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164554770

Association of sport and recreational facilities with adult residents' participation in leisure time physical activities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract The Sport Policy of Ethiopia, declared in 1998, underlines the importance of developing public sport and recreational facilities to the community for enhancing mass participation. However, after 20 years of its implementation, residents in Addis Ababa still play ball games on derelict areas and complain about scarcity of physical activity resources. This study investigated the provision of resources and its association with participation level of adult residents in LTPA in Nefas Silk Lafto sub city, Addis Ababa. Adult residents (n 384) sport facility experts (n 32) and sport facility department heads (n 2) participated in the study. We used questionnaires, observations, interview and GIS measures for collecting data and analyzed them by descriptive methods, t test, ANOVA and multiple regression. Poor availability, low participation and positive association between facility provision and level of participation were indicated. The article argues that there is a gap in realizing policy objective, which has its roots in providing resources.

Sport in Society

22351519

Information Technology and Firm Profitability: Mechanisms and Empirical Evidence

Do information technology investments improve firm profitability? If so, is this effect because such investments help improve sales, or is it because they help reduce overall operating expenses? How does the effect of IT on profitability compare with that of advertising and of research and development? These are important questions because investments in IT constitute a large part of firms' discretionary expenditures, and managers need to understand the likely impacts and mechanisms to justify and realize value from their IT and related resource allocation processes. The empirical evidence in this paper, derived using archival data from 1998 to 2003 for more than 400 global firms, suggests that IT has a positive impact on profitability. Importantly, the effect of IT investments on sales and profitability is higher than that of other discretionary investments, such as advertising and R&D. A significant portion of the impact of IT on firm profitability is accounted for by IT enabled revenue growth, but there is no evidence for the effect of IT on profitability through operating cost reduction. Taken together, these findings suggest that firms have had greater success in achieving higher profitability through IT enabled revenue growth than through IT enabled cost reduction. They also provide important implications for managers to make allocations among discretionary expenditures such as IT, advertising, and R&D. With regard to IT expenditures, the results imply that firms should accord higher priority to IT projects that have revenue growth potential over those that focus mainly on cost savings.

MIS Q.

20078386

Patient access to medical records and healthcare outcomes: a systematic review

OBJECTIVES We conducted a systematic review to determine the effect of providing patients access to their medical records (electronic or paper based) on healthcare quality, as defined by measures of safety, effectiveness, patient centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity. METHODS Articles indexed in PubMed from January 1970 to January 2012 were reviewed. Twenty seven English language controlled studies were included. Outcomes were categorized as measures of effectiveness (n=19) patient centeredness (n=16) and efficiency (n=2) no study addressed safety, timeliness, or equity. RESULTS Outcomes were equivocal with respect to several aspects of effectiveness and patient centeredness. Efficiency outcomes in terms of frequency of in person and telephone encounters were mixed. Access to health records appeared to enhance patients' perceptions of control and reduced or had no effect on patient anxiety. CONCLUSION Although few positive findings generally favored patient access, the literature is unclear on whether providing patients access to their medical records improves quality.

J. Am. Medical Informatics Assoc.

213871857

EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH FOR UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMIC BEHAVIORS OF BENTONITE BUFFER PIPING EROSION

In Japan, as in other countries, bentonite based buffer materials are expected to play roles in reducing stress from rock masses and mitigating nuclide migration in the geological disposal of high level radioactive waste. These roles are achieved by ensuring buffer density and thickness based on the swelling characteristics of clay. However, in practical construction, we should also consider bentonite buffer piping erosion, a phenomenon in which the buffer surface is destroyed by groundwater flowing between the buffer and rock. Such piping erosion may be a serious issue for maintaining an engineered barrier for radioactive waste in the geological system. In this study, the dynamic behaviors of piping erosion were experimentally investigated. In the experiments, 500 mm ph x 600 mm height compacted bentonite specimens were placed in a cylindrical acrylic cell and distilled water was continuously injected at a flow rate of 0.1 L/min from the bottom and the side of the cell. The amount of bentonite that flowed out of the cell was measured by turbidity of the suspended clay in the drainage water. In the results, while the bentonite specimen swelled between about 10 and 20 days and attached to the inside wall of the cell, a dominant flow channel (piping) was observed between the swelled bentonite specimen and the inside wall of the cell. In addition, the relationship between the accumulated amounts of injected water and eroded bentonite showed a constant slope on double logarithmic plots. Such behaviors indicate that the shear stress due to water flow locally exceeded the swelled bentonite's shear strength. Furthermore, the slopes were similar to those already reported from a test using a smaller size cell. These results suggest that piping erosion proceeds with a simple regularity and that piping erosion in actual scale bentonite buffers can be predicted using small scale data.

109366645

SOLUSI MURAH DAN MUDAH UNTUK MENDAPATKAN GAINTINGGI DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN ANTENA WAJANBOLIC

Penelitian Ilmiah ini menitik beratkan pada pembuatan dan implementasian antena wajanbolic untuk Clear Line of Sight yang bekerja pada frekuensi 2.4 Ghz untuk jaringan wireless. Selain itu, antena wajanbolic juga merupakan solusi murah dan mudah untuk jaringan WLAN. Antena wajanbolic ini di uji coba sebanyak 3 tahap dengan menggunakan wajanbolic, tanpa menggunakan wajanbolic dan dengan 3 access point sejajar horisontal. Sesuai dengan nama antena wajanbolic, antena ini menggunakan reflektor dari wajan, dengan waveguide/feeder dari pipa paralon yang dilapisi dengan aluminium foil, dan penerima sinyal menggunakan USB WLAN. Dari hasil pengukuran dan analisa diperoleh bahwa antenna wajanbolic adalah antenna directional yang mempunyai nilai gain sekitar 16 dBi dan mampu berkomunikasi dengan perangkat wireless lain sejauh 1 km yang clear line of Sight. Daftar Pustaka (2005 2009)

237199126

Exploring Male Multiple Orgasm in a Large Online Sample: Refining Our Understanding.

BACKGROUND The scientific literature on multiple orgasm in males is small. There is little consensus on a definition, and significant controversy about whether multiple orgasm is a unitary experience. AIMS This study has 2 goals: (i) describing the experience of male multiple orgasm; (ii) investigating whether there are different profiles of multiple orgasm in men. METHODS Data from a culturally diverse online convenience sample of 122 men reporting multiple orgasm were collected. Data reduction analyses were conducted using principal components analysis (PCA) on 13 variables of interest derived from theory and the existing literature. A K means cluster analysis followed, from which a 4 cluster solution was retained. RESULTS While the range of reported orgasms varied from 2 to 30, the majority (79.5% N 97) of participants experienced between 2 and 4 orgasms separated by a specific time interval during which further stimulation was required to achieve another orgasm. Most participants reported maintaining their erections throughout and ejaculating with every orgasm. Age was not a significant correlate of the multiple orgasm experience which occurred more frequently in a dyadic context. Four different profiles of multiorgasmic men were described. STRENGTHS LIMITATIONS This study constitutes a rare attempt to collect systematic self report data concerning the experience of multiple orgasm in a relatively large sample. Limitations include the lack of validated measures, memory bias associated with self reported data and retrospective designs, the lack of a control group and of physiological measurement. CONCLUSION Our study suggests that multiple orgasm in men is not a unitary phenomenon and sets the stage for future self report and laboratory study. Griffin Mathieu G, Berry M, Shtarkshall RA, Amsel R, Binik YM, Gerard M. Exploring Male Multiple Orgasm in a Large Online Sample: Refining Our Understanding. J Sex Med 2021;XX:XXX XXX.

The journal of sexual medicine

99442189

Energetic ion induced desorption of hydrogen from porous silicon studied by on line elastic recoil detection analysis

Abstract We report a detailed study on the concentration profiles and ion irradiation induced desorption of hydrogen from porous silicon (pSi) by on line elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) 100 MeV Ag ions have been employed to analyze the pSi samples prepared at different etching current densities. The observed blue shift in the photoluminescence of pSi with increase in etching current density is consistent with previous reports. Here we find that the concentration of hydrogen in near surface regions decreases with increase in etching current density. It is also observed that the concentration of hydrogen is greater in the near surface region and decreases rapidly as a function of depth in porous silicon. Further, the ion irradiation induced desorption of hydrogen from pSi has been characterized by the second order decay, indicating that the hydrogen desorbs in molecular form. The rate of desorption is found to be higher from the deeper layers when compared to that of near surface regions, possibly due to higher diffusivity of elemental hydrogen within the deeper layer. Strong electronic excitations produced by probing beam are expected to be responsible for the observed non thermal dissociation of Si H bonds and consequent desorption of hydrogen from the surface of pSi in molecular form. These results provide useful information to elucidate 1) the role of hydrogen in determining the optical properties of porous/nano crystalline silicon and 2) mechanisms that govern the non thermal dissociation of Si H bonds.

211839087

New opportunities for comparative male fertility research: Insights from a new data resource based on high quality birth registers

Obtaining cross country comparative perspectives on male fertility has long been difficult, as male fertility is usually less well registered than female fertility. This paper presents analyses based on a new male fertility database providing data on more than 330 million live births. This new resource, made available in the Human Fertility Collection, allows for the first time a comparative perspective on male fertility in high income countries using high quality birth register data. Contrasting male and female fertility trends across 17 countries, we show that trends in disparities between male and female period fertility rates are driven to a large degree by the interplay of parental age and cohort size differences. For parental age differences at childbirth, we observe a tendency toward smaller disparities, except in Eastern Europe. This observation fits with expectations based on gender theories. However, variation across countries also seems to be driven by factors other than gender equality. *Corresponding author; address: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Konrad Zuse Str. 1, 18057 Rostock, Germany; email: dudel@demogr.mpg.de; phone: +49 381 2081221 +Email: sebastian.kluesener@bib.bund.de

1498445

Calling the Cloud: Enabling Mobile Phones as Interfaces to Cloud Applications

Mobile phones are set to become the universal interface to online services and cloud computing applications. However, using them for this purpose today is limited to two configurations: applications either run on the phone or run on the server and are remotely accessed by the phone. These two options do not allow for a customized and flexible service interaction, limiting the possibilities for performance optimization as well. In this paper we present a middleware platform that can automatically distribute different layers of an application between the phone and the server, and optimize a variety of objective functions (latency, data transferred, cost, etc. Our approach builds on existing technology for distributed module management and does not require new infrastructures. In the paper we discuss how to model applications as a consumption graph, and how to process it with a number of novel algorithms to find the optimal distribution of the application modules. The application is then dynamically deployed on the phone in an efficient and transparent manner. We have tested and validated our approach with extensive experiments and with two different applications. The results indicate that the techniques we propose can significantly optimize the performance of cloud applications when used from mobile phones.

Middleware

119117161

Variational Inference for Computational Imaging Inverse Problems

Machine learning methods for computational imaging require uncertainty estimation to be reliable in real settings. While Bayesian models offer a computationally tractable way of recovering uncertainty, they need large data volumes to be trained, which in imaging applications implicates prohibitively expensive collections with specific imaging instruments. This paper introduces a novel framework to train variational inference for inverse problems exploiting in combination few experimentally collected data, domain expertise and existing image data sets. In such a way, Bayesian machine learning models can solve imaging inverse problems with minimal data collection efforts. Extensive simulated experiments show the advantages of the proposed framework. The approach is then applied to two real experimental optics settings: holographic image reconstruction and imaging through highly scattering media. In both settings, state of the art reconstructions are achieved with little collection of training data.

J. Mach. Learn. Res.

28922123

Critical Care Management of Cerebral Edema in Brain Tumors

Cerebral edema associated with brain tumors is extremely common and can occur in both primary and metastatic tumors. The edema surrounding brain tumors results from leakage of plasma across the vessel wall into the parenchyma secondary to disruption of the blood brain barrier. The clinical signs of brain tumor edema depend on the location of the tumor as well as the extent of the edema, which often exceeds the mass effect induced by the tumor itself. Uncontrolled cerebral edema may result in increased intracranial pressure and acute herniation syndromes that can result in permanent neurological dysfunction and potentially fatal herniation. Treatment strategies for elevated intracranial pressure consist of general measures, medical interventions, and surgery. Alhough the definitive treatment for the edema may ultimately be surgical resection of the tumor, the impact of the critical care management cannot be underestimated and thus patients must be vigilantly monitored in the intensive care unit. In this review, we discuss the pathology, pathophysiology, and clinical features of patients presenting with cerebral edema. Imaging findings and treatment modalities used in the intensive care unit are also discussed.

Journal of intensive care medicine

225646415

Replication package for: Running Symbolic Execution Forever

3083163

Constructing Skill Trees for Reinforcement Learning Agents from Demonstration Trajectories

We introduce CST, an algorithm for constructing skill trees from demonstration trajectories in continuous reinforcement learning domains. CST uses a change point detection method to segment each trajectory into a skill chain by detecting a change of appropriate abstraction, or that a segment is too complex to model as a single skill. The skill chains from each trajectory are then merged to form a skill tree. We demonstrate that CST constructs an appropriate skill tree that can be further refined through learning in a challenging continuous domain, and that it can be used to segment demonstration trajectories on a mobile manipulator into chains of skills where each skill is assigned an appropriate abstraction.

NIPS

9663766

On asymptotically optimal confidence regions and tests for high dimensional models

We propose a general method for constructing confidence intervals and statistical tests for single or low dimensional components of a large parameter vector in a high dimensional model. It can be easily adjusted for multiplicity taking dependence among tests into account. For linear models, our method is essentially the same as in Zhang and Zhang [J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. B Stat. Methodol. 76 (2014) 217 242] we analyze its asymptotic properties and establish its asymptotic optimality in terms of semiparametric efficiency. Our method naturally extends to generalized linear models with convex loss functions. We develop the corresponding theory which includes a careful analysis for Gaussian, sub Gaussian and bounded correlated designs.

171679564

"What is the Benefit of Adorning Him with Flowers and Greenery?" The Attitude of Rabbis in Germany and the Land of Israel in Modern Times to Laying Wreaths at Burial and Memorial Ceremonies

Rabbinic literature in modern times includes a list of halachic debates on the integration of mourning and memorial customs, originating in general society, into the Jewish traditional burial ceremony. Examples include: transporting the deceased to the cemetery in horse drawn carriages; wearing black clothes or a black ribbon on the mourner's clothing; three volley salutes at military funerals; and standing while the siren is sounded on Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day and on the Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism. The poskim (adjudicators) dealt, among other things, with the halachic attitude toward laying wreaths on coffins, graves, and memorials. Initial doubts regarding this custom began to emerge in Jewish communities in nineteenth century Europe. The issue continued to trouble halachic authorities during the twentieth century, particularly after the State of Israel was founded, and documentation of such deliberations may be found in the literature and on the internet up to present times. Laying wreaths as part of the traditional funeral ceremony has aroused bitter feelings among the ultra Orthodox public in Israel and elsewhere, as is evident particularly from the Orthodox press and the responsa literature. Then again, attempts to prevent those of the secular public interested in honoring their dear ones in this way have also been a cause of objection, generating a sense of religious coercion. One of the later manifestations of hard feelings among the general Israeli public is evident in the words of author Amos Oz and his daughter, historian Fania Oz Salzberger, prominent figures in Israeli culture. In their book "Jews and Words," they take exception to the fact that the ultraOrthodox consider the laying of wreaths on the grave a foreign custom, considering that for many years this segment of society had embraced the customs of their historical surroundings:

25629210

Efficacy and safety of adjunctive cariprazine in inadequate responders to antidepressants: a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled study in adult patients with major depressive disorder.

BACKGROUND Cariprazine is an atypical antipsychotic currently under investigation as adjunctive therapy in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) who have inadequate response to standard antidepressant therapy. METHOD A randomized, double blind, placebo controlled, flexible dose study was conducted from December 2011 to December 2013 in adults who met DSM IV TR criteria for MDD and had an inadequate antidepressant response. Eligible patients were randomized to 8 week adjunctive treatment with placebo (n 269) cariprazine 1 2 mg/d (n 274) or cariprazine 2 4.5 mg/d (n 276) The primary efficacy parameter was change from baseline to week 8 in Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) total score; P values were adjusted for multiple comparisons. Safety assessments included adverse events, clinical laboratory tests, vital signs, electrocardiograms (ECGs) and suicidality. RESULTS Compared with placebo, reduction in MADRS total score at week 8 was significantly greater with adjunctive cariprazine 2 4.5 mg/d (least squares mean difference [LSMD] 2.2; adjusted P .0114) but not with cariprazine 1 2 mg/d (LSMD 0.9; adjusted P .2404) Significant LSMDs for MADRS total score change were detected at all earlier study visits (weeks 2, 4, 6) in the 2 to 4.5 mg/d group and at weeks 2 and 4 in the 1 to 2 mg/d group (all P values .05) Treatment emergent adverse events reported in 10% of patients in either cariprazine dosage group were akathisia (22.3% insomnia (13.6% and nausea (12.8% (all in 2 to 4.5 mg/d group) Mean changes in metabolic parameters, vital signs, and ECG parameters were generally similar between groups. No suicide related adverse events were reported. DISCUSSION These results show that adjunctive cariprazine 2 4.5 mg/d was effective and generally well tolerated in adults with MDD who had inadequate responses to standard antidepressants. Further clinical studies to confirm these results are warranted. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01469377.

The Journal of clinical psychiatry

209284775

Progress and Prospects of Recurrent Glioma: A Recent Scientometric Analysis of the Web of Science in 2019

Background Most patients with glioma experience recurrence and have a poor prognosis. Scientometric analysis is effective and widely used to summarize the most influential studies within a certain field. We present the first scientometric analysis of recurrent glioma. Methods We conducted a generalized search for articles on recurrent glioma in the Web of Science database and evaluated the top 100 most cited articles among 4651 articles. Results The number of citations from the top 100 cited articles on recurrent glioma ranged from 149 to 1471; most of these articles were published in oncology specific journals (66) and were submitted by institutions in the United States (n 67) The top cited articles consisted of 98 articles and 2 literature reviews. Articles were classified into 4 major categories based on subject matter: 82 pertained to treatment, 6 pertained to genetic mechanisms, 7 pertained to diagnosis, and 5 pertained to prognosis. Treatment related articles were subdivided into the following 7 categories: targeted therapy (n 21) chemotherapy (n 20) immunotherapy (n 12) combination therapy (n 12) radiotherapy (n 9) surgical resection (n 6) a new therapy (physiotherapy) (n 1) and treatment summary (n 1) Conclusions The results of the analysis indicated that the core problem is the treatment of recurrent glioma. Although the number of citations on targeted therapy and combination therapy has increased in recent years, the proportion of randomized controlled trials, basic medical research, literature reviews, and meta analyses is relatively low; thus, there is an urgent need to conduct these types of studies on recurrent glioma.

106899099

Managing the dynamics of change the fastest path to creating an engaged and productive workforce

This action oriented book presents the revolutionary J Curve model, which tracks people's performance, thoughts, and emotions at each of the five stages of the change process, from resistance through positive acceptance key knowledge you need to lead your team and speed implementation. Used by leading companies such as IBM, Chevron, Toyota Lexus, and 3M, the J Curve gives you proven tactics and tools for quickly getting employees to a positive stage on the curve. In this groundbreaking book, Jellison introduces a new approach to change Activation. Communication and persuasion aren't enough to help people overcome their doubts and anxieties. You'll put these Activation techniques to work immediately as you learn how to Communicate at ground level breaking change down into doable steps so people can achieve the goal Front load rewards motivating people to persist through the most difficult phases of change Create accountability linking performance to larger organizational goals Personalize praise tailoring approval to individuals to motivate higher levels of performance Managing the Dynamics of Change presents an innovative method for getting employees to quickly commit to change efforts and simultaneously ramp up their performance. Drawing upon his extensive field research and consulting experience with Fortune 500 companies, Jerald Jellison, Ph.D. reveals how effective change occurs and shows you how to manage your employees' reaction to change, engage your team's emotions and actions, and move employees up the curve as fast as possible.

218635279

Changes in spatial patterns of PM2.5 pollution in China 2000 2018: Impact of clean air policies.

To improve air quality, China has been implementing strict clean air policies since 2013. These policies not only substantially improved air quality but may also modify the spatial distribution of air pollution, since urban emission sources were under stricter control and some were moved to rural regions with lower air quality improvement targets and lacking of monitoring. Here, we predicted satellite based monthly PM2.5 concentrations during 2000 2018 at a 1 km resolution with complete spatial temporal coverage to analyze changes in the spatial pattern of PM2.5 pollution in China. We found that the PM2.5 concentration in urban regions was higher than that in rural regions of the same city by an average of 3.3 mg/m3 during 2000 2018. This urban rural disparity in PM2.5 concentration significantly increased from 2.5 mg/m3 in 2000 and peaked in 2007 of 3.8 mg/m3, then it sharply declined by 49% during 2013 2018 with the implementation of clean air policies. This shrinkage in the urban rural PM2.5 gap was partly due to the 1.3 mg/m3 greater average decrease in the PM2.5 level in the urban region than in the rural region of the same town during 2013 2018 on average. We also observed that cities that started monitoring earlier experienced greater decreases in the urban rural PM2.5 difference, and regions surrounding monitor showed significantly greater PM2.5 decrease than regions far away from monitor during 2013 2018. Additionally, clean air policies modified the relationship between PM2.5 concentrations and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) leading to a lower PM2.5 level with the same per capita GDP after 2013. Emissions in rural and suburban regions should be considered to further improve air quality in China.

Environment international

169383245

Case studies of cross border insider trading and market manipulation: Investigating and Prosecuting Across Borders

52913425

Cyber Insurance Against Electronic Payment Service Outages A Document Study of Terms and Conditions from Electronic Payment Service Providers and Insurance Companies

Society is becoming increasingly dependent on IT services. One example is the dependence of retailers on electronic payment services. This article investigates the terms and conditions offered by three electronic payment service providers, finding that they only guarantee best effort availability. As potential mitigation, five cyber insurance policies are studied from the perspective of coverage of electronic payment service outages. It is concluded that cyber insurance does indeed give some protection, but that coverage differs between insurers and between different policy options offered. Thus, a retailer who wishes to purchase cyber insurance should take care to understand what is on offer and actively select appropriate coverage.

STM

174784855

The Contribution of Women Entrepreneurship in Family Socio Economic Development in Rural Areas, Rwanda

The study on women entrepreneurs and family social economic development aimed at assessing whether there was a positive correlation between women in entrepreneurship and their family socioeconomic development. This research targeted women members of a handcraft making cooperative in Muhanga District and Women's Opportunity Center in Eastern province (Rwanda) with a connection to Gahaya Links Company. The study used stratified and simple random sampling techniques. The data entry and management was undertaken using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, 16 version) where both descriptive and correlational statistics were used in the study. The study revealed that women entrepreneurs affect social economic development at the rate of 78.3% This research concluded that there was a positive and strong relationship between women entrepreneurship and family socio economic development. The research recommends that women entrepreneurs must minimize all loss caused by lack of training and low level of education that leads to lack of managerial skills in order to achieve high level of performance in their routine activities of business.

62017857

Profit Allocation among Partners in Coal electricity Supply Chain

The actualization of supply chain management is an effective approach to solve the problem of coalelectricity supply chain, and a reasonable profit allocation mechanism is the key to achieve it. In this paper, a new method of profit allocation among partners in coalelectricity supply chain is put forward based on the Shapley value, the multi factor synthetical modification,and the confirmation of modificatory coefficients by using the ideal point principle according to a commentary on the existing research. Finally, an example is given to show the feasibility and availability of the developed method. keywords: CoalElectricity Supply Chain;Profit Allocation;Shapley Value;Ideal Point Principle 1.Introduction At present, a huge contradiction mainly reflected in the price dispute exists in Chinese coal production enterprises and electricity generators in the coalelectricity supply chain. Moreover, all the parties have been closely concerned about the interests problems of the supply chain optimization between coal production enterprises and electricity generators. As to the issue of cooperation in coalelectricity supply chain management, Chinese scholars mainly studied the following aspects: the alliance's establishment of the coalelectricity supply chain (Cheng Min, 2009) the game relationship between coal production enterprises and electricity generators (Wang Ye, 2007; ZHAO Xiao li, 2008) and the mechanisms of cooperation in coal production enterprises and electricity generators (ZHAO Xiao li, 2008; Li Li,2010) As the interests distribution within coalelectricity supply chain is very important, this article intends to build the profit allocation in a new approach. At present, methods to solve supply chain partners' profit allocation include: pricing method (Xu Chuanyun,2011) Stackelberg game analysis (Hyori Jeon,2011; Shaoxuan Zhang,2011) and Shapley value method (Shapley, 1953) Among these methods, Shapley value is a classical way of allocating the profit obtained by cooperation among a set of agents. But there are two deficiencies of the current studies to determine the correction factors. First, they only take single correction factor into account (Ma Shihua, 2006; Dai Jianhua, 2004) second, it use Delphi method to determine the correction factors (Hamid Turab Mirza, 2010) which has subjective tendency. This paper proposed a new research of coal electricity supply chain partners' profit allocation which based on Shapley value method; then used multi factors integrated correct allocation result, and used AHP method to determine the weight of correction factors. 2. Research of the profit allocation of coal electricity supply chain First, basing on the method of Shapley Value, calculate the interest allocation among coal enterprises, electricity generator and coal distribution enterprise in balancing the profit allocation of coal electricity supply chain, called the basic allocation of benefits. Second, use the multi factorial integrated correction method. Coal electricity supply chains are different from common manufacturing supply chains particularly in: (1) the entities in the supply chain are relatively stable; (2) the basic nature of the supply chain link entity point is not agility, but the quality stability; (3) Sales is the key of coalelectricity supply chain performance evaluation; (4) coalProfit Allocation among Partners in Coalelectricity Supply Chain Li Wei wei, Wu Chong, Zhang Xin ying, Liu Qing hua Advances in information Sciences and Service Sciences(AISS) Volume4, Number6, April 2012 doi: 10.4156/AISS.vol4.issue6.18 153 electricity supply chain focuses on quality, environment, cost and time;(5) the profit allocation among the supply chain is complex. Therefore, the objectives of coal electricity supply chain management are not agile but balanced supply and (6) the key point of the node enterprises in the supply chain is not agility, but the stability of quality. In China, the phenomenon of power failure caused by the lack of freight capacity is becoming more and more frequent, and the overall coal electricity supply chain logistics capabilities limited by the objective environment is difficult to change in the near future, while the high Chinese coal electricity transport cost is a major factor in the development restriction of the Chinese coal industry. The main way to solve the above problems is to optimize the coal electricity supply chain. So the coal distribution enterprises mainly undertake the realization of the balanced supply goal of the entire supply chain; at the same time, coal distribution enterprises also run the risk of the lack of supply, the depression of market and the lack of freight capacity ,while the electricity generators are mainly responsible for the market risk. The co contribution in the supply chain partnerships is an important factor affecting earnings. The contributions of cooperaions among the coal production enterprises, electricity generators and the coal distribution enterprises are different, so different affects on the profits of the whole supply chain should be reflected accordingly in the profit allocations. Therefore, considering the synthetical factors of balanced supply capacity, risk taking abilities and the cooperative contributions, the writer adjusts the profit allocation of Shapley value method. At last, this paper confirmed the correction coefficients by ideal point principle. Correction coefficients of profit allocation should reflect partners' balanced supply capacity, risk taking abilities and cooperative contributions to the influence of profit allocation in the overall supply chain. Based on the deal point principle, we established a virtual coal electricity supply chain system which has the strongest balanced supply ability, the biggest risk taking ability and the highest cooperative contribution ability as a benchmarking to adjust the basic allocation interests. Moreover, comparing the benchmarking supply chain system with the coal production enterprises, coal distribution enterprises and electricity generators, we determined the respective interest correction coefficients according to the comparison results. 3.Shapley value and its amendments 3.1 Basic principle of Shapley value Shapley value method is a mathematical method proposed by Shapley L.S. in 1953 for solving the issue of cooperation among people. When n individuals engage in some economic activities, some of them get involved in some form of cooperation, and get certain profits. When the activities of the interests are non confrontational, an increase in the number of people involved in the cooperation doesn't result in the reduction in the efficiency so that the cooperation of all individuals can bring the greatest profits. Shapley value method is a program that assigns this greatest benefits. Definition1. (Shapley, 1953) The Shapley value of a coalitional game, N v is an allocation rule that assigns a value i v j to buyer i where W 1, 2, i s s i v w s v s v s i i n j I a L (1) Among them, 1) n s s w s n (2) where W{ N i is the set of all players except i This allocation rule is also called the Shapley Shubik mechanism, as the characteristic function v S only depends on the members in coalition S The value presented in Eq. (1) is referred to as player i s Shapley value, which can be justified if one imagines that player i joins the game in a random order. Player i receives an extra amount that he contributes to the existing coalition of players, W{ S i namely, v S i v S This contribution must be averaged over all the possible orders in which player Profit Allocation among Partners in Coalelectricity Supply Chain Li Wei wei, Wu Chong, Zhang Xin ying, Liu Qing hua

202261651

"We Make Our Own Rules Here" Democratic Communities, Corporate Logics, and "No Excuses" Practices in a Charter School Management Organization

Recently, there has been growing debate over the managerial and leadership practices of expanding charter school networks, often referred to as Charter School Management Organizations (CMOs) CMOs which typically serve low socioeconomic status students of color are deeply tied to education reform efforts in the United States. Many CMOs consistently promote the belief that education can and should borrow heavily from the "best practices" of corporate culture and many have unlimited resources to enact their vision of educational success, closely aligned with what has been called "no excuses" schooling. Research on the daily practices of leaders working in a CMO remains limited; we know very little of how corporate ideologies are enacted in schooling. Drawing on ethnographic vignettes, I explore the daily life in one school within a CMO network considering to what extent corporate practices de democratize education, produce neoliberal subjectivities, and shape experiences with learning for disadvantaged populations.

Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

233285351

Women in Africa: Leveraging ICT in Closing the Gender Gap through Ethics and Values

Significant shreds of evidence from literature revealed that women constitute half of the world's human capital. Shreds of evidence also show that women have the potentials to redress gender gaps if empowered through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) favourable laws, ethics, and values. Despite these important virtues, numerous investigations have shown significant gender gaps in internet use (23% literacy rate (48.6% pay gap (22% political ambition, educational outcomes, etc. resulting majorly from restrictions placed by customary laws, ethics, and values that failed to incorporate no gender sensitive ICT policies in Africa. This study highlights the strategy to leverage the economic empowerment of women in Africa through ICT adoption, and favourable ICT policies, culture, ethics, and values. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was adopted as the conceptual framework. In this study, the authors explored a narrative review methodology of related research findings from peerreviewed articles to draw holistic findings that revealed significant information on strategies for leveraging ICT in closing the gender gap. Results show that gender gaps may result from women diverting time for circular works, due to unfavorable customary laws, ethics, and values, to meet family responsibilities or having less control over finances, which negatively impact their affordability of ICTs. Results also show that empowering women in ICT may advance sustainable goals, leverage their literacy abilities for ICT adoption; leverage ICT in closing gaps in gender discrepancy in sociability capital resources.

7833199

Barriers to Care: The Challenges for Canadian Refugees and their Health Care Providers

Much of the existing research literature on the health of immigrant populations does not address the health care experiences of refugees, even though they likely experience unique and different health care needs relative to economic or family class immigrants. The objective of this paper is to explore the systemic barriers to health care access experienced by Canada's refugee populations. The paper focuses on understanding these challenges as expressed by health and social service providers at the local level in Hamilton, Ontario. Data from interviews illustrate the impact of these systemic barriers for both refugees and providers. The paper examines issues of interpretation/language, cultural competency, health care coverage, isolation, poverty, and transportation in terms of health care and availability of services.

54119031

The Association Between Ethnic Identity and Non Medical Prescription Drug Use Among A Sample of College Students: Does a Sense of Ethnic Belonging Matter?

Abstract Background: National data demonstrate significant differences in non medical prescription drug (NMPD) use, with Whites seeming to be more likely to use compared to non Whites. College students also appear to be at an increased risk for NMPD use. Objectives: This study examines NMPD use using a component of social identity theory. We propose that a stronger sense of ethnic identity may reduce the likelihood of NMPD use among college students due to ethnic identity's ties to self esteem and self efficacy. We also propose that the protective power of ethnic identity may vary according to one's race. Methods: Data for this study were collected from a survey of undergraduate students at a Midwestern university (N 530) Poisson regression analyses were used to test the relationship between ethnic identity and NMPD use. Of our sample, 135 participants (25.5% indicated NMPD use over the past year. This percentage is high compared to findings from national college data. Results: Results indicate that a stronger sense of ethnic identity reduced the frequency of NMPD use among young adults. The findings also reveal that the relationship between ethnic identity and NMPD use is moderated by race. Ethnic identity was found to be a protective factor for non White participants only. Conclusions: This study suggests that ethnic belonging may act as a protective factor against NMPD use among non White young adults. These findings build upon our understanding of the relationship between ethnic identity and substance use. We conclude with a discussion of directions for future research and intervention programs

Substance use misuse

133196353

Substantial role of macroalgae in marine carbon sequestration

Marine macroalgae are dominant primary producers in coastal zones. A review of the published literature suggests that macroalgae may play an important role in carbon sequestration. Vegetated coastal habitats have been identified as important carbon sinks. In contrast to angiosperm based habitats such as seagrass meadows, salt marshes and mangroves, marine macroalgae have largely been excluded from discussions of marine carbon sinks. Macroalgae are the dominant primary producers in the coastal zone, but they typically do not grow in habitats that are considered to accumulate large stocks of organic carbon. However, the presence of macroalgal carbon in the deep sea and sediments, where it is effectively sequestered from the atmosphere, has been reported. A synthesis of these data suggests that macroalgae could represent an important source of the carbon sequestered in marine sediments and the deep ocean. We propose two main modes for the transport of macroalgae to the deep ocean and sediments: macroalgal material drifting through submarine canyons, and the sinking of negatively buoyant macroalgal detritus. A rough estimate suggests that macroalgae could sequester about 173 TgC yr 1 (with a range of 61 268 TgC yr 1) globally. About 90% of this sequestration occurs through export to the deep sea, and the rest through burial in coastal sediments. This estimate exceeds that for carbon sequestered in angiosperm based coastal habitats.

11688126

Algorithms for Hyper Parameter Optimization

Several recent advances to the state of the art in image classification benchmarks have come from better configurations of existing techniques rather than novel approaches to feature learning. Traditionally, hyper parameter optimization has been the job of humans because they can be very efficient in regimes where only a few trials are possible. Presently, computer clusters and GPU processors make it possible to run more trials and we show that algorithmic approaches can find better results. We present hyper parameter optimization results on tasks of training neural networks and deep belief networks (DBNs) We optimize hyper parameters using random search and two new greedy sequential methods based on the expected improvement criterion. Random search has been shown to be sufficiently efficient for learning neural networks for several datasets, but we show it is unreliable for training DBNs. The sequential algorithms are applied to the most difficult DBN learning problems from [1] and find significantly better results than the best previously reported. This work contributes novel techniques for making response surface models P(y|x) in which many elements of hyper parameter assignment (x) are known to be irrelevant given particular values of other elements.

NIPS

54444690

Information extraction framework to build legislation network

This paper concerns an information extraction process for building a dynamic legislation network from legal documents. Unlike supervised learning approaches which require additional calculations, the idea here is to apply information extraction methodologies by identifying distinct expressions in legal text in order to extract network information. The study highlights the importance of data accuracy in network analysis and improves approximate string matching techniques to produce reliable network data sets with more than 98% precision and recall. The applications and the complexity of the created dynamic legislation network are also discussed and challenged.

Artificial Intelligence and Law

62162861

S 4 W: a problem solving environment for wireless system design

This work describes the Site Specific System Simulator for Wireless System Design (S4W) a problem solving environment (PSE) that integrates visualization and computational tools with a high level graphical user interface. S4W improves the ability of wireless system engineers to design an indoor wireless system by encouraging them to think in terms of designing the system for optimal performance. Issues of computation management, data management, and location of resources are hidden from the user. The complex nature of data sets in the domain of wireless simulations calls for a customized set of visualization tools. Therefore, a number of ad hoc visualizations were developed for S4W. A study comparing the integrated system with an earlier, unintegrated version is presented. This helps to demonstrate the productivity gains that a PSE provides. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

20954306

Equivalent Electrical Model of a Ferrite Core Inductor Excited by a Square Waveform Including Saturation and Power Losses for Circuit Simulation

We propose a model of an equivalent electrical circuit specifically designed for a ferrite inductor excited by a nonsinusoidal waveform valid for use in an electronic circuit simulator. We estimate the model parameters by means of Finite Elements in 2 D which leads to significant computational advantages over the 3 D model. We carry out the validation of the procedure for an RM14/I core by comparing the experimental and simulated output waveforms obtained at different frequencies and levels of excitation from the linear to the saturation regions. In addition, we consider the effect of power losses in the core.

IEEE Transactions on Magnetics

209318828

Attentive Sequential Neural Processes

Sequential Neural Processes (SNP) is a new class of models that temporally extends Neural Processes (NP) and can meta learn a sequence of stochastic processes. This learned function however under fits the provided contexts as is also the case in NP. Applying attention to the contexts resolves this in NP but simply extending this to SNP and applying attention on a buffer of context history is sub optimal as our findings show. In this paper, we propose Attentive Sequential Neural Processes (ASNP) which resolves the under fitting in SNP by introducing a novel imaginary context, modeled as a latent variable, over which the attention can then be applied. We evaluate our model on 1D Gaussian Processes regression and 2D moving MNIST/CelebA regression. We apply ASNP to implement Attentive Temporal GQN and further evaluate on the moving CelebA task.

236303141

Survey of machine learning techniques in spacecraft control design

Abstract In this paper, a survey on the machine learning techniques in spacecraft control design is given. Among the applications of machine learning on the subject are the design of optimal interplanetary trajectories, the synthesis of controllers to stabilize orbital or angular motion, formation control, the design of control laws for landing on the surface of a celestial body. All the works are classified into two almost equal groups the supervised learning (stochastic and deterministic methods) and the reinforcement learning (direct and value based approaches) Stochastic supervised learning methods are based on stochastic optimization procedures, random initialization of neural networks weights, and stochastic nature of the obtained results. Deterministic methods are based on the Lyapunov theory; the network training is a deterministic process. The division of reinforcement learning methods into direct and value based approaches is similar to the separation into direct and indirect methods in the optimal control theory. We discuss the main ideas, advantages, and drawbacks of the techniques and give some recommendations for future investigations. We also highlight interesting ideas and approaches in the application of machine learning methods that can be used in a broad variety of astrodynamical problems.

191529992

Basilio Martin Patino, "Desde lo mas hondo" una reflexion sobre tecnologia y flamenco

espanolIncluidos dentro de la serie Andalucia, un siglo de fascinacion, dirigida por Basilio Martin Patino y emitidos por Canal Sur Television, encontramos dos capitulos dedicados al flamenco en los que haciendo uso del genero del falso documental el director presenta en el primero de ellos la posibilidad de recuperar una de las voces miticas del flamenco del siglo XIX, la de Silverio Franconetti, gracias al hallazgo de una plancha de estano, mientras que en el segundo trata de la creacion en el Japon de un museo dedicado al flamenco a partir de la plancha de estano del episodio anterior. En el presente articulo mostramos como la construccion filmica de Martin Patino entraria de lleno en aspectos fundamentales tratados por las investigaciones sobre el flamenco. En primer lugar, el de los origenes miticos del flamenco que, tal vez, quedarian aclarados con la grabacion "encontrada" de Silverio, planteandose incluso la posibilidad de sintetizar esta voz para crear flamenco por medios artificiales. Y en segundo lugar, la creacion de un espacio museistico en un lugar tan lejano como Japon cuyo soporte basico seria uno de los marcadores culturales propios de Andalucia. EnglishWithin the Series Andalucia, one century of fascination, directed by Basilio Martin Patino and broadcast by Canal Sur Television, we find two episodes about flamenco in which the director, using the fake documentary genre, presents the possibility in the first one of recovering one of the mythical voices of the nineteenth century, that of Silverio Franconetti, thanks to the finding of a tin plate; whilst the second is about the creation in Japan of a museum dedicated to flamenco music and dance, following the finding of the tin plate from the first episode. In the present article, we demonstrate how the film construction of Martin Patino would look in depth at fundamental aspects studied in research work into flamenco. Firstly, the mythical origins of flamenco, which could possibly be clarified by the "supposedly found" recording of Silverio's voice, considering the possibility of synthesizing this voice to create flamenco by artificial means. Secondly, the creation of a museum in such a geographically distant place as Japan based on one of the cultural indicators which are typical of Andalucia.

164478404

Looking into Death: An Evolution through Time in England to 1800

Death has long been a topic in concern of the entire humanity. Regardless of gender, nationality or time period, we all reach the same destination: death. However, the interpretation of death itself does not always stay the same, but radically evolves throughout history, as reflected in multiple literary works. This paper, therefore, will examine the evolution of death notions with special regards to England from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century from the time of persistent threat of the Black Plague to the modern colonial period. Exploring the death of the three rioters in "The Pardoner's Tale" of Geoffrey Chaucer's masterpiece Canterbury Tales (1387 1400) and the protagonist's death in "Oroonoko" of Aphra Behn (1688) the paper will dissect each death to illustrate its relationship with the contemporary common belief. Following the indepth multi dimensional analyses of other critical book and journals besides the primary texts, this research will also prove the shift from the Medieval romantic and religious mindset to the dominance of realism and humanistic world before the 1800s in England a representative of Western civilization. Over time, we cease to perceive death as a destiny by the Plague, a necessary means to pay for sins and only granted by God, but witness the replacement of a totally different frame of mind, in which the colonists become "the Almighty" and death for justice disappears from scene.

190906842

ASSESSMENT OF HEPATOPROTECTIVE EFFECT OF POLYHERBAL COMBINATION OF PHYLLANTHUS NIRURI (MENIRAN) CURCUMA XANTHORRHIZA (WILD GINGER) AND CURCUMA LONGA (TURMERIC) AGAINST LIVER DYSFUNCTION DUE TO ANTI TUBERCULOSIS DRUGS

PROCEEDING The International Conference Pharmaceutical Care "New Development of Pharmaceutical Care In a Pharmacogenetic and Pharmacogenomic Approach" University of Muhammadiyah Malang, April 19th 2014

159350442

Contemporary Moral Arguments: Readings in Ethical Issues

=NEW TO THIS EDITION CHAPTERS 3 12 OPEN WITH AN INTRODUCTION, KEY TERMS, AND ARGUMENTS AND READINGS. EACH CHAPTER ENDS WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING. CHAPTER 1: MORAL REASONING Ethics and the Moral Domain Ethics, Law, and Religion Moral Relativism Moral Arguments Reading and Evaluating Arguments Argument Exercises Key Words Summary Plato: The Ring of Gyges Louis P. Pojman: The Case Against Moral Relativism James Rachels: Can Ethics Provide Answers? CHAPTER 2: MORAL THEORIES Why Moral Theories? Important Moral Theories Ethical Egoism Judging Moral Theories Key Words Summary John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism Immanuel Kant: Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics John Rawls: A Theory of Justice Annette C. Baier: The Need for More than Justice CHAPTER 3: ABORTION 1. WARREN'S PERSONHOOD ARGUMENT FOR ABORTION Mary Anne Warren: On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion Stephen Schwarz: The Being in the Womb Is a Person Louis P. Pojman: Abortion: A Defense of the Personhood Argument Don Marquis: Why Abortion Is Immoral 2. NOONAN'S PERSONHOOD AT CONCEPTION ARGUMENT AGAINST ABORTION John T. Noonan, Jr. An Almost Absolute Value in History Michael Tooley: In Defense of Abortion and Infanticide Philip Devine: The Scope of the Prohibition Against Killing 3. THOMSON'S SELF DEFENSE ARGUMENT FOR ABORTION Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion Francis J. Beckwith: Arguments from Bodily Rights: A Critical Analysis Rosalind Hursthouse: Virtue Theory and Abortion CHAPTER 4: DRUGS AND AUTONOMY 4. THE HARM ARGUMENT AGAINST DRUG USE James Q. Wilson: Against the Legalization of Drugs Douglas N. Husak: A Moral Right to Use Drugs 5. THE ARGUMENT AGAINST PATERNALISM Gerald Dworkin: Paternalism John Hospers: What Libertarianism Is CHAPTER 5: EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE 6. THE AUTONOMY ARGUMENT FOR EUTHANASIA Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, et al. The Philosophers' Brief Daniel Callahan: When Self Determination Runs Amok John Lachs: When Abstract Moralizing Runs Amok 7. THE KILLING/LETTING DIE ARGUMENT James Rachels: Active and Passive Euthanasia Winston Nesbitt: Is Killing No Worse Than Letting Die? 8. THE SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENT AGAINST EUTHANASIA Leon R. Kass: Why Doctors Must Not Kill Dan W. Brock: Voluntary Active Euthanasia CHAPTER 6: GENETIC ENGINEERING AND CLONING Gene Therapy Reproductive Cloning 9. THE BENEFICENCE ARGUMENT FOR GENETIC ENHANCEMENT John Harris: Is Gene Therapy a Form of Eugenics? Walter Glannon: Genetic Enhancement 10. THE OPEN FUTURE ARGUMENT AGAINST CLONING Dan W. Brock: Cloning Human Beings: An Assessment of the Ethical Issues Pro and Con Soren Holm: A Life in the Shadow: One Reason Why We Should Not Clone Humans CHAPTER 7: THE DEATH PENALTY 11. KANT'S RETRIBUTIVISM ARGUMENT FOR THE DEATH PENALTY Immanuel Kant: The Right of Punishing Igor Primoratz: A Life for a Life Stephen Nathanson: An Eye for an Eye? James S. Liebman, et al. Capital Attrition: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973 1995 12. THE DISCRIMINATION ARGUMENT AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY Paul G. Cassell: Administrative Objections Bryan Stevenson: Capital Punishment and The Legacy of Racial Bias in America 13. THE DETERRENCE ARGUMENT FOR THE DEATH PENALTY Ernest van den Haag: On Deterrence and the Death Penalty Hugo Adam Bedau: Capital Punishment and Social Defense CHAPTER 8: WAR, TERRORISM, AND TORTURE War Terrorism Torture 14. THE PACIFIST ARGUMENT AGAINST WAR Douglas P. Lackey: Pacifism Jan Narveson: Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis 15. THE SELF DEFENSE ARGUMENT FOR WAR Michael Walzer: The Legalist Paradigm John Howard Yoder: When War Is Unjust: Being Honest in Just War Thinking 16. THE JUST WAR ARGUMENT AGAINST TERRORISM Haig Khatchadourian: The Morality of Terrorism Michael Walzer: Terrorism: A Critique of Excuses Andrew Valls: Can Terrorism Be Justified? 17. THE TICKING BOMB ARGUMENT FOR TORTURE Alan M. Dershowitz: The Case for Torturing the Ticking Bomb Terrorist CHAPTER 9: PORNOGRAPHY AND FREE SPEECH 18. THE LIBERTY ARGUMENT AGAINST CENSORSHIP John Stuart Mill: On Liberty Nadine Strossen: Hate Speech and Pornography: Do We Have to Choose Between Freedom of Speech and Equality? Helen E. Longino: Pornography, Oppression, and Freedom John Arthur: Sticks and Stones 19. MACKINNON'S HARM TO WOMEN ARGUMENT FOR CENSORSHIP Catharine A. MacKinnon: Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech Ronald Dworkin: Women and Pornography Wendy Kaminer: Feminists Against the First Amendment ECONOMIC JUSTICE: HEALTH CARE 20. DANIELS'S ARGUMENT FOR A RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE Norman Daniels: Is There a Right to Health Care and, if so, What Does It Encompass? Allen E. Buchanan: The Right to a Decent Minimum of Health Care 21. THE ARGUMENT FOR RATIONING BY MORAL WORTHINESS Brian Smart: Fault and the Allocation of Spare Organs Carl Cohen et al. Alcoholics and Liver Transplantation CHAPTER 11: ANIMAL RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DUTY 22. SINGER'S "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL" ARGUMENT Peter Singer: All Animals Are Equal Carl Cohen: The Case for the Use of Animals in Biomedical Research Immanuel Kant: Our Duties to Animals 23. REGAN'S ARGUMENT FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS Tom Regan: The Case for Animal Rights Mary Anne Warren: The Rights of the Nonhuman World Roger Scruton: The Moral Status of Animals 24. THE SUFFERING ARGUMENT FOR VEGETARIANISM James Rachels: The Moral Argument for Vegetarianism R. G. Frey: Moral Vegetarianism and the Argument from Pain and Suffering 25. TAYLOR'S ARGUMENT FOR THE EQUALITY OF ALL LIFE Paul W. Taylor: The Ethics of Respect for Nature David Schmidtz: Are All Species Equal? Albert Schweitzer: Reverence for Life William F. Baxter: People or Penguins? CHAPTER 12: ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND GLOBAL OBLIGATIONS 26. HARDIN'S LIFEBOAT ARGUMENT AGAINST AIDING THE POOR Garrett Hardin: Living on a Lifeboat William W. Murdoch and Allan Oaten: A Critique of Lifeboat Ethics 27. SINGER'S UTILITARIAN ARGUMENT FOR AIDING THE POOR Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence, and Morality Louis P. Pojman: World Hunger and Population

85551191

3 D Tracking via Body Radio Reflections Citation

This paper introduces WiTrack, a system that tracks the 3D motion of a user from the radio signals reflected off her body. It works even if the person is occluded from the WiTrack device or in a different room. WiTrack does not require the user to carry any wireless device, yet its accuracy exceeds current RF localization systems, which require the user to hold a transceiver. Empirical measurements with a WiTrack prototype show that, on average, it localizes the center of a human body to within a median of 10 to 13 cm in the x and y dimensions, and 21 cm in the z dimension. It also provides coarse tracking of body parts, identifying the direction of a pointing hand with a median of 11.2* WiTrack bridges a gap between RF based localization systems which locate a user through walls and occlusions, and human computer interaction systems like Kinect, which can track a user without instrumenting her body, but require the user to stay within the direct line of sight of the device.

1887911

On Iteratively Reweighted Algorithms for Nonsmooth Nonconvex Optimization in Computer Vision

Natural image statistics indicate that we should use nonconvex norms for most regularization tasks in image processing and computer vision. Still, they are rarely used in practice due to the challenge of optimization. Recently, iteratively reweighed \ell_1$ minimization (IRL1) has been proposed as a way to tackle a class of nonconvex functions by solving a sequence of convex \ell_2$ \ell_1$ problems. We extend the problem class to the sum of a convex function and a (nonconvex) nondecreasing function applied to another convex function. The proposed algorithm sequentially optimizes suitably constructed convex majorizers. Convergence to a critical point is proved when the Kurdyka Lojasiewicz property and additional mild restrictions hold for the objective function. The efficiency and practical importance of the algorithm are demonstrated in computer vision tasks such as image denoising and optical flow. Most applications seek smooth results with sharp discontinuities. These are achieved by combining nonc.

SIAM J. Imaging Sci.

211032271

Dynamic clustering of time series data

We propose a new method for clustering multivariate time series data based on Dynamic Linear Models. Whereas usual time series clustering methods obtain static membership parameters, our proposal allows each time series to dynamically change their cluster memberships over time. In this context, a mixture model is assumed for the time series and a flexible Dirichlet evolution for mixture weights allows for smooth membership changes over time. Posterior estimates and predictions can be obtained through Gibbs sampling, but a more efficient method for obtaining point estimates is presented, based on Stochastic Expectation Maximization and Gradient Descent. Finally, two applications illustrate the usefulness of our proposed model to model both univariate and multivariate time series: World Bank indicators for the renewable energy consumption of EU nations and the famous Gapminder dataset containing life expectancy and GDP per capita for various countries.

ArXiv

13708436

An integrative model of auditory phantom perception: Tinnitus as a unified percept of interacting separable subnetworks

Tinnitus is a considered to be an auditory phantom phenomenon, a persistent conscious percept of a salient memory trace, externally attributed, in the absence of a sound source. It is perceived as a phenomenological unified coherent percept, binding multiple separable clinical characteristics, such as its loudness, the sidedness, the type (pure tone, noise) the associated distress and so on. A theoretical pathophysiological framework capable of explaining all these aspects in one model is highly needed. The model must incorporate both the deafferentation based neurophysiological models and the dysfunctional noise canceling model, and propose a 'tinnitus core' subnetwork. The tinnitus core can be defined as the minimal set of brain areas that needs to be jointly activated =subnetwork) for tinnitus to be consciously perceived, devoid of its affective components. The brain areas involved in the other separable characteristics of tinnitus can be retrieved by studies on spontaneous resting state magnetic and electrical activity in people with tinnitus, evaluated for the specific aspect investigated and controlled for other factors. By combining these functional imaging studies with neuromodulation techniques some of the correlations are turned into causal relationships. Thereof, a heuristic pathophysiological framework is constructed, integrating the tinnitus perceptual core with the other tinnitus related aspects. This phenomenological unified percept of tinnitus can be considered an emergent property of multiple, parallel, dynamically changing and partially overlapping subnetworks, each with a specific spontaneous oscillatory pattern and functional connectivity signature. Communication between these different subnetworks is proposed to occur at hubs, brain areas that are involved in multiple subnetworks simultaneously. These hubs can take part in each separable subnetwork at different frequencies. Communication between the subnetworks is proposed to occur at discrete oscillatory frequencies. As such, the brain uses multiple nonspecific networks in parallel, each with their own oscillatory signature, that adapt to the context to construct a unified percept possibly by synchronized activation integrated at hubs at discrete oscillatory frequencies.

Neuroscience Biobehavioral Reviews

74556667

Comprar Equine Internal Medicine 3rd Edition Debra C. Sellon 9781416056706 Saunders

Tienda online donde Comprar Equine Internal Medicine 3rd Edition al precio 199,50 EUR de Debra C. Sellon Warwick M. Bayly Stephen M. Reed, tienda de Libros de Medicina, Libros de Veterinaria Anatomia/Anatomia patologica (Veterinaria)

202276229

AN INVESTIGATION OF TEACHING STRATEGY EMPLOYED BY ENGLISH TEACHER OF DEAF STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT AN INDONESIAN SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOOL

The objectives of this research were to find out the implementation of teaching strategies by English teacher for deaf students and the challenges faced by the English teachers in using teaching strategies for deaf students. This research used qualitative method as the research method and case study as the research design. To obtain the data, observation, interview and documentation were used. The result of the research showed and infered that frequent teaching strategies applied by teacher in teaching English for deaf students were direct teaching and cooperative strategy. The reserach also revealed the challenges encountered by the teacher during teaching english to the deaf students were due to communication problems. Sometimes the students made mistakes in understanding words because of similar lip movements to other words; they got difficulties in differentiating similar words; they had limited vocabularies; and they were the lack of background knowledge. These led to the need of getting more the students' attention, adapting the material and media, and repetition in delivering the material.

759543

Adaptive and Energy Efficient Architectures for Machine Learning: Challenges, Opportunities, and Research Roadmap

Gigantic rates of data production in the era of Big Data, Internet of Thing (IoT) Internet of Everything (IoE) and Cyber Physical Systems (CSP) pose incessantly escalating demands for massive data processing, storage, and transmission while continuously interacting with the physical world under unpredictable, harsh, and energy /power constrained scenarios. Therefore, such systems need to support not only the high performance capabilities at tight power/energy envelop, but also need to be intelligent/cognitive, self learning, and robust. As a result, a hype in the artificial intelligence research (e.g. deep learning and other machine learning techniques) has surfaced in numerous communities. This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities for building energy efficient and adaptive architectures for machine learning. In particular, we focus on brain inspired emerging computing paradigms, such as approximate computing; that can further reduce the energy requirements of the system. First, we guide through an approximate computing based methodology for development of energy efficient accelerators, specifically for convolutional Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) We show that in depth analysis of datapaths of a DNN allows better selection of Approximate Computing modules for energy efficient accelerators. Further, we show that a multi objective evolutionary algorithm can be used to develop an adaptive machine learning system in hardware. At the end, we summarize the challenges and the associated research roadmap that can aid in developing energy efficient and adaptable hardware accelerators for machine learning.

2017 IEEE Computer Society Annual Symposium on VLSI (ISVLSI)

24262105

Population based guided local search for multidimensional Knapsack problem

A cooperative based Guided Local Search (GLS) framework has been proposed to deal with difficult combinatorial optimization problem in [1] [2] This framework is called Population Based Guided Local Search (P GLS) In P GLS, we study how GLS performance can be further enhanced thorough designing a cooperative mechanism based on the search principle Proximate Optimality Principle (POP) [3] The experimental results on the traveling salesman problem (TSP) shows the effectiveness of P GLS compared to original GLS. The aim of this paper is to test the PGLS on another combinatorial optimization problem, namely Multidimensional Knapsack Problem (MKP) The experimental results also confirm the effectiveness of P GLS compared to the original GLS and the parallel GLS algorithm without collaboration.

2015 Fourth International Conference on Future Generation Communication Technology (FGCT)

122758338

Reduced Total Energy Requirements for the Natario Warp Drive Spacetime using Heaviside Step Functions as Analytical Shape Functions

Warp Drives are solutions of the Einstein Field Equations that allows superluminal travel within the framework of General Relativity. There are at the present moment two known solutions: The Alcubierre warp drive discovered in 1994 and the Natario warp drive discovered in 2001. However as stated by both Alcubierre and Natario themselves the warp drive violates all the known energy conditions because the stress energy momentum tensor(the right side of the Einstein Field Equations) for the Einstein tensor G00 is negative implying in a negative energy density. While from a classical point of view the negative energy is forbidden the Quantum Field Theory allows the existence of very small amounts of it being the Casimir effect a good example as stated by Alcubierre himself.The major drawback concerning negative energies for the warp drive are the huge negative energy density requirements to sustain a stable warp bubble configuration. Ford and Pfenning computed these negative energy and concluded that at least 10 times the mass of the Universe is required to sustain a warp bubble configuration. However both Alcubierre and Natario warp drives as members of the same family of the Einstein Field Equations requires the so called shape functions in order to be mathematically defined. We present in this work two new shape functions for the Natario warp drive spacetime based on the Heaviside step function and one of these functions allows arbitrary superluminal speeds while keeping the negative energy density at "low" and "affordable" levels.We do not violate any known law of quantum physics and we maintain the original geometry of the Natario warp drive spacetime We also discuss briefly Horizons and infinite Doppler blueshifts. *Residencia de Estudantes Universitas Lisboa Portugal email:spacetimeshortcut@yahoo.com +INPIInstituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial Rio de Janeiro Brazil email:danieldiniz@gmail.com

26212399

The Experimental Study on Concrete Permeability of Wireless Communication Module Embedded in Reinforced Concrete Structures

Recently, as the information industry and mobile communication technology develop, their study is conducted on the new concept of intelligent structures and maintenance techniques that apply wireless sensor network, USN (Ubiquitous Sensor Network) to social infrastructures such as civil and architectural structures on the basis of the concept of Ubiquitous Computing, which invisibly provides human life with computing, along with mutually cooperating, compromising, and connecting networks to each other by having computers within all objects around us. The purpose of this study is to investigate the capability of wireless communication of sensor node embedded in reinforced concrete structure with a basic experiment on electric wave permeability of sensor node by fabricating molding with variables of concrete thickness and steel bars that are mostly used in constructing structures to determine the feasibility of application to constructing structures with USN. By installing wireless communication module inside the structures, it is possible to communicate to measure the pitch of steel bars and permeability of concrete, by measuring in both directions horizontally and vertically. The magnitude of an electric wave in the range of used frequencies was measured by using Spectrum Analyzer. This electric wave was numerically analyzed and the effective wavelength of frequencies was analyzed by the properties of a frequency band area. As a result of constructing structures with wireless sensors, Plain concrete showed 45 cm for depth of permeability. Reinforced concretes that has pitches of 5 cm showed 37 cm and pitches of 15 cm showed 45 cm for the depth of permeability. This suggests that if the pitch of steel bars was more than 15 cm, it would not affect wireless communication.

Int. J. Distributed Sens. Networks

127231882

SISTEM INFORMASI SURAT KETERANGAN PENDAMPING IJAZAH (SKPI) POLITEKNIK NEGERI PADANG BERBASIS WEB MENGGUNAKAN FRAMEWORK LARAVEL

Surat Keterangan Pendamping Ijazah (SKPI) merupakan produk pendidikan yang tidak bisa dilepaskan dari kerangka Kualifikasi Nasional Indonesia (KKNI) SKPI merupakan dokumen yang memuat kompetensi yang dimiliki oleh lulusan, dengan SKPI diharapkan calon pengguna lulusan (stakeholder) lebih mengetahui kecakapan (kompetensi) apa yang dimiliki calon karyawannya. Dari hasil survey peniliti saat ini masih banyak perguruan tinggi yang belum menggunakan SKPI sedangkan kampus yang sudah menggunakan SKPI masih menggunakan sistem blanko (manual) dalam mendata atau mendapatkan kompetensi yang dimiliki oleh calon lulusan untuk dimasukkan dalam SKPI. Sistem ini tentu masih memiliki kekurangan seperti butuh waktu yang cukup lama untuk dikembalikan oleh calon lulusan dan kehilangan dokumen yang telah dikumpulkan. Untuk mengatasi kekurangan tersebut maka dapat dirancang sebuah system SKPI dengan memanfaatkan Sistem Informasi. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode Research and Development. dengan model 4D (define design develop disseminate) RnD merupakan metode penelitian yang menekankan pada hasil atau produk akhir penelitian, sementara dalam pengembangan produk yang akan dihasilkan digunakan model pengembangan system SDLC (system development life cycle) dengan pendekatan waterfall. Produk akhir dari penelitian ini adalah system informasi SKPI yang dirancang dengan pemanfaatan Web. Sebelum SI ini didesiminasi terlebih dahulu dilakukan uji produk yang meliputi uji validitas, uji praktikalitas dan uji efektivitas. Berdasarkan ketiga uji produk tersebut didapat bahwa SI SKPI ini valid, praktis dan efektif digunakan dalam merancang SKPI lulusan perguruan Tinggi.

154395313

Agricultural Prices, Selection, and the Evolution of the Food Industry

We present a model that explains the relationship between low input prices, high exit rates, and industrial concentration. We argue that falling input prices force less productive firms to exit the market, and lead to the expansion of more efficient incumbents at the expense of less productive producers. Our model helps reconcile some well established empirical results regarding the food processing industry. Indeed, agricultural prices fell between the early 1900s and 2006, and over the same period there was a trend towards higher concentration in the food industry, with an increase in average productivity.

4625261

Improved Fusion of Visual and Language Representations by Dense Symmetric Co attention for Visual Question Answering

A key solution to visual question answering (VQA) exists in how to fuse visual and language features extracted from an input image and question. We show that an attention mechanism that enables dense, bi directional interactions between the two modalities contributes to boost accuracy of prediction of answers. Specifically, we present a simple architecture that is fully symmetric between visual and language representations, in which each question word attends on image regions and each image region attends on question words. It can be stacked to form a hierarchy for multi step interactions between an image question pair. We show through experiments that the proposed architecture achieves a new state of the art on VQA and VQA 2.0 despite its small size. We also present qualitative evaluation, demonstrating how the proposed attention mechanism can generate reasonable attention maps on images and questions, which leads to the correct answer prediction.

2018 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

219401684

Lifted Inference in 2 Variable Markov Logic Networks with Function and Cardinality Constraints Using Discrete Fourier Transform

In this paper we show that inference in 2 variable Markov logic networks (MLNs) with cardinality and function constraints is domain liftable. To obtain this result we use existing domain lifted algorithms for weighted first order model counting (Van den Broeck et al, KR 2014) together with discrete Fourier transform of certain distributions associated to MLNs.

ArXiv

158619208

Searching for More Than Just a House? The Extent to Which Government Provided RDP Housing Compared to Self help Housing Empower Poor Communities in South Africa

For the past 20 years, the government in South Africa provided low income communities with RDP (subsidy) houses to improve their quality of life and the places in which they reside. These houses have, however, been criticised regarding their location, construction locality, user participation and overall sustainability, while self help housing has been highlighted as a method to ensure greater community involvement and choice. This paper reports on a study to determine to which extent government provided RDP housing compared to self help housing empower poor communities in South Africa. The study compared a RDP and a self help (People's Housing Process) project in Botshabelo, a large settlement in the central parts of the country, by utilising a set of indicators and determinants of empowerment. The findings indicate that while some determinants lacked, others were equally evident in both projects. Yet, the self help housing project allowed greater opportunities to the residents for participation, skills development, improved self confidence and control over the final product (house) Consequently, it becomes important for planning and housing policies to also incorporate social development, in the form of community empowerment, into their desired outcomes.

214809186

The need for a system view to regulate artificial intelligence/machine learning based software as medical device

Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML) systems in medicine are poised to significantly improve health care, for example, by offering earlier diagnoses of diseases or recommending optimally individualized treatment plans. However, the emergence of AI/ML in medicine also creates challenges, which regulators must pay attention to. Which medical AI/ML based products should be reviewed by regulators? What evidence should be required to permit marketing for AI/ML based software as a medical device (SaMD) How can we ensure the safety and effectiveness of AI/ML based SaMD that may change over time as they are applied to new data? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for example, has recently proposed a discussion paper to address some of these issues. But it misses an important point: we argue that regulators like the FDA need to widen their scope from evaluating medical AI/ML based products to assessing systems. This shift in perspective from a product view to a system view is central to maximizing the safety and efficacy of AI/ML in health care, but it also poses significant challenges for agencies like the FDA who are used to regulating products, not systems. We offer several suggestions for regulators to make this challenging but important transition.

npj Digital Medicine

237109098

IMPLEMENTATION OF ISO 50001 ENERGY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM WITH THE ADVANTAGE OF ARCHIVE VIEWER IN NSRRC

Due to the limited energy resources in Taiwan, energy conservation is always a big issue for everyone who lives in this country. According to the data from the related departments, nearly 98% of energy is imported from abroad for more than a decade. Despite the strong dependency on foreign fuel imports, the energy subsidy policy leads to a relatively low cost of energy for end users, while it is not reasonable. In order to resolve the energy resource shortage and pursue a more efficient energy use, the implementation of ISO 50001 energy management system (EnMS) is activated with the advantage of the Archive Viewer in NSRRC this year. The energy management system will build up an overall energy usage model and a certain number of energy performance indicators to help us achieve efficient energy usage.

213930780

Emerging trends in IoT and big data analytics for biomedical and health care technologies

Abstract The recent revolutions in Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics have unlocked promising possibilities in biomedical and health care technologies. The current chapter deals with theoretical, methodological, validated, and empirical concepts with exciting examples related to the subject. First, the application of IoT and big data in the analysis of a vast image database generated every day from various sources by big data combined with machine learning algorithms and other forms of artificial intelligence, to generate structured information for application in remote diagnostics, is explained with examples. Further emerging trends of telemedicine using artificial intelligence technique in robotics health care have been discussed. The flexibility and adaptability of AI based telemedicine provide the endless supports for health care development can be observed in the literature. The advancement of telerobotic surgery and the importance of the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) have been discussed briefly. Furthermore, details on wearable devices already available targeting the biomedical and health care applications that are capable of collecting, analyzing by standard protocols by machine intelligence for predictions of health related issues are described. Lastly, the final expansion and evolution of these technologies in the modern health care system and biomedical research, starting with personalized drug designing to targeted drug delivery and beyond it, is described.

81199197

Fiabilidad y validez del cuestionario OSDI (Ocular Disease Surface Index) en pacientes con diagnostico de sindrome de ojo seco en el Hospital Simon Bolivar, Colombia

Introduccion: La enfermedad de superficie ocular, como actualmente se le conoce al sindrome de ojo seco, ocupa dentro de la morbilidad ocular uno de los principales motivos de consulta, la cual genera multiple sintomatologia con un importante impacto en la calidad de vida de los pacientes. Objetivo: Validar transculturalmente el cuestionario OSDI (Ocular Surface Disease Index) en pacientes diagnosticados con sindrome de ojo seco atendidos en la consulta de oftalmologia en el servicio del Hospital Simon Bolivar, Bogota, Colombia. Materiales y Metodos Se realizo la traduccion del cuestionario OSDI, y se puso en consideracion de expertos en el tema y posteriormente se realizo la aplicacion del mismo a un total de 132 pacientes con diagnostico de ojo seco, luego se hizo un re test aplicando nuevamente la escala a las dos semanas, y finalmente se realizo la tabulacion y analisis estadistico. Resultados: Se identificaron 3 subescalas en el cuestionario OSDI (sintomatologia, limitacion para actividades diarias y afectacion por condiciones ambientales) Se demostro una alta consistencia interna medida a traves del coeficiente alfa de Cronbach tanto para el instrumento en general como para cada una de sus subescalas. De igual forma se obtuvo una excelente fiabilidad test retest en una amplia muestra de pacientes. El OSDI tambien demostro excelente validez al discriminar de manera efectiva los grados de severidad de la enfermedad de superficie ocular y su afectacion en la calidad de vida de los pacientes entre normal, leve a moderada y severa determinada por la escala de color y puntuacion. Conclusiones La escala OSDI es un instrumento valido y fiable que permite su aplicacion a la poblacion del servicio de Oftalmologia del Hospital Simon Bolivar con diagnostico de enfermedad de superficie ocular con el cual se obtendran datos de gran importancia para el abordaje y manejo de cada uno de los pacientes.

36297269

Mythbusters: The Case for Retirement Income in DC Plans.

Myths persist about retirement income solutions in defined contribution (DC) plans. The authors put six common myths to the test: (1) that few plans offer a retirement income option, (2) that retirement is solely a product decision, (3) that retirement income options lack fiduciary clarity, (4) that it's difficult to implement a retirement income option, (5) that retirement income options can be viewed similarly to an asset class and (6) that retirement solutions are too difficult to communicate to participants. They explain why some chatter on the topic of retirement income solutions in DC plans is unfounded.

Benefits quarterly

3889915

Metformin alters the gut microbiome of individuals with treatment naive type 2 diabetes, contributing to the therapeutic effects of the drug

Metformin is widely used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2D) but its mechanism of action is poorly defined. Recent evidence implicates the gut microbiota as a site of metformin action. In a double blind study, we randomized individuals with treatment naive T2D to placebo or metformin for 4 months and showed that metformin had strong effects on the gut microbiome. These results were verified in a subset of the placebo group that switched to metformin 6 months after the start of the trial. Transfer of fecal samples (obtained before and 4 months after treatment) from metformin treated donors to germ free mice showed that glucose tolerance was improved in mice that received metformin altered microbiota. By directly investigating metformin microbiota interactions in a gut simulator, we showed that metformin affected pathways with common biological functions in species from two different phyla, and many of the metformin regulated genes in these species encoded metalloproteins or metal transporters. Our findings provide support for the notion that altered gut microbiota mediates some of metformin's antidiabetic effects.

Nature Medicine

218584785

Pseudo ternary LiBH4*LiCl*P2S5 system as structurally disordered bulk electrolyte for all solid state lithium batteries.

The properties of the mixed system LiBH4 LiCl P2S5 are studied with respect to all solid state batteries. The studied material undergoes an amorphization upon heating above 60 degC, accompanied with increased Li+ conductivity beneficial for battery electrolyte applications. The measured ionic conductivity is ~10 3 S cm 1 at room temperature with an activation energy of 0.40(2) eV after amorphization. Structural analysis and characterization of the material suggest that BH4 groups and PS4 may belong to the same molecular structure, where Cl ions interplay to accommodate the structural unit. Thanks to its conductivity, ductility and electrochemical stability (up to 5 V, Au vs. Li+/Li) this new electrolyte is successfully tested in battery cells operated with a cathode material (layered TiS2, theo. capacity 239 mA h g 1) and Li anode resulting in 93% capacity retention (10 cycles) and notable cycling stability under the current density ~12 mA g 1 (0.05C rate) at 50 degC. Further advanced characterisation by means of operando synchrotron X ray diffraction in transmission mode contributes explicitly to a better understanding of the (de)lithiation processes of solid state battery electrodes operated at moderate temperatures.

Physical chemistry chemical physics PCCP

234449405

The Influence of Human Resource Information System (HRIS) Effectiveness on Employees' Performance at Brankas

Since the 21st century, the use of data makes it possible to assist in making decision and business strategies. Human Resource Information System (HRIS) is an excellent example of utilizing savings in administrative costs and also taking strategies that can benefit companies or organizations by gathering information, processing and sharing. The purpose of this research was to understand the influence of HRIS effectiveness on employees' performance at Brankas. The method used in this research was a quantitative method with data collection technique through the distribution of questionnaires. The type of analysis used is descriptive and causal with the data analysis used descriptive analysis, simple linear regression, determination coefficient, and hypothesis testing. The results of this study showed that HRIS has significant influence on employees' performance at Brankas. The results of this study should be used as input for Brankas through developing and improving the system of HRIS to help the company more efficient in terms of time management by the time set up.

43125109

Nucleus Recognition of Uterine Cervical Pap Smears using FCM Clustering Algorithm

Segmentation for the region of nucleus in the image of uterine cervical cytodiagnosis is known as the most difficult and important part in the automatic cervical cancer recognition system. In this paper, the region of nucleus is extracted from an image of uterine cervical cytodiagnosis using the HSI model. The characteristics of the nucleus are extracted from the analysis of morphemetric features, densitometric features, colormetric features, and textural features based on the detected region of nucleus area. The classification criterion of a nucleus is defined according to the standard categories of the Bethesda system. The fuzzy C means clustering algorithm is employed to the extracted nucleus and the results show that the proposed method is efficient in nucleus recognition and uterine cervical Pap Smears extraction.

J. Inform. and Commun. Convergence Engineering

168873330

Harnessing Difference: A Capability Based Framework for Stakeholder Engagement in Environmental Innovation

Innovation for environmental sustainability requires firms to engage with external stakeholders to access expertise, solve complex problems, and gain social legitimacy. In this open innovation context, stakeholder engagement is construed as a dynamic capability that can harness differences between external stakeholders to augment their respective resource bases. An integrative systematic review of evidence from 88 scientific articles finds that engaging stakeholders in environmental innovation requires three distinct levels of capability: specific operational capabilities; first order dynamic capabilities to manage the engagement (engagement management capabilities) and second order dynamic capabilities to make use of contrasting ways of seeing the world to reframe problems, combine competencies in new ways, and co create innovative solutions (value framing) and to learn from stakeholder engagement activities (systematized learning) These findings enhance understanding of how firms can effectively incorporate stakeholder perspectives for environmental innovation, and provide an organizing framework for further research into open innovation and co creation more broadly. Wider contributions to the dynamic capabilities literature are to (i) offer a departure point for further research into the relationship between first order and second order dynamic capabilities, (ii) suggest that institutional theory can help explain the dynamic capability of value framing, (iii) build on evidence that inter institutional learning is contingent on not only the similarity but also the differences between organizational value frames, and (iv) suggest that operating capabilities impact the effectiveness of dynamic capabilities, rather than only the other way around, as is usually assumed. A methodological contribution is made through the application of quality assessment criteria scores and intercoder reliability statistics to the selection of articles included in the systematic review.

199762416

Artificial Intelligence: The next disrupting technology of Online Marketing

Lately, notable changes are occurring in the field of online marketing: customers demand ever greater customer experiences when passing through the purchasing journey. Concepts such as hyper personalization, speed, and convenience are gaining enormous attention. With traditional online marketing techniques, businesses are lacking capabilities to tackle these emerging challenges. Advancements in AI marketing applications are now paving the way for businesses to deliver an immersive experience to their customers. Although most business executives acknowledge these developments, a deeper understanding of how exactly AI can facilitate this process is lacking. This knowledge gap is underlined by the identified research gap: there is barely any scientific literature that gives a comprehensive overview of how various AI marketing applications can be used to improve the online customer experience across the entire consumer journey. The objective of this research is to provide such a complete overview. To do so, a literature review is conducted to determine relevant factors of the customer experience and to explore the different stages of the online consumer journey. Next, research papers studying the effects of selected AI marketing applications on the identified factors were reviewed. Lastly, an expert interview was conducted, which provided additional practical insights. This research paper has been finalized with relevant theoretical and managerial implications.

71146521

Evaluation of detection probabilities at the water filtering and initial PCR steps in environmental DNA metabarcoding using a multispecies site occupancy model

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a recently developed method to assess biodiversity based on a high throughput parallel DNA sequencing applied to DNA present in the ecosystem. Although eDNA metabarcoding enables a rapid assessment of biodiversity, it is prone to species detection errors that may occur at sequential steps in field sampling, laboratory experiments, and bioinformatics. In this study, we illustrate how the error rates in the eDNA metabarcoding based species detection can be accounted for by applying the multispecies occupancy modelling framework. We report a case study with the eDNA sample from an aquarium tank in which the detection probabilities of species in the two major steps of eDNA metabarcoding, filtration and PCR, across a range of PCR annealing temperatures, were examined. We also show that the results can be used to examine the efficiency of species detection under a given experimental design and setting, in terms of the efficiency of species detection, highlighting the usefulness of the multispecies site occupancy modelling framework to study the optimum conditions for molecular experiments.

Scientific Reports

196484817

Endoscopic Papillary Large Balloon Dilation Versus Endoscopic Sphincterotomy for Retrieval of Large Choledocholithiasis: A Prospective Randomized Trial.

Abstract Background: Endoscopic sphincterotomy (ES) is the standard technique for common bile duct (CBD) stone removal. Recently, endoscopic papillary large balloon dilation (EPLBD) has been shown to be a safe and effective technique for the removal of large CBD stone. The aim of this study was to determine the therapeutic outcomes and safety of EPLBD compared with ES for large CBD stone extraction. Patients and Methods: One hundred twenty four patients with large bile duct stones were randomized into two groups, the first group included 61 patients subjected to EPLBD and the second group included 63 patients who underwent ES. We compared the success rate of stone removal, frequency of mechanical lithotripsy requirement, morbidity, and mortality. Results: Baseline characteristics were not significantly different. The overall ductal clearance rate was ultimately similar between the EPLBD group (96.7% and the ES group (93.7% (P .53) the one session ductal clearance rate was significantly different (86.

91187486

Building an Inducible T7 RNA Polymerase/T7 Promoter Circuit in Synechocystis sp. PCC6803.

To develop tightly regulated orthogonal gene expression circuits in the photoautotrophic cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 (Syn6803) we designed a circuit in which a native inducible promoter drives the expression of phage T7 RNA polymerase (T7RNAP) T7RNAP, in turn, specifically recognizes the T7 promoter that is designed to drive GFP expression. In Syn6803, this T7RNAP/T7promoter GFP circuit produces high GFP fluorescence, which was further enhanced by using mutant T7 promoters. We also tested two orthogonal inducible promoters, Trc1O and L03, but these promoters drive T7RNAP to levels that are toxic in E. coli. Introduction of a protein degradation tag alleviated this problem. However, in Syn6803, these circuits did not function successfully. This highlights the underappreciated fact that similar circuits work with varying efficiencies in different chassis organisms. This lays the groundwork for developing new orthogonally controlled phage RNA polymerase dependent expression systems in Syn6803.

ACS synthetic biology

211306654

A multiobjective optimization model for sustainable reverse logistics in Indian E commerce market

Abstract A cleaner and sustainable environment is becoming a topmost priority for both owners and stakeholders involved in businesses. It could be achieved by adopting better sustainable practices like reduction in waste through process of recycling, recovery and remanufacturing which helps to minimize both the cost and environmental losses. With a recent surge in E commerce market and online shopping in India there is a need for a more efficient, sustainable and reliable reverse logistics design by including cost, environmental and social factors into consideration. With the factors considered above this paper proposes a multi objective logistics network model for the return products specifically pertaining to the Indian E commerce market. The components of this multi echelon supply chain considered are Customer Markets, Warehouses, Delivery Hubs, Landfills, Incineration Centres and Recycling Centres. The multi objective optimization is done on the three fronts of sustainability, namely, economical, represented by cost, environmental, represented by environmental impact of different process, and social, which is represented by work days created and lost due to harms at work. Different technologies are considered in delivery hubs and mother warehouse which could result in a more efficient way of transferring and processing products. Weighted goal programming (WGP) technique is used by weighing different objectives to minimize cost, environment impact and maximize the social responsibility. Finally, model is validated with a numerical example based on an online retail selling clothes. This study will help the managers in deciding the number of facility stores and warehouses needed to open and operate, technology to be adopted for a more efficient way of transferring and processing products.

220507138

Impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on hyperacute stroke treatment: experience from a comprehensive stroke centre in Singapore

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19) pandemic is rapidly evolving and affecting healthcare systems across the world. Singapore has escalated its alert level to Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (DORSCON) Orange, signifying severe disease with community spread. We aimed to study the overall volume of AIS cases and the delivery of hyperacute stroke services during DORSCON Orange. This was a single centre, observational cohort study performed at a comprehensive stroke centre responsible for AIS cases in the western region of Singapore, as well as providing care for COVID 19 patients. All AIS patients reviewed as an acute stroke activation in the Emergency Department (ED) from November 2019 to April 2020 were included. System processes timings, treatment and clinical outcome variables were collected. We studied 350 AIS activation patients admitted through the ED, 206 (58.9% pre and 144 during DORSCON Orange. Across the study period, number of stroke activations showed significant decline p 0.004, 95% CI 6.513 to 2.287) as the number of COVID 19 cases increased exponentially, whilst proportion of activations receiving acute recanalization therapy remained stable p 0.519, 95% CI 1.605 to 2.702) Amongst AIS patients that received acute recanalization therapy, early neurological outcomes in terms of change in median NIHSS at 24 h 4 versus 4, p 0.685) were largely similar between the pre and during DORSCON orange periods. The number of stroke activations decreased while the proportion receiving acute recanalization therapy remained stable in the current COVID 19 pandemic in Singapore.

Journal of Thrombosis and Thrombolysis

24465300

[Biological function and molecular mechanism of URI in HepG2 cells]

OBJECTIVE To explore the effect and molecular mechanism of the unconventional prefoldin RPB5 interactor (URI) in hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells. METHODS The cDNA sequence and shRNA of URI were obtained and sub cloned into eukaryotic expression vectors. Then those vectors were transfected into HepG2 cells to obtain stable transfection cell line. The cell proliferation and anchor independent growth in URI overexpressing and knockdown HepG2 cells were determined by CCK 8 and soft agar colony assay. Flow cytometry was applied to detect the cell cycle and apoptosis of g ray irradiated cells. Apoptosis related genes were detected by Western blot. RESULTS The pCDNA3.1 URI and pGPU6 URIi eukaryotic expression vectors were constructed successfully and corresponding stable transfection cell lines were obtained. Cell proliferation rates of the HepG2, pCDNA3.1 URI HepG2 and pGPU6 URIi HepG2 cells were (588.78 32.12) (959.33 58.8) and (393.93 39.7) respectively (P 0.05) The number of cell clones of HepG2, pCDNA3.1 URI HepG2 and pGPU6 URIi HepG2 cells were 43 7, 85 5 and 20 4 (P 0.05) respectively. After g ray irradiation, the URI overexpressing cell line showed a significantly lower apoptosis rate and G(2)/M phase arrest than those in the URI depleted cell line (P 0.05) In the HepG2 cells, the relative protein expression levels of URI, Bax and Bcl 2 were 0.92 0.03, 1.11 0.13 and 0.82 0.01 (P 0.05) In the pCDNA3.1 URI HepG2 cells, the relative protein expression levels of URI, Bax and Bcl 2 were 1.79 0.12, 0.48 0.01 and 2.20 0.30 (P 0.05) respectively. In the pGPU6 URIi HepG2 cells, the relative protein expression levels of URI, Bax and Bcl 2 were 0.50 0.04, 1.52 0.20 and 0.38 0.01 (P 0.05) respectively. The expression of Bax was down regulated and Bcl 2 was up regulated in the URI overexpressing cell line. However, on the contrary, expression of Bax was up regulated and Bcl 2 was down regulated in the URI depleted cell line. CONCLUSIONS URI may promote the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma cells via inhibition of cell proliferation and reducing the apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma cells in vitro. After the impairment of URI expression, the proliferation ability of hepatocellular carcinoma cells is suppressed and the ability to resist g ray irradiation is reduced. URI may become a potential new target for cancer therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Zhonghua zhong liu za zhi [Chinese journal of oncology]

227222070

Design and Implementation of intelligent Learning Companion System Based on WeChat Mini Program

During the period of COVID 19 epidemic situation, in order to ensure that students can study normally, the Ministry of Education has issued measures to "suspend classes without stopping learning" Therefore, the traditional forms can't meet the needs of learners, more and more people like online education. The existing online learning platforms cannot perfectly meet the learning needs of students, so the students need an online learning system that can meet their individual needs and improve learning efficiency. This article introduces an intelligent learning companion system, the system based on the advantages of WeChat Mini Programs can help learners achieve online learning and meet personalized needs.

2020 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Education (ICAIE)

123233892

Uncrackable codes: Who was the Zodiac killer?

The 1960s serial murderer Zodiac may have told the world his or her identity but no one has been able to decrypt the message, says MacGregor Campbell

142995742

Free Education: Pro and Contra

Abstract The humanistic paradigm of free education as a form of manifestation of universal moral values is a historical and cultural phenomenon in the philosophy of education and at the same time a contradictory phenomenon of education at the moment. The theory of free education being objectively considered a historical and cultural component of the basic humanistic tradition of education is in close connection with the problems handled by the pedagogy of freedom. In teaching there is still no clear attitude to free education, to its pros and cons. That's why we can observe a permanent debate in the modern formulation of this aspect. Moreover, the concept of "free education" has no exact definition. The article generalizes key points and discloses "pro and contra" of free education.

222209112

GRADE: Automatic Graph Enhanced Coherence Metric for Evaluating Open Domain Dialogue Systems

Automatically evaluating dialogue coherence is a challenging but high demand ability for developing high quality open domain dialogue systems. However, current evaluation metrics consider only surface features or utterance level semantics, without explicitly considering the fine grained topic transition dynamics of dialogue flows. Here, we first consider that the graph structure constituted with topics in a dialogue can accurately depict the underlying communication logic, which is a more natural way to produce persuasive metrics. Capitalized on the topic level dialogue graph, we propose a new evaluation metric GRADE, which stands for Graph enhanced Representations for Automatic Dialogue Evaluation. Specifically, GRADE incorporates both coarse grained utterance level contextualized representations and fine grained topic level graph representations to evaluate dialogue coherence. The graph representations are obtained by reasoning over topic level dialogue graphs enhanced with the evidence from a commonsense graph, including k hop neighboring representations and hop attention weights. Experimental results show that our GRADE significantly outperforms other state of the art metrics on measuring diverse dialogue models in terms of the Pearson and Spearman correlations with human judgements. Besides, we release a new large scale human evaluation benchmark to facilitate future research on automatic metrics.

EMNLP

30449446

High efficiency rectifier for RF energy harvesting in the GSM band

In this paper, a miniature RECtifying antENNA (rectenna) operating in the GSM band is designed and realized. The RF micro generator consists of a simple rectifier circuit combined with a dipole antenna. The miniaturization of the circuit lies in avoiding the adaptation input filter and in optimizing the transmission lines by the gradient method search. The designed circuit is based on a Schenkel voltage doubler rectifier and Schottky diodes HSMS 2850 of AVAGO and is optimized through electromagnetic simulation software, Agilent ADS 2014 environment. Experimental results show an RF DC conversion efficiency up to 40% with an output DC voltage of 1.8 V at 10 dBm of input power. A Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) experience demonstrates an average voltage of 22 mV over a distance of 3 m.

2017 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting

131674831

Integrated Reconstruction Methods of Time series NDVI Dataset

Time series of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI) datasets have been used in detecting the long term vegetation cover changes in regional,continental or global scales.They are also successfully applied to extract the biophysical parameters of vegetation cover.Normally,there are quite frequently fluctuations because of atmospheric condition and sensor effect in the NDVI dataset.According to the comparative analysis of five widely used NDVI reconstruction algorithms,two integrated approaches were developed based on standard deviation weight and characteristics of noise points respectively.The reconstructed results were validated and assessed by using some in suit NDVI measurements carried out during late May to early August,2009.The result shows that these two integrated methods are better than the five separate methods above.They do not only retain most of the original data,but also modify the noise to the utmost extent.NDVI time series datasets produced by these two approaches can be better applied in the researches on global and regional environmental change,vegetation dynamic,and so on.

85524288

Customer feedback gathering and management tools for product service system design

Abstract Modern manufacturing industries are being shifted towards a new business model where low cost and high customer value solutions should be designed and provided. The use of advanced technology and mobile applications will support companies to approach customers, and extract and analyze their opinion. Towards that, this research work presents tools for customers' feedback gathering and management to support efficient and accurate product and service designs. Mobile applications for customer feedback gathering on products and services and an importance satisfaction analysis based on modular design approach are proposed. The tools are validated in a real case study from the robotics industry.

1732632

Human Action Recognition by Representing 3D Skeletons as Points in a Lie Group

Recently introduced cost effective depth sensors coupled with the real time skeleton estimation algorithm of Shotton et al. [16] have generated a renewed interest in skeleton based human action recognition. Most of the existing skeleton based approaches use either the joint locations or the joint angles to represent a human skeleton. In this paper, we propose a new skeletal representation that explicitly models the 3D geometric relationships between various body parts using rotations and translations in 3D space. Since 3D rigid body motions are members of the special Euclidean group SE(3) the proposed skeletal representation lies in the Lie group SE(3)x. .xSE(3) which is a curved manifold. Using the proposed representation, human actions can be modeled as curves in this Lie group. Since classification of curves in this Lie group is not an easy task, we map the action curves from the Lie group to its Lie algebra, which is a vector space. We then perform classification using a combination of dynamic time warping, Fourier temporal pyramid representation and linear SVM. Experimental results on three action datasets show that the proposed representation performs better than many existing skeletal representations. The proposed approach also outperforms various state of the art skeleton based human action recognition approaches.

2014 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

213341452

UPAYA PENINGKATAN HASIL BELAJAR PAI MATERI PRAKTEK WUDHUMELALUI METODE PICTURE AND PICTURE SISWA KELAS II SD NEGERI 1 MANDURAGA KECAMATAN KALIMANAH KABUPATEN PURBALINGGA TAHUN PELAJARAN 2018/2019

Berbagai media yang diterapkan dalam proses pendidikan dapat menyentuh pemahaman anak didik dalam menerima pelajaran yang disampaikan oleh guru, baik itu media visual ataupun non visual. Seperti usaha guru untuk meningkatkan hasil belajar PAI mareti wudhu melalui metode picture and picture siswa kelas II di SD Negeri 1 Manduraga Kecamatan Kalimanah Kabupaten Purbalingga Tahun Pelajaran 2018/2019. Jenis penelitian ini adalah penelitian tindakan kelas artinya penelitian yang bertujuan untuk meningkatkan hasil belajar siswa dalam mata pelajaran Pendidikan Agama Islam materi wudhu. Dari hasil penelitian dan analisis data diperoleh bahwa penggunaan media picture and picture dapat meningkatkan hasil belajar siswa materi wudhu. Hal tersebut dapat dibuktikan Pada prasiklus ketrampilan berwudhu siswa memperoleh rata rata nilai 63,77 dengan prosentasse 27,77% hanya ada 5 anak yang tuntas mencapai KKM, Pada siklus pertama nilai rata rata siswa naik menjadi 70,50 dengan prosentase ketuntasan 50% adanya peningkatan menjadi 9 anak yang mencapai ketuntasan. Pada siklus kedua peningkatan secara signifikan terjadi dengan nilai rata rata 82,88 dengan prosentasi ketuntasan siswa adalah 88,88% siswa yang berjumlah 16 anak telah mencapai nilai KKM. Hanya ada 2 anak yang belum mencapai ketuntasan belajar. Kesimpulan dari penelitian ini, dengan melalui metode picture and picture dapat meningkatkan hasil belajar siswa kelas II mata pelajaran PAI materi wudhu SD Negeri 1 Manduraga Kecamatan Kalimanah Kabupaten Purbalingga Tahun Pelajaran 2018/2019 dapat digunakan sebagai salah satu metode alternatif pembelajaran PAI.

203060688

Social anxiety and the interpretation of morphed facial expressions following exclusion and inclusion.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Negative interpretation biases are postulated to play etiological and maintaining roles in social anxiety (SA) However, empirical support for interpretation biases of facial expression in SA is inconsistent. Given the importance of signals of (dis)approval in SA, our objective was to examine whether SA is associated with enhanced sensitivity to such signals especially following exclusion. METHODS In Study 1, participants (N 139) underwent an exclusion/inclusion manipulation and were then presented with video clips of smiles gradually changing into disgust expressions (smile to disgust) In Study 2 (N 203) participants saw smile to disgust as well as disgust to smile clips following an exclusion/inclusion manipulation. Participants' task in both studies was to detect the offset of the initial expression. RESULTS Results of Study 1 show that detection latency of smiles' disappearance is negatively associated with SA severity. The results of Study 2 suggest that this association is stronger following exclusion, and specific to the smile to disgust as opposed to the disgust to smile, transitions. LIMITATIONS Our studies did not examine whether the observed interpretation bias was specific to SA. CONCLUSIONS Our findings support and refine cognitive theories of SA, suggesting that interpretation biases for facial information in SA may be especially pronounced following exclusion.

Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry

147543276

THE JOURNALIST IS MARKETING THE NEWS

This study, based on case studies of three online newsrooms, seeks to understand the patterns of how journalists use social media in their news work. Through 150 hours of observations and interviews with 31 journalists, the study found that journalists are normalizing social media while also reworking some of their norms and routines around it, a process of journalistic negotiation. They are balancing editorial autonomy and the other norms that have institutionalized journalism, on one hand, and the increasing influence exerted by the audience perceived to be the key for journalism's survival on the other. In doing so, journalists are also seeing a reworking of their traditional gatekeeping role, finding themselves having to also market the news.

209975934

What Drives the North Atlantic Oscillation's Temperature Anomaly Pattern? Part I: The Growth and Decay of the Surface Air Temperature Anomalies

AbstractComposite analysis is used to examine the physical processes that drive the growth and decay of the surface air temperature anomaly pattern associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (N.

8227791

Two ways to the top: evidence that dominance and prestige are distinct yet viable avenues to social rank and influence.

The pursuit of social rank is a recurrent and pervasive challenge faced by individuals in all human societies. Yet, the precise means through which individuals compete for social standing remains unclear. In 2 studies, we investigated the impact of 2 fundamental strategies Dominance (the use of force and intimidation to induce fear) and Prestige (the sharing of expertise or know how to gain respect) on the attainment of social rank, which we conceptualized as the acquisition of (a) perceived influence over others (Study 1) (b) actual influence over others' behaviors (Study 1) and (c) others' visual attention (Study 2) Study 1 examined the process of hierarchy formation among a group of previously unacquainted individuals, who provided round robin judgments of each other after completing a group task. Results indicated that the adoption of either a Dominance or Prestige strategy promoted perceptions of greater influence, by both group members and outside observers, and higher levels of actual influence, based on a behavioral measure. These effects were not driven by popularity; in fact, those who adopted a Prestige strategy were viewed as likable, whereas those who adopted a Dominance strategy were not well liked. In Study 2, participants viewed brief video clips of group interactions from Study 1 while their gaze was monitored with an eye tracker. Dominant and Prestigious targets each received greater visual attention than targets low on either dimension. Together, these findings demonstrate that Dominance and Prestige are distinct yet viable strategies for ascending the social hierarchy, consistent with evolutionary theory.

Journal of personality and social psychology

110781315

A Study on Information seeking Benefits of Fashion Applications of Users and their Effects on loyalty and Satisfaction Focused on iPhone Fashion Applications

Considering the rapid growth of mobile industry and the emerging application marketing, this study focused on fashion applications, which had not drawn much academic attention before, and analysed relevant content composition, information seeking benefits based on users` lifestyles and resulting differences in satisfaction and loyalty. In short, fashion applications were divided into fashion and non fashion brand apps. Brand apps were subdivided into luxury, women`s wear, men`s wear, casual wear, sportswear, accessories and the like. Non brand apps included commerce, magazine, information, style tip, SNS and wardrobe manager types. As for users` lifestyle based information search, the higher the tendency to search information on the internet and to favour reasonable consumption, the more basic information on products and brands they sought, whereas the higher the tendency to look for high profile brands and to favour global culture, the more additional information like images or entertainments they sought. To sum up, given that studies on fashion specific applications were rare, the present study reviewed and categorized current fashion applications, and suggested theoretical and practical groundwork for developing content based on target consumers` lifestyle and for planning fashion applications in practice.

24211546

Resilience: resistance factor for depressive symptom.

The purpose was to explore influence of resilience on the willingness of African Americans aged 65 and over to seek mental health care for depressive symptoms. Specifically, the study examined relationships between personal resilience and willingness of undiagnosed, community dwelling older adults to seek mental health care for depressive symptoms. A cross sectional, correlational, causal modelling design was used to study older African Americans (N= 158; 121 women and 37 men) recruited from churches, retirement organizations and senior nutrition centres. Participants completed study instruments to measure depressive symptoms, resilience, willingness to seek mental health care, and general demographics information. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analyses were preformed. Depressive symptoms and resilience accounted for 15.4% of the willingness to seek mental health care variance; extraction of resilience lowered variance to 0.9% A direct, predictive relationship between resilience and willingness to seek mental health care was documented. Understanding resilience and willingness to seek mental health care supports future research for interventions that bolster resilience in older adults. Identifying the influence of resilience on such willingness may provide direction for developing interventions for older African Americans and may be applicable to vulnerable, marginalized and minority older adults worldwide.

Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing

207972921

Learning Efficient Stereo Matching Network With Depth Discontinuity Aware Super Resolution

Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown great potential to provide accurate depth estimation based on stereo images. Previous work has focused on developing robust stereo matching architectures, while little attention has been paid on improving the network efficiency. In this paper, we propose an efficient Siamese CNN architecture that combines the low resolution disparity estimation and the depth discontinuity aware super resolution. Specifically, we propose to construct, filter and perform regression on a low resolution cost volume through the designed stereo matching backbone network. A fast depth discontinuity aware super resolution subnetwork is proposed for upsampling the low resolution disparity map to the desired resolution. Under the guidance of the intensity edge features extracted from the left color image, depth edge residuals are hierarchically learned to refine the upsampled depth map. A delayed upsampling structure is designed to ensure that the computational complexity is proportional to the spatial size of the input disparity map. We also propose to supervise the first derivative loss of the predicted disparity map that makes the network adaptively aware of the depth discontinuity edges. Experiments show that the proposed stereo matching network achieves a comparable prediction accuracy and much faster running speed compared with state of the art methods.

IEEE Access

219518356

How to win the consumer's heart? Exploring appraisal determinants of consumer pre consumption emotions

Abstract Emotions are key drivers of consumption in the tourism and hospitality sector. Therefore, advancing our understanding of the determinants of consumer emotions is critical for tourism and hospitality marketers to effectively influence consumer affect driven consumption behavior. However, research on the determinants of pre consumption emotions remains under explored. This study aims to fill the research gap and proposes a theoretical framework to explain affect driven behavior. Grounded on the cognitive appraisal theory of emotions, we hypothesize that marketing stimuli are personally appraised based on several dimensions such as novelty and goal relevance. These appraisal dimensions determine the elicitation of positive emotions, leading to behavioral intentions. A total of 655 participants were recruited for an empirical study to test this framework in the context of a tourism event experience. We use an experimental research design to examine consumer appraisals, emotions and behavioral intentions in four conditions: two marketing visual formats (poster vs. video) over two delivery channels (advertising vs. e word of mouth) Research outcomes support the theoretical framework of consumer affect driven behavior, suggesting that the elicitation of positive emotions beneficially guides consumer behavior in goal striving and novelty seeking. Based on this, emotion focused marketing implications are recommended, including goal based segmentation, goal relevant content development and the use of eWOM as an emotion enhancing message delivery channel.

204836979

3D Point Cloud Geometry Compression on Deep Learning

3D point cloud presentation has been widely used in computer vision, automatic driving, augmented reality, smart cities and virtual reality. 3D point cloud compression method with higher compression ratio and tiny loss is the key to improve data transportation efficiency. In this paper, we propose a new 3D point cloud geometry compression method based on deep learning, also an auto encoder performing better than other networks in detail reconstruction. It can reach much higher compression ratio than the state of art while keeping tolerable loss. It also supports parallel compressing multiple models by GPU, which can improve processing efficiency greatly. The compression process is composed of two parts. Firstly, Raw data is compressed into codeword by extracting feature of raw model with encoder. Then, the codeword is further compressed with sparse coding. Decompression process is implemented in reverse order. Codeword is recovered and fed into decoder to reconstruct point cloud. Detail reconstruction ability is improved by a hierarchical structure in our decoder. Latter outputs are grown from former fuzzier outputs. In this way, details are added to former output by latter layers step by step to make a more precise prediction. We compare our method with PCL compression and Draco compression on ShapeNet40 part dataset. Our method may be the first deep learning based point cloud compression algorithm. The experiments demonstrate it is superior to former common compression algorithms with large compression ratio, which can also reserve original shapes with tiny loss.

ACM Multimedia

139396325

FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF SUPERCAPACITOR ELECTRODE BY 3D PRINTING

Herein, we presents a study on the fabrication and characterization of supercapacitor electrode by 3D printing. A colloidal suspension containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and cobalt ferrite nanoparticles (CoFe2O4 NPs) was used as ink. The ink was successfully printed on aluminium substrate using a modified 3D printer followed by solvent evaporation to form a porous CNTs/CoFe2O4 aerogel film. The characterization results showed that the film has porous surface, high electrical conductivity and good electrochemical properties, indicating its promising application as supercapacitor electrode for energy conversion and storage.

166228120

Why do These Match? Explaining the Behavior of Image Similarity Models

Explaining a deep learning model can help users understand its behavior and allow researchers to discern its shortcomings. Recent work has primarily focused on explaining models for tasks like image classification or visual question answering. In this paper, we introduce Salient Attributes for Network Explanation (SANE) to explain image similarity models, where a model's output is a score measuring the similarity of two inputs rather than a classification score. In this task, an explanation depends on both of the input images, so standard methods do not apply. Our SANE explanations pairs a saliency map identifying important image regions with an attribute that best explains the match. We find that our explanations provide additional information not typically captured by saliency maps alone, and can also improve performance on the classic task of attribute recognition. Our approach's ability to generalize is demonstrated on two datasets from diverse domains, Polyvore Outfits and Animals with Attributes 2. Code available at: this https URL

ECCV

76079152

Effect of Polyherbal Formulation in Treatment of Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)

Poly cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a complex syndrome affecting 5 to 15% of the females of reproductive as well as premenopausal age. It involves various symptoms related to metabolism and reproductive system. According to Ayurveda it is a disorder of Artav vah strotus caused by vitiation of Kapha and Vata. In this study a Polyherbal formulation prepared by Unijules life Sciences ltd. is evaluated on 36 patients suffering from various symptoms of PCOS for three months treatment duration. A highly significant result was observed in pain during menstruation, interval between two menses, follicular size and in decreasing the BMI i.e. in obesity also. Overall this study established a good product useful for PCOS without causing any unwanted effects.

145060317

Academic Writing at the Graduate Level: Improving the Curriculum through Faculty Collaboration.

This article describes a collaborative self study undertaken to identify the source of academic writing difficulties among graduate students and find ways to address them. Ten faculty members in a college of education came together to define the problem and to analyze data gleaned from faculty and student surveys, course documents, course assignments, and course assessments. We found discrepancies between faculty and student perceptions about graduate preparation for academic writing and between the espoused and enacted curriculum. Both faculty and students identified problems associated with synthesizing theory and research. We discuss the need for teacher scholars in today's educational environment, the challenges facing curriculum improvement, and several program specific measures being undertaken to address identified gaps in academic writing and critical thinking.

226297199

Association of social participation, perception of neighborhood social cohesion, and social media use with happiness: Evidence of trade off (JCOP 20 277)

Social participation and neighborhood social cohesion are positively associated with health and wellbeing. Given that in person social interactions have generally dwindled over the past several decades at least in Western countries and social media use has become more common, in this study, we examined whether and how social media use interacts with social participation and neighborhood social cohesion in influencing happiness. Data were gathered from a representative sample of adults in Massachusetts, USA. General linear model was used to estimate the main and interaction effects of social participation, perception of neighborhood social cohesion and social media use on happiness, controlling for sociodemographics, marital status, employment, and self rated health. Results indicated that both social participation and perception of neighborhood social cohesion were positively associated with happiness whereas social media use was not. However, there was a significant interaction effect of social media use and perception of neighborhood social cohesion on happiness. Compared with people with a high perception of neighborhood social cohesion, those with low perception were more likely to be happy as their social media use increased, suggesting that social media use may be helpful to promote happiness among people who perceive their neighborhoods as less supportive, trustworthy, and close knit.

Journal of community psychology

228284556

THE INFLUENCE OF THE EXECUTIVE CHARACTERISTICS AND AUDIT COMMITTEE ON TAX AVOIDANCE

The Influence of The Executive Characteristics and Audit Committee on Tax Avoidance. This research aims to examine the effect of executive characteristics on tax avoidance, to examine the effect of audit committees on tax avoidance and to examine the characteristics of executives and audit committees on tax avoidance. Manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2017 were used as samples in this research. The data is processed using multiple regression tests using quantitative methods, where the researchers collect the data about the facts and the nature of the object that being studied systematically by combining the relationships between the variables involved in it and measured in quantity or amount. The results showed that the characteristics of the executive and audit committee had an impact on tax avoidance that is equal to 44.8% While the remaining 55.2% there were other factors that affect tax avoidance. This research shows that the higher the number of executives who have characteristics of risk takers, then it will increase tax avoidance that is done by the management and vice versa. On the other hand, this study found that the higher the number of audit committees, the lower the tax avoidance carried out by management and vice versa. This research give highlight about tax avoidance practices by management and factors may be affected to tax avoidance.

219615825

Heart Disease Prediction using Machine Learning and Data Mining

Weighing only 300 grams, Heart is declining the mortality rate at a rapid pace from decades. The major factors that contribute to it are smoking, drinking, unbalanced diet, and many more. Even with these more technical advancements the analysis of the clinical data is a critical challenge. With the use of Machine Learning techniques, it is possible to analyse the data and interpret the cause that lead to heart diseases such as Coronary Heart Disease, Arrhythmia, and Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Many researchers are developing IoT enabled hardware to predict these diseases using various ML and DM techniques. In this study, we propose a novel method to determine the disease using Cleveland Heart Disease Dataset by combining the computational power of various ML and DM algorithms and concluded that among all the algorithms, K Nearest Neighbors gives the highest accuracy of 87% Along with this, a web app is developed using flask in python with which the user can enter the attributes and predict the heart disease.

235635298

COVID 19 and Project ECHO Driving Innovations in Rural Pain Care Education

Pain medicine

104469421

The effect of climate on Burgundy vintage quality rankings

Aim: Based on consensus rankings from prominent rating authorities, we examined the importance of a suite of climatic variables, organized by winegrape phenological stage, in distinguishing between high and low ranked vintages in Burgundy.Methods and Results: Vintage ratings of Burgundy wines acquired from 12 sources were evaluated to develop consensus rankings for red and white wines from 1961 2015. Climate variables (air temperature, precipitation, degree day accumulations, etc. were organized by mean phenological stage and compared between good and poor vintages using Mann Whitney U tests and multivariate stepwise discriminant function analysis. High temperatures, particularly during the growing season, were found to be the most consistently important climatic factor in distinguishing good quality vintages from poor quality vintages. The best red vintages had a greater diurnal temperature range during the growing season, whereas the top white vintages were not distinguished by unusually warm conditions, but the bottom ranked white vintages were particularly cool and wet. The impact of rainfall varied across the growing season, with top ranked Burgundy wines benefitting from rainfall during the bud break period and dry conditions during the ripening phase.Conclusions: The most important climatic factor in distinguishing between top and bottom ranked vintages is growing season temperature, especially high diurnal temperature range (for reds) and high average maximum temperatures (for whites) Good Burgundy vintages are more likely when there is ample rainfall during the bud break period in April and dry conditions during the veraison and ripening phases.Significance and Impact of the Study: As viticulturalists adapt to regional climate trends, a better understanding of how specific climate variables affect wine quality becomes increasingly important in viticulture management.

OENO One

236150977

BID HCP: Blockchain Identifier Based Health Certificate Passport System

The COVID 19 outbreak severely affected daily life. The World Health Organiza tion stated that quarantine was the most effective way to control the spread of the epidemic before the vaccine was developed, but this also led to economic recession. At present, there is an urgent need for solutions to ensure the normal schedule of life while reducing the spread of the epidemic. Several contact tracking solutions have been proposed in the market, but they all have certain limitations, such as health certificates do not recognize each other, and user information is leaked. This paper proposes a health passport system based on blockchain identifier (BID HCP) which ensures that uninfected people travel normally through a unified health certificate passport. What's more, the method separates the user's location information from the user's identity effectively, which protects the user's privacy and efficiently analyzes the high risk areas of the epidemic. (c) 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

CSS

14690987

Design, modeling and control of a 5 DoF light weight robot arm for aerial manipulation

The design, modeling and control of a 5 degrees of freedom light weight robot manipulator is presented in this paper. The proposed robot arm, named Prisma Ultra Lightweight 5 ARm (PUL5AR) is employed to execute manipulation tasks equipped on board of a vertical take off and landing unmanned aerial vehicle. The arm is compact and light weight. Its mechanics is designed such that it can fold on itself during landing manoeuvres. Moreover, the design is conceived to constrain the center of gravity of the arm as close as possible to vehicle base, thus reducing the total inertia and static unbalancing of the system. Experimental tests have been carried out in order to validate the dynamic model, the communication library, the developed electronics, and the control schemes implemented for the designed robot arm.

2015 23rd Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED)

195774907

Low Cost Herbal Mosquito Repellent Using Arm Based Device

The present study reports the studies directed towards the development of safe and efficient herbal mosquito repellant formulations obtained by mixing a solutions of 20ml Neem extract, 20ml Tulsi Oil, 20ml Turmeric Oil, 20ml Orange Peel Oil, 20gm Clove. This unique solution is composed of herbal components and thus has no side effects on the human beings. This paper also defines a unique mosquito repellant sensor which is base don the density of mosquito in a given area. This paper describes a unique approach through which this sensor automatically sense the mosquito density and then regulate the quantity of fumes of our unique solution which is specially prepared from the herbal components, in order to repel mosquitoes as well as purify the air. We conducted several tests on different compositions and mosquito density and thus we conclude that our approach is better and unique than other existing mosquito repellants available in the market.

2018 7th International Conference on Reliability, Infocom Technologies and Optimization (Trends and Future Directions) (ICRITO)