Stream VByte: Faster Byte-Oriented Integer Compression

Arrays of integers are often compressed in search engines. Though there are many ways to compress integers, we are interested in the popular byte-oriented integer compression techniques (e.g., VByte or Google's Varint-GB). They are appealing due to their simplicity and engineering convenience. Amazon's varint-G8IU is one of the fastest byte-oriented compression technique published so far. It makes judicious use of the powerful single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) instructions available in commodity processors. To surpass varint-G8IU, we present Stream VByte, a novel byte-oriented compression technique that separates the control stream from the encoded data. Like varint-G8IU, Stream VByte is well suited for SIMD instructions. We show that Stream VByte decoding can be up to twice as fast as varint-G8IU decoding over real data sets. In this sense, Stream VByte establishes new speed records for byte-oriented integer compression, at times exceeding the speed of the memcpy function. On a 3.4GHz Haswell processor, it decodes more than 4 billion differentially-coded integers per second from RAM to L1 cache

A Study of the Oil Property Assessments in Ellis County, Kansas

This study of the administration of the oil property taxes in Ellis County was made for the purpose of suggesting improvements to modernize the tax structure of the local units of government in the state of Kansas. Methods and Procedures Employed: Many past and present oil property tax assessments were examined and read and comparisons were made between the valuations of selected oil properties in the past with their present values. Books dealing with the oil assessment procedure were also read, and the General Statutes of Kansas were surveyed for laws which concern the oil assessment procedure. Interviews with those county officers who have a role to play in the administration of the oil property tax were a major source of information. Summary and Findings: A lot of oil property is escaping taxation each year. The reason for this is that the assessment procedure has remained basically the same since its inception, and thus it fails to take into consideration the increase in the values of the various items of oil property over the years. The oil and gas schedule does not provide sufficient space for an adequate description of property being assessed. It was recommended that state legislature be passed which requires the oil companies to list all of their oil properties for assessment purposes, that the oil property tax system should be modernized and kept up to date, and that the oil and gas schedule should be enlarged to allow for a more adequate description of oil properties. It was recommended that better qualifications should be adopted for the holder of the oil assessor’s office, and more on the job privileges should be provided for him

Computing galled networks from real data

Motivation: Developing methods for computing phylogenetic networks from biological data is an important problem posed by molecular evolution and much work is currently being undertaken in this area. Although promising approaches exist, there are no tools available that biologists could easily and routinely use to compute rooted phylogenetic networks on real datasets containing tens or hundreds of taxa. Biologists are interested in clades, i.e. groups of monophyletic taxa, and these are usually represented by clusters in a rooted phylogenetic tree. The problem of computing an optimal rooted phylogenetic network from a set of clusters, is hard, in general. Indeed, even the problem of just determining whether a given network contains a given cluster is hard. Hence, some researchers have focused on topologically restricted classes of networks, such as galled trees and level-k networks, that are more tractable, but have the practical draw-back that a given set of clusters will usually not possess such a representation

Investigating superstitious beliefs in technology

We completed an online survey to access the relationship between a novel measure of superstitious technological beliefs (STBs), computer skill, computer use, technological trust, negative attitudes toward robots, paranormal, and anthropomorphic beliefs. Trust in complex technological systems (e.g. automation, robots, etc.) is an important factor determining whether those systems will be used appropriately, used outside of their capabilities, or not used at all which may lead to loss of human life or property. Previous research has indicated that individual differences (e.g. experience, skill) are important considerations in complex technological systems. However, more research is needed to determine how individual differences influence beliefs, and attitudes toward technology. The current study may be the first empirical attempt to develop a measure of STBs and examine how they relate to technological trust. We hypothesized that that greater anthropomorphic beliefs, computer skill and paranormal beliefs would predict greater technological trust based on previous research. Our results show that computer use, skill, anthropomorphic and paranormal beliefs predicted STBs and greater STBs were predictive of greater technological trust supporting our hypotheses. However, contrary to previous research, anthropomorphism was not associated with technological trust or negative attitudes towards robots. Instead, we found that STBs may mediate the relationship between anthropomorphism and trust. Individuals who self-reported greater computer expertise had higher technological trust and had more positive attitudes towards robots. Greater paranormal beliefs and anthropomorphism were associated with greater STBs. Additionally, the mixed relationship between computer skill and usage habits may indicate that frequent users with lower skill may be more likely to develop superstitious beliefs. Additionally, because the concept of measuring STBs was novel, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis to determine an initial factor structure and cross-validated the findings with a different set of participants using a confirmatory factor analysis. Overall, the measure was found to be reliable and potentially valid as the measure correlated with previous measures of superstitious belief

Electronic Resource Management System. Vernetzung von Lizenzinformationen

In den letzten zehn Jahren spielen elektronische Ressourcen im Bereich der Erwerbung eine zunehmend wichtige Rolle: Eindeutig lässt sich hier ein Wandel in den Bibliotheken (fort) vom reinen Printbestand zu immer größeren E-Only-Beständen feststellen. Die stetig wachsende Menge an E-Ressourcen und deren Heterogenität stellt Bibliotheken vor die Herausforderung, die E-Ressourcen effizient zu verwalten. Nicht nur Bibliotheken, sondern auch verhandlungsführende Institutionen von Konsortial- und Allianzlizenzen benötigen ein geeignetes Instrument zur Verwaltung von Lizenzinformationen, welches den komplexen Anforderungen moderner E-Ressourcen gerecht wird. Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) unterstützt ein Projekt des Hochschulbibliothekszentrums des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen (hbz), der Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg, der Verbundzentrale des Gemeinsamen Bibliotheksverbundes (GBV) und der Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt, in dem ein bundesweit verfügbares Electronic Ressource Managementsystem (ERMS) aufgebaut werden soll. Ein solches ERMS soll auf Basis einer zentralen Knowledge Base eine einheitliche Nutzung von Daten zur Lizenzverwaltung elektronischer Ressourcen auf lokaler, regionaler und nationaler Ebene ermöglichen. Statistische Auswertungen, Rechteverwaltung für alle angeschlossenen Bibliotheken, kooperative Datenpflege sowie ein über standardisierte Schnittstellen geführter Datenaustausch stehen bei der Erarbeitung der Anforderungen ebenso im Fokus wie die Entwicklung eines Daten- und Funktionsmodells.In the last few years the importance of electronic resources in library acquisitions has increased significantly. There has been a shift from mere print holdings to both e- and print combinations and even e-only subscriptions. This shift poses a double challenge for libraries: On the one hand they have to provide their e-resource collections to library users in an appealing way, on the other hand they have to manage these collections efficiently. Not only libraries, but also the negotiators of Alliance and National Licences need a software application which helps them to handle these complex licences efficiently. The project presented in this paper aims at developing a national Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS). It is funded by the German Research Foundation/Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The project partners are the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Centre (hbz), the University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg Frankfurt, the Head Office of the Gemeinsamer Bibliotheksverbund (GBV) and the Freiburg University Library. The projected ERMS  will provide a software system with a central knowledge base which supports a unified overview of licence data with a local, regional and national scope. In the current state of development, the focus is on data and function modelling and on designing concepts for rights management, cooperative data management, implementation of interface standards and the intended services such as statistical analyses

LAS:eR – Einblicke in das Pilotsystem

Im Rahmen des DFG-Projekts ERMS – Electronic Resource Management System entwickelt die LAS:eR-Projektgruppe ein herstellerunabhängiges ERMS auf Open Source Basis zur Organisation und Verwaltung von elektronischen Ressourcen unter Verwendung der Global Open Knowledge Base (GOKb) als offener Knowledge Base und Nutzung standardisierter Schnittstellen zum Datenaustausch mit Drittsystemen. Mit dem im Mai 2018 gestarteten Pilotbetrieb ist es ausgewählten Einrichtungen bereits möglich, lokale Lizenzen mit LAS:eR zu verwalten und durch ihre Rückmeldungen aktiv die laufende Entwicklung der Vollversion zu beeinflussen, die als bundesweite Dienstleistung des hbz im Herbst 2019 mit weitergehenden Funktionalitäten für das Management von Konsortiallizenzen und einem nach Nutzergruppen differenzierten Geschäftsmodell zur Verfügung stehen wird

Assessing the energy saving potential of using adaptive setpoint temperatures: The case study of a regional adaptive comfort model for Brazil in both the present and the future

It has been found in recent years that using setpoint temperatures based on adaptive thermal comfort models is a successful method of energy conservation. Recent studies using adaptive setpoint temperatures incorporate international models from ASHRAE Standard 55 and EN16798-1. This study, however, has instead considered a regional Brazilian adaptive comfort model. This study investigates the energy demand arising from the use of a local Brazilian comfort model in order to assess the energy implications from the use of the worldwide ASHRAE Standard 55 adaptive model and various fixed setpoint temperatures. All of Brazil’s climate zones, full air-conditioning, mixed-mode building operating modes, present-day climate change scenarios, and future scenarios—specifically Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 for the years 2050 and 2100—have all been taken into account in building energy simulations. The use of adaptive setpoint temperatures based on the Brazilian local model considering mixed-mode has been found to significantly reduce energy consumption when compared to static setpoint temperatures (average energy-saving values ranging from 52% to 58%) and the ASHRAE 55 adaptive model (average values ranging from 15% to 21%). Considering climate change and the mixed-mode Brazilian model, the overall energy demand for the three groups of climatic zones (annual average outdoor temperatures ≤ 21 °C, > 21 and ≤ 25 °C and > 25 °C) ranged between 2% decrease and 5% increase, 4% and 27% increase, and 13% and 45% increase, respectively. It is concluded as a consequence that setting setpoint temperatures based on the Brazilian local adaptive comfort model is a very efficient energy-saving method

MRI-based monitoring of prostate cancer after HIFU: Inter-reader agreement and diagnostic performance of the PI-FAB score

PURPOSE: To investigate inter-reader agreement, and diagnostic performance of the Prostate Imaging after Focal Ablation (PI-FAB) score applied to multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) in patients who underwent focal high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy for localized prostate cancer. METHODS: In this retrospective, IRB-approved, single-center study, 73 men, who underwent focal HIFU treatment and received follow-up mpMRIs with subsequent prostate biopsies, were included. The PI-FAB score was applied to follow-up MRIs at 6, 12, and 36 months post-HIFU by two radiologists with different experience levels. Inter-reader agreement was assessed using Gwet's AC1, and the diagnostic performance of the PI-FAB score was assessed in relation to histopathologic results of subsequent prostate biopsies for each reader. RESULTS: PI-FAB scores showed substantial to almost perfect inter-reader agreement (AC1: 0.80-0.95) and demonstrated high specificity (Reader 1: 90-98 %, Reader 2: 87-98 %) and NPVs (Reader 1: 91-100 %, Reader 2: 88-97 %) in ruling out residual or recurrent in-field prostate cancer post-HIFU. Sensitivity (Reader 1: ≥43 %, Reader 2: ≥14 %) and PPVs (Reader 1: ≥33 %, Reader 2: ≥14 %) were mostly relatively lower, with notable disparities between the two readers, indicating the potential influence of radiologist experience. CONCLUSIONS: The PI-FAB score provides a consistent and reliable tool for post-HIFU monitoring of prostate cancer using mpMRI. It demonstrates substantial to almost perfect inter-reader agreement and is particularly effective in excluding in-field residual or recurrent prostate cancer post-HIFU treatment. Its application can potentially enhance post-treatment patient care, emphasizing its value as a non-invasive MRI-based monitoring approach after focal ablative therapy of the prostate