Localization index of farms in the period 2008-2016 in the rural areas of the South Central Region

The rural development policy in Bulgaria is dictated by the accompanying facts, with approximately 45% of the population living in them, covering 85% of the territory. The study and analysis of the socio-economic processes in agriculture of smaller administrative units of the NUTS classification gives an accurate picture of the real situation. The operation of farms ensures the production of different types of agricultural production. Contributing to the formation of Gross Domestic Product and the fulfillment of commitments in relation to the EU Common Agricultural Policy. The application of the localization index for agricultural holdings in the rural areas of the South-Central Region in Bulgaria reveals their real economic status. The study of the specialization factor for agricultural holdings covers an eight-year period 2008-2016. The localization index is the basis for an analysis of the different types of economic processes and phenomena. It is also applicable in smaller administrative areas, namely in the rural municipalities of the South-Central Region.

Association of Shared Care Networks with Heart Failure Excessive Hospital Readmissions

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of shared care networks on heart failure readmission rates. Background: Higher-than-expected heart failure (HF) readmissions affect half of US hospitals every year. The Hospital Reduction Readmission Program (HRRP) has reduced risk-adjusted readmissions, but it has also produced unintended consequences. Shared care models have been advocated for HF care, but the association of shared care networks with HF readmissions has never been investigated. Methods: We curated publicly available data on hospital discharges and HF excessive readmission ratios (ERRs) from hospitals in California between 2012 and 2017. Shared Care Areas (SCAs) were delineated as data-driven units of care coordination emerging from discharge networks. The localization index (LI), the proportion of patients who reside in the same SCA in which they are admitted, were calculated by year. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to evaluate the association between the LI and the ERR of hospitals controlling for race/ethnicity and socioeconomics factors. Results: A total of 300 hospitals in California in a 6-yr period were included. The HF excessive readmission ratio (ERR) was negatively associated with the localization index (beta: -0.0474; 95% CI: -0.082 to -0.013). The percentage of Black residents within the SCAs was the only statistically significant covariate (beta: 0.4128; 95% CI: 0.302 to 0.524). Conclusions: Higher-than-expected HF readmissions were associated with shared care networks. Control mechanisms such as the HRRP may need to characterize and reward shared care to guide hospitals towards a more organized HF care system.

Signal-segments cross-coherence method for nonlinear structural damage detection using free-vibration signals

A damage detection process can be significantly enhanced if the nonlinear effects can be used when extracting damage-sensitive features from measured signals. The coherence function is typically used for nonlinearity identification by determining the extent of the output power linearly correlated with the input. However, the excitations are usually difficult to measure in actual tests. To overcome this limit, this article presents a signal-segments cross-coherence method for nonlinearity identification. By defining a signal-segments cross-coherence matrix and signal-segments cross-coherence index, the method can visually and quantitatively indicate the presence of nonlinearity. The innovation of the new method is that the coherence analysis process only depends on a single output signal, where input and baseline signals are not required. Then, a novel structural damage localization index is constructed by multi-point comparing of the signal-segments cross-coherence indices, based on the assumption that all the measured signals from different points on the structure have the same frequency bandwidth and components. To meet this requirement, a newly proposed signal decomposition method called analytic mode decomposition method is adopted. Numerical studies on a duffing oscillator and a 10 degree-of-freedom spring-damping-mass system were performed to demonstrate the nonlinear identification process and investigate the effectiveness and robustness of the signal-segments cross-coherence-based damage detection method. The results show that the signal-segments cross-coherence method can effectively indicate the appearance of nonlinearity by the signal-segments cross-coherence matrix and signal-segments cross-coherence index with strong noise robustness. And the proposed damage localization index can accurately detect the weak nonlinear damage even with severely noise-polluted signals. To further investigate the applicability of the new method, an experimental study was conducted on a steel simplified scale model of a monopile offshore wind turbine support structure. The results demonstrate that the proposed signal-segments cross-coherence method and the new damage localization index can be used to detect the bolt-loosening damage of the steel structure only with output signals.

Tipologi Ekonomi Komoditas Perikanan dan Status Sektor Perikanan pada Pembangunan Wilayah di Kabupaten Bandung Barat

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menentukan tipologi sektor perikanan di Kabupaten Bandung Barat; menganalisis laju pertumbuhan sektor perikanan dalam lima tahun terakhir (2009-2013) Kabupaten Bandung Barat; dan untuk menganalisis peran perikanan sektor pada pembangunan daerah Kabupaten Bandung Barat. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode survey dengan menggunakan beberapa teknik analisis, yaitu analisis Klassen Tipologi, analisis (LQ), analisis Localization Index (LI), analisis Spesialization Index (SI) dan Shift Share (SS). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa potensi terbaik dari komoditas di Kabupaten Bandung Barat adalah ikan patin / Pengasius hypophthalmus (jumlah rata-rata LQ komoditas 1,92). Poin keunggulan daerah dengan menggunakan LQ (rata-rata nilai 1,82), LI (di bawah 0,5), dan SI (0,01 nilai 0,07-0,09 / nilai di bawah 0,5). Titik LQ menunjukkan bahwa sektor perikanan di Kabupaten Bandung Barat adalah sektor basis, tetapi poin lain (LI dan SI) menunjukkan bahwa sektor perikanan bukanlah sektor penggerak pada struktur perekonomian wilayah. Berdasarkan tipologi Klassen dan teknik Shift-Share, sektor perikanan di Kabupaten Bandung Barat merupakan sektor dengan pertumbuhan yang lambat dan kurang kompetitif (pada tipologi klassen berada di kuadran 2).

Electrochemical Characterization of the Structural Metals Immersed in Natural Seawater: In Situ Measures

This work presents the electrochemical corrosion results of the structural metals, aluminium (Al), brass and copper (Cu), immersed in coastal waters of Veracruz Port in Mexico at room temperature, atmospheric pressure and eight weeks of the exposition time. The electrochemical technique used was electrochemical noise (EN). A typical three-electrode electrochemical cell was used. Where the reference electrode was the silver/seawater (Ag/SW) and two nominally identical metallic samples were used as working electrodes (WE1 and WE2). The metallic samples of Al, brass and Cu were used as working electrode. The potential and current fluctuations were measured simultaneously between the two working electrodes (current measured) and the Ag/SW electrode (potential measured). The electrochemical noise measurements (ENM) were analysed by three different methods: Potential and current versus time (transients), Localization Index (LI) and Electrochemical Noise Resistance (Rn). The results shown a good correlation between the superficial analysis and the results obtained by the ENM. In addition, Cu presents the highest corrosion rate and, a corrosion attack was obtained by localization index; this behaviour was confirmed by superficial analysis.

Scale-invariant filtering design and analysis for edge detection

Existing edge detection filters work well on straight edges but make significant errors near sharp corners by producing rounded corners. This is due to the fact that the edge maps produced by these filters are scale variant. We enhance Canny’s optimality criteria to incorporate detection performance near corners as an explicit design objective. The resulting optimal filter, termed ‘Bessel integral filter’, can be derived analytically and exhibits superior performance over recent alternatives, both in terms of numerical accuracy and experimental fidelity. A noise-free localization index is also derived here to account for the detection accuracy of discontinuities forming sharp corners in the absence of noise. We prove here that edges detected by the filters that are not optimal with respect to this noise-free localization index are scale variant. However, the Bessel integral filter proposed here is optimal with respect to the noise-free localization index and therefore it is a scale-invariant filter.