Compact Index Research Articles

Backbone Index and GNN Models for Skyline Path Query Evaluation over Multi-cost Road Networks

Skyline path queries (SPQs) extend skyline queries to multi-dimensional networks, such as multi-cost road networks (MCRNs). Such queries return a set of non-dominated paths between two given network nodes. Despite the existence of extensive works on evaluating different SPQ variants, SPQ evaluation is still very inefficient due to the nonexistence of efficient index structures to support such queries. Existing index building approaches for supporting shortest-path query execution, when directly extended to support SPQs, use an unreasonable amount of space and time to build, making them impractical for processing large graphs. In this article, we propose a novel index structure, backbone index , and a corresponding index construction method that condenses an initial MCRN to multiple smaller summarized graphs with different granularity. We present efficient approaches to find approximate solutions to SPQs by utilizing the backbone index structure. Furthermore, considering making good use of historical query and query results, we propose two models, S kyline P ath G raph N eural N etwork (SP-GNN) and T ransfer SP-GNN (TSP-GNN), to support effective SPQ processing. Our extensive experiments on real-world large road networks show that the backbone index can support finding meaningful approximate SPQ solutions efficiently. The backbone index can be constructed in a reasonable time, which dramatically outperforms the construction of other types of indexes for road networks. As far as we know, this is the first compact index structure that can support efficient approximate SPQ evaluation on large MCRNs. The results on the SP-GNN and TSP-GNN models also show that both models can help get approximate SPQ answers efficiently.

Anisotropic Durgapal-Fuloria compact stars in f(R) gravity

This study presented a new exact solution for anisotropic compact stellar objects within the framework of f(R)=R+αR2 gravity. In this context, the Durgapal-Fuloria metric potential has been employed to solve the field equation derived for f(R) theory. Furthermore, we have derived the generalized Darmois-Israel junction condition necessary for seamlessly connecting the interior region to the Schwarzschild exterior metric across the boundary hypersurface of the star in the context of f(R) gravity, and the interior solution is matched with the Schwarzschild exterior metric over the bounding surface of a compact star. These junction conditions stipulate that the pressure must not be zero at the boundary and should be proportional to the non-linear terms of f(R) gravity, a crucial aspect often overlooked by many researchers when investigating compact stellar models. Additionally, we derived the values of these parameters by using observational data of various compact stars (CSs), namely Her X-1, SAX J1808.4-3658, SMC X-1, LMC X-4, Cen X-3, 4U 1820-30, PSR J1903+327, 4U 1608-52, Vela X-1, and PSR J1416-2230. This approach enables us to investigate the comprehensive analysis of solutions numerically and graphically. We conducted various physical tests, including gradient of energy density and pressures, anisotropy, stability, equilibrium conditions, energy-density constraints, mass function, compactness, redshift, and adiabatic index, to assess the feasibility of our models. Our findings demonstrate the consistent behavior of our models provides a satisfactory physical situation as far as the observational results are confirmed.

Spatiotemporal evolution of land use efficiency in 357 cities across mainland China from 2000 to 2020 based on SDG 11.3.1

High-efficiency land use facilitates the maximization of land utilization, lowers urban construction costs, and optimizes urban functional patterns. The Sustainable Development Goal 11.3.1 (SDG 11.3.1) can be used to assess land use efficiency (LUE), understand the current state of land use, and identify the potential for optimization. This study combines SDG 11.3.1 with other supplementary indicators to establish a land use efficiency evaluation system. This system provides a more precise understanding of internal city changes and enables a scientific assessment of urban LUE in Mainland China. The results showed that: (1) A significant number of cities were growing cities, particularly in the eastern region, with the population of built-up areas increased by 2.92 times from 2000 to 2020; (2) From 2000 to 2020, cities in China underwent rapid urban expansion, with the most significant urban expansion index in 2015–2020; (3) The coordination between population growth rate (PGR) and land consumption rate (LCR) worsened in the western region, while the central and eastern regions showed better coordination. (4) As the urban expansion index increased, the compactness index of the cities in the above three regions decreased and were at lower levels. This study establishes an evaluation system to assess the LUE and reveals the spatial and temporal characteristics of urban and population change. It holds paramount significance in enhancing LUE and encouraging sustainable development in Mainland China and serves as a valuable reference for global urban management.

Assessing soil compaction in sites subjected to different management systems

Soil physical, chemical and biological quality is under constant change in rural areas, mainly in small farms where family farming prevails. Land use in these properties is maximized to ensure profitability. The aim of the current study is to investigate how different land-use types affect soil compaction in a small farm in Southeastern Paraná State. The herein investigated land-use types comprised forest, pasture, yerba mate cultivation, eucalyptus reforestation, no-till and conventional tillage. Soil density, resistance, porosity and moisture were the analyzed variables. The current findings enabled concluding that pressure deriving from different land uses affected soil compaction. Pasture recorded the highest soil compaction indices, whereas forest recorded the best indices for this variable. On the other hand, different soil management practices did not significantly affect soil density and porosity in agriculture. However, there were significant variations in soil moisture and resistance.

Does a more compact urban center layout matter in reducing household carbon emissions? Evidence from Chinese cities

In recent years, compact urban development and carbon emissions reduction have been considered essential approaches for achieving sustainable development goals worldwide. Existing research has focused on the correlation between urban spatial structure and carbon emissions with inconsistent results. This study explores the correlation between urban compactness and household CO₂ emissions. Two indices of urban compactness and four categories of household CO₂ emissions are constructed. We utilize Spatial Durbin Models (SDM) and Spatial Autoregressive Models (SAC) on panel data from over 284 cities at the prefecture level and above in China, spanning 2008–2018. The results indicate that, except for heating consumption, household CO₂ emissions exhibit positive associations with two urban compactness indices. These findings suggest that a city with evenly developed urban cores within a relatively smaller urban area may have better household CO₂ emissions efficiency both locally and regionally. Our study contributes to the existing literature on the sustainability of compact city development with new evidence emphasizing a condensed but balanced urban structure.

Lactiplantibacillus plantarum I Induces Gonad Growth in the Queen Scallop Aequipecten opercularis (Linnaeus, 1758) under Conditions of Climate Change

Climate change has presented a serious problem in recent times, which is why a new approach is being sought in terms of aquacultural food quality. In this study, the influence of temperature increase (by 2 °C) and pH decrease (by 0.2) was investigated on the queen scallop, Aequipecten opercularis (Linnaeus, 1758). Furthermore, the effect of a food-enriched diet with the probiotic culture Lactiplantibacillus plantarum I was assessed in climate-changed conditions. Scallops’ morphometric parameters were measured before the experimental setup and after one month of being kept in controlled conditions. Morphometric parameters included the elongation index, compactness index, convexity index, density index, condition index, meat yield, gonadosomatic index, adductor muscle index, and hepatosomatic index. Climate-changed conditions had no effect on the scallop condition index, meat yield, or hepatosomatic index. Nevertheless, the addition of probiotics to their diet had a positive effect on the queen scallops cultivated under conditions of climate change, influencing positive allometry and the increase of the gonadosomatic indices. On the other hand, the same conditions negatively affected the adductor muscle index of the scallops. To conclude, in the context of climate change conditions, queen scallops could be a good organism of choice that can be very well adapted to the changed environmental conditions, especially with the addition of the lactic acid bacteria culture Lpb. plantarum I.

Relationships between Transportation Expenditures and Built Environment in the United States: Insights from Interpretable Machine-Learning Approach

This study investigates the relationships between transportation expenditures and built environment (i.e., the D variables) in the United States using interpretable machine-learning (IML). Key findings include significant associations between these features, collectively contributing to 70.2 percent of feature importance. The study uncovers nonlinear relationships, such as transportation expenditures significantly declining after the compactness index value of 8. In addition, a pronounced reduction in transportation expenditures occurs when the job accessibility index falls below 4. This research contributes to (1) offering empirical evidence from nationwide analysis and (2) highlighting the potential of IML in improving our understanding, and (3) providing implications.

The Framework of Quantifying Biomarkers of OCT and OCTA Images in Retinal Diseases.

Despite the significant advancements facilitated by previous research in introducing a plethora of retinal biomarkers, there is a lack of research addressing the clinical need for quantifying different biomarkers and prioritizing their importance for guiding clinical decision making in the context of retinal diseases. To address this issue, our study introduces a novel framework for quantifying biomarkers derived from optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) images in retinal diseases. We extract 452 feature parameters from five feature types, including local binary patterns (LBP) features of OCT and OCTA, capillary and large vessel features, and the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) feature. Leveraging this extensive feature set, we construct a classification model using a statistically relevant p value for feature selection to predict retinal diseases. We obtain a high accuracy of 0.912 and F1-score of 0.906 in the task of disease classification using this framework. We find that OCT and OCTA's LBP features provide a significant contribution of 77.12% to the significance of biomarkers in predicting retinal diseases, suggesting their potential as latent indicators for clinical diagnosis. This study employs a quantitative analysis framework to identify potential biomarkers for retinal diseases in OCT and OCTA images. Our findings suggest that LBP parameters, skewness and kurtosis values of capillary, the maximum, mean, median, and standard deviation of large vessel, as well as the eccentricity, compactness, flatness, and anisotropy index of FAZ, may serve as significant indicators of retinal conditions.

How to Find Long Maximal Exact Matches and Ignore Short Ones.

Finding maximal exact matches (MEMs) between strings is an important task in bioinformatics, but it is becoming increasingly challenging as geneticists switch to pangenomic references. Fortunately, we are usually interested only in the relatively few MEMs that are longer than we would expect by chance. In this paper we show that under reasonable assumptions we can find all MEMs of length at least between a pattern of length and a text of length in time plus extra time only for each MEM of length at least nearly using a compact index for the text, suitable for pangenomics.

Exploring the effective distance of 3D urban compact form correlated with building energy consumption and optimization strategies

ABSTRACT With the acceleration of urbanization, building energy consumption carbon emissions (BECCE) were increasing, weightily influencing global warming and the social-economic developments in cities. The detailed exploration of the most effective distance of urban three-dimensional (3D) compact form on BECCE guides urban space optimization. In this study, 135 People’s Banks of China (PBC) were taken as samples. Based on the banks building features, socioeconomic conditions, macroclimate, and urban 3D compact form at different buffers, the most effective distance on the BECCE was determined. According to Partial least-squares regression (PLSR), the results show that the most effective distance of the urban compact form on the BECCE was 150 m. The study divided the normalized 3D compactness index (NVCI) values from 135 buildings for the distance of 150 m into five categories and used the geographic detector to recognize statistically obvious differences between the subregions. The natural breakpoint method was used to categorize the study area into five classes, specifically: low, medium-low, medium, medium-high, and high compact form. Based on the geographic detector method result, the compact form of medium, medium high, and high compact form was optimized to low, medium low. The optimization can effectively reduce the BECCE due to changing the compact form of the building by 65.2% or 65.7%. The study combined mathematical statistics with spatial analysis approaches to identify the most effective distance for reducing energy consumption. Our results will contribute toward considerable reductions in the BECCE.

Susceptibility to moisture damage in asphalt mixes with blast furnace dust as aggregate

One of the ongoing challenges in engineering is mitigating the degradation of road infrastructure caused by water in asphalt mixes. This study aims to assess the impact of blast furnace dust, a byproduct of the steel manufacturing process, on moisture-induced damage in asphalt mixes. Three asphalt mixes were developed following the Marshall methodology: one comprising conventional crushed aggregates, while the others substituted 50% and 100% of the conventional fine aggregate with blast furnace dust. Material characterization procedures and chemical analysis of the blast furnace dust were conducted. Once compliance with the specified material requirements was verified and analyzed, water susceptibility was evaluated through an indirect tensile test across various void content levels. Similarly, leveraging the Superpave gyratory compactor, several compaction indices were determined to estimate the compaction behavior of each mix. Based on the findings, the inclusion of blast furnace dust in an asphalt mix proved satisfactory due to its contributions in enhancing tensile strength, consequently leading to a reduction in moisture-induced damage within the asphalt mix, as well as exhibiting improved compaction behavior. Additionally, this utilization contributed to diminishing the environmental impact linked to the steel production process, where substantial quantities of this residue accumulate.

Effect of shear rate and saturation on shear strength of mineral and anthropogenic soil

The aim of the study was to determine the shear strength of mineral and anthropogenic soil of similar grain size as a function of the applied shear rate and water saturation. Stability calculations using the finite element method of the road embankment model were also carried out to demonstrate the variation in factor of safety values depending on the adopted values of the angle of internal friction and cohesion. The tests were carried out in a direct shear apparatus in a 100 x 100 mm box with a sample height of 20.5 mm. The samples were formed directly in the apparatus box at optimum moisture content until a compaction index of IS = 1.00 was obtained. Tests were carried out under conditions without and with water saturation at shear rates of 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 mm•min–1 until 18% horizontal displacement was achieved. The results showed that the effect of shear rate on the strength parameters was not unequivocal and was much smaller than the changes caused by saturation of samples. An increase in shear rate resulted in small changes in the angle of internal friction with a tendency towards a decrease. In contrast, cohesion varied over a much larger range with increasing shear rate, with an apparent initial decrease and subsequent increase. The saturation of the samples resulted in a decrease in the angle of internal friction of the cohesive soil and an increase for the ash-slag mixture. The cohesion of both soils decreased. The results obtained from the road embankment model stability calculations confirmed that soil saturation had a greater influence on the factor of safety values obtained than the shear rate.

Optimization of glass scrap recovery and reuse in road construction for promising physicochemical stabilization

Waste glass is hugely present in Morocco, and can be recycled for many geotechnical purposes, including road construction. In contrast, earthworks often produce significant amounts of clay waste that lack the necessary technical criteria for use as barriers. The present work aimed to study the influence of the addition of glass waste on the evolution of the mechanical characteristics of clays stabilized with crushed glass (particles less than 63 μm). The work consists of carrying out CBR, Proctor, and shear tests on natural clay taken as a reference and mixtures (clay-crushed glass) at different percentages. Results showed that the addition of glass to clay decreases the swelling and compaction indices along with modifying the intrinsic characteristics of the clay.

Spatial-Temporal Evolution Characteristics Analysis of Color Steel Buildings in Lanzhou City

With the continuous acceleration of China’s urbanization process, color steel plate, as a new type of building material, has been widely used in all kinds of temporary buildings and has become the spatial carrier of the specific development stage of urbanization. This study focuses on Lanzhou City as a case study to deeply analyze the spatiotemporal distribution and evolution of color steel plate buildings. Utilizing data extracted from Google imagery and GF-2 satellite images of the built-up areas in Lanzhou, spatial statistical and analytical methods such as centroid analysis, compactness index, and patch density are applied. Systematic analysis is conducted across different time periods and spatial scales to examine the evolution of indicators, including quantity, centroid distribution, spatial clustering, and distribution direction. The results show that from 2013 to 2021, the prevalence of color steel buildings in Lanzhou city initially increased and then decreased, and the number peaked in 2017, but there is a significant difference between distinct areas in the urban area. By quantitatively analyzing the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of color steel plate buildings, this study reveals the important role it plays in promoting the urbanization process and provides a scientific basis for relevant planning decisions.

Efficient and Provable Effective Resistance Computation on Large Graphs: An Index-based Approach

Effective resistance (ER) is a fundamental metric for measuring node similarities in a graph, and it finds applications in various domains including graph clustering, recommendation systems, link prediction, and graph neural networks. The state-of-the-art algorithm for computing effective resistance relies on a landmark technique, which involves selecting a node that is easy to reach by all the other nodes as a landmark. The performance of this technique heavily depends on the chosen landmark node. However, in many real-life graphs, it is not always possible to find an easily reachable landmark node, which can significantly hinder the algorithm's efficiency. To overcome this problem, we propose a novel multiple landmarks technique which involves selecting a set of landmark nodes V l such that the other nodes in the graph can easily reach any one of a landmark node in V l . Specifically, we first propose several new formulas to compute ER with multiple landmarks, utilizing the concept of Schur complement. These new formulas allow us to pre-compute and maintain several small-sized matrices related to V l as a compact index. With this powerful index technique, we demonstrate that both single-pair and single-source ER queries can be efficiently answered using a newly-developed V l -absorbed random walk sampling or V l -absorbed push technique. Comprehensive theoretical analysis shows that all proposed index-based algorithms achieve provable performance guarantees for both single-pair and single-source ER queries. Extensive experiments on 5 real-life datasets demonstrate the high efficiency of our multiple landmarks-based index techniques. For instance, our algorithms, with a 1.5 GB index size, can be up to 4 orders of magnitude faster than the state-of-the-art algorithms while achieving the same accuracy on a large road network.

Prediction of the carcass tissue composition of “Blackbelly” lambs using in vivo and postmortem measurements

Objective. Predict the tissue carcass composition of “Blackbelly” lambs using in vivo and postmortem measurements. Materials and methods. Twenty lambs with an average age and weight of seven months and 29.07±2.88 kg, respectively, were used. Before slaughter, the subcutaneous fat thickness, depth, width and Longissimus dorsi muscle area were measured with ultrasonography. After slaughter, the cold carcass and tissues: muscle, fat and bone weight, were recorded. In the carcass, the thoracic depth, length, perimeter, length and width of the leg, as well as the compactness index, were also measured and recorded. Correlation analysis and regression models were used to predict tissue carcass composition. Results. The carcass tissues were correlated with L. dorsi muscle depth (p≤0.05; r-values ranged from 0.67 to 0.80) and carcass compactness index (p≤0.05; r ranged from 0.54 to 0.75). The r2 for the prediction equations of the carcass tissue composition ranged from 0.71 to 0.78 for fat (p≤0.001). Conclusions. The use of in vivo and postmortem measurements allowed the prediction of tissue carcass composition of lambs, with moderate to high accuracy (r2 >0.71≤ and ≤0.78).

CIVET: Exploring Compact Index for Variable-Length Subsequence Matching on Time Series

Nowadays the demands for managing and analyzing substantially increasing collections of time series are becoming more challenging. Subsequence matching, as a core subroutine in time series analysis, has drawn significant research attention. Most of the previous works only focus on matching the subsequences with equal length to the query. However, many scenarios require support for efficient variable-length subsequence matching. In this paper, we propose a new representation, Uniform Piecewise Aggregate Approximation (UPAA) with the capability of aligning features for variable-length time series while remaining the lower bounding property. Based on UPAA, we present a compact index structure by grouping adjacent subsequences and similar subsequences respectively. Moreover, we propose an index pruning algorithm and a data filtering strategy to efficiently support variable-length subsequence matching without false dismissals. The experiments conducted on both real and synthetic datasets demonstrate that our approach achieves considerably better efficiency, scalability, and effectiveness than existing approaches.

Compaction-induced porosity loss in the Cretaceous Bima Formation around Lakwaime and Dogon Dutsi, Yola Subbasin, Northern Benue Trough, NE Nigeria

The Bima Sandstone is an alluvial fan to braided river sedimentation that represents purely a siliciclastic depositional system. It is the oldest formation and the main reservoir unit in the entire Benue Trough. Porosity loss is an essential component of petroleum reservoirs that needs to be properly investigated for the purpose of hydrocarbon exploitation. Compaction and cementation processes are partly responsible for porosity loss in many known reservoirs around the world. Outcropping units of the formation around Lakwaime and Dogon Dutsi in Yola Sub-basin have been subjected to an integrated approach involving field observations, petrographic analysis and porosity measurements in order to understand the contribution of each of the processes. Modal composition of the samples shows that they are mostly lithic arkose to feldspathic litharenite, with quartz as the most common detrital mineral grain. Grain fracturing has been attributed to mechanical compaction, whereas grain contacts like sutured and concavo-convex are products of chemical compaction. The average values of compactional-porosity loss (COPL), cementational-porosity loss (CEPL), and compaction index (ICOMPACT) in the studied samples stand at 19.51%, 4.18% and 0.82 respectively. The study indicates that the role of compaction in porosity loss is greater than that of cementation as shown by the COPL-CEPL diagram and, as such considered to be generally responsible for the porosity loss in Bima Sandstone.

Evaluation of angular, linear, and body index measures of pêga donkeys (Equus Asinus) from southeast of Brazil

The objective of this study was to perform body evaluation of Pêga donkeys (40 females and 10 males) from the Southeast Region of Brazil. Hippometer, measuring tape, and arthrogoniometer were used, considering the left antimere of the animals in a forced quadrupedal position. The analysis of variance showed a difference (p<0.05) between males and females for chest width, CPr, withers height, croup height, body length, back-loin length, posterior pastern length, and the angle of the tibiometatarsal joint. The values for body length, anterior pastern length, scapulohumeral angle, and metacarpophalangeal joint differed (p<0.05) between farms. Compactness index 1 and conformation index classified the animals as suited for saddle activities, and compactness index 2 classified them as suited for light drafting. The dactylothoracic index classified the animals into eumetric. Cannon load index was similar between sexes and between states. The load on the back by step index was 167.9±12.6 kg, and the LGI was 95.9±6.0 kg, equal between sexes and higher for the animals from RJ. It is concluded that the Pêga breed has sexual dimorphism and regional selection, interfering with morphometry and aptitude for saddle and light draft.

The Efficiency of CBD Production Using Grafted Cannabis sativa L. Plants Is Highly Dependent on the Type of Rootstock: A Study.

The global cannabis market is continuously expanding and as a result, the cannabis industry demands new and improved agronomic cultivation practices to increase production efficiency of cannabidiol (CBD), which is valued for its therapeutic benefits. This study investigates the influence of three rootstock types on the survival rate, morphological parameters, and biochemical composition of cannabis: potentially dwarfing rootstocks (PDR), potentially vigorous rootstocks (PVR), and seedlings-as-rootstocks (SAR). Rootstocks were used for grafting two scion genotypes: 'ScionII' = chemotype II of industrial hemp, and 'ScionIII' = chemotype III of high CBD accumulating variety. Contrary to expectations, PVR and SAR did not outperform PDR on most of the measured variables. SAR showed the highest survival rate of the grafted cannabis plants (40-70%). The rootstock type had a statistically significant influence only on the bud compactness index in 'ScionII', with PDR being particularly noticeable. A comparative analysis of the 'rootstock/scion' combinations with their controls (non-grafted scions) revealed grafting's substantial improvement in most traits. Specifically, PDR increased CBD content by 27% in 'ScionIII', inflorescence yield and CBD yield per plant increased by 71% and 84%, respectively, when SAR was used in 'ScionII'. SAR showed to be the most effective rootstock type for CBD production. Our findings suggest grafting as a promising technique for optimizing cannabis's agronomic and medicinal potential, highlighting the necessity for further research on its underlying mechanisms to refine production efficiency and quality.