The univalent polynomial of Suffridge as a summability kernel

A positive summability trigonometric kernel {K(n)(theta)}(infinity)(n=1) is generated through a sequence of univalent polynomials constructed by Suffridge. We prove that the convolution {K(n) * f} approximates every continuous 2 pi-periodic function f with the rate omega(f, 1/n), where omega(f, delta) denotes the modulus of continuity, and this provides a new proof of the classical Jackson`s theorem. Despite that it turns out that K(n)(theta) coincide with positive cosine polynomials generated by Fejer, our proof differs from others known in the literature.

Lower and Upper Neoproterozoic magmatic records in Itaiacoca Belt (Parana-Brazil): Zircon ages and lithostratigraphy studies

The Itaiacoca Belt is a sequence of metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks that crop out east of Parana and southeast of Sao Paulo states, in southern Brazil. This geologic-geochronologic study supports division of the Itaiacoca Belt into two major lithologic sequences. The older is a carbonate platform sequence (dolomitic meta-limestones/metamarls/calc-phyllites/ carbonate phyllites) with minimum deposition ages related to the end of the Mesoproterozoic/beginning of the Neoproterozoic (1030-908 Ma:U-Pb, zircon of metabasic rocks). The younger sequence contains mainly clastics deposits (meta-arkoses/metavolcanics/metaconglomerates/metapelites) with deposition ages related to the Neoproterozoic (645-628 Ma:U-Pb,zircon of metavolcanic rocks). These ages are quite close to K-Ar ages (fine fraction) of the 628-610 Ma interval, associated with metamorphism and cooling of the Itaiacoca Belt. The contact between the dolomitic meta-limestones and meta-arkoses is marked by intense stretching and high-angle foliation, suggesting that the discontinuity between these associations resulted from shearing. It is proposed here that the term Itaiacoca Sequence, should represent the dolomitic meta-limestones, and the term Abapa Sequence represents the meta-arkoses/metavolcanics/phyllites. in a major tectonic context, these periods are related to the break-up of Rodinia Supercontinent (1030-908 Ma) and the amalgamation of the Gondwana Supercontinent (645-628 Ma). (C) 2008 International Association for Gondwana Research. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Timing and structure of the 8.2 kyr BP event inferred from delta(18)O records of stalagmites from China, Oman, and Brazil

Oxygen isotope records of stalagmites from China and Oman reveal a weak summer monsoon event, with a double-plunging structure, that started 8.21 +/- 0.02 kyr B. P. An identical but antiphased pattern is also evident in two stalagmite records from eastern Brazil, indicating that the South American Summer Monsoon was intensified during the 8.2 kyr B. P. event. These records demonstrate that the event was of global extent and synchronous within dating errors of <50 years. In comparison with recent model simulations, it is plausible that the 8.2 kyr B. P. event can be tied in changes of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation triggered by a glacial lake draining event. This, in turn, affected North Atlantic climate and latitudinal position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, resulting in the observed low-latitude monsoonal precipitation patterns.

Parameter optimization of kernel-based one-class classifier on imbalance learning

Compared with conventional two-class learning schemes, one-class classification simply uses a single class in the classifier training phase. Applying one-class classification to learn from unbalanced data set is regarded as the recognition based learning and has shown to have the potential of achieving better performance. Similar to twoclass learning, parameter selection is a significant issue, especially when the classifier is sensitive to the parameters. For one-class learning scheme with the kernel function, such as one-class Support Vector Machine and Support Vector Data Description, besides the parameters involved in the kernel, there is another one-class specific parameter: the rejection rate v. In this paper, we proposed a general framework to involve the majority class in solving the parameter selection problem. In this framework, we first use the minority target class for training in the one-class classification stage; then we use both minority and majority class for estimating the generalization performance of the constructed classifier. This generalization performance is set as the optimization criteria. We employed the Grid search and Experiment Design search to attain various parameter settings. Experiments on UCI and Reuters text data show that the parameter optimized one-class classifiers outperform all the standard one-class learning schemes we examined.

A meta-learning approach to automatic kernel selection for support vector machines

Appropriate choice of a kernel is the most important ingredient of the kernel-based learning methods such as support vector machine (SVM). Automatic kernel selection is a key issue given the number of kernels available, and the current trial-and-error nature of selecting the best kernel for a given problem. This paper introduces a new method for automatic kernel selection, with empirical results based on classification. The empirical study has been conducted among five kernels with 112 different classification problems, using the popular kernel based statistical learning algorithm SVM. We evaluate the kernels’ performance in terms of accuracy measures. We then focus on answering the question: which kernel is best suited to which type of classification problem? Our meta-learning methodology involves measuring the problem characteristics using classical, distance and distribution-based statistical information. We then combine these measures with the empirical results to present a rule-based method to select the most appropriate kernel for a classification problem. The rules are generated by the decision tree algorithm C5.0 and are evaluated with 10 fold cross validation. All generated rules offer high accuracy ratings.

Market makers v's the general public : a first look at S & P500 futures trade data

This paper considers 15 minute records of trading volume and traded prices coinciding with the reporting intervals required by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Records are extracted from trade records for market trade and also two way trade between market makers (CT1) and the general public (CT4) from January 1994 to June 2004. Futures price records are matched with S&P500 cash index price records. Simultaneous volatility models are specified and estimated to test trading volume to futures volatility lead/lag effects and also futures volatility to cash index volatility lead/lag effects. As we disaggregate from the market records to CT1 and CT4 records and further into year to year samples volume to futures volatility leading effects and also futures volatility to cash volatility leading effects dominate. The results raise important issues for risk management and dynamic hedging models employing intra-day trader data. A number of important issues for further analysis are also raised in this paper.

Method of numerical correction of errors occasioned by delay of records during the monitoring of environmental variables of interest for animal production

As condições de ambiente térmico e aéreo, no interior de instalações para animais, alteram-se durante o dia, devido à influência do ambiente externo. Para que análises estatísticas e geoestatísticas sejam representativas, uma grande quantidade de pontos distribuídos espacialmente na área da instalação deve ser monitorada. Este trabalho propõe que a variação no tempo das variáveis ambientais de interesse para a produção animal, monitoradas no interior de instalações para animais, pode ser modelada com precisão a partir de registros discretos no tempo. O objetivo deste trabalho foi desenvolver um método numérico para corrigir as variações temporais dessas variáveis ambientais, transformando os dados para que tais observações independam do tempo gasto durante a aferição. O método proposto aproximou os valores registrados com retardos de tempo aos esperados no exato momento de interesse, caso os dados fossem medidos simultaneamente neste momento em todos os pontos distribuídos espacialmente. O modelo de correção numérica para variáveis ambientais foi validado para o parâmetro ambiental temperatura do ar, sendo que os valores corrigidos pelo método não diferiram pelo teste Tukey, a 5% de probabilidade dos valores reais registrados por meio de dataloggers.

Trichodina colisae (Ciliophora: Trichodinidae): new parasite records for two freshwater fish species farmed in Brazil

Tricodinídeos são protozoários ciliados móveis com ampla distribuição mundial; são considerados um dos agentes parasitários que mais acometem peixes cultivados. No Brasil, a maioria dos tricodinídeos que parasitam importantes espécies de peixes cultivados são desconhecidos, o que requer mais estudos taxonômicos com esse grupo de parasitos. Este estudo caracteriza morfologicamente Trichodina colisae Asmat & Sultana, 2005 de pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) e do híbrido patinga (P. mesopotamicus × P. brachypomus) cultivados, respectivamente, no Centro-Oeste e Sudeste do Brasil. Foram feitas montagens a fresco do raspado de muco da pele, nadadeiras e brânquias, fixados com metanol e, posteriormente, impregnados com nitrato de prata e coradas com Giemsa para avaliação em microscopia óptica. O presente estudo relata não só a segunda ocorrência de T. colisae no mundo, mas também a primeira ocorrência na América do Sul.

Estimates for the Poisson kernel and Hardy spaces on compact manifolds

We study Hardy spaces on the boundary of a smooth open subset or R-n and prove that they can be defined either through the intrinsic maximal function or through Poisson integrals, yielding identical spaces. This extends to any smooth open subset of R-n results already known for the unit ball. As an application, a characterization of the weak boundary values of functions that belong to holomorphic Hardy spaces is given, which implies an F. and M. Riesz type theorem. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Alien shrimps in evidence: new records of the genus Athanas Leach, 1814 on the coast of So Paulo, southern Brazil (Caridea: Alpheidae)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Records of Streblidae and Nycteribiidae (Diptera) on vespertilionid bats (Chiroptera : Vespertilionidae) from São Paulo State, Brazil

New records of five species of batflies (Diptera: Streblidae and Nycteribiidae) on vespertilionid bats are provided from S (a) over tildeo Paulo State, Brazil.

New host records of Brazilian pentastomid species

Pentastomida é um táxon de organismos parasitas obrigatórios de sistema respiratório de vertebrados, principalmente répteis. Embora esse táxon seja muito importante para a compreensão da filogenia dos Metazoa, tem recebido pouca atenção. No Brasil, existem poucas coleções que abrigam espécies de pentastomídeos, quais sejam: a Coleção Helmintológica do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (CHIOC), a Coleção de Invertebrados do Laboratório de Zoologia da Universidade Regional do Cariri (LAZ-URCA) e a Coleção Helmintológica do Laboratório de Parasitologia de Animais Silvestres (LAPAS). O presente trabalho descreve as espécies de pentastomídeos depositados na Coleção Helmintológia do LAPAS. O trato respiratório e as cavidades do corpo dos répteis foram removidos e analisados sob Microscópio Esteroscópico; quando encontrados os pentastomídeos, foram montados slides em meio Hoyer e identificados. Foram identificadas quatro espécies e outras três ficaram identificadas no nível de gênero, tendo sido registrados quatro novos hospedeiros para as espécies de pentastomídeos.

New records of endoparasites infecting Hypsiboas albopunctatus (Anura : Hylidae) in a savanna area in Brasilia, Brazil

Seventy specimens of Hypsiboas albopunctatus (Anura: Hylidae) were collected and surveyed for endoparasites in Brasilia, Brazil at the end of the rainy season (February and March) in 2005. Sixteen males (22.86%) were infected by Rhabdias sp., Aplectana sp., Cosmocerca sp., and Falcaustra mascula. Rhabdias sp., a lung parasite, presented the highest prevalence (8.57%), mean intensity of infestation (1.333), and mean abundance (0.114). Moreover, this is the first report of a rhabdiasid nematode in the Hylidae in Brazil. The intestinal parasites, Cosmocerca sp. and Aplectana sp., had a similar prevalence (5.71%), but the former presented a higher mean intensity of infestation and mean abundance. The behavior and food habits of amphibians are responsible for the differences in their helminthofauna, and this study presents four new records of nematodes in H. albopunctatus.