Search Results (8,741)

The Elk Herd Optimiser (EHO) is a novel metaheuristic algorithm inspired by the reproductive behaviour of elk herds. However, it suffers from insufficient convergence accuracy and population diversity. To address these issues, this study proposes an improved EHO (IEHO). A novel individual update strategy for the breeding phase is introduced to meet the requirements of convergence speed and diversity during evolution. A new population grouping strategy is also developed to achieve a dual balance between elite guidance and spatial distribution. Cauchy distribution sampling is used to generate learning weights, and population diversity is adopted to control the step size of movement, allowing real-time monitoring and supplementation of population diversity. A differentiated learning strategy based on fitness ranking divides individuals into high-quality and ordinary categories, implementing elite guidance and swarm intelligence learning, respectively. A hybrid evolutionary mechanism, integrating reverse learning driven by generalised opposition and perturbation based on the Cauchy distribution, substantially strengthens the algorithm’s resistance to entrapment in local optima. Moreover, dimension-masked crossover operations are introduced to greatly optimise the efficiency of population information sharing. Finally, through comparative experiments to verify the overall performance of IEHO on the CEC2017 test suite, compared with other competing algorithms, IEHO achieves the highest number of optimal solutions across multiple test functions. Full article

We apply the recently proposed analytic extension of formal indicial umbral calculus to the evaluation and structural interpretation of Bessel moments, replacing formal symbolic constructions with Mellin–Barnes analytic transmutations. The classical umbral representation of $J_0$ converts products of Bessel functions into Gaussian integrals involving sums of independent symbolic operators. This formal mechanism may reproduce correct identities in suitable convergence chambers, but it may also lead to non-admissible hypergeometric expansions at the physically relevant parameter values. The cubic moment already exhibits this difficulty: the formal Appell $F_4$ expansion associated with the equilateral case lies outside its domain of convergence. We address this obstruction by replacing the formal expansion with Mellin–Barnes representations of the corresponding umbral pairings. In this formulation, Ramanujan’s Master Theorem selects the analytic ground state associated with a Bessel product. The factorisation $J_0^3=J_0{J}_0^2$ fuses the elementary Bessel state with the square state and gives the cubic moment as a one-dimensional Meijer–Barnes function. The same mechanism yields a scaled cubic formula and a fourth-moment Meijer–Barnes representation whose residues give a convergent harmonic-number expansion. The fifth moment marks the first higher-rank case: the natural grouping $J_0^5=J_0^2{J}_0^2{J}_0$ leads to a bivariate Barnes transmutation rather than to an ordinary Meijer G-function. Finally, real powers $J_0^{\alpha }$, $\alpha >2$, are interpreted through Mellin-selected ground states, which need not reduce to finite Gamma products. Thus, Bessel moments provide a concrete hierarchy of analytic umbral representations, from rank-one Meijer–Barnes functions to higher-rank Barnes structures, and distinguish the global analytic meaning of an umbral construction from the local convergence of its residue expansions. Full article

Groundwater nitrate contamination is delayed, spatially heterogeneous and difficult to screen with sparse monitoring, especially when exceedance probability and exposure concern must be considered together. We analysed 157 shallow groundwater samples from Handan City, China, collected in 2023, and 14 environmental predictors to map NO₃⁻ exceedance above 50 mg/L. Random forest, support vector machine (SVM) and XGBoost classifiers were evaluated by repeated stratified testing and spatial block cross-validation, with SHAP used to interpret model responses. Ordinary kriging and the USEPA non-carcinogenic risk framework estimated adult and child hazard quotients (HQs), and exceedance probability was cross-classified with child HQ in a probability–HQ matrix. Thirty-one samples (19.7%) exceeded the threshold. Although SVM achieved the highest ROC-AUC, XGBoost was retained for early-warning mapping because it better controlled missed exceedances. High-probability zones were concentrated in central-western and urban-fringe Handan. SHAP responses indicated that hydroclimatic, hydrogeological, land-use, terrain and soil factors jointly shaped model discrimination, without implying source attribution. Children had higher HQs than adults. At P = 0.5, general protection, exceedance-warning, concentration-verification and priority-intervention zones occupied 81.26%, 18.40%, 0.01% and 0.33% of the area, respectively. The framework supports targeted monitoring and drinking-water verification rather than fixed contamination boundaries. Full article

This study aims to develop a pre-litigation decision-support model that estimates the expected court judgment amount in multi-family housing defect litigation using only information available before a suit is filed. To this end, 106 final-instance South Korean court judgments (2014–2025) were compiled and decomposed into 33,997 item-level records, on which a three-layer hybrid model was built. The first layer is an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression of the area-normalized award on three pre-filing variables—elapsed months, log exclusive area, and log claimed amount (R² = 0.626). The second layer is a multinomial logistic classifier predicting the liability limitation band, with a ±1-band accuracy of 94.4%. The third layer is a probabilistic quantile layer that combines the two to output five quantiles. Under leakage-free five-fold cross-validation, the model achieved a Q50 mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 28.4% with well-calibrated interval coverage (50% interval—49.1%; 80% interval—79.2%). A preliminary external validation on 22 independent cases gave a MAPE of 21.4% (bootstrap 95% CI [15.0%, 28.6%]). The interquartile band (Q25–Q75) provides both parties an objective non-litigation settlement range, offering a shared basis to move from adversarial litigation toward earlier, information-based settlement. Full article

This paper presents an attitude filter that encodes both orientation and uncertainty in a single four-dimensional vector, requiring no covariance propagation or normalization constraints. The filter state is the natural parameter of the von Mises–Fisher (vMF) distribution on S³, whose exponential family structure reduces measurement updates to vector addition. Prediction is governed by a continuous-time ODE (Ordinary Differential Equation) that couples rotational kinematics with concentration decay. The QUEST-based construction of measurement natural parameters with a Fisher-information-matched concentration, an antipodal switching mechanism for the quaternion double cover, and a global exponential convergence analysis of the attitude error are described. The filter construction is left-invariant: it commutes with rotations of the reference frame, making the error dynamics trajectory-independent. The result is a filter with the computational simplicity of a complementary filter and the statistical grounding of Bayesian vMF fusion, operating entirely in unconstrained ℝ⁴ space. The filter is validated in simulation, on two recorded flights—including an evaluation against an EFIS attitude reference—and its computational cost is measured down to on-target microcontroller cycle counts. Gyroscope bias estimation is not included and is left to future work. Full article

The Magnus expansion offers a powerful geometric method to express a time-ordered exponential operator solution, typical of time-dependent linear differential equations, as an ordinary operatorial exponential. This representation possesses advantageous theoretical and qualitative features, such as preserving the underlying Lie algebraic structure of the system while remaining an exact solution to the original differential equation. For any finite-dimensional Hermitian Hamiltonian governing a quantum system, the standard Magnus expansion guarantees a manifestly unitary representation at every finite order of truncation. However, this foundational property is no longer preserved if the underlying Hamiltonian is non-Hermitian. In this work, we derive a generalized, unitarized expansion framework that systematically restores and maintains the property of geometric unitarity for all bounded finite-dimensional non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Full article

Over the last two decades, touristification has become one of the most influential concepts for understanding the relationship between tourism and urban change. However, existing research remains strongly shaped by the experiences of large metropolitan areas and globally recognized tourist destinations, leaving intermediate urban contexts comparatively underexplored. This paper addresses this gap by examining the Atlantic Urban System of the north-western Iberian Peninsula as a framework for understanding touristification beyond dominant metropolitan paradigms. Drawing on debates on touristification, ordinary cities, intermediate urbanism, and regional development, the article argues that the polycentric structure, historical peripherality, and growing integration of this urban system create distinctive conditions shaping tourism-related urban change. Building on previous work on the Atlantic Urban Axis, the paper conceptualizes the Atlantic Urban System as a territorial configuration composed largely of interconnected intermediate cities and develops a framework for analysing touristification through five interrelated dimensions: territorial position, housing market structure, tourism development trajectories, urban governance, and urban form. Rather than proposing a new urban type, the article highlights the analytical value of examining tourism-related transformations within a specific territorial configuration and contributes to ongoing efforts to diversify the geographical foundations of urban theory. Full article

Large language models are increasingly deployed as natural-language interfaces to clinical databases, yet their evaluation has focused almost exclusively on query correctness rather than access minimality. Data-protection frameworks such as HIPAA §164.502(b) and the GDPR data-minimisation principle require that personal data be accessed only to the extent necessary for the immediate purpose. This paper presents the first empirical audit of open-weight LLMs on this access-scope dimension, using the EHRSQL 2024 benchmark over MIMIC-IV. We measure deviations from minimum-necessary access via three static metrics computable without executing queries: Sensitive Column Exposure (SCE), Table Over-Join Rate (TOJ), and Aggregate Identifier Exposure (AIE). Unlike prior work on adversarial attacks, we study default model behaviour under ordinary, benign queries—the over-reach we document requires no attacker and is present from the first interaction. Among twelve open-weight models, a non-trivial fraction fail a basic SQL-generation viability threshold; among nine viable models, SQL-specialised training paradoxically increases over-reach while domain-adapted medical variants achieve the lowest exposure. Schema redaction largely eliminates column-level exposure but increases table-level over-reach for most models. Random in-context demonstrations produce statistically significant over-reach regressions in specific models; BM25-based retrieval resolves most of these failures, though a residual aggregate-identifier exposure risk persists for one model family. Full article

Let $X_n=\{1,2,\dots ,n\}$. Previous work has focused on ordinary semigroup identities and the structural properties of individual transformation monoids. Building on related identity-based work involving one of the present authors, we compare the full transformation semigroup ${\mathcal{T}}_n$, the order-preserving semigroup ${\mathcal{O}}_n$, the order-preserving-or-order-reversing semigroup ${\mathcal{OD}}_n$, the orientation-preserving semigroup ${\mathcal{OP}}_n$, and the anti-cyclic one-line family ${\mathrm{OR}}_n$, treated only as a subset of ${\mathcal{T}}_n$. For each family S, we determine the least positive exponent $E_S$ such that $a^{E_S}$ is idempotent for every $a\in S$. This gives $z^{E_S}=z^{2E_S}$. For $n\ge 2$, the exponents for ${\mathcal{T}}_n$, ${\mathcal{O}}_n$, ${\mathcal{OD}}_n$, and ${\mathcal{OP}}_n$ are $lcm(1,\dots ,n)$, $n-1$, $2⌈{\displaystyle \frac{n-1}{2}}⌉$, and $lcm(1,\dots ,n)$, while $\widehat{E}\left({\mathrm{OR}}_n\right)=2⌈{\displaystyle \frac{n-1}{2}}⌉$ is the subset exponent for ${\mathrm{OR}}_n$. We then study $x^{E_S}{y}^{E_S}{x}^{E_S}=y^{E_S}{x}^{E_S}$. With $p=x^{E_S}$ and $q=y^{E_S}$, it reduces to $pqp=qp$. This holds exactly when q maps each kernel block of p into a single kernel block of p, and fails exactly when q splits a block. Together with the automatic cases, this test gives a classification of all ordered pairs into automatic, positive, and negative classes. Full article

Background/Objectives: This study examines the moderating effect of marital quality on the association between perceived stress and depressive symptoms among married women residing in urban China, guided by the stress process model. Methods: Using data from the 2020 Family and Health Survey conducted in Chengdu and Beijing, the current study analyzed responses from 1865 married women. Marital quality was measured using two dimensions: positive marital interaction and marital disagreement. Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses showed that higher perceived stress was significantly associated with elevated depressive symptoms. Results: Notably, positive marital interaction buffered the association between perceived stress and depressive symptoms, whereas marital disagreement exacerbated this association. Conclusions: These findings underscore the dual role of marital quality in buffering or exacerbating the association between perceived stress and depressive symptoms, highlighting the importance of promoting marital quality as a potential approach to improving the psychological well-being of urban Chinese women. Full article

Background: Notifiable infectious diseases impose a substantial, evolving burden on public health systems. This study characterized long-term epidemiological trends, inter-class associations, and age-stratified patterns of notifiable infectious diseases in South Korea and projected future burden through 2028. Methods: We analyzed aggregate national surveillance data (2001–2024) from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) via the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS). Because the statutory classification changed in 2020 from a four-group (Class 1–4, gun) to a four-grade (geup) system, all inferential trend, correlation, and forecasting analyses were restricted to the internally consistent 2001–2019 group-system period, and 2020–2024 grade-system data were used descriptively. Secular trends were estimated with ordinary least squares and, for count-specific inference, negative-binomial log-linear models (annual percent change, APC); residual autocorrelation was assessed (Durbin–Watson, Ljung–Box). Structural breaks were estimated objectively (Bai–Perron least-squares). Inter-class associations were tested with Pearson/Spearman correlations and re-evaluated with partial correlation (controlling for calendar year) and first-difference detrending to guard against spurious co-trending. Forecasts used a random-walk ARIMA (identified by ADF stationarity testing, ACF/PACF, and AICc) and a damped Holt–Winters model on the H1N1-adjusted series, combined into an ensemble; performance was validated by rolling-origin cross-validation (RMSE, MAE, MAPE). Results: After handling the 2009 H1N1 pandemic outlier, total notifications rose significantly over 2001–2019 (slope = 8344 cases/year; 95% CI 6603–10,084; R² = 0.866; p < 0.001). Class 2 (respiratory/vaccine-preventable) diseases showed the strongest trend (APC = 17.2%/year; 95% CI 8.0–27.3), with an objectively estimated structural break at 2004 (supF = 10.5) separating an early variable phase from sustained growth (2005–2019: +7418 cases/year; R² = 0.94). Raw Class 1–Class 2 correlation (Pearson r = 0.569, p = 0.011) did not survive temporal adjustment (partial r = 0.13, p = 0.59; detrended r = −0.31, p = 0.21), indicating shared secular co-trending rather than a direct epidemiological association; only Class 2–Class 3 remained associated after detrending (r = 0.52, p = 0.03). Young working-age adults (30–49 years) showed the steepest Class 1 increases. Ensemble projections for the pre-COVID trajectory were 238,000 (2025) to 269,000 (2028) annual notifications, with wide prediction intervals reflecting substantial uncertainty. Conclusions: South Korean notifiable-disease epidemiology was dominated by a genuine upward Class 2 respiratory trend; several previously reported inter-class correlations were attributable to common temporal trends rather than shared transmission. Post-COVID normalization monitoring and respiratory-disease surveillance investment are priority actions. Full article

The accuracy of spectro-temporal features for Makhaarij al-Huroof and Sifaat distinguishes between the ten canonical Qiraát recitation styles of the Holy Quran. However, real-world room reverberations blur formant contours and corrupt inter-word energies, thus making Qiraat discrimination difficult. The current dereverberation methods were designed to work under ordinary speech conditions and are not capable of preserving phonetic qualities for domain-specific purposes. This paper introduces a four-step, phase-consistent signal-processing approach prioritizing phonetic preservation over direct reverberation suppression. The four steps are: (1) adaptive noise-floor attenuation; (2) soft-voice activity detection using power-law boundary decay; (3) application-specific spectral contour adjustment from clean Quranic reference audio; and (4) Griffin–Lim algorithm-based phase correction. A total of 48 real-world room recordings were utilized for the evaluation of this approach based on Energy Ratio (ER), Spectral Contrast (SC), and Spectral Contour Stability (SCS)—measures specific to the Quran audio domain—alongside conventional speech-quality metrics. The proposed approach yielded the highest scores in three of seven metrics, namely SC (+40.11), SCS (+822.94), and PESQ (+1.251), alongside the second-highest Energy Ratio (+19.58 dB), while being superior to Spectral Subtraction, Wiener Filtering, and WPE Dereverberation approaches. Moreover, the perceptual enhancement was verified in a synthetic controlled experiment where the proposed approach scored an improved PESQ metric (+2.495; SNR −1.874 dB). The results illustrate the fact that an optimization for general-purpose metrics does not necessarily ensure phonetic preservation required for specific classification. Full article

This paper extends the post-factual polity framework into AI infrastructure and public administration systems theory. It asks how proprietary analytical platforms alter the state’s capacity to produce, audit, and contest the categories through which risk, threat, eligibility, fraud, and deviance become actionable. Using a structured documentary case analysis of Palantir Technologies across United States agencies and allied jurisdictions, the study applies three diagnostic markers—categorical opacity, contestation displacement, and substitutive dependency—to examine the migration of sovereign classification into vendor-controlled infrastructure. The research gap was identified through an integrative review of public administration, AI governance, algorithmic accountability, systems theory, surveillance studies, and Palantir scholarship. The analysis distinguishes AI epistemic capture from ordinary IT vendor lock-in: the former concerns not merely technical dependence or high exit costs but the loss of public capacity to define and contest consequential administrative categories. The paper argues that administrative law, procurement reform, and algorithmic impact assessment remain necessary but insufficient when agencies lack substitutive capacity. It specifies untangling as a systems-level task involving capacity reconstruction, categorical repatriation, contractual restructuring, and procurement reorientation. Hybrid intelligence is advanced as a post-untangling architecture that embeds machine processing within contestable, accountable, and legally governed human judgment. The contribution is diagnostic, methodological, and design-oriented for AI systems governance. Full article

The two-dimensional thermal liquid jet of a non-Newtonian power-law fluid is investigated under shear-rate-dependent thermal diffusivity, resulting in a one-way coupled nonlinear system governing momentum and thermal transport. Two physically distinct free-surface thermal boundary conditions are examined: adiabatic insulation and convective heat loss. Conservation laws and conserved quantities for the governing system are derived systematically using the multiplier method. By coupling an appropriate conserved vector with an admitted Lie point symmetry, the governing partial differential equations are reduced to a coupled system of ordinary differential equations. Closed-form parametric families of solutions are then obtained for the thermal field. The analysis reveals fundamentally different thermal transport mechanisms across rheological regimes: shear-thinning fluids enhance thermal redistribution and become increasingly sensitive to convective cooling as the Biot number increases, whereas shear-thickening fluids suppress internal thermal transport, promoting greater thermal retention within the jet core and reducing the influence of free-surface cooling. These findings clarify the interplay between rheology, nonlinear thermal diffusion and free-surface cooling and provide new analytical insight into downstream thermal transport in non-Newtonian liquid jets. Full article

In the Philippines, most children speak regional languages like Ilokano, Cebuano, and Hiligaynon as their first language (L1), but they have historically been schooled in English and Tagalog (i.e., Filipino). In 2012, the Department of Education (DepEd) institutionalized Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE), designating regional/local languages as the primary medium of instruction in the early grades. Despite this major policy shift, data on how it affected children of different linguistic and ethnic backgrounds remain scarce. This study addresses that gap by examining the effects of language-of-instruction (LOI) policy, child L1, and parental ethnicity on Grade 1 academic achievement in San Fernando, La Union—a multilingual city where Ilokano is the predominant language of the community and Ilocos Region. This quasi-experimental pre–post cohort comparison leverages an exogenous policy change to analyze data from 3002 Grade 1 students across 10 urban public schools in two consecutive school years: the last year of the old English–Filipino bilingual policy (SY 2011–2012) and the first year of MTBMLE (SY 2012–2013). Ordinary least squares and mixed-effects linear regression models estimate the effects of LOI policy, child L1, parental ethnicity, and their interactions on achievement scores. Under the old L2-oriented bilingual policy, L1 Ilokano children (the demographic majority) achieved significantly lower academic ratings than their L1 Tagalog peers, with an estimated gap of approximately 1.17–2.13 points (up to 0.5 standard deviations). Within one year of MTBMLE implementation, this gap decreased to just 0.10–0.18 points (less than 0.1 SD), driven primarily by an increase in Ilokano-speaking children’s achievement across all subjects. Parental ethnicity moderates these effects: children with at least one Ilokano parent showed greater achievement gains under MTBMLE than children with no Ilokano parents, but having one Ilokano parent was more advantageous than two. This suggests that multilingual home environments influence outcomes in complex ways. Overall, the findings provide empirical support for MTBMLE’s positive impact on educational outcomes and equity, observable even within the first year of implementation. They carry urgent implications as the Philippine government has suspended the policy under Republic Act 12027 of 2024. Policymakers are urged to disaggregate educational achievement data by children’s home languages, and incorporate L1s in instruction, assessment, and program evaluation. Full article