What Development Regulatory Variables Say—or Don’t Say—About A Municipality

Little is known about how regulatory development variables reflect and define a community. This paper explores the correlation of development regulatory variables with broader community measures in 68 municipalities in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Coefficients of determination, correlation coefficients, principal component analysis, and factor analysis were used to compare development regulatory data with broader municipal measures. The hypothesis tested is overarching: that a municipality’s development regulations and processes correlate to general measures of community composition. The strongest and only significant correlations found were in the municipal use of tax increment financing and commercial/ industrial property values, non-residential construction activity, population, and multi-family building permit activity.

Atom-Density Representations for Machine Learning

The applications of machine learning techniques to chemistry and materials science become more numerous by the day. The main challenge is to devise representations of atomic systems that are at the same time complete and concise, so as to reduce the number of reference calculations that are needed to predict the properties of different types of materials reliably. This has led to a proliferation of alternative ways to convert an atomic structure into an input for a machine-learning model. We introduce an abstract definition of chemical environments that is based on a smoothed atomic density, using a bra-ket notation to emphasize basis set independence and to highlight the connections with some popular choices of representations for describing atomic systems. The correlations between the spatial distribution of atoms and their chemical identities are computed as inner products between these feature kets, which can be given an explicit representation in terms of the expansion of the atom density on orthogonal basis functions, that is equivalent to the smooth overlap of atomic positions (SOAP) power spectrum, but also in real space, corresponding to $n$-body correlations of the atom density. This formalism lays the foundations for a more systematic tuning of the behavior of the representations, by introducing operators that represent the correlations between structure, composition, and the target properties. It provides a unifying picture of recent developments in the field and indicates a way forward towards more effective and computationally affordable machine-learning schemes for molecules and materials

Feature Optimization for Atomistic Machine Learning Yields A Data-Driven Construction of the Periodic Table of the Elements

Machine-learning of atomic-scale properties amounts to extracting correlations between structure, composition and the quantity that one wants to predict. Representing the input structure in a way that best reflects such correlations makes it possible to improve the accuracy of the model for a given amount of reference data. When using a description of the structures that is transparent and well-principled, optimizing the representation might reveal insights into the chemistry of the data set. Here we show how one can generalize the SOAP kernel to introduce a distance-dependent weight that accounts for the multi-scale nature of the interactions, and a description of correlations between chemical species. We show that this improves substantially the performance of ML models of molecular and materials stability, while making it easier to work with complex, multi-component systems and to extend SOAP to coarse-grained intermolecular potentials. The element correlations that give the best performing model show striking similarities with the conventional periodic table of the elements, providing an inspiring example of how machine learning can rediscover, and generalize, intuitive concepts that constitute the foundations of chemistry.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

VLIT NODE Sensor Technology and Prefarm

Precision farming systems are based on a detailed monitoring of information and data that are necessary for successful decision-making in crop production. The system is designed for data collection from several resources. In past years an extensive research and development work has been done in the field of wireless sensor networks (WSN) in the world. When a wireless sensor network (WSN) is used for agricultural purposes, it has to provide first of all a long-reach signal. The present paper describes new long distance RFID based technology implementation - VLIT NODE.Wireless Sensor Network, Precision Agriculture, RFID., Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, GA, IN,

TOURISM DEVELOPMENT PLANNING IN SELECTED EU COUNTRIES

Tourism development planning is now part of the regional policies of all Member States of the European Union. Strategic plans at national or regional level are specific instruments of regional management, which contain results of the planning process and ensure the development of tourism in the selected region. The paper analyzes the representatives of these plans from Great Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. It evaluates their contents and form of processing according to suggested united methodology respecting main principles of current quality management. The paper tests the process of evaluation on a selected sample, compares different approaches to planning and identifies the best transferable practices as the first step of creating the complex system for evaluation and quality improvement of regional planning in tourism.regional management, tourism, strategic documents, evaluation.

Loadcell supports for a dynamic force plate

An apparatus was developed to accurately measure components of force along three mutually perpendicular axes, torque, and the center of pressure imposed by the foot of a subject walking over its surface. The data obtained were used to supplement high-speed motion picture and electromyographic (EMG) data for in-depth studies of normal or abnormal human gait. Significant features of the design (in particular, the mechanisms used to support the loadcell transducers) are described. Results of the development program and typical data obtained with the device are presented and discussed

Interactive Application Using UnrealScript

Tato práce se zaměřuje na tvorbu projektů v Unreal Development Kitu, především pak na jejich programování v doprovodném jazyce UnrealScript. Jsou zde stručně probrány nástroje, které jsou v UDK integrovány pro tvorbu scén a obsluhu jejich vnitřní logiky, a dále pak významnější z tříd UnrealScriptu pro práci s herní kamerou, HUDem, obsluhou uživatelských vstupů a jiné. Závěrem je připojeno i srovnání UnrealScriptu s některými programovacími jazyky, využitelnými pro tvorbu uživatelských rozhraní a vyhodnocení uživatelských testů, provedených nad výsledným projektem v UDK.This work is focused on the creating of projects in Unreal Developement Kit, mainly on their programming in language UnrealScript. There are shortly discused tools, integrated into UDK for creating scenes and operating their inner logic, same as some more significant classes of UnrealScript for work with game camera, HUD, elaborating user inputs and others. In the end, there is joined comparasion between UnrealScript and some other languages, usable for creation of user interfaces and evaluation of user tests, executed on final project in UDK.

Selection of suitable bioindicators for the determination of xenobiotics residuals

Bioindikátory jsou organismy, které můžeme použít k hodnocení kontaminace terestrického i vodního ekosystému xenobiotiky. Tato práce se zabývá především bioindikátory rostlinného a živočišného původu, které jsou schopny identifikovat a kvantifikovat kontaminaci persistentními organickými polutanty a jejich rezidui. Tato xenobiotika pochází z lidské činnosti, většinou ze spotřebního a automobilového průmyslu, nešetrného zemědělství. Díky jejich neuváženému používání a nakládání s odpady, které jsou jimi kontaminovány, dochází k zamoření ekosystémů a k přetrvávání perzistentních polutantů formou reziduí po dlouhá desetiletí. Pomocí bioindikátorů můžeme nalézt zdroj znečištění a posoudit rozsah kontaminace, můžeme pozorovat její vývoj a biologický účinek na organismy, které se v kontaminované oblasti vyskytují. V této práci je věnována pozornost zejména polychlorovaným bifenylům (PCB), polyaromatickým uhlovodíkům (PAH), organochlorovaným pesticidům (OCP), polybromovaným difenyletherům (PBDE) a PCCDs/Fs, účinkům kontaminantů na zdraví a jejich rozšíření v našich zeměpisných šířkách, zejména ve starých zátěžích.Bio-indicators are organisms, which we can use to evaluate contamination of terestrial and aquatic ecosystems by xenobiotics. This thesis deals above all with bio-indicators of vegetal and animal origin, which are capable to identify and quantify persistent organic pollutants and its residual contamination. This xenobiotics comes from human activities, most by consumer and automotive industry, inconsiderate agriculture. Thanks to its unpremeditated application and waste disposal, which are contaminated with them, ecosystems are infested and persistent organic pollutant‘s residuals are persisting for decades. By the help of bio-indicators we can find the source of contamination and size up its seriousness, we can observe its development and biological effect on organisms, which live in contaminated areas. In this thesis attention is given especially to polychlorinated bifenyls (PCB), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), organochlorinated pesticides (OPC). polybrominated difenylethers (PBDE) and PCCDs/Fs, its influence on the health and its distribution in our surroundings, especially in waste dumps and forgotten pollutants sources.

Moving Objects Detection in Video Sequences

Práce se věnuje tvorbě aplikaci pro detekci pohybujících se objektů ve vstupní video sekvenci. Jsou v ní detailně popsány metody, které se při jeho realizaci využívají, jejich kladné a záporné vlastnosti. Detailně jsou zde popsány metody porovnání na úrovni histogramů a rozdílu jednotlivých bodů. Teoretická část přibližuje možné postupy a optimalizace, pomocí kterých lze detektor přizpůsobit prostředí, pro které je vytvářen. Součástí práce je aplikace pro detekci a vizuální označení pohybujících se objektů. Aplikace je testovaná na několika typově odlišných video sekvencí. Dosažené výsledky jsou blíže diskutovány a rozebrány, včetně ukázek dosažených výstupů detektoru.This publication is dedicated to creating appliaction for motion detection in video sequence. There is summary of several possible methods to solve this matter in theoretical and practical point of view with postive and negative properties. This methods are histograms subtraction and subtraction of each pixel in the tested frame. Fundamental part of this publication is application for motion detection. There are many of tests for created detector for several type moving object included in input video sequence. Results are intimately describe.