles and associated epidemiological data are available but this wealth of data remains underused and are frequently poorly annotated since no user-friendly tool exists to analyze and explore it. Results: PHYLOViZ is platform independent Java software that allows the integrated analysis of sequence-based typing methods, including SNP data generated from whole genome sequence approaches, and associated epidemiological data. goeBURST and its Minimum Spanning Tree expansion are used for visualizing the possible evolutionary relationships between isolates. The results can be displayed as an annotated graph overlaying the query results of any other epidemiological data available. Conclusions: PHYLOViZ is a user-friendly software that allows the combined analysis of multiple data sources for microbial epidemiological and population studies. It is freely available at http://www.phyloviz.net.

Methods for automatic and assisted image annotation

Personal memories composed of digital pictures are very popular at the moment. To retrieve these media items annotation is required. During the last years, several approaches have been proposed in order to overcome the image annotation problem. This paper presents our proposals to address this problem. Automatic and semi-automatic learning methods for semantic concepts are presented. The automatic method is based on semantic concepts estimated using visual content, context metadata and audio information. The semi-automatic method is based on results provided by a computer game. The paper describes our proposals and presents their evaluations.

Typical load profiles in the smart grid context – a clustering methods comparison

The present research paper presents five different clustering methods to identify typical load profiles of medium voltage (MV) electricity consumers. These methods are intended to be used in a smart grid environment to extract useful knowledge about customer’s behaviour. The obtained knowledge can be used to support a decision tool, not only for utilities but also for consumers. Load profiles can be used by the utilities to identify the aspects that cause system load peaks and enable the development of specific contracts with their customers. The framework presented throughout the paper consists in several steps, namely the pre-processing data phase, clustering algorithms application and the evaluation of the quality of the partition, which is supported by cluster validity indices. The process ends with the analysis of the discovered knowledge. To validate the proposed framework, a case study with a real database of 208 MV consumers is used.