Multiple Ranking Research Articles

Uncertainties of Estimating a Town’s Carbon Footprint– Case Study El Gouna, Egypt

Carbon accounting has become a valuable tool for expressing the fossil energy demand of products, organizational entities, or entire countries. About a decade ago, cities also began accounting their carbon emissions. The first major city to do so was London in 2009, stating a carbon footprint of 4.84 tCO<sub>2</sub>eq/(year*capita) for 2008. Nowadays, multiple rankings compare the carbon emissions of cities. For example, the Urban Land Magazine lists São Paulo as the city with the world’s lowest carbon emissions (1.4 CO<sub>2</sub>eq/(year*capita)). Such listings typically present the depicted emission values as scientifically indisputable numbers. However, a closer look at the applied methodology frequently reveals a wide range of implicit, often undisclosed assumptions at the foundation of the calculations. This paper analyses the uncertainties of carbon accounting on the city scale, using the example of the Red Sea resort town of El Gouna. The estimated value of El Gouna’s carbon footprint for the year 2014 is 14.3 tCO<sub>2</sub>eq/(year*capita). Third Scope emissions constitute the majority of El Gouna’s carbon footprint. Varying their underlying assumptions only slightly can lead to alterations of the results of more than 50%, questioning the robustness of the findings. To increase the robustness and the comparability of carbon accounting across cities, this paper suggests emphasizing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, while limiting the role of Scope 3 emissions.

Performance of Multiple Rank Modulation Based on SM-MIMO

Abstract A multiple rank modulation (MRM) scheme is proposed that provides better error performance, enhances the data rate and reduces the system demodulation complexity. Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) scheme is a technique that uses several antennas at the transmitter and receiver to minimize error and optimize data speed. MRM is a novel technique that borrows from spatial modulation-MIMO (SM-MIMO) scheme. The basic idea of this scheme involves the transmitter receiving a group of bits and subdividing them into two blocks; rank index block and signal modulation block. The rank index bit block is used to select the rank to be activated and the rank selected contains at least one active transmit antenna (TA). The signal modulation bit block is encoded in a given modulation scheme for transmission. It is then transmitted through the activated rank that contains at least one active TA. The transmitted encoded signal modulation bit block is received through the receive antenna and a receiver. The receiver estimates a rank index and the transmitted symbol from the signal received. The signal modulation bit block is finally decoded. This paper addresses the performance of MRM scheme based on error performance to run cellular fifth generation (5G). We perform and present simulation results of MIMO systems employing MRM scheme to generate bit error rate (BER) of this system.

A generalisation of the relation between zeros of the complex Kac polynomial and eigenvalues of truncated unitary matrices

The zeros of the random Laurent series $$1/\mu - \sum _{j=1}^\infty c_j/z^j$$ , where each $$c_j$$ is an independent standard complex Gaussian, is known to correspond to the scaled eigenvalues of a particular additive rank 1 perturbation of a standard complex Gaussian matrix. For the corresponding random Maclaurin series obtained by the replacement $$z \mapsto 1/z$$ , we show that these same zeros correspond to the scaled eigenvalues of a particular multiplicative rank 1 perturbation of a random unitary matrix. Since the correlation functions of the latter are known, by taking an appropriate limit the correlation functions for the random Maclaurin series can be determined. Only for $$|\mu | \rightarrow \infty $$ is a determinantal point process obtained. For the one and two point correlations, by regarding the Maclaurin series as the limit of a random polynomial, a direct calculation can also be given.

On the necessity of multiple university rankings

Nowadays university rankings are ubiquitous commodities; a plethora of them is published every year by private enterprises, state authorities and universities. University rankings are very popular to governments, journalists, university administrations and families as well. At the same time, they are heavily criticized as being very subjective and contradictory to each other. University rankings have been studied with respect to political, educational and data management aspects. In this paper, we focus on a specific research question regarding the alignment of some well-known such rankings, ultimately targeting to investigate the usefulness of the variety of all these rankings. First, we describe in detail the methodology to collect and homogenize the data and, second, we statistically analyze these data to examine the correlation among the different rankings. The results show that despite their statistically significant correlation, there are many cases of high divergence and instability, which can be reduced by ordered categorization. Our conclusion is that if, in principle, someone accepts the reliability of university rankings, the necessity and the usefulness, of all of them is questionable since only few of them could be sufficient representatives of the whole set. The overabundance of university rankings is especially conspicuous for the top universities.

A Weighted Center Graph Fusion Method for Person Re-Identification

Feature fusion is widely used in person re-identification (re-ID) and has been proven effective. However, it is difficult to know which features are effective to identify a specific person and how to fuse features to explore complementary information and apply the advantages of each feature. Motivated by these problems, this paper proposes a new method of person re-ID to fuse the recognition results of multiple features at the rank level. Three innovations are included in this method: first, multiple metric spaces are constructed based on the correlation of different features to generate multiple rank results; second, the most similar candidates in each corresponding rank list is converted into a graph structure by our proposed weighted center graph (WCG), and we use an adaptive value $K$ to automatically seek the most similar images of each query, thus improving the accuracy of candidate targets. Finally, to evaluate the effect of each WCG, a discriminative power coefficient is designed and used to assign a proper coefficient for each WCG according to the discriminative power of corresponding features. The result can be obtained by re-ranking the fused WCG. The extensive experiments on five datasets demonstrate the matching rate of our proposed method by comparing with several state-of-the-art methods. Our code is available at https://github.com/gengshuze/WCG.git .

Impact of photodynamic therapy versus ultrasonic scaler on gingival health during treatment with orthodontic fixed appliances.

Poor oral hygiene during treatment with fixed appliances results in plaque accumulation. The presence of bacteria in the gingival crevice triggers an inflammatory reaction in the gingival tissues. The aim of this study was to compare the impact of two preventive treatments, photodynamic therapy (PDT), and ultrasonic scaler (US), on gingival health in patients under fixed orthodontic treatment. Twenty orthodontic patients were randomly allocated to two groups: PDT or US. Each group received seven sessions [days 0, 15, 30, 45, 90 (3-months follow-up), 180 (6-months follow-up), 270 (9-months follow-up)] of experimental interventions, and clinical parameters [Plaque index(PI); gingival index(GI); probing depth(PD)], periodontopathogens [Agreggatibacter actinomycetemcomitans; Porphyromonas gingivalis; Prevotella intermedia; Micromonas micros; Fusobacterium nucleatum; Tannerella forsythia; Campylobacter rectus; Eikenella corrodens; Capnocytopaga sp.] and protein markers [IL-1β;IL-1ra;IL-6;IL-10;TNF-α;FGF-2/FGF basic] were monitored at baseline and at 3, 6, and 9 months. ANOVA, Student's t-test with Bonferroni correction and ANOVA with multiple rank test were used to identify differences between groups (P < 0.05). Clinical assessments [PI, GI, and PD] yielded no differences (P > 0.05) between groups, which showed a major decrease at the start of the trial. Reductions in total colony forming units (log CFU reduction) were observed with both treatments, although to a greater extent in the PDT group, but with no differences between groups (P > 0.05). Similar reductions in log CFU counts of P. gingivalis, P. intermedia, and F. nucleatum were observed in both groups (P > 0.05). The two groups also showed similar trends for inflammatory mediators with decreased levels of IL-1β, IL-10, and TNF-α, whereas IL-6 and IL-1ra levels remained stable and those of FGF-2 were increased after both interventions, with no differences (P > 0.05) between groups. Both PDT and US methods proved similar effectiveness for the treatment of gingival inflammation induced by fixed orthodontic appliances. Lasers Surg. Med. 51:256-267, 2019. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Nigerian 3C-Index Rating of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Profitability of Some Companies Listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange

This study sought to ascertain the link between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) rating and the profitability of companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), following the release of the first ever country rating of Corporate Citizenship Index (3C-Index) in 2013. The study further sought to ascertain whether significant differences exist between the performances of companies that received high CSR ratings as compared to those that received low ratings. Secondary data were extracted from the 2013 to 2017 annual reports and accounts of companies that got different CSR ratings classified as high and low. The multiple regression and Mann-Whitney rank test (U-test) were used to test the propositions. The findings from the regression showed a positive but insignificant relationship between CSR rating and firm performance but a significantly positive relationship with the size of firms. The results of the U-tests were mixed, whereas the Return on Assets (ROA) of companies with high CSR ratings did not differ significantly from companies with low CSR ratings, the Return on Equity (ROE) of companies with high CSR ratings was significantly greater than that of companies with low CSR ratings. This finding suggests that CSR may be in its infancy among the study sample but is beginning to take roots as evident by the positive &amp;beta;s statistics and a significant difference in the ROE of the companies as captured by the non-parametric statistics. It is recommended that the period of the study be extended in the intermediate and long-run to determine if the relationship might become significant.

Multiple rank multi-linear twin support matrix classification machine1

Multiple rank multi-linear twin support matrix classification machine1

Determinant of Carbon Emission Disclosure at Mining Companies Listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange

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Hyperspectral Classification via Superpixel Kernel Learning-Based Low Rank Representation

High dimensional image classification is a fundamental technique for information retrieval from hyperspectral remote sensing data. However, data quality is readily affected by the atmosphere and noise in the imaging process, which makes it difficult to achieve good classification performance. In this paper, multiple kernel learning-based low rank representation at superpixel level (Sp_MKL_LRR) is proposed to improve the classification accuracy for hyperspectral images. Superpixels are generated first from the hyperspectral image to reduce noise effect and form homogeneous regions. An optimal superpixel kernel parameter is then selected by the kernel matrix using a multiple kernel learning framework. Finally, a kernel low rank representation is applied to classify the hyperspectral image. The proposed method offers two advantages. (1) The global correlation constraint is exploited by the low rank representation, while the local neighborhood information is extracted as the superpixel kernel adaptively learns the high-dimensional manifold features of the samples in each class; (2) It can meet the challenges of multiscale feature learning and adaptive parameter determination in the conventional kernel methods. Experimental results on several hyperspectral image datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms several state-of-the-art classifiers tested in terms of overall accuracy, average accuracy, and kappa statistic.

Dynamic Virtual Network Reconfiguration Method for Hybrid Multiple Failures Based on Weighted Relative Entropy.

Network virtualization can offer more flexibility and better manageability for next generation Internet. With the increasing deployments of virtual networks in military and commercial networks, a major challenge is to ensure virtual network survivability against hybrid multiple failures. In this paper, we study the problem of recovering virtual networks affected by hybrid multiple failures in substrate networks and provide an integer linear programming formulation to solve it. We propose a heuristic algorithm to tackle the complexity of the integer linear programming formulation, which includes a faulty virtual network reconfiguration ranking method based on weighted relative entropy, a hybrid multiple failures ranking algorithm, and a virtual node migration method based on weighted relative entropy. In the faulty virtual network reconfiguration ranking method based on weighted relative entropy and virtual node migration method based on weighted relative entropy, multiple ranking indicators are combined in a suitable way based on weighted relative entropy. In the hybrid multiple failures ranking algorithm, the virtual node and its connective virtual links are re-embedded, firstly. Evaluation results show that our heuristic method not only has the best acceptance ratio and normal operation ratio, but also achieves the highest long-term average revenue to cost ratio compared with other virtual network reconfiguration methods.

Graph-based multiple rank regression for image classification

Abstract Image classification is one important task in image processing and pattern recognition. Traditional image classification methods commonly transform the image into a vector. However, in essence, image is a matrix data and using vector instead of image loses the correlations of the matrix data. To address this problem, we propose a graph-based multiple rank regression model (GMRR), which employs multiple-rank left and right projecting vectors to regress each matrix data to its label for each category. To exploit the discriminating structure of the data space, a class compactness graph is constructed to constrain these left and right projecting vectors. The extensive experimental results on image classification have demonstrated the effectiveness of our proposed method.

支配層 編制에 나타난 新羅의 國家形成 構圖

This article is written to reveal that there are some serious problems with the conventional understanding that the state formation of Silla was completed through conquest, by looking at the constitution principle of Silla’s class system and political rank system. Silla’s class system which is called ‘Golpum’ was established based on the concept of discrimination between the ‘Bone(骨)’ class and the ‘Head quality (頭品)’ class. The former is the organization for the kings and royal families and the latter is for the bureaucrats. The constitution principle of this system was to guarantee the equality of ‘Bone’ class people and to ensure the promotion of ‘head quality’ class people by his ability or distinguished service. And above this principle, it was stipulated politically that only the ‘Bone’ class can occupy the higher part of official ranks named ‘-Khan’, and the ‘Head quality’ class should be able to get the lower ranks. The Multiple Official Rank System(重位制) was a special device for the ‘Head quality’ class to be promoted over the permitted official rank by sideway. The Multiple Official Rank system was first applied to Nama(奈麻) and then to Akhan(阿干). This means that the ‘Sixth Head quality(六頭品)’ class were newly created later. The fact that the status of “bones” were basically equal regardless of their official ranks means that the small countries that made up Silla were joined together in an equal position to establish Silla. In addition, the fact that the grade of ‘Head quality’ was a signifier of not a fixed status but a political position means that the bureaucracy originated from small countries that formed Silla was treated simply by their abilities. And this is a political phenomenon that cannot be seen in a nation formed through conquest. When we compare the structure of the bureaucracy of the small country that remained in the Regional Rank System(外位制) with the composition of the Capital Rank System(京位制) leads us to the same conclusion. Therefore, the existing understanding that Silla was completed by conquering the neighboring small states must be fully reviewed.

Study of bases influence on the biopharmaceutical characteristics of the pastes for onychomycosis therapy

According to the European and American authors the onychomycosis prevalence in the world has amount from 8.0 % to 26.9 %. Topical treatment of onychomycosis in most cases is the only acceptable method of therapy mainly due to high safety. Etiotropic topical pharmacotherapy of this pathology is carried out by the dermatomicotic medicines – creams, ointments, gels, solutions. Nail polishes are the specific dosage forms for onychomycosis therapy. However antimycotic polish therapy is sufficiently effective only in case of treatment the surface white and distal-lateral form of onychomycosis, but just in case when less than 1/3 of nail plate is affected. Also wide application is limited to length of use (from 6 month to 1 year) and high therapy cost. According to above mentioned information, development of specific semisolid dosage form for onychomycosis therapy without removing the nail plate and allowing combination high efficacy of medical substances even in case of nail-bed affection, rational term of treatment and economical availability is rational. Presence of these effects may be reached by the way of combination in semisolid dosage form for appliication on the nail plate – the paste – substances with keratolytic and antimycotic action. At the same time use of acid combination as a keratolytic for pH decreasing in tissue of the nail plate and fungi growth inhibition and also providing with penetration of active components of paste for onychomycosis therapy. As a result of this development of semisolid dosage form for the topical treatment of onychomycosis with biologically active substances from the group of nonspecific antimycotics (2-mercaptobenzthiazol, chinozol) with broad spectrum of antimycotic, antibacterial activity and safety has a scientific and practical interest. The aim of this work is biopharmaceutical substantiation of optimal base for semisolid dosage form – paste for etiotropic therapy of onychomycosis. Materials and methods. As a device for developing pharmacotherapeutical preparation hydrofobic and emulsion bases resistant to combination with sufficiently aggressive keratolytics and described in literature were studied. As an active pharmaceutical ingredient for antimycotic paste 2-mercaptobenzthiazol and chinozol in concentration 10% and 10% accordingly for providing with the optimal level of antifungal activity were used. As keratolytic substances traditionally used for onycholysis: carbamide, mixture of salicylic and benzoic acids in concentration described in literature were used. At the same time chinozol shows keratolytic effect and in that capacity is used in formulations of chinozolo-salicylic, chinozolo-dimexidic and also carbamidic plasters for nails. The content of dry substances and plasticizers in formulations of onycholytic pastes was chosen taking into account the requirements of Ukrainian Pharmacopoea and normative document for this dosage form. Taking into account the advisability of high dispersion degree of medical substances in semisolid dosage forms for external use and physical-chemical properties of 2-mercaptobenzthiazol the latter was added in emulsion bases after preliminary dissolution in polyethylenoxyde 400 with heating. Keratolytics were added as a suspension in all bases. Investigations of scientifically substantiation of the base of paste for onychomycosis therapy were carried out according to plan of single-factor analysis of variance with repeated observations. For all selected compositions the releasing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (2-mercaptobenzthiazol and chinozol) from ointments were studied with equilibrium dialysis method by Kruvchinsky at the temperature 25.0 ± 0.5 °С (temperature on the surface of nail) through the semipermeable film “Kuprofan” in the Franz diffusion cell apparatus (producer PermeGear, Inc., USA). As a dialysis medium taking into account 2-mercaptobenzthiazol solubility was used solution containing methanol and water 1:1 and chinozol releasing was carried out into water. Concentration of active pharmaceutical substances released from experimental pastes after 2 hours was determined spectrophotometrically. Results . Carried out verification of average results of 2-mercaptobenzthiazol and chinozol releasing by the Dunkan’s multiple rank test allowed to build the preferred series of pastes base influence on the intensity of active pharmaceutical ingredients releasing. Obtained results showed the sighnificant advantage of the emulsion ointment base providing with optimal level of 2-mercaptobenzthiazol and chinozol releasing from experimental compositions of semisolid dosge forms for onychomycosis therapy. Conclusions . It was determined that sort of the base makes a sighnificant influence on 2-mercaptobenzthiazol and chinozol releasing from the antimycotic pastes for onychomycosis therapy. Variance analysis of results revealed that emulsion vehicle containing acid-resisting emulsifier provides with optimal 2-mercaptobenzthiazol and chinozol releasing.

Study of influence of surface-active substances concentration on clopidogrel releasing from the rectal suppository

During the last years clopidogrel which together with strong polyvalent antiaggregatory action on platelets decreases the level of triglycerides and optimizes other indexes of lipidogramm has ranked the leading place from the medications with antiplatelet mechanism. In the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market clopidogrel is presented in form of domestic and imported film-coated tablets. Alternative to oral administration of clopidogrel is rectal route which thanks to increasing of medical substance bioavailability allows to decrease the active ingredient dose and minimize the risks of unwanted side effects in the organism. At the Medicinal Preparations Technology Department of Zaporozhye State Medical University the research of composition development and technology of clopidogrel rectal dosage form for prevention of atherothromboses for the patients with myocardial infarction, acute coronary syndrome, ischemic stroke, occlusive arterial disease. As a result of biopharmaceutical investigations it was established that combination of excipients – the base (mixture of polyethyleoxydes with molecular weight 1500 and 400 in ratio 9:1) and surface-active substance (twin-80) provides optimal releasing of clopidogrel from the rectal suppository. The aim of this work is scientific substantiation of surface-active substance (twin-80) concentration in rectal dosage form with clopidogrel. Materials and methods . Suppositories were made by the fusiom method using the forms from the Franco-Krespy semi-automatic device. Concentration of surfactant (twin-80) was 0,5%, 1%, 2%, 3% and 5% of drug mass, clopidogrel content was 0,075 g in each suppository. As a parameter of optimization a clopidogrel releasing from suppository compositions was chosen as a first stage of bioavailability study. Clopidogrel releasing from the suppository was studied using the equilibrium dialysis method by Kruvchinsky at 37±0,5 0 С temperature throuth the semipermeable membrane – cellophane film «Kuprofan» in a station with Franz diffusion cells (producer is «Permegear, Inc»., USA). As a dialysis medium taking into account clopidogrel solubility methyl alcohol was chosen. Concentration of clopidogrel released after 30 min was determined by the spectrophotometric method using the spectrofotometer UV – 2600 (producer is«Shimadzu Corp»., Japan). Results . Analysis of variance showed significant influence of surfactant (twin-80) concentration on the clopidogrel releasing from the suppository compositions. Verification of average results of clopidogrel releasing by the Dunkan’s multiple rank test showed that increasing of twin-80 concentration in rectal suppository with clopidogrel more than 2% doesn’t lead to increasing of its releasing from the dosage form. Conclusions . As a result of carried out biopharmaceutical study of clopidogrel suppository it was determined that surfactant (twin-80) concentration has a statistically significant influence on its releasing from the dosage form. It was found out that 2% concentration of twin-80 provides with the optimal level of clopidogrel releasing from the rectal suppository.

A new hierarchical ranking aggregation method

The purpose of ranking aggregation (or fusion) is to combine multiple rankings to a consensus one. In the ranking aggregation, some of the items’ preference orders are easy to distinguish, however, some others’ are not. To specifically compare the ambiguous items, i.e., the items whose aggregated preference orders are difficult to distinguish, is helpful for ranking aggregation. In this paper, a new hierarchical ranking aggregation method is proposed. The items whose preference orders are easy to distinguish are first divided into different ranking levels (i.e., the ordered items subsets), and the ambiguous items are put into the same ranking level. The items in high ranking levels are ranked higher than the items in low ranking levels in the aggregated ranking. Then the items in the same ranking level are further compared and divided into multiple ranking sub-levels. The aggregated ranking is generated hierarchically by dividing the same ranking levels’ (or sub-levels’) items into sub-levels until each sub-level only includes one item. Furthermore, we discuss the way of using the insertion sort method for merging the adjacent levels’ rankings to improve the quality of the aggregated ranking. The experiments and simulations show that our new hierarchical methods perform well in ranking aggregation.

Intelligent system for drowsiness recognition based on ear canal electroencephalography with photoplethysmography and electrocardiography

We propose an intelligent system that can recognize drowsiness during daily life with the use of EEG measurements in the ear canal in combination with conventional photoplethysmography (PPG) and electrocardiography (ECG). The physiological signals for classification by machine learning were measured during the sustained attention task of simulated driving. The features were sorted by their degree of importance using three types of ranking filters and the combined information. The effect of the feature size of the biological signals on machine learning was evaluated by determining the mean squared error. The classifications were conducted with various datasets and dataset lengths that were obtained from the same biological signals considering the transitional traits of drowsiness. The statistical measures of the performance of the classifications using machine learning indicated that the system based on the ear canal EEG data and the physiological attribute data was excellent. The feature selection process with the composite ranking algorithm using multiple ranking methods improved the classification performance. The nonlinear features were highly selective among the physiological attributes for the intelligent recognition of drowsiness.

Activity-based linkage and ranking methods for personal dataspace

This research was conducted to alleviate desktop activity support deficiency, which occurs due to the lack of links between desktop resources. The research exploited information such as associations, contexts, and activity information about accesses to local resources, and translated this information into a personal linkage structure. More specifically, the research presented a novel approach to link and rank desktop resources by analysing users' activities over time, and exploited the associative links of resources from their implicit access patterns. Furthermore, multiple ranking methods, such as frequency of access, recency of access, focus time, and connectivity of resources, were proposed. Prototype systems were also developed, and a user study was conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. The results showed that ranking desktop resources by their relevance - as carried out in this research - could improve activity-specific support, as well as overall performance in the area of personal information management.

Activity based Linkage and Ranking Methods for Personal Dataspace

This research was conducted to alleviate desktop activity support deficiency, which occurs due to the lack of links between desktop resources. The research exploited information such as associations, contexts, and activity information about accesses to local resources, and translated this information into a personal linkage structure. More specifically, the research presented a novel approach to link and rank desktop resources by analysing users' activities over time, and exploited the associative links of resources from their implicit access patterns. Furthermore, multiple ranking methods, such as frequency of access, recency of access, focus time, and connectivity of resources, were proposed. Prototype systems were also developed, and a user study was conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. The results showed that ranking desktop resources by their relevance - as carried out in this research - could improve activity-specific support, as well as overall performance in the area of personal information management.

Bioactive focus in conformational ensembles: a pluralistic approach.

Computational generation of conformational ensembles is key to contemporary drug design. Selecting the members of the ensemble that will approximate the conformation most likely to bind to a desired target (the bioactive conformation) is difficult, given that the potential energy usually used to generate and rank the ensemble is a notoriously poor discriminator between bioactive and non-bioactive conformations. In this study an approach to generating a focused ensemble is proposed in which each conformation is assigned multiple rankings based not just on potential energy but also on solvation energy, hydrophobic or hydrophilic interaction energy, radius of gyration, and on a statistical potential derived from Cambridge Structural Database data. The best ranked structures derived from each system are then assembled into a new ensemble that is shown to be better focused on bioactive conformations. This pluralistic approach is tested on ensembles generated by the Molecular Operating Environment's Low Mode Molecular Dynamics module, and by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre's conformation generator software.