Visual BFI: an Exploratory Study for Image-based Personality Test

This paper positions and explores the topic of image-based personality test. Instead of responding to text-based questions, the subjects will be provided a set of "choose-your-favorite-image" visual questions. With the image options of each question belonging to the same concept, the subjects' personality traits are estimated by observing their preferences of images under several unique concepts. The solution to design such an image-based personality test consists of concept-question identification and image-option selection. We have presented a preliminary framework to regularize these two steps in this exploratory study. A demo version of the designed image-based personality test is available at http://www.visualbfi.org/. Subjective as well as objective evaluations have demonstrated the feasibility of image-based personality test in limited questions

Persistency semantics of the Intel-x86 architecture

Emerging non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies promise the durability of disks with the performance of RAM. To describe the persistency guarantees of NVM, several memory persistency models have been proposed in the literature. However, the persistency semantics of the ubiquitous x86 architecture remains unexplored to date. To close this gap, we develop the Px86 (‘persistent x86’) model, formalising the persistency semantics of Intel-x86 for the first time. We formulate Px86 both operationally and declaratively, and prove that the two characterisations are equivalent. To demonstrate the application of Px86, we develop two persistent libraries over Px86: a persistent transactional library, and a persistent variant of the Michael–Scott queue. Finally, we encode our declarative Px86 model in Alloy and use it to generate persistency litmus tests automatically

To examine urban open space

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-136).published_or_final_versio

On the identity of broad-shelled mussels (Mollusca, Bivalvia, Mytilus) from the Dutch delta region

Late Quaternary (Eemian) deposits of the Netherlands contain shells that resemble those of living Mytilus galloprovincialis. Similar broad-shelled mytilids also occur in estuaries of the southwestern Netherlands together with slender individuals typical of M. edulis. We sampled living mussels along a depth gradient in the Oosterschelde to a) investigate whether a relation exists between shell shape and depth, b) test if the broadshelled specimens might represent M. galloprovincialis (or a hybrid with M. edulis) and c) assess by inference if the Quaternary specimens might be attributed to M. galloprovincialis as well. In order to do so, we compared genetic (length polymorphism of Me 15/16, COIII sequences and AFLPs) and shellmorphological characteristics (juvenile L/W ratios and socalled Verduin parameters) of the same specimens. The obtained dataset indicates that all studied mussels from the Oosterschelde should be attributed to M. edulis, including those with broad shell outlines. No correlation of shell-morphology and depth-distribution was found. The worn and generally damaged state of the Eemian specimens precluded measurement of the Verduin parameters, while juvenile L/W ratios turned out not to be diagnostic. Therefore the shell characters examined in this study are insufficient to demonstrate the possible presence of M. galloprovincialis shells in Quaternary deposits of the Netherlands.

Taxonomy and structure of the Romanian personality lexicon

We identified 1746 personality-relevant trait-adjectives in a Romanian dictionary, of which 412 were classified as descriptors of dispositions by 10 judges. Self-ratings were collected from 515 participants on those 412 adjectives, and the ratings were factored using principal components analysis. Solutions with different numbers of factors were analysed. The two- and three-factor solutions, respectively, confirmed the Big Two and Big Three of personality traits. A five-factor solution reflected the Big Five model with a fifth factor emphasising Rebelliousness versus Conventionality. The five-factor solution was related to the International Personality Item Pool-Big Five scales, and the highest correlations were indeed between the corresponding factors and scales. A six-factor solution was indicative of the six-factor model as expressed in the HEXACO model, yet with a weak Honesty-Humility factor. Additional analysis with self-ratings from 218 participants on marker-scales for the six-factor solution and on the six scales of the HEXACO did not produce a clear one-to-one correspondence between the two sets of scales, confirming indeed that the six-factor model was only partially found

Optimal configuration problem identification of electrical power cable in tidal turbine farm via traveling salesman problem modeling approach

Electrical power cables in tidal turbine farms contribute a significant share to capital expenditure (CAPEX). As a result, the routing of electrical power cables connecting turbines to cable collector hubs must be designed so as to obtain the least cost configuration. This is referred to as a tidal cable routing problem. This problem possesses several variants depending on the number of cable collector hubs. In this paper, these variants are modeled by employing the approach of the single depot multiple traveling salesman problem (mTSP) and the multiple depot mTSP of operational research for the single and multiple cable collector variants, respectively. The developed optimization models are computationally implemented using MATLAB. In the triple cable collector cable hub variant, an optimal solution is obtained, while good-quality suboptimal solutions are obtained in the double and single cable collector hub variants. In practice, multiple cable collector hubs are expected to be employed as the multiple hub configurations tend to be more economic than the single hub configurations. This has been confirmed by this paper for an optimal tidal turbine layout obtained with OpenTidalFarm. Suggestions are presented for future research studies comprising a number of heuristics.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MedZIM: Mediation analysis for Zero-Inflated Mediators with applications to microbiome data

The human microbiome can contribute to the pathogenesis of many complex diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease by mediating disease-leading causal pathways. However, standard mediation analysis is not adequate in the context of microbiome data due to the excessive number of zero values in the data. Zero-valued sequencing reads, commonly observed in microbiome studies, arise for technical and/or biological reasons. Mediation analysis approaches for analyzing zero-inflated mediators are still lacking largely because of challenges raised by the zero-inflated data structure: (a) disentangling the mediation effect induced by the point mass at zero; and (b) identifying the observed zero-valued data points that are actually not zero (i.e., false zeros). We develop a novel mediation analysis method under the potential-outcomes framework to fill this gap. We show that the mediation effect of the microbiome can be decomposed into two components that are inherent to the two-part nature of zero-inflated distributions. The first component corresponds to the mediation effect attributable to a unit-change over the positive relative abundance and the second component corresponds to the mediation effect attributable to discrete binary change of the mediator from zero to a non-zero state. With probabilistic models to account for observing zeros, we also address the challenge with false zeros. A comprehensive simulation study and the applications in two real microbiome studies demonstrate that our approach outperforms existing mediation analysis approaches.Comment: Corresponding: Zhigang L