Irrational Guards are Sometimes Needed

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Abrahamsen, Mikkel; Adamaszek, Anna; Miltzow, Tillmann

2017-01-01

In this paper we study the art gallery problem, which is one of the fundamental problems in computational geometry. The objective is to place a minimum number of guards inside a simple polygon so that the guards together can see the whole polygon. We say that a guard at position x sees a point y...... if the line segment xy is contained in the polygon. Despite an extensive study of the art gallery problem, it remained an open question whether there are polygons given by integer coordinates that require guard positions with irrational coordinates in any optimal solution. We give a positive answer...... to this question by constructing a monotone polygon with integer coordinates that can be guarded by three guards only when we allow to place the guards at points with irrational coordinates. Otherwise, four guards are needed. By extending this example, we show that for every n, there is a polygon which can...

Irrational Human Behaviors

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Orhan Şener

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Neo Classical economists used to posit that, since consumers are rational, they make decisions to maximize their pleasure (utility. Opposing to Neo Classical understanding, Behavioral Economists argue that, consumers are infect not rational, but prone to all sort of biases and habits that pull them being rational. For instance, there are too many irrational choices made by the Turkish consumers like; expensive wedding parties given by low income families; although riding bicycle is healthy and cheap, but people buy expensive cars; it is cheaper staying at a hotel or a timeshare, however people buy expensive summer houses, where they stayed only few weeks a year. These type of irrational behaviors adversely affect the decisions on savings, investments and economic growth. On the consumers irrationality, Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, wrote Prospect Theory. They developed a cognitive psychological model to explain divergences from neoclassical economics. They claimed that people take decisions under psychological, social, emotional and economic factors that affect market prices and resource allocation. In order to explain the irrational behaviors of Turkish consumers, I utilized some concepts such as conspicuous consumption (or keeping up with Johns, Veblen Effect, Bandwagon Effect, bounded rationality, 20 to 80 Law and ethical considerations developed by Behavioral Economists and Heterodox Economics. Thus, I came to conclusion that why the free market economic understanding fails in Turkey by giving some examples and economic reasons stated in the last section of this paper.

RATIONAL-IRRATIONAL ELECTORAL PREFERENCES, ALTRUISM AND EXPRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

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Mihai Ungureanu

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Caplan (2000, 2001, 2006 proposed the rational-irrationality model arguing that irrationality is a good as any other, whose consumption is maximized in relation to its costs and benefits. Applying this model to the problem of electoral behavior Caplan implies that voters ‘afford’ many irrational beliefs, because the lack of individual decisiveness renders vote as a consequenceless act. This paper contributes to the development of knowledge by analyzing the compatibility of rational irrationality with active electoral behavior. Two important arguments are being proposed: First, Wittman’s (2008 intuition that rational irrationality is incompatible with voting could be supported only about a particular type of altruism, which Caplan actually seems to reject. Second, rational irrationality seems to be compatible with expressive motivations, reinforcing the conclusion that rational-irrational individuals are active voters in mass elections.

Effect of rational and irrational statements on intensity and 'inappropriateness' of emotional distress and irrational beliefs in psychotherapy patients.

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Cramer, D; Kupshik, G

1993-09-01

Ellis's rational-emotive theory postulates that since irrational statements augment emotional distress, replacing irrational with rational statements should lessen distress. This hypothesis was tested in the initial stages of psychotherapy by having 13 and 14 clinical out-patients respectively repeat for one minute either rational or irrational statements about their major presenting psychological problem. The distinction by Ellis & Harper (1975) that 'inappropriate' emotions differ qualitatively from 'appropriate' emotions was also examined. Although the experimental intervention had no effect on a post-test measure of irrational beliefs, patients repeating rational statements had significantly lower appropriate and inappropriate negative emotions at post-test, suggesting that inappropriate emotions do not differ qualitatively from appropriate emotions and that making rational statements may lower emotional distress in patients. Patients reiterating irrational statements showed no change in emotions, implying that these kinds of irrational cognitions may have already been present.

Proofs of certain properties of irrational roots

OpenAIRE

Belbas, S. A.

2009-01-01

We give two elementary proofs, at a level understandable by students with only pre-calculus knowledge of Algebra, of the well known fact that an irreducible irrational n-th root of a positive rational number cannot be solution of a polynomial of degree less than n with rational coefficients. We also state and prove a few simple consequences.

Irrational beliefs at work and their implications for workaholism.

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van Wijhe, Corine; Peeters, Maria; Schaufeli, Wilmar

2013-09-01

This study examined the associations between work-related irrational cognitions and workaholism. For this purpose, a 16-item work-related irrational beliefs questionnaire (WIB-Q) was developed. Employees (n = 913) completed an online survey that included, besides the irrational cognitions scale, measures of negative affect and workaholism. The results show that four factors could be distinguished, which represent irrational beliefs concerning (1) performance demands, (2) co-workers' approval (3) failure and (4) control. All scales showed good internal consistency. Furthermore, it was found that, after controlling for negative affect, performance demands were associated with workaholism, whereas the remaining types of irrationality were unrelated to workaholism. In other words, the findings suggest that interventions for workaholism should target irrational self-oriented performance demands and negative emotions. As Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy focuses on identifying and replacing irrational cognitions, it appears a useful intervention technique for the treatment of workaholics.

A Developmental Study of the Relationship Among Irrational Beliefs, Behavior Problems, and Neuroticism in Adolescent Boys.

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Spirito, Anthony; Erickson, Marilyn T.

Rational-Emotive Therapy states that maladaptive behaviors and emotional problems are the result of certain irrational beliefs that people hold and a number of empirical investigations with adult subjects have supported this claim. To determine whether the relationship between irrationality and psychological adjustment holds for adolescents, one…

The behavioural ecology of irrational behaviours.

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Huneman, Philippe; Martens, Johannes

2017-08-17

Natural selection is often envisaged as the ultimate cause of the apparent rationality exhibited by organisms in their specific habitat. Given the equivalence between selection and rationality as maximizing processes, one would indeed expect organisms to implement rational decision-makers. Yet, many violations of the clauses of rationality have been witnessed in various species such as starlings, hummingbirds, amoebas and honeybees. This paper attempts to interpret such discrepancies between economic rationality (defined by the main axioms of rational choice theory) and biological rationality (defined by natural selection). After having distinguished two kinds of rationality we introduce irrationality as a negation of economic rationality by biologically rational decision-makers. Focusing mainly on those instances of irrationalities that can be understood as exhibiting inconsistency in making choices, i.e. as non-conformity of a given behaviour to axioms such as transitivity or independence of irrelevant alternatives, we propose two possible families of Darwinian explanations that may account for these apparent irrationalities. First, we consider cases where natural selection may have been an indirect cause of irrationality. Second, we consider putative cases where violations of rationality axioms may have been directly favored by natural selection. Though the latter cases (prima facie) seem to clearly contradict our intuitive representation of natural selection as a process that maximizes fitness, we argue that they are actually unproblematic; for often, they can be redescribed as cases where no rationality axiom is violated, or as situations where no adaptive solution exists in the first place.

Individualized measurement of irrational beliefs in remitted depressives.

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Solomon, Ari; Arnow, Bruce A; Gotlib, Ian H; Wind, Brian

2003-04-01

Recent reviews of cognitive theories of depression have noted that individualized assessment strategies might help to resolve mixed findings regarding the stability of depressotypic beliefs and attitudes. We describe encouraging results for an individualized measure of one such cognitive construct, irrational beliefs. Twenty depression-prone women (recurrent major depressives in full remission) and twenty closely matched never-depressed controls completed leading forced-choice measures of irrational beliefs (the Belief Scale; BS) and sociotropy-autonomy (The Revised Personal Style Inventory), as well as the Specific Demands on Self Scale (SDS). The BS requires participants to rate their agreement with twenty preselected statements of irrational beliefs, while the SDS focuses on whether participants harbor any strongly held irrational beliefs, even if uncommon or idiosyncratic. Consistent with previous research, there were no group differences on the traditional measure of irrational beliefs. In contrast, depression-prone participants strongly exceeded controls on the SDS, and this difference persisted after controlling for residual depression, anxiety symptoms, anxiety diagnoses, sociotropy, and autonomy. These findings provide some initial support for a key assumption of the rational-emotive model of depression, and, more broadly, suggest that individualized assessment strategies may help researchers capture the core negative beliefs of asymptomatic individuals, even in the absence of mood or cognitive priming. Copyright 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 59: 439-455, 2003.

Self-Handicapping and Irrational Beliefs about Approval in a Sample of Teacher Candidates

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Kaya, Çinar; Ugur, Erol; Sar, Ali Haydar; Ercengiz, Mustafa

2017-01-01

The main objective of the current study is to examine the relationships between self-handicapping, and irrational beliefs about approval, irrational beliefs about interpersonal relationships, irrational beliefs about self and the overall level of irrational beliefs by reference to the " ABC " framework. Participants of the study were 263…

A validation study of the Brief Irrational Thoughts Inventory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoogsteder, L.M.; Wissink, I.B.; Stams, G.J.J.M.; van Horn, J.E.; Hendriks, J.

2014-01-01

This study examines the reliability and validity of the "Brief Irrational Thoughts Inventory" (BITI) in a sample of 256 justice-involved youths. The BITI is a questionnaire used to determine the nature and severity of irrational thoughts related to aggressive (externalizing), sub-assertive

An Examination of the Relationship between Irrational Beliefs and Communication Apprehension.

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Ambler, Bob; Elkins, Mike

A study of the relationship between irrational beliefs and communication apprehension (CA) sought to determine (1) if CA is related to a person's irrational beliefs as defined in research by Ellis; (2) to which, if any, of the CA contexts (group, meeting, dyadic, or public speaking) the irrational beliefs are most related; and (3) whether the…

The Irrational Beliefs Inventory : cross cultural comparisons between American and Dutch samples

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Bridges, K.Robert; Sanderman, Robbert

2002-01-01

The 50-item Irrational Beliefs Inventory (IBI) was developed in the Netherlands for the assessment of irrational thinking. The IBI was derived from the Rational Behavior Inventory (RBI) and the Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT). The present study was designed to assess the applicability of the IBI in a

Assessment of Irrational Beliefs: The Question of Discriminant Validity.

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Smith, Timothy W.; Zurawski, Raymond M.

1983-01-01

Evaluated discriminant validity in frequently used measures of irrational beliefs relative to measures of trait anxiety in college students (N=142). Results showed discriminant validity in the Rational Behavior Inventory but not in the Irrational Beliefs Test and correlated cognitive rather than somatic aspects of trait anxiety with both measures.…

On the irrationality of Ramanujan's mock theta functions and other q-series at an infinite number of points

OpenAIRE

Mingarelli, Angelo B.

2007-01-01

We show that all of Ramanujan's mock theta functions of order 3, Watson's three additional mock theta functions of order 3, the Rogers-Ramanujan q-series, and 6 mock theta functions of order 5 take on irrational values at the points q=\\pm 1/2,\\pm 1/3,\\pm 1/4,...

Systematic review on irrational use of medicines in China and Vietnam.

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Mao, Wenhui; Vu, Huyen; Xie, Zening; Chen, Wen; Tang, Shenglan

2015-01-01

Irrational use of medicines has been an issue concerned all over the world and the outlooks in developing countries are more severe. This study aimed to assess the different patterns of irrational use of medicines and its influential factors in China and Vietnam. A systematic review was performed on both published and grey literatures in English, Chinese and Vietnamese languages between 1993 and 2013 based on the WHO framework. Quality assessment was conducted on the basis of the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme. Key indicators were analyzed to compare the irrational use of medicines in two countries. A total of 67 published works about China and 29 about Vietnam were included, the majority of which were cross-sectional prescription studies in both China and Vietnam. Irrational use of medicines was found in both the countries but issues with polypharmacy as well as overuse of antibiotics were more severe in Vietnam while overuse of injections was unique to China. Various patterns of irrational use were also indicated between urban and rural areas, and among different levels of hospitals. Rarely does literature focus on the analysis of influential factors of irrational use of medicines. While lack of proper knowledge from both providers and patients were the most recognized influential factors in both countries, economic incentives from pharmaceutical companies in China, and weak control and regulation over prescriptions in Vietnam were the main factors attributed to this issue. Severe irrational use of medicines has been abundantly evidenced in both China and Vietnam, highlighting the importance of policy interventions on the issue. However, limited evidence on the appropriateness or its compliance (conformity) to guidelines of prescription has been found. In addition, convincing evidence on the underlying explanation of this issue is lacking, although economic incentives, health insurance coverage, and knowledge of service providers and users have been implied

The Study and Comparison of Irrational Beliefs in Addicted and Normal People

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Hasan Aminpoor

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Irrational beliefs have some destructive and serious effects on individuals’ behavior at home, work environment, and in social environment also implicate emotional deep effects (depression, grief, self teasing, self reproaching, and contrition. The main aim of present study was the comparison of irrational beliefs in addicted and normal people. Method: the research method was causal comparative research and taking into account the subject importance and its role in individuals tendency toward addiction a sample of 120 persons (60 addicted people and 60 normal ones was selected based on available samplingand similar in order of age and the Joens irrational beliefs questionnaire was administered among selected sample. In order to analyze data, independent samples t test, and ANOVA were run. Results: There was significant difference between the mean score of irrational beliefs with consideration of group (addicted and normal group, also, in addicted people there was significant difference between the mean score of irrational beliefs with consideration of education level, and economical status. Conclusion: The mean score of irrational beliefs in addicted people is more than normal ones. Taking into consideration that individuals can change their behaviors and feelings through changing their beliefs, so one must replace irrational beliefs with rational ones based on educational qualifications.

Latent structure of the social anxiety scale and relations between social anxiety and irrational beliefs

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Tovilović Snežana

2004-01-01

Full Text Available The research which was realized belongs to one of three research fields within framework of rational-emotional-behavioral therapy (REBT - to the theory of emotional disorders. It was undertaken with the aim to establish presence and nature of relations between social anxiety, treated as dimension and the construct of irrational beliefs from REBT theory. The research was carried out on the sample of 261 students of Novi Sad University, both genders, age 18 to 26. First of all, the latent structure of newly constructed Scale of Social Anxiety (SA of the author Tovilović S. was tested. SA scale was proved to be of satisfying reliability (α =0.92. Principal-component factor analysis was conducted under gathered data. Four factors of social anxiety, which explain 44,09% of total variance of the items of SA scale, were named: social-evaluation anxiety, inhibition in social-uncertain situations, low self-respect and hypersensitivity on rejection. The other test that was used is Scale of General Attitudes and Beliefs of the author Marić Z. Reliability of the sub-scale of irrational beliefs that was got on our sample is α =0.91 yet the subscale of rational beliefs is α =0.70. Canonical correlational analysis was conducted under manifest variables of both scales. Three pairs of statistically significant canonical factors were got, with correlations within the span between Rc=0.78 and Rc=0.64. We discussed nature of correlation between social anxiety and irrational beliefs in the light of REBT model of social phobia, REBT theory of emotional disorder, researches and model of social anxiety in wider, cognitive-behavioral framework.

Debunking the Monday Irrationality through the External Affection of Investors

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Rayenda Brahmana

2016-02-01

Full Text Available This study aims to reveal the mechanism of the influences of the full moon and high temperatures on investors’ Monday irrationality. In contrast to other studies, this research was built under a retroductive approach by using a time series quasi experimental study. Investors were directly assessed for their irrationality by using an adapted psychometric test on 4 occasions. The results indicate that there were indeed effects of the full moon and high temperatures on investors’ irrationality. Because the full moon and high temperatures frequently occurred on Mondays, it is most probably those two variables that were the drivers of the Monday irrationality. In the end, we concluded that the rational behaviour assumption can no longer be held. Instead of rationality, the investors were quasi rational. The utility function of Von Neumann-Morgenstern in decision making has to be replaced by the hedonic utility.

Systematic review on irrational use of medicines in China and Vietnam.

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Wenhui Mao

Full Text Available Irrational use of medicines has been an issue concerned all over the world and the outlooks in developing countries are more severe. This study aimed to assess the different patterns of irrational use of medicines and its influential factors in China and Vietnam.A systematic review was performed on both published and grey literatures in English, Chinese and Vietnamese languages between 1993 and 2013 based on the WHO framework. Quality assessment was conducted on the basis of the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme. Key indicators were analyzed to compare the irrational use of medicines in two countries.A total of 67 published works about China and 29 about Vietnam were included, the majority of which were cross-sectional prescription studies in both China and Vietnam. Irrational use of medicines was found in both the countries but issues with polypharmacy as well as overuse of antibiotics were more severe in Vietnam while overuse of injections was unique to China. Various patterns of irrational use were also indicated between urban and rural areas, and among different levels of hospitals. Rarely does literature focus on the analysis of influential factors of irrational use of medicines. While lack of proper knowledge from both providers and patients were the most recognized influential factors in both countries, economic incentives from pharmaceutical companies in China, and weak control and regulation over prescriptions in Vietnam were the main factors attributed to this issue.Severe irrational use of medicines has been abundantly evidenced in both China and Vietnam, highlighting the importance of policy interventions on the issue. However, limited evidence on the appropriateness or its compliance (conformity to guidelines of prescription has been found. In addition, convincing evidence on the underlying explanation of this issue is lacking, although economic incentives, health insurance coverage, and knowledge of service providers and users

Scaling Irrational Beliefs in the General Attitude and Belief Scale

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Lindsay R. Owings

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Accurate measurement of key constructs is essential to the continued development of Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT. The General Attitude and Belief Scale (GABS, a contemporary inventory of rational and irrational beliefs based on current REBT theory, is one of the most valid and widely used instruments available, and recent research has continued to improve its psychometric standing. In this study of 544 students, item response theory (IRT methods were used (a to identify the most informative item in each irrational subscale of the GABS, (b to determine the level of irrationality represented by each of those items, and (c to suggest a condensed form of the GABS for further study with clinical populations. Administering only the most psychometrically informative items to clients could result in economies of time and effort. Further research based on the scaling of items could clarify the specific patterns of irrational beliefs associated with particular clinical syndromes.

Collaborative Irrationality, Akrasia and Groupthink

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Szanto, Thomas

2017-01-01

by distinguishing mutual, communal and collaborative forms of akrasia. Such a taxonomy seems all the more needed as, rather surprisingly, in the face of huge philosophical interest in analysing the possibility, structure and mechanisms of individual practical irrationality, with very little exception...

Management med racionalnostjo in iracionalnostjo = Management between Rationality and Irrationality

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Cene Bavec

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In the paper, we discuss theoretical and practical aspects of managementand its rational and irrational behavior in the light of traditionalmanagement theories and contemporary social theories and theoriesof complexity. We exposed differences between middle and top management,where rationality is ascribed mainly to middle management,while top management often acts on seemingly irrational way. For thepart of this irrationality, we cannot blame management because it originatesfrom the nature of the complex dynamic systems, as human organizationsare. However, a significant part of an apparently irrationalbehavior of management should be attributed to its particular and personalgoals that deviate from the goals of organization in which topmanagement absconded to the control of owners and even social norms.

Comparison of Irrational Believes between Mothers of Severe or Profound Mentally Handicapped Children with Healthy Children Mothers

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Behrouz Hivadi

2007-10-01

Full Text Available Objective: The purpose of present research was the comparison of mothers irrational believes with severe or profound mentally handicapped child and mothers with normal child from 6 to14 years old in Tehran city. Materials & Methods: This study was an analytical, cross – sectional and comparative (case – control research. From mothers with severe or profound mentally handicapped child who had refered to Tehran welfare services centers, 80 mothers were selected by regular randomized sampling from two rehabilitation centers and 80 mothers with normal child were selected for peering with the group of testimonial from schools areas of east, west, south, north and center of Tehran, through multi - stage cluster sampling in for variables of: age of mothers, educational levels, the location of living and the number of children. They answered to questionnaire of irrational believes of jons (IBT. Analysis of data was done by descriptive and infringing statistics methods (Independent T test, U Mann Whitney, Chi-square and fisher. Results: The findings showed that: there are significantly differences in total irrational believes and irrational believes of blame proneness, frustration reactive, anxious over concern, problem avoiding and dependency, perfectionism between two groups of mothers (P<0/05. There was no significant difference in irrational believes between mothers who had mental handicap daughter and mothers who had mental handicap son (P=0/314. There was no significantly difference between two groups of mothers in four believes of demand for approval (P=0/737, high-self expectation (P=0/126, emotional irresponsibility (P=0/727, helplessness for change (p=0/283. Conclusion: Irrational believes and many its sub scales. In mothers of severe or profound mental handicap children were more than mothers with normal child. But believes of demand for approval, high self expectation, emotional irresponsibility, helplessness for change in mothers with

Natural selection can favour 'irrational' behaviour.

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McNamara, J M; Trimmer, P C; Houston, A I

2014-01-01

Understanding decisions is the fundamental aim of the behavioural sciences. The theory of rational choice is based on axiomatic principles such as transitivity and independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA). Empirical studies have demonstrated that the behaviour of humans and other animals often seems irrational; there can be a lack of transitivity in choice and seemingly irrelevant alternatives can alter decisions. These violations of transitivity and IIA undermine rational choice theory. However, we show that an individual that is maximizing its rate of food gain can exhibit failure of transitivity and IIA. We show that such violations can be caused because a current option may disappear in the near future or a better option may reappear soon. Current food options can be indicative of food availability in the near future, and this key feature can result in apparently irrational behaviour.

Perceived Influence of Parenting Styles over Irrational Belief in Romantic Relations

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Sardogan, Mehmet Emin

2014-01-01

The aim of this study is to investigate if perceived parenting styles have any influence on irrational belief in romantic relations among university students. To determine the students' irrational belief in romantic relations "Belief Inventory in Relations" by Kalkan and to determine their perception for parenting styles "Scale of…

Irrational use of antibiotics and the risk of diabetes in Ghana ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Epidemiological studies show clearly that Caesarean birth, perinatal or neonatal irrational antibiotic use is strongly associated with increased risk of obesity and diabetes in later life. Irrational use of antibiotics is a great global public health concern especially in developing economies like Ghana due to poor regulation on ...

On the Relationship of Attitudes towards Substance Abuse with Irrational Beliefs and Academic Procrastination

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abolghasem yaghoobi

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship of irrational beliefs and academic procrastination with attitudes towards drug abuse in students. Method: This was a correlational that was carried out on a sample of 254 senior high school students in Kermanshah. Students were selected via random cluster sampling and filled in Jones Irrational Beliefs Test (1968, Solomon & Rothblum's Academic Procrastination (1984 and Rahmati’s Attitude to Drug Use (2001. Results: The results showed that irrational beliefs and procrastination were positively correlated with attitudes towards drug use. In addition, regression analysis showed that irrational beliefs and academic procrastination could account for the total of 38.9 percent of variance pertaining to attitudes towards drug use. Conclusion: It can be argued that academic procrastination and irrational beliefs underlie addiction; therefore, they should be considered in the treatment and prevention of addiction.

Genetic Correlates of Maladaptive Beliefs: COMT VAL(158)MET and Irrational Cognitions Linked Depending on Distress.

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Podina, Ioana; Popp, Radu; Pop, Ioan; David, Daniel

2015-11-01

Maladaptive/irrational beliefs are significant cognitive vulnerability mechanisms in psychopathology. They are more likely to be associated with a genetic vulnerability marker under conditions of emotional distress when irrational beliefs are more salient. Therefore, in the current study we investigated the COMT Val(158)Met gene variation in relation to irrational beliefs, assuming this relationship depended on the level of emotional distress. Two hundred and sixty-seven genotyped volunteers were assessed for core/general maladaptive beliefs, as well as trait emotional distress. We focused on context-independent measures of irrational beliefs and emotional distress in the absence of a stressor. As expected, the relationship between COMT Val(158)Met and irrational beliefs depended on the level of emotional distress (f(2)=.314). The COMT Val(158)Met-irrationality association was significant only when individuals fell in the average to above average range of emotional distress. Furthermore, within this range the Met allele seemed to relate to higher irrational beliefs. These results were significant for overall irrational beliefs and its subtypes, but not for rational beliefs, the functional counterpart of irrationality. In light of the study's limitations, the results should be considered as preliminary. If replicable, these findings have potential implications for therapygenetics, changing the view that COMT Val(158)Met might be of greater relevance when treatment modality does not rely on cognitive variables. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Do warning signs on electronic gaming machines influence irrational cognitions?

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Monaghan, Sally; Blaszczynski, Alex; Nower, Lia

2009-08-01

Electronic gaming machines are popular among problem gamblers; in response, governments have introduced "responsible gaming" legislation incorporating the mandatory display of warning signs on or near electronic gaming machines. These signs are designed to correct irrational and erroneous beliefs through the provision of accurate information on probabilities of winning and the concept of randomness. There is minimal empirical data evaluating the effectiveness of such signs. In this study, 93 undergraduate students were randomly allocated to standard and informative messages displayed on an electronic gaming machine during play in a laboratory setting. Results revealed that a majority of participants incorrectly estimated gambling odds and reported irrational gambling-related cognitions prior to play. In addition, there were no significant between-group differences, and few participants recalled the content of messages or modified their gambling-related cognitions. Signs placed on electronic gaming machines may not modify irrational beliefs or alter gambling behaviour.

A study on Irrational Beliefs and Emotions Associated with the Sexual Desire of Infertile Women

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N Honarparvaran

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background & aim: The main aim of this study was to determine the irrational beliefs and emotions associated with the sexual desire of infertile women in Shiraz. Methods: one hundred infertile women were selected by simple random method and examined with Tangi’s test of self conscious affect, Jonse’s irrational beliefs, and Hulbert’s index sexual desire. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Results: Results showed that there was a linear relation between irrational beliefs and self conscious affect with rate of sexual desire and irrational beliefs had reversal impact on sexual desire. Two subscale perfectionism and high self had reversal affect on sexual desire in infertile women. Conclusions: This study showed that infertility threatens women’s mental health. Key words: Self Conscious Affect, Irrational Believes, Sexual Desire, Infertility Women

Deleting 'irrational' responses from discrete choice experiments: a case of investigating or imposing preferences?

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Lancsar, Emily; Louviere, Jordan

2006-08-01

Investigation of the 'rationality' of responses to discrete choice experiments (DCEs) has been a theme of research in health economics. Responses have been deleted from DCEs where they have been deemed by researchers to (a) be 'irrational', defined by such studies as failing tests for non-satiation, or (b) represent lexicographic preferences. This paper outlines a number of reasons why deleting responses from DCEs may be inappropriate after first reviewing the theory underpinning rationality, highlighting that the importance placed on rationality depends on the approach to consumer theory to which one ascribes. The aim of this paper is not to suggest that all preferences elicited via DCEs are rational. Instead, it is to suggest a number of reasons why it may not be the case that all preferences labelled as 'irrational' are indeed so. Hence, deleting responses may result in the removal of valid preferences; induce sample selection bias; and reduce the statistical efficiency and power of the estimated choice models. Further, evidence suggests random utility theory may be able to cope with such preferences. Finally, we discuss a number of implications for the design, implementation and interpretation of DCEs and recommend caution regarding the deletion of preferences from stated preference experiments. Copyright 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Irrational evaluations and antisocial behavior of adolescents

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Vukosavljević-Gvozden Tatjana

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The principles of the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy point out to the role of irrational beliefs in the occurrence of aggressive and antisocial behavior. The goal of this research is to determine whether there are links between irrational beliefs and self-assessment of antisocial behavior and whether there are differences with respect to irrational beliefs between the young who were sentenced by juvenile court judges compared to the control group. The research was conducted on two subsamples - the first consisted of male adolescents (N=116, aged 16 to 19, and the second comprised male adolescents 50 out of whom were sentenced by juvenile court judges, aged averagely 17 and a half, and 50 members of the control group. The modified version of the General Attitude and Belief Scale (GABS (Marić, 2002, 2003 and Antisocial Behavior Scale (ABS (Opačić, 2010, in print were used. Multiple regression analysis showed that the best predictor of the score on antisocial behavior scale was “the demand for absolute correctness of others and their devaluation”, followed by the aspiration towards perfectionism and success which acts as the factor that reduces the probability of antisocial behavior. Almost identical results were obtained by group comparison. The obtained results provide guidelines for designing preventive programs (sketched in the discussion that would be able to reduce the frequency of aggressive and antisocial behavior at adolescent age.

Infinite genus surfaces and irrational polygonal billiards

OpenAIRE

Valdez, Ferrán

2009-01-01

We prove that the natural invariant surface associated with the billiard game on an irrational polygonal table is homeomorphic to the Loch Ness monster, that is, the only orientable infinite genus topological real surface with exactly one end.

The role of irrational thought in medicine adherence: people with diabetic kidney disease.

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Williams, Allison F; Manias, Elizabeth; Walker, Rowan

2009-10-01

This paper is a report of a study conducted to examine how irrational thinking affects people's adherence to multiple medicines prescribed to manage their diabetic kidney disease. Approximately 50% of people are non-adherent to their prescribed medicines and the risk of non-adherence escalates as the number of prescribed medicines increases. Adherence to prescribed medicines can slow disease progression in diabetic kidney disease. A descriptive exploratory design was used. In-depth interviews were conducted with 23 participants recruited from a nephrology outpatient clinic in Australia in 2007. Data were analysed using a 'framework' method. Participants' mean age was 59 years, they had approximately six chronic conditions in addition to their diabetic kidney disease and were prescribed a median of ten medicines daily. Two major themes of irrational thinking--heuristics and denial--and subthemes were identified. Heuristics contributed to inaccurate risk assessment and biases affecting rational judgement concerning medicines, whereas denial was used to enhance coping necessary to manage this complex health condition. Participants underestimated their health risks because they had been taking medicines for many years and preferred not to dwell on their ill health. A large amount of irrational thinking was related to maintaining the emotional strength necessary to manage their comorbid conditions as best they could. Regular assessment and support of medicine adherence throughout the disease course is necessary to avert the development of counterproductive heuristics and denial affecting medicine adherence.

Defining and Confirming the Relationship between Irrational Beliefs and Communication Apprehension: An Extension.

Science.gov (United States)

Ambler, Bob; Elkins, Mike

A study sought to affirm the previously established relationship between irrational beliefs and communication apprehension. Four hundred and fifty-four subjects completed an Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT) and all 24 questions of the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) test. Results support the hypothesis that students high in…

Assessing Irrational Beliefs and Emotional Distress: Evidence and Implications of Limited Discriminant Validity.

Science.gov (United States)

Zurawski, Raymond M.; Smith, Timothy W.

1987-01-01

Examined the disciminant validity of measures of irrational beliefs. The Irrational Beliefs Test and the Rational Behavior Inventory were highly correlated but were equally highly correlated with self-report measures of depression and anxiety. Thus, rather than assessing beliefs correlated with emotional distress, the measures may actually assess…

Essays on the theory of numbers

CERN Document Server

Dedekind, Richard

1963-01-01

Two classic essays by great German mathematician: one provides an arithmetic, rigorous foundation for the irrational numbers, the other is an attempt to give the logical basis for transfinite numbers and properties of the natural numbers.

Testing two mechanisms by which rational and irrational beliefs may affect the functionality of inferences.

Science.gov (United States)

Bond, F W; Dryden, W; Briscoe, R

1999-12-01

This article describes a role playing experiment that examined the sufficiency hypothesis of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT). This proposition states that it is sufficient for rational and irrational beliefs to refer to preferences and musts, respectively, if those beliefs are to affect the functionality of inferences (FI). Consistent with the REBT literature (e.g. Dryden, 1994; Dryden & Ellis, 1988; Palmer, Dryden, Ellis & Yapp, 1995) results from this experiment showed that rational and irrational beliefs, as defined by REBT, do affect FI. Specifically, results showed that people who hold a rational belief form inferences that are significantly more functional than those that are formed by people who hold an irrational belief. Contrary to REBT theory, the sufficiency hypothesis was not supported. Thus, results indicated that it is not sufficient for rational and irrational beliefs to refer to preferences and musts, respectively, if those beliefs are to affect the FI. It appears, then, that preferences and musts are not sufficient mechanisms by which rational and irrational beliefs, respectively, affect the FI. Psychotherapeutic implications of these findings are considered.

Cost implication of irrational prescribing of chloroquine in Lagos State general hospitals.

Science.gov (United States)

Aina, Bolajoko A; Tayo, Fola; Taylor, Ogori

2008-02-01

A major share of the hospital budget is spent on drugs. Irrational use of these drugs is a waste of financial and human resources that could have been deployed for another use within the hospital setting especially in cases where such drugs are provided free to patients. Also there is increased morbidity and progression of severity with irrational use. The objective of this study was to determine the irrational use of chloroquine and the subsequent cost implications in Lagos State general hospitals. A retrospective study period of one year (January to December, 2000) was selected. A total of 18,781 prescription forms of "Free Eko Malaria" were sampled for children and adults from all the Lagos State general hospitals. Drug costs in each prescription form were identified. Cost effectiveness analysis of chloroquine tablet and intramuscular injection was undertaken. The average cost of medicine per prescription was 132.071 ($1.03) which should have been 94.22 ($0.73) if prescribed rationally. The total cost of prescriptions for malaria under study was 2,480,425.00 ($19,348.09). About 68% {(1,679,444.00) ($13,100.19)} of the total cost was lost to irrational prescribing. This is a waste of scarce resources. When the prescriptions were differentiated into the different dosage forms prescribed, the prescriptions containing intramuscular injections only had over 90% of the cost lost to irrational prescribing. Cost effectiveness analysis showed that chloroquine tablet was 17 times more cost effective than chloroquine injection (intramuscular) from a health care system perspective while it was 14 times more cost effective from a patient perspective. There is waste of scarce resources with irrational dispensing of drugs and these resources could have been deployed to other uses or areas within the hospitals. The tablet chloroquine was more cost effective than injection chloroquine (intramuscular). Increasing the cost of tablets, decreasing effectiveness of tablets

Simulation and Irrationality | Galgut | Philosophical Papers

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In this paper, I hope to show how a recent theory in the philosophy of mind concerning how we 'read' the minds of others—namely, Heal's version of simulation theory—is consistent with the view that the kind of understanding we bring to bear on the irrational is different in kind from the way we understand one another in the ...

Confucius' Analysis of the Human Nature of Irrationality and His Quest for Moral Education

Science.gov (United States)

Jiawei, Xing

2015-01-01

This study uses mainly Confucian classic Lunyu to explore Confucius' insightful thinking about humans' strong innate nature of irrationality out of their physical needs. Irrationality causes interpersonal disturbances and chaos, and as such moral education is indispensable. Confucius advocated humanity, the principles of conscientiousness and…

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT, irrational and rational beliefs, and the mental health of athletes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin James Turner

2016-09-01

Full Text Available In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training (PST for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957, the original cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one’s beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1 the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2 the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3 the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Irrational and Rational Beliefs, and the Mental Health of Athletes.

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Martin J

2016-01-01

In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957), the original cognitive behavioral therapy, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one's beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3) the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as highlighting research

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Irrational and Rational Beliefs, and the Mental Health of Athletes

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Martin J.

2016-01-01

In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957), the original cognitive behavioral therapy, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one’s beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3) the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as highlighting research

Modelling and measuring the irrational behaviour of agents in financial markets: Discovering the psychological soliton

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dhesi, Gurjeet; Ausloos, Marcel

2016-01-01

Following a Geometrical Brownian Motion extension into an Irrational fractional Brownian Motion model, we re-examine agent behaviour reacting to time dependent news on the log-returns thereby modifying a financial market evolution. We specifically discuss the role of financial news or economic information positive or negative feedback of such irrational (or contrarian) agents upon the price evolution. We observe a kink-like effect reminiscent of soliton behaviour, suggesting how analysts' forecasts errors induce stock prices to adjust accordingly, thereby proposing a measure of the irrational force in a market.

Stressful Life Events and Irrational Beliefs as Predictors of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Stressful Life Events and Irrational Beliefs as Predictors of Psychological Wellbeing ... characterized with negative indicators, such as, anxiety, depression. Does similar relationship is evident referring to positive indicators of Psychological ...

Fermat's Last Theorem for Factional and Irrational Exponents

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, Frank

2010-01-01

Fermat's Last Theorem says that for integers n greater than 2, there are no solutions to x[superscript n] + y[superscript n] = z[superscript n] among positive integers. What about rational exponents? Irrational n? Negative n? See what an undergraduate senior seminar discovered.

Medicine, ethics and religion: rational or irrational?

Science.gov (United States)

Orr, R D; Genesen, L B

1998-12-01

Savulescu maintains that our paper, which encourages clinicians to honour requests for "inappropriate treatment" is prejudicial to his atheistic beliefs, and therefore wrong. In this paper we clarify and expand on our ideas, and respond to his assertion that medicine, ethics and atheism are objective, rational and true, while religion is irrational and false.

The precuneus may encode irrationality in human gambling.

Science.gov (United States)

Sacre, P; Kerr, M S D; Subramanian, S; Kahn, K; Gonzalez-Martinez, J; Johnson, M A; Sarma, S V; Gale, J T

2016-08-01

Humans often make irrational decisions, especially psychiatric patients who have dysfunctional cognitive and emotional circuitry. Understanding the neural basis of decision-making is therefore essential towards patient management, yet current studies suffer from several limitations. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in humans have dominated decision-making neuroscience, but have poor temporal resolution and the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal is only a proxy for neural activity. On the other hand, lesion studies in humans used to infer functionality in decision-making lack characterization of neural activity altogether. Using a combination of local field potential recordings in human subjects performing a financial decision-making task, spectral analyses, and non-parametric cluster statistics, we analyzed the activity in the precuneus. In nine subjects, the neural activity modulated significantly between rational and irrational trials in the precuneus (p decisions were made. Although preliminary, these results suggest suppression of gamma rhythms via electrical stimulation in the precuneus as a therapeutic intervention for pathological decision-making.

5. FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH IRRATIONAL DRUG USE AT A ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

RICHY

prevalence of irrational drug use and factors associated with it were ... The selection process adapted a ... Cultural preferences and beliefs also influence. 5 ... drugs remain a major problem. .... accounting for 51.4% of the records surveyed.

The moderating role of rational beliefs in the relationship between irrational beliefs and posttraumatic stress symptomology.

Science.gov (United States)

Hyland, Philip; Shevlin, Mark; Adamson, Gary; Boduszek, Daniel

2014-05-01

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) assumes that rational beliefs act as cognitive protective factors against the development of psychopathology; however little empirical evidence exists regarding the nature of the possible protective effects that they offer. The current study investigates whether rational beliefs moderate the impact of irrational beliefs on posttraumatic stress symptomology (PTS). Three hundred and thirteen active law enforcement, military, and related emergency service personnel took part in the current study. Sequential moderated multiple regression analysis was employed to investigate: (i) the direct impact of irrational beliefs on PTS; (ii) the direct impact of rational beliefs on PTS; (iii) the moderating effects of rational beliefs in the relationship between irrational beliefs and PTS. The irrational beliefs predicted by REBT theory emerged as critical predictors of PTS symptomology, in particular Depreciation beliefs. Rational beliefs (Preferences, and Acceptance beliefs) had a direct, negative impact on levels of PTS, and Acceptance beliefs moderated the impact of Catastrophizing beliefs on PTS. Irrational beliefs are important cognitive vulnerability factors in symptoms of PTS, while rational beliefs (Acceptance) appear to have a protective role in the emergence of PTS symptoms, both directly and by moderating the impact of Catastrophizing beliefs.

The Role of Herd Behaviour in Determining the Investor‘s Monday Irrationality

OpenAIRE

Rayenda Brahmana; Chee Wooi Hooy; Zamri Ahmad

2012-01-01

With regards to determining whether herding is spontaneous and irrational behavior causing the Day-of-the-week anomaly, this paper intersects the Christie and Huang (1995) herd behaviour model with French's (1980) Day-of-the-week model in several layers of tests. We use firm-level data and investigate the return dispersion of 846 Bursa Malaysia stocks during 1990–2010. This paper found the herd behaviour is the determinant for investor’s Monday irrationality, especially in small caps indu...

Irrationality measures of $\\log 2$ and $\\pi/\\sqrt{3}$

OpenAIRE

Brisebarre, Nicolas

2001-01-01

Using a class of polynomials that generalizes Legendre polynomials, we unify previous works of E. A. Rukhadze, A. K. Dubitskas, M. Hata, D. V. and G. V. Chudnovsky about irrationality measures of $\\log 2$ and $\\pi/\\sqrt{3}$

The Role of Irrational Beliefs, Self Efficacy and Social Support in Relapse of Abuse Disorder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Toraj Hashemi

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Aim: This study aimed to determine the role of irrational beliefs system, self efficacy and social support network in predicting of relapse/non-relapse of drug misusing, and comparison of mentioned variables between these two groups. Method: For this purpose 100 persons who had repeated relapse and 100 persons who did not have relapse were selected by available sampling of Rehabilitation Organization of Tabriz city. Albert Alic’s irrational beliefs, Sherer’s self efficacy and Wax’s social support questionnaires administered among selected samples. Results: The results showed that, there were significant differences between two relapse and non-relapse groups on irrational beliefs, self-efficacy and social support. Conclusion: The results have applied implications in addiction treatment clinics.

Adult Education and the Rational-Irrational Dimension of Prejudice

Science.gov (United States)

Rhyne, Dwight C.

1973-01-01

Teachers and counselors in an eight-week institute on problems of school desegregation were used in this study to estimate the degree of change in ethnic attitudes on the rational-irrational and anti-pro minority dimensions of prejudice as related to participation in an intensive adult education experience. (DS)

Irrational Beliefs in Employees with an Adjustment, a Depressive, or an Anxiety Disorder: a Prospective Cohort Study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nieuwenhuijsen, Karen; Verbeek, Jos H. A. M.; de Boer, Angela G. E. M.; Blonk, Roland W. B.; van Dijk, Frank J. H.

2010-01-01

It remains unclear if patients with different types of common mental disorders, such as adjustment, anxiety and depressive disorders, have the same irrational ideas. The aim of this prospective cohort study (n = 190) is to investigate differences in level and type of irrational beliefs among these

Irrational beliefs in employees with an adjustment, a depressive, or an anxiety disorder: A prospective cohort study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nieuwenhuijsen, K.; Verbeek, J.H.A.M.; Boer, A.G.E.M. de; Blonk, R.W.B.; Dijk, F.J.H. van

2010-01-01

It remains unclear if patients with different types of common mental disorders, such as adjustment, anxiety and depressive disorders, have the same irrational ideas. The aim of this prospective cohort study (n = 190) is to investigate differences in level and type of irrational beliefs among these

The Role of Trauma-Specific Irrational Beliefs and Sociodemographic Risk Factors in Posttraumatic Stress Responses

OpenAIRE

Hyland, Philip; Shevlin, Mark; Adamson, Gary; Boduszek, Daniel

2013-01-01

Posttraumatic stress responses have been linked to a range of social-cognitive and sociodemographic factors. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy suggests that responding to a traumatic life event with a set of irrational beliefs should play a crucial role in predicting the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD: Ellis, 2001). The current study assessed the role of trauma-specific irrational beliefs in the prediction of clinically relevant posttraumatic stress responses, while contr...

Irrational Charge from Topological Order

Science.gov (United States)

Moessner, R.; Sondhi, S. L.

2010-10-01

Topological or deconfined phases of matter exhibit emergent gauge fields and quasiparticles that carry a corresponding gauge charge. In systems with an intrinsic conserved U(1) charge, such as all electronic systems where the Coulombic charge plays this role, these quasiparticles are also characterized by their intrinsic charge. We show that one can take advantage of the topological order fairly generally to produce periodic Hamiltonians which endow the quasiparticles with continuously variable, generically irrational, intrinsic charges. Examples include various topologically ordered lattice models, the three-dimensional resonating valence bond liquid on bipartite lattices as well as water and spin ice. By contrast, the gauge charges of the quasiparticles retain their quantized values.

Satisfiability of ATL with strategy contexts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

François Laroussinie

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Various extensions of the temporal logic ATL have recently been introduced to express rich properties of multi-agent systems. Among these, ATLsc extends ATL with strategy contexts, while Strategy Logic has first-order quantification over strategies. There is a price to pay for the rich expressiveness of these logics: model-checking is non-elementary, and satisfiability is undecidable. We prove in this paper that satisfiability is decidable in several special cases. The most important one is when restricting to turn-based games. We prove that decidability also holds for concurrent games if the number of moves available to the agents is bounded. Finally, we prove that restricting strategy quantification to memoryless strategies brings back undecidability.

Being Irrationally Funny as a Cognitive Psychologist

OpenAIRE

Ariely, Dan; Popescu, Beatrice

2015-01-01

The idea of interviewing Dan Ariely was somehow latent on my mind since I started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at Duke University. I picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as Kahnemann ‘disciple’, but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people’s lives easier and mo...

A study on Irrational Beliefs and Emotions Associated with the Sexual Desire of Infertile Women

OpenAIRE

N Honarparvaran; Z Qudery; M Taghva; Z Zandi ghashghaee

2013-01-01

Abstract Background & aim: The main aim of this study was to determine the irrational beliefs and emotions associated with the sexual desire of infertile women in Shiraz. Methods: one hundred infertile women were selected by simple random method and examined with Tangi’s test of self conscious affect, Jonse’s irrational beliefs, and Hulbert’s index sexual desire. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Results: Results showed that there was a linear relation betwee...

Safe discharge: an irrational, unhelpful and unachievable concept

OpenAIRE

Goodacre, S

2006-01-01

Emergency doctors often decide whether to advise hospital admission or discharge by assessing whether a decision to discharge home is considered safe. This implies that hospital admission may be recommended on the basis of exceeding an arbitrarily defined risk of adverse outcome, rather than weighing the potential benefits, risks and costs of hospital admission. This approach is likely to lead to irrational decision making, unnecessary hospitalisation and unrealistic expectations regarding ri...

Post optimization paradigm in maximum 3-satisfiability logic programming

Science.gov (United States)

Mansor, Mohd. Asyraf; Sathasivam, Saratha; Kasihmuddin, Mohd Shareduwan Mohd

2017-08-01

Maximum 3-Satisfiability (MAX-3SAT) is a counterpart of the Boolean satisfiability problem that can be treated as a constraint optimization problem. It deals with a conundrum of searching the maximum number of satisfied clauses in a particular 3-SAT formula. This paper presents the implementation of enhanced Hopfield network in hastening the Maximum 3-Satisfiability (MAX-3SAT) logic programming. Four post optimization techniques are investigated, including the Elliot symmetric activation function, Gaussian activation function, Wavelet activation function and Hyperbolic tangent activation function. The performances of these post optimization techniques in accelerating MAX-3SAT logic programming will be discussed in terms of the ratio of maximum satisfied clauses, Hamming distance and the computation time. Dev-C++ was used as the platform for training, testing and validating our proposed techniques. The results depict the Hyperbolic tangent activation function and Elliot symmetric activation function can be used in doing MAX-3SAT logic programming.

On the incremental validity of irrational beliefs to predict subjective well-being while controlling for personality factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Spörrle, Matthias; Strobel, Maria; Tumasjan, Andranik

2010-11-01

This research examines the incremental validity of irrational thinking as conceptualized by Albert Ellis to predict diverse aspects of subjective well-being while controlling for the influence of personality factors. Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) argues that irrational beliefs result in maladaptive emotions leading to reduced well-being. Although there is some early scientific evidence for this relation, it has never been investigated whether this connection would still persist when statistically controlling for the Big Five personality factors, which were consistently found to be important determinants of well-being. Regression analyses revealed significant incremental validity of irrationality over personality factors when predicting life satisfaction, but not when predicting subjective happiness. Results are discussed with respect to conceptual differences between these two aspects of subjective well-being.

The comparition of Personality Patterns, irrational beliefs and impulsivity in males with with drug abuse disorder under Treatment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

samere asadi

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Objective: the aim of this research was to determine the difference between personality Patterns, irrational beliefs and impulsivity in men with drug abuse disorder under Treatment. Method: in this casual- comparative research, 80 men ( 40 males with drug abuse under Treatment and 40 of normal males that were selected with available sampling .Groups were matched in terms of demoghraphy characteristics ( age, sexuality, education level and marital status and were valued with means of Eysenk Perceived Stress Inventory, Jonze Irrational Beliefs Scale and Baret Impulsivity Inventory. Results: The result of variance analysis showed that addicts compared to normal people, get more scores on extraversion, neuroticism and psychosis. Addicts group had Higher men scores in irrational beliefs compare of other group. There was significant difference between groups in impulsivity and impulsivity in addicts persons is the most. Conclussion: The traits of Personality, irrational beliefs and Unrealistic and high level impulsivity are factors that propel individuals toward more drug abuse and finally addict and aiming this factors in individuals with abuse disorder under Treatment can lead to prevent of Substance Abuse Relapse.

Irrational Delay Revisited: Examining Five Procrastination Scales in a Global Sample.

Science.gov (United States)

Svartdal, Frode; Steel, Piers

2017-01-01

Scales attempting to measure procrastination focus on different facets of the phenomenon, yet they share a common understanding of procrastination as an unnecessary, unwanted, and disadvantageous delay. The present paper examines in a global sample ( N = 4,169) five different procrastination scales - Decisional Procrastination Scale (DPS), Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS), Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS), Adult Inventory of Procrastination Scale (AIP), and General Procrastination Scale (GPS), focusing on factor structures and item functioning using Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Item Response Theory. The results indicated that The PPS (12 items selected from DPS, AIP, and GPS) measures different facets of procrastination even better than the three scales it is based on. An even shorter version of the PPS (5 items focusing on irrational delay), corresponds well to the nine-item IPS. Both scales demonstrate good psychometric properties and appear to be superior measures of core procrastination attributes than alternative procrastination scales.

Personality dimensions and emotional problems: the mediating role of irrational beliefs in Pakistani adult non-clinical sample.

Science.gov (United States)

Jibeen, Tahira

2015-03-01

This study presents the first examination of the relation between the Big Five personality traits, irrational beliefs and emotional problems in Pakistan, which is an understudied country in the psychological distress literature. A total of 195 participants (aged 25-60 years), employees at COMSATS University, completed a demographic information sheet, the Big Five Personality Questionnaire, the Irrational Belief Inventory and two subscales of the Brief Symptom Inventory including depression and anxiety. Direct effects of neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness were also observed for depression and anxiety. Structural Equation Modelling demonstrated that irrational beliefs played a significant mediating role in the relationship between neuroticism and anxiety and neuroticism and depression. The results highlight the importance of cognitive beliefs in functionally linking personality traits and emotional problems. © 2014 International Union of Psychological Science.

Professor Stewart's incredible numbers

CERN Document Server

Stewart, Ian

2015-01-01

Ian Stewart explores the astonishing properties of numbers from 1 to10 to zero and infinity, including one figure that, if you wrote it out, would span the universe. He looks at every kind of number you can think of - real, imaginary, rational, irrational, positive and negative - along with several you might have thought you couldn't think of. He explains the insights of the ancient mathematicians, shows how numbers have evolved through the ages, and reveals the way numerical theory enables everyday life. Under Professor Stewart's guidance you will discover the mathematics of codes,

Environmental impact of irrational and wasteful use of natural resources

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tolba, M K

1978-01-01

The author defines irrational use of resources as actions that are not based on existing knowledge of resources and wasteful use as actions using more resources than necessary. The three basic environmental impacts of irrational and wasteful uses are encroachment, exhaustion, and distribution effects. Man's contamination of the planet, which increased with population growth and technological advances that enable him to divert resources, can be altered by improving information and setting better criteria for the use of resources. The demand for resources can be lowered if life styles, prices, and income distribution patterns are modified to make resources use less wasteful and living conditions more equitable. The author reviews the present means of managing resources through minimum safety and social standards and notes that this approach leads to ownership and control problems. He suggests that criteria should ensure that all costs and benefits of a project be considered and that the project should promise a net positive change for better resource use. Several questions are suggested for use in assessing the comprehensiveness and relevancy of criteria.

Recent progress in irrational conformal field theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Halpern, M.B.

1993-09-01

In this talk, I will review the foundations of irrational conformal field theory (ICFT), which includes rational conformal field theory as a small subspace. Highlights of the review include the Virasoro master equation, the Ward identities for the correlators of ICFT and solutions of the Ward identities. In particular, I will discuss the solutions for the correlators of the g/h coset construction and the correlators of the affine-Sugawara nests on g contains h 1 contains hor-ellipsis contains h n . Finally, I will discuss the recent global solution for the correlators of all the ICFT's in the master equation

Opinion: In defence of rational AIDS activism: How the irrationality of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This article describes the irrational actions of Act Up-Paris and some other organisations in recent years. We have written it because their activities are threatening the development of new treatment and prevention technologies for people with HIV. They are also undermining scientific research programmes in developing ...

Measuring Procrastination: Psychometric Properties of the Norwegian Versions of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS) and the Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS)

Science.gov (United States)

Svartdal, Frode

2017-01-01

Procrastination has been defined in different ways. Two instruments--the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS) and the Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS)--focus on a core problem in procrastination--the irrational delay of intended behavior. The present paper examined the psychometric properties of the Norwegian translations of these scales. In…

On the irrationality measure for a q-analogue of ζ(2)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zudilin, W V

2002-01-01

A Liouville-type estimate is proved for the irrationality measure of quantities. The proof is based on the application of a q-analogue of the arithmetic method developed by Chudnovsky, Rukhadze, and Hata and of the transformation group for hypergeometric series-the group-structure approach introduced by Rhin and Viola

(Irrationalism: At the cross-roads of historical and systematic reflection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danie F.M. Strauss

2013-07-01

Full Text Available This article is dedicated to Ponti Venter for his contribution to the historical roots and systematic implications of philosophical problems. A discussion with him about four decades ago prompted me to investigate the Greek roots of our distinction of thought and being. In the analysis below, a brief sketch was given of the initial identification of thought and being in the thought of Parmenides and the consequences it had for the rationalistic tradition since the Renaissance, particularly in connection with the view that the universe itself has a rational structure. Two options were pursued in our analysis of rationalism: (1 to contrast it with empiricism and (2 to relate it to universality and the problem of what is individual. By distinguishing between conceptual and concept-transcending knowledge, an alternative systematic characterisation of rationalism (and irrationalism is proposed, namely that it absolutises conceptual knowledge (whilst irrationalism deifies concepttranscending knowledge. This view allows for an acknowledgement of the ontic horizon of human experience, co-constituted by the dimensions of modal aspects and type laws, without elevating human understanding to become the law-giver of the world.

Emotional Intelligence and its consequences for occupational and life satisfaction - Emotional Intelligence in the context of irrational beliefs

OpenAIRE

Welpe, Isabell; Tumasjan, Andranik; Stich, Jennifer; Spörrle, Matthias; Försterling, Friedrich

2005-01-01

According to Albert Ellis' theory of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy irrational beliefs (IB) lead to maladaptive emotions. A central component of irrationality is the denial of one's own possibilities to control important aspects of life. A specific IB is that one cannot control and thus cannot avoid certain emotion states. Emotion research considers regulative emotion control a pivotal component of the concept of emotional intelligence (EI). A negative association between IB and EI can thu...

Irrational drug use in neuropathic pain treatment: a twoyear data ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Irrational drug use in neuropathic pain treatment: a twoyear data analysis. E Tan, A Akıncı, G Ayvaz, T Erbaş, M Ertaş, O Güç, S Hepgüler, S Kiraz, SZ Oşar, S Öztürk, NS Özyalçın, S Palaoğlu, M Uyar, S Ünal, S Yalçın ...

Thierry De Putter, a geologist faced to the ''irrational'' fear of radioactive wastes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Putter, Th. de; Pivot, A.

2004-01-01

The author analyses the origins of the irrational fear the public feels concerning the disposal of radioactive wastes in deep geological layers. This fear seems to be linked to the positive image of the earth that has been built for millenniums in all humane civilizations, according to it the earth appears as a universal, pure and prolific mother. The burial of radioactive wastes might be considered in an unconscious way as a direct and permanent threat to the integrity of the earth. In fact the earth is not so fragile, it has already undergone catastrophes worse than these that are looming like climate changing or extinction of species, but what is true is that humane civilizations settled on its surface are very fragile. Irrational fear might be an acute and unconscious awareness of this fragility. (A.C.)

Psychometric properties of the Survey of Personal Beliefs: a rational-emotive measure of irrational thinking.

Science.gov (United States)

Demaria, T P; Kassinove, H; Dill, C A

1989-01-01

A test consistency and confirmatory factor analyses were performed on the Survey of Personal Beliefs, a new measure of irrational thinking based on rational-emotive personality theory. The survey, which was logically derived, includes a general rationality factor and subscales measuring five hypothesized core categories of irrational beliefs. Subjects included a nonclinical sample of 130 men and 150 women, with a mean age of 46. Results indicated that the Survey of Personal Beliefs had satisfactory total and scale reliability. The confirmatory analyses supported a higher order factor model including 5 first-order factors ( awfulizing, self-directed shoulds, other-directed shoulds, low frustration tolerance, and self-worth) and 1 second-order or general factor.

Effectiveness of Rational- Emotive- Behavior Group Counseling (REBT on Irrational Attitudes about Spouse Selection in Girls and Boys

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Karami boldaji

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of present study was to determine the effectiveness of Rational- Emotional- Behavior therapy (REBT on irrational attitudes about Spouse Selection in girls and boys. Therefore, 32 girls and boys in city of Bandar Abbas were randomly selected and assigned to two experimental and control groups with 16 girls and boys in each group. The experimental group received 8 sessions in each week. Attitudes about Mate Selection Scale (ARMSS were used as the pretest and post-test. Results of analysis of covariate showed that the mean scores of irrational attitudes about romance and mate selection in the experimental group was significantly lower than the control group in the post test (p= 0/001. Also, mean scores of subscales of irrational attitudes about romance and mate selection (believe love, pivotal experience, idealization, opposite seeking, easy getting and optimistic view in experimental group was significantly lower than control group in the post test.

Satisfying the demand for financial information in public traded companies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Holm, Claus

A public traded company which wishes to comply with IAS standards and stock exchange requirements for full public disclosure of relevant information faces a major communication task. The Investor Relation policy of such a company has to satisfy a demand for financial information which seems...... line focus to the disclosure of cash flow surrogates like EBITA and EBITDA. Overall, the findings suggest a communication strategy intended to satisfy the demand from the professional analysts. However, the shear number of different key figures and financial ratios identified in the study suggest...

Effectiveness of a Psycho-Education Program on Learned Helplessness and Irrational Beliefs

Science.gov (United States)

Ulusoy, Yagmur; Duy, Baki

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a psycho-education program aimed at reducing learned helplessness and irrational beliefs of eight-grade elementary students. The study was an experimental study based on the pre-test-post-test model with control and placebo group. A total of 27 participants, 9 group members in each group,…

Economic irrationality is optimal during noisy decision making.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsetsos, Konstantinos; Moran, Rani; Moreland, James; Chater, Nick; Usher, Marius; Summerfield, Christopher

2016-03-15

According to normative theories, reward-maximizing agents should have consistent preferences. Thus, when faced with alternatives A, B, and C, an individual preferring A to B and B to C should prefer A to C. However, it has been widely argued that humans can incur losses by violating this axiom of transitivity, despite strong evolutionary pressure for reward-maximizing choices. Here, adopting a biologically plausible computational framework, we show that intransitive (and thus economically irrational) choices paradoxically improve accuracy (and subsequent economic rewards) when decision formation is corrupted by internal neural noise. Over three experiments, we show that humans accumulate evidence over time using a "selective integration" policy that discards information about alternatives with momentarily lower value. This policy predicts violations of the axiom of transitivity when three equally valued alternatives differ circularly in their number of winning samples. We confirm this prediction in a fourth experiment reporting significant violations of weak stochastic transitivity in human observers. Crucially, we show that relying on selective integration protects choices against "late" noise that otherwise corrupts decision formation beyond the sensory stage. Indeed, we report that individuals with higher late noise relied more strongly on selective integration. These findings suggest that violations of rational choice theory reflect adaptive computations that have evolved in response to irreducible noise during neural information processing.

Introduction to mathematics of satisfiability

CERN Document Server

Marek, Victor W

2009-01-01

Although this area has a history of over 80 years, it was not until the creation of efficient SAT solvers in the mid-1990s that it became practically important, finding applications in electronic design automation, hardware and software verification, combinatorial optimization, and more. Exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of satisfiability, Introduction to Mathematics of Satisfiability focuses on the satisfiability of theories consisting of propositional logic formulas. It describes how SAT solvers and techniques are applied to problems in mathematics and computer science as well

Irrational Delay Revisited: Examining Five Procrastination Scales in a Global Sample

OpenAIRE

Frode Svartdal; Piers Steel

2017-01-01

Source at http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01927 Scales attempting to measure procrastination focus on different facets of the phenomenon, yet they share a common understanding of procrastination as an unnecessary, unwanted, and disadvantageous delay. The present paper examines in a global sample (N = 4,169) five different procrastination scales – Decisional Procrastination Scale (DPS), Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS), Pure Procrastination Scale (PPS), Adult Inventory of Procr...

Modification of Irrational Ideas and Test Anxiety through Rational Stage Directed Hypnotherapy (RSDH).

Science.gov (United States)

Boutin, Gerard E.; Tosi, Donald J.

1983-01-01

Examined the effects of four treatment conditions on the modification of irrational ideas and test anxiety in female nursing students (N=48). The Rational Stage Directed Hypnotherapy (RSDH) treatment group was significantly more effective than the hypnosis only group. The placebo and control groups showed no significant effects. (Author/JAC)

Do framing effects reveal irrational choice?

Science.gov (United States)

Mandel, David R

2014-06-01

Framing effects have long been viewed as compelling evidence of irrationality in human decision making, yet that view rests on the questionable assumption that numeric quantifiers used to convey the expected values of choice options are uniformly interpreted as exact values. Two experiments show that when the exactness of such quantifiers is made explicit by the experimenter, framing effects vanish. However, when the same quantifiers are given a lower bound (at least) meaning, the typical framing effect is found. A 3rd experiment confirmed that most people spontaneously interpret the quantifiers in standard framing tests as lower bounded and that their interpretations strongly moderate the framing effect. Notably, in each experiment, a significant majority of participants made rational choices, either choosing the option that maximized expected value (i.e., lives saved) or choosing consistently across frames when the options were of equal expected value. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Bounded Satisfiability for PCTL

OpenAIRE

Bertrand, Nathalie; Fearnley, John; Schewe, Sven

2012-01-01

While model checking PCTL for Markov chains is decidable in polynomial-time, the decidability of PCTL satisfiability, as well as its finite model property, are long standing open problems. While general satisfiability is an intriguing challenge from a purely theoretical point of view, we argue that general solutions would not be of interest to practitioners: such solutions could be too big to be implementable or even infinite. Inspired by bounded synthesis techniques, we turn to the more appl...

Irrational Beliefs in Romantic Relationships as the Predictor of Aggression in Emerging Adulthood

Science.gov (United States)

Gündogdu, Rezzan; Yavuzer, Yasemin; Karatas, Zeynep

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study is to examine irrational beliefs in romantic relationships as the predictor of aggression in emerging adults. The study is a quantitative study done using the relational survey model. The study group is composed of 351 fourth-year students, 201 females and 150 males, who were attending three universities in Central…

On the irrationality measure for a q-analogue of \\zeta(2)

Science.gov (United States)

Zudilin, W. V.

2002-08-01

A Liouville-type estimate is proved for the irrationality measure of the quantities \\displaystyle \\zeta_q(2)=\\sum_{n=1}^\\infty\\frac{q^n}{(1-q^n)^2}with q^{-1}\\in\\mathbb Z\\setminus\\{0,\\pm1\\}. The proof is based on the application of a q-analogue of the arithmetic method developed by Chudnovsky, Rukhadze, and Hata and of the transformation group for hypergeometric series-the group-structure approach introduced by Rhin and Viola.

An experimental investigation of the normality of irrational algebraic numbers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Johan Sejr Brinch; Simonsen, Jakob Grue

2013-01-01

blocks for each number to bases 2, 3, 5, 7 and 10, as well as the maximum relative frequency deviation from perfect equidistribution. We use the two statistics to perform tests at significance level α = 0.05, respectively, maximum deviation threshold α = 0.05. Our results suggest that if Borel...

Acting Irrationally to Improve Performance in Stochastic Worlds

Science.gov (United States)

Belavkin, Roman V.

Despite many theories and algorithms for decision-making, after estimating the utility function the choice is usually made by maximising its expected value (the max EU principle). This traditional and 'rational' conclusion of the decision-making process is compared in this paper with several 'irrational' techniques that make choice in Monte-Carlo fashion. The comparison is made by evaluating the performance of simple decision-theoretic agents in stochastic environments. It is shown that not only the random choice strategies can achieve performance comparable to the max EU method, but under certain conditions the Monte-Carlo choice methods perform almost two times better than the max EU. The paper concludes by quoting evidence from recent cognitive modelling works as well as the famous decision-making paradoxes.

A garden of orchids: a generalized Harper equation at quadratic irrational frequencies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mestel, B D; Osbaldestin, A H

2004-01-01

We consider a generalized Harper equation at quadratic irrational flux, showing, in the strong coupling limit, the fluctuations of the exponentially decaying eigenfunctions are governed by the dynamics of a renormalization operator on a renormalization strange set. This work generalizes previous analyses which have considered only the golden mean case. Projections of the renormalization strange sets are illustrated analogous to the 'orchid' present in the golden mean case

A garden of orchids: a generalized Harper equation at quadratic irrational frequencies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mestel, B D [Department of Computing Science and Mathematics, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA (United Kingdom); Osbaldestin, A H [Department of Mathematics, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3HE (United Kingdom)

2004-10-01

We consider a generalized Harper equation at quadratic irrational flux, showing, in the strong coupling limit, the fluctuations of the exponentially decaying eigenfunctions are governed by the dynamics of a renormalization operator on a renormalization strange set. This work generalizes previous analyses which have considered only the golden mean case. Projections of the renormalization strange sets are illustrated analogous to the 'orchid' present in the golden mean case.

Common errors in the treatment of intra-abdominal infections: the irrational use of antimicrobial agents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Belinda De Simone

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Antimicrobial resistance (AR is a global, emergent problem because an increasing numbers of serious community acquired and nosocomial infections are caused by resistant bacterial pathogens. It is a direct consequence of the excessive and irrational use of antibiotics. The use of antimicrobial agents – aimed to decrease morbidity and mortality rate related to intra-abdominal infections – is very high, often improper, in the Departments of General and Emergency Surgery and Intensive Cure Units. Source control and empiric antibiotic therapy have to be administrated as early as possible to decrease high mortality rates in patients with severe sepsis or septic shock and, in this, the general surgeon has a crucial role. Proper antimicrobial stewardship in selecting an appropriate antibiotic and optimizing its dose and duration to cure intraabdominal infections may prevent the emergence of AR and decrease costs for antibiotics.

Effects of a rational-emotive health education intervention on stress management and irrational beliefs among technical college teachers in Southeast Nigeria.

Science.gov (United States)

Ugwoke, Samuel C; Eseadi, Chiedu; Igbokwe, Chima C; Chiaha, Gertrude T U; Nwaubani, Okechukwu O; Orji, Chibueze Tobias; Ugwuanyi, Leonard T; Chukwuma, Ifeoma S; Edikpa, Edith C; Ogakwu, Vera N; Onu, Eucharia A; Agu, Patricia; Nwobi, Ujunwa A; Omeke, Faith; Okeke, Francisca C; Ezema, Rita N; Abugu, Lawretta I

2017-08-01

Stress is the product of how an individual reacts and adapts to the specific demands and threats they encounter while carrying out given tasks. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a rational-emotive health education intervention (REHEI) on stress management, and irrational beliefs in a sample of technical college teachers in Southeast Nigeria. The study design was a pretest-posttest control group. Repeated measures analysis of variance, paired t test and Mann-Whitney U tests were used to analyze the data collected. The REHEI significantly reduced teacher stress in those teaching staff exposed to the treatment intervention, relative to a waitlist control group. Furthermore, the REHEI program significantly decreased irrational beliefs about teaching in those teaching staff exposed to the treatment intervention compared to a waitlist control group. The REHEI program can be used to coach teachers on how to manage and cope with stress and overcome irrational beliefs in teaching.

2016 Gainesville Number Theory Conference

CERN Document Server

Garvan, Frank

2017-01-01

Gathered from the 2016 Gainesville Number Theory Conference honoring Krishna Alladi on his 60th birthday, these proceedings present recent research in number theory. Extensive and detailed, this volume features 40 articles by leading researchers on topics in analytic number theory, probabilistic number theory, irrationality and transcendence, Diophantine analysis, partitions, basic hypergeometric series, and modular forms. Readers will also find detailed discussions of several aspects of the path-breaking work of Srinivasa Ramanujan and its influence on current research. Many of the papers were motivated by Alladi's own research on partitions and q-series as well as his earlier work in number theory.  Alladi is well known for his contributions in number theory and mathematics. His research interests include combinatorics, discrete mathematics, sieve methods, probabilistic and analytic number theory, Diophantine approximations, partitions and q-series identities. Graduate students and researchers will find th...

On selfadjoint functors satisfying polynomial relations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Agerholm, Troels; Mazorchuk, Volodomyr

2011-01-01

We study selfadjoint functors acting on categories of finite dimen- sional modules over finite dimensional algebras with an emphasis on functors satisfying some polynomial relations. Selfadjoint func- tors satisfying several easy relations, in particular, idempotents and square roots of a sum...

Renormalization of correlations in a quasiperiodically forced two-level system: quadratic irrationals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mestel, B D; Osbaldestin, A H

2004-01-01

Generalizing from the case of golden mean frequency to a wider class of quadratic irrationals, we extend our renormalization analysis of the self-similarity of correlation functions in a quasiperiodically forced two-level system. We give a description of all piecewise-constant periodic orbits of an additive functional recurrence generalizing that present in the golden mean case. We establish a criterion for periodic orbits to be globally bounded, and also calculate the asymptotic height of the main peaks in the correlation function

Moon Phase as the Cause of Monday Irrationality: Case of Asean Day of the Week Anomaly

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rayenda Khresna Brahmana

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Many Day-of-the week anomaly papers have suggested investor behaviour as the explanation of highly differentiated returns on Mondays; yet, rarely found a paper has empirically investigated it. Therefore, this paper proposes Moon-Induced mood as the determinant of that irrational behaviour. This proposition is based on our preliminary findings that the full moon phase occurred more often on Mondays compared to other days; an indication of a causal relationship. By taking Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines as samples during the period of 1999-2010, this paper found: (1 There is evidence of a Monday effect across all the ASEAN stock markets, (2 The moon phase and its interaction with Mondays has significantly influenced the Monday effect, and (3 A full moon on Monday has significant negative influenced on Monday returns. In conclusion, the stimulation by moon phase forms affection bias, and the resulting outcome is the irrational stock market behavior.

Irrational free field resolutions for W(sl(n)) and extended Sugawara construction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Niedermaier, M.

1991-03-01

The existence of Miura-type free field realizations is established for the extended conformal algebras W(sl(n)) at irrational values of the screening parameter. The problem of the 'closure' of the algebra is reduced to a finite dimensional quantum group problem. The structure of the Fock space resolution and the character formulae are obtained for the irreducible modules. They are shown to be isomorphic to the space of sl(n) singlets in sl(n) affine affine level 1 modules. The isomorphism is given by the Φβγ free field realization of sl(n). (orig.)

Typical Werner states satisfying all linear Bell inequalities with dichotomic measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Ming-Xing

2018-04-01

Quantum entanglement as a special resource inspires various distinct applications in quantum information processing. Unfortunately, it is NP-hard to detect general quantum entanglement using Bell testing. Our goal is to investigate quantum entanglement with white noises that appear frequently in experiment and quantum simulations. Surprisingly, for almost all multipartite generalized Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states there are entangled noisy states that satisfy all linear Bell inequalities consisting of full correlations with dichotomic inputs and outputs of each local observer. This result shows generic undetectability of mixed entangled states in contrast to Gisin's theorem of pure bipartite entangled states in terms of Bell nonlocality. We further provide an accessible method to show a nontrivial set of noisy entanglement with small number of parties satisfying all general linear Bell inequalities. These results imply typical incompleteness of special Bell theory in explaining entanglement.

Being Irrationally Funny as a Cognitive Psychologist

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan Ariely

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The idea of interviewing Dan Ariely was somehow latent on my mind since I started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at Duke University. I picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as Kahnemann ‘disciple’, but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people’s lives easier and more comfortable, by creating awareness on a lot of topics otherwise neglected. Dan Ariely’s very agreeable personality and humor would not let you think of him as a burnt casualty who, in his youth struggled to survive a personal drama, so well-documented in his paper “Painful lessons” posted on the MIT website (http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/mypain.pdf. I think reading his paper and also this transcribed interview with him would be also comforting for people who found out about Bucharest fire incident that rocked our society and also for people who are personally related to this tragedy.

Being Irrationally Funny as a Cognitive Psychologist

Science.gov (United States)

Ariely, Dan; Popescu, Beatrice

2015-01-01

The idea of interviewing Dan Ariely was somehow latent on my mind since I started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at Duke University. I picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as Kahnemann ‘disciple’, but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people’s lives easier and more comfortable, by creating awareness on a lot of topics otherwise neglected. Dan Ariely’s very agreeable personality and humor would not let you think of him as a burnt casualty who, in his youth struggled to survive a personal drama, so well-documented in his paper “Painful lessons” posted on the MIT website (http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/mypain.pdf). I think reading his paper and also this transcribed interview with him would be also comforting for people who found out about Bucharest fire incident that rocked our society and also for people who are personally related to this tragedy. PMID:27247678

Are irrational reactions to unfairness truly emotionally-driven? Dissociated behavioural and emotional responses in the Ultimatum Game task.

Science.gov (United States)

Civai, Claudia; Corradi-Dell'Acqua, Corrado; Gamer, Matthias; Rumiati, Raffaella I

2010-01-01

The "irrational" rejections of unfair offers by people playing the Ultimatum Game (UG), a widely used laboratory model of economical decision-making, have traditionally been associated with negative emotions, such as frustration, elicited by unfairness (Sanfey, Rilling, Aronson, Nystrom, & Cohen, 2003; van't Wout, Kahn, Sanfey, & Aleman, 2006). We recorded skin conductance responses as a measure of emotional activation while participants performed a modified version of the UG, in which they were asked to play both for themselves and on behalf of a third-party. Our findings show that even unfair offers are rejected when participants' payoff is not affected (third-party condition); however, they show an increase in the emotional activation specifically when they are rejecting offers directed towards themselves (myself condition). These results suggest that theories emphasizing negative emotions as the critical factor of "irrational" rejections (Pillutla & Murninghan, 1996) should be re-discussed. Psychological mechanisms other than emotions might be better candidates for explaining this behaviour.

Diffusion Processes Satisfying a Conservation Law Constraint

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Bakosi

2014-01-01

Full Text Available We investigate coupled stochastic differential equations governing N nonnegative continuous random variables that satisfy a conservation principle. In various fields a conservation law requires a set of fluctuating variables to be nonnegative and (if appropriately normalized sum to one. As a result, any stochastic differential equation model to be realizable must not produce events outside of the allowed sample space. We develop a set of constraints on the drift and diffusion terms of such stochastic models to ensure that both the nonnegativity and the unit-sum conservation law constraints are satisfied as the variables evolve in time. We investigate the consequences of the developed constraints on the Fokker-Planck equation, the associated system of stochastic differential equations, and the evolution equations of the first four moments of the probability density function. We show that random variables, satisfying a conservation law constraint, represented by stochastic diffusion processes, must have diffusion terms that are coupled and nonlinear. The set of constraints developed enables the development of statistical representations of fluctuating variables satisfying a conservation law. We exemplify the results with the bivariate beta process and the multivariate Wright-Fisher, Dirichlet, and Lochner’s generalized Dirichlet processes.

The square root of 2 a dialogue concerning a number and a sequence

CERN Document Server

Flannery, David

2006-01-01

Using no more than the most basic algebra and geometry, Flannery (Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland) manages to convey not only why irrational numbers are fascinating, but how the whole enterprise of mathematical thinking is imaginative, intriguing, and engaging. A startlingly original and informative dialog, this book is a one-of-a-kind introduction to the pleasure and playful beauty of mathematical thinking.

Satisfying story of how it all began

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Liddle, Andrew

2004-12-01

{sup N}ow this 'Big Bang' idea seemed to me to be unsatisfactory...for it is an irrational process that cannot be described in scientific terms.' With this rather derisory remark (or at least so intended) in a 1950 radio broadcast, Fred Hoyle named the theory that rivalled his steady-state theory. The Big Bang has subsequently become the dominant paradigm in attempts to understand our universe. It is also one of the dominant ways in which popular-science writing seeks to persuade people to part with their cash. Simon Singh has rapidly made a name for himself as one of the leading popularizers of science, with his previous books Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book bringing accessible science to a wide audience . Big Bang brings him to a much busier marketplace, where he must compete both with other science writers and with working scientists. (U.K.)

Are Irrational Reactions to Unfairness Truly Emotionally-Driven? Dissociated Behavioural and Emotional Responses in the Ultimatum Game Task

Science.gov (United States)

Civai, Claudia; Corradi-Dell'Acqua, Corrado; Gamer, Matthias; Rumiati, Raffaella I.

2010-01-01

The "irrational" rejections of unfair offers by people playing the Ultimatum Game (UG), a widely used laboratory model of economical decision-making, have traditionally been associated with negative emotions, such as frustration, elicited by unfairness ([Sanfey et al., 2003] and [van't Wout et al., 2006]). We recorded skin conductance responses as…

SpecSatisfiabilityTool: A tool for testing the satisfiability of specifications on XML documents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Javier Albors

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We present a prototype that implements a set of logical rules to prove the satisfiability for a class of specifications on XML documents. Specifications are given by means of constrains built on Boolean XPath patterns. The main goal of this tool is to test whether a given specification is satisfiable or not, and justify the decision showing the execution history. It can also be used to test whether a given document is a model of a given specification and, as a by-product, it permits to look for all the relations (monomorphisms between two patterns and to combine patterns in different ways. The results of these operations are visually shown and therefore the tool makes these operations more understandable. The implementation of the algorithm has been written in Prolog but the prototype has a Java interface for an easy and friendly use. In this paper we show how to use this interface in order to test all the desired properties.

FOCUS-PDCA循环管理在降低肠外营养不合理医嘱发生率中的应用%Application of FOCUS-PDCA Cycle Management in Reducing the Incidence of Irrational Medical Orders of Parenteral Nutrition

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

贺银丽; 封卫毅; 施秉银; 罗秦英; 董乐乐; 庞成森; 鲁会侠; 张亚婷; 张晓霞; 董卫华; 王曙逢

2017-01-01

目的:降低我院肠外营养不合理医嘱的发生率,促进肠外营养的合理使用.方法:收集我院普通外科2016年第一季度的肠外营养医嘱,统计其不合理医嘱数量及发生类型,然后运用FOCUS-PDCA(Find-organize-clarify-understand-select-plan-do-check-act)循环管理对肠外营养医嘱开具过程中存在的问题进行分析和改善,再收集改善后(2016年第三季度)的肠外营养医嘱对其不合理医嘱数量及发生类型进行统计,评价管理效果.结果:我院通过采取成立营养支持小组、加强对医护人员的培训与沟通、在医院信息系统中加入肠外营养审方模块等多项措施进行持续改进,使普通外科肠外营养的不合理医嘱发生率由改善前的48.25%(1433/2970)下降至改善后的5.67%(120/2118),不合理类型中阳离子超量、遴选药品不适宜、配伍不适宜发生率降为0.结论:采用FOCUS-PDCA循环管理可降低肠外营养不合理医嘱发生率,促进医院肠外营养的合理使用.%OBJECTIVE:To reduce the incidence of irrational medical orders for parenteral nutrition,and promote the rational use of parenteral nutrition. METHODS:The medical orders for parenteral nutrition of the first quarter of 2016 in general surgery de-partment of our hospital were collected,and the number and types of its irrational medical orders were summed up. Then FO-CUS-PDCA(Find-organize-clarify-understand-select-plan-do-check-act)cycle management was adopted to analyze and improve the existing problems in issuing medical orders for parenteral nutrition. The improved(the third quarter of 2016)medical orders for par-enteral nutrition were collected,the number and types of its irrational medical orders were summed up,and management effect was evaluated. RESULTS:Establishing nutrition support group,strengthening the training and communication of medical staff,adding prescription evaluation module for parenteral nutrition in hospital information system and a

Satisfying pedagogical practices using ICT

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Voogt, Joke; Law, N.; Pelgrum, W.J.; Plomp, T.

2008-01-01

This chapter describes the results of the international option that was included in SITES 2006. The international option, which was part of the teacher questionnaire, solicited responses from teachers on satisfying experiences in their pedagogical use of ICT. Twenty-one of the participating

Rational Irrationality: Modeling Climate Change Belief Polarization Using Bayesian Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, John; Lewandowsky, Stephan

2016-01-01

Belief polarization is said to occur when two people respond to the same evidence by updating their beliefs in opposite directions. This response is considered to be "irrational" because it involves contrary updating, a form of belief updating that appears to violate normatively optimal responding, as for example dictated by Bayes' theorem. In light of much evidence that people are capable of normatively optimal behavior, belief polarization presents a puzzling exception. We show that Bayesian networks, or Bayes nets, can simulate rational belief updating. When fit to experimental data, Bayes nets can help identify the factors that contribute to polarization. We present a study into belief updating concerning the reality of climate change in response to information about the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The study used representative samples of Australian and U.S. Among Australians, consensus information partially neutralized the influence of worldview, with free-market supporters showing a greater increase in acceptance of human-caused global warming relative to free-market opponents. In contrast, while consensus information overall had a positive effect on perceived consensus among U.S. participants, there was a reduction in perceived consensus and acceptance of human-caused global warming for strong supporters of unregulated free markets. Fitting a Bayes net model to the data indicated that under a Bayesian framework, free-market support is a significant driver of beliefs about climate change and trust in climate scientists. Further, active distrust of climate scientists among a small number of U.S. conservatives drives contrary updating in response to consensus information among this particular group. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Irrational beliefs, optimism, pessimism, and psychological distress: a preliminary examination of differential effects in a college population.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, E C; Bridewell, W B

1998-02-01

The present study compared the effects of irrational beliefs measured by the Survey of Personal Beliefs (SPB) and optimism and pessimism as measured by the revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R) on depressive and anxious symptoms 6 weeks later. Results of analysis of variances for both measures of psychological distress indicated a significant main effect for pessimism only. Implications for Ellis Rational Emotive Therapy are discussed.

Bounding the expected number of rectilinear full Steiner trees

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wulff-Nilsen, Christian

2010-01-01

the expected number of FSTs satisfying simple necessary conditions for being part of an optimal solution. More specifically, we show that the expected number of FSTs spanning exactly K terminals and satisfying the empty lune property, a weak version of the bottleneck property, and the so-called empty hyperbox...... terminals and satisfying the empty lune property and the so-called disjoint lunes property is O(nK). © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc....

Term Satisfiability in FLew-Algebras

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Haniková, Zuzana; Savický, Petr

2016-01-01

Roč. 631, 6 June (2016), s. 1-15 ISSN 0304-3975 R&D Projects: GA ČR GBP202/12/G061 Institutional support: RVO:67985807 Keywords : substructural logic * FLew-algebra * MV-algebra * satisfiability * computational complexity Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics Impact factor: 0.698, year: 2016

Seemingly irrational driving behavior model: The effect of habit strength and anticipated affective reactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Chung, Yi-Shih

2015-09-01

An increasing amount of evidence suggests that aberrant driving behaviors are not entirely rational. On the basis of the dual-process theory, this study postulates that drivers may learn to perform irrational aberrant driving behaviors, and these behaviors could be derived either from a deliberate or an intuitive decision-making approach. Accordingly, a seemingly irrational driving behavior model is proposed; in this model, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was adopted to represent the deliberate decision-making mechanism, and habit strength was incorporated to reflect the intuitive decision process. A multiple trivariate mediation structure was designed to reflect the process through which driving behaviors are learned. Anticipated affective reactions (AARs) were further included to examine the effect of affect on aberrant driving behaviors. Considering the example of speeding behaviors, this study developed scales and conducted a two-wave survey of students in two departments at a university in Northern Taiwan. The analysis results show that habit strength consists of multiple aspects, and frequency of past behavior cannot be a complete repository for accumulating habit strength. Habit strength appeared to be a crucial mediator between intention antecedents (e.g., attitude) and the intention itself. Including habit strength in the TPB model enhanced the explained variance of speeding intention by 26.7%. In addition, AARs were different from attitudes; particularly, young drivers tended to perform speeding behaviors to reduce negative feelings such as regret. The proposed model provides an effective alternative approach for investigating aberrant driving behaviors; corresponding countermeasures are discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Maximizing the probability of satisfying the clinical goals in radiation therapy treatment planning under setup uncertainty

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fredriksson, Albin; Hårdemark, Björn; Forsgren, Anders

2015-01-01

Purpose: This paper introduces a method that maximizes the probability of satisfying the clinical goals in intensity-modulated radiation therapy treatments subject to setup uncertainty. Methods: The authors perform robust optimization in which the clinical goals are constrained to be satisfied whenever the setup error falls within an uncertainty set. The shape of the uncertainty set is included as a variable in the optimization. The goal of the optimization is to modify the shape of the uncertainty set in order to maximize the probability that the setup error will fall within the modified set. Because the constraints enforce the clinical goals to be satisfied under all setup errors within the uncertainty set, this is equivalent to maximizing the probability of satisfying the clinical goals. This type of robust optimization is studied with respect to photon and proton therapy applied to a prostate case and compared to robust optimization using an a priori defined uncertainty set. Results: Slight reductions of the uncertainty sets resulted in plans that satisfied a larger number of clinical goals than optimization with respect to a priori defined uncertainty sets, both within the reduced uncertainty sets and within the a priori, nonreduced, uncertainty sets. For the prostate case, the plans taking reduced uncertainty sets into account satisfied 1.4 (photons) and 1.5 (protons) times as many clinical goals over the scenarios as the method taking a priori uncertainty sets into account. Conclusions: Reducing the uncertainty sets enabled the optimization to find better solutions with respect to the errors within the reduced as well as the nonreduced uncertainty sets and thereby achieve higher probability of satisfying the clinical goals. This shows that asking for a little less in the optimization sometimes leads to better overall plan quality

Irrational Numbers, Square Roots, and Quadratic Equations

Science.gov (United States)

Popovic, Gorjana

2015-01-01

To improve mathematics achievement of U.S. students and to assure that "what and how students are taught should reflect not only the topics within a certain academic discipline, but also the key ideas that determine how knowledge is organized and generated within that discipline" are dual goals of the Common Core State Standards for…

On some applications of diophantine approximations.

Science.gov (United States)

Chudnovsky, G V

1984-03-01

Siegel's results [Siegel, C. L. (1929) Abh. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Phys.-Math. Kl. 1] on the transcendence and algebraic independence of values of E-functions are refined to obtain the best possible bound for the measures of irrationality and linear independence of values of arbitrary E-functions at rational points. Our results show that values of E-functions at rational points have measures of diophantine approximations typical to "almost all" numbers. In particular, any such number has the "2 + epsilon" exponent of irrationality: Theta - p/q > q(-2-epsilon) for relatively prime rational integers p,q, with q >/= q(0) (Theta, epsilon). These results answer some problems posed by Lang. The methods used here are based on the introduction of graded Padé approximations to systems of functions satisfying linear differential equations with rational function coefficients. The constructions and proofs of this paper were used in the functional (nonarithmetic case) in a previous paper [Chudnovsky, D. V. & Chudnovsky, G. V. (1983) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 80, 5158-5162].

Recognition of irrationality of fear and the diagnosis of social anxiety disorder and specific phobia in adults: implications for criteria revision in DSM-5.

Science.gov (United States)

Zimmerman, Mark; Dalrymple, Kristy; Chelminski, Iwona; Young, Diane; Galione, Janine N

2010-11-01

In DSM-IV, the diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (SAD) and specific phobia in adults requires that the person recognize that his or her fear of the phobic situation is excessive or unreasonable (criterion C). The DSM-5 Anxiety Disorders Work Group has proposed replacing this criterion because some patients with clinically significant phobic fears do not recognize the irrationality of their fears. In the present report from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services project we determined the number of individuals who were not diagnosed with SAD and specific phobia because they did not recognize the excessiveness or irrationality of their fear. We interviewed 3,000 psychiatric outpatients and 1,800 candidates for bariatric surgery with a modified version of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. In the SAD and specific phobia modules we suspended the skip-out that curtails the modules if criterion C is not met. Patients who met all DSM-IV criteria for SAD or specific phobia except criterion C were considered to have "modified" SAD or specific phobia. The lifetime rates of DSM-IV SAD and specific phobia were 30.5 and 11.8% in psychiatric patients and 11.7 and 10.2% in bariatric surgery candidates, respectively. Less than 1% of the patients in both samples were diagnosed with modified SAD or specific phobia. Few patients were excluded from a phobia diagnosis because of criterion C. We suggest that in DSM-5 this criterion be eliminated from the SAD and specific phobia criteria sets. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Crazy for bargains: inventing the irrational female shopper in modernizing English Canada.

Science.gov (United States)

Belisle, Donica

2011-01-01

Between the 1890s and 1930s, anglophone politicians, journalists, novelists, and other commentators living in western, central, and eastern Canada drew upon established connections among greed, luxury, hysteria, and femininity to describe women who went shopping as irrational. Their motivations for doing so included their desires to assuage feelings of guilt about increased abundance; articulate anger caused by spousal conflicts over money; assert the legitimacy of male authority; and assign blame for the decline of small communities’ sustainability, the degradation of labour standards, and the erosion of independent shopkeeping. By calling upon stock stereotypes of femininity, and by repositioning them to fit the current capitalist moment, English-Canadian commentators constructed disempowering representations of women to alleviate their anxieties about what they perceived as the ills of modernization.

A survey on the factors influencing the pattern of medicine's use: Concerns on irrational use of drugs.

Science.gov (United States)

Soleymani, Fatemeh; Ahmadizar, Fariba; Meysamie, Alipasha; Abdollahi, Mohammad

2013-04-01

Pharmacists have a remarkable role in rational use of drugs by dissemination of drug information to guide patients, physicians, and policy makers. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the pharmacists' view point about the main factors affecting current drug use pattern regarding rational drug use and the most effective strategies for improving and promoting rational drug use among pharmacists. In a cross-sectional survey, pre-designed questionnaires were filled in convenient sampling by pharmacists who had attended the congress of rational drug use in Tehran, Iran. A total of 144 pharmacists with the average age of 40.78 years old were enrolled to the study. Data indicated that the most priorities in irrational use of drugs from pharmacists' view point were lack of appropriate cooperation and communication between physicians and pharmacists (39%), pharmacists' low tariff and economic issues (34%), lack of public knowledge about drug usage (45%), and lack of supervisory regulations on pharmacy practice (15.8%). In this study, lack of public knowledge and awareness about appropriate use of medicines was the most important element from pharmacists' viewpoint in occurrence of irrational drug use. Dissemination of information and compiling of diverse strategies in education, management, regulation, and finance can be very efficient due to a strong relationship between drug policies and performance of regulations and supervisions as well as drug services.

Influence of crystallography and bonding on the structure and migration of irrational interphase boundaries

Science.gov (United States)

Aaronson, H. I.

2006-03-01

Interphase boundary structure developed during precipitation from solid solution and during massive transformations is considered in diverse alloy systems in the presence of differences in stacking sequence across interphase boundaries. Linear misfit compensating defects, including misfit dislocations, structural disconnections, and misfit disconnections, are present over a wide range of crystallographie when both phases have metallic bonding. Misfit dislocations have also been observed when both phases have covalent bonding ( e.g., US: β US2 by Sole and van der Walt). These defects are also found when one phase is ionic and the other is metallic (Nb∶Al2O3 by Rühle et al.), albeit when the latter is formed by vapor deposition. However, when bonding is metallic in one phase but significantly covalent in the other, the structure of the interphase boundary appears to depend upon the strength of the covalent bonding relative to that in the metallically bonded phase. When this difference is large, growth can take place as if it were occurring at a free surface, resulting in orientation relationships that are irrational and conjugate habit planes that are ill matched ( e.g., ZrN: α Zr-N by Li et al. and Xe(solid):Al-Xe by Kishida and Yamaguchi). At lower levels of bonding directionality and strength, crystallography is again irrational, but now edge-to-edge-based low-energy structures can replace linear misfit compensating defects (γm:TiAl:αTi-Al by Reynolds et al.). In the perhaps still smaller difference case of Widmanstätten cementite precipitated from austenite, one orientation relationship yields plates with linear misfit compensating defects at their broad faces whereas another (presumably nucleated at different types of site) produces laths with poorly defined shapes and interfacial structures. Hence, Hume-Rothery-type bonding considerations can markedly affect interphase boundary structure and thus the mechanisms, kinetics, and morphology of growth.

Cliques, coloring, and satisfiability

CERN Document Server

Johnson, David S

1996-01-01

The purpose of a DIMACS Challenge is to encourage and coordinate research in the experimental analysis of algorithms. The First DIMACS Challenge encouraged experimental work in the area of network flow and matchings. The Second DIMACS Challenge, on which this volume is based, took place in conjunction with the DIMACS Special Year on Combinatorial Optimization. Addressed here are three difficult combinatorial optimization problems: finding cliques in a graph, coloring the vertices of a graph, and solving instances of the satisfiability problem. These problems were chosen both for their practical interest and because of their theoretical intractability.

A study in three districts of Ankara of behaviors associated with irrational use of drugs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mustafa Necmi İlhan

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Objective:To avoid the irrational use of medicines studies have to be conducted to evaluate the habits related to drug use. This study investigated the characteristics of individuals aged above 18 in using of medicines among in Family Health Care Centers in the city center of Ankara. Methods: This is a descriptive study. A questionnaire was applied to 1990 individuals aged above 18 in several Family Health Care Centers in the city center of Ankara. Results: Less than half of the applicants stated that they attended a health care institution for a health problem; 78.6% stated that they keep medicine at home that 40.3% of those medicines were painkillers. 60.9% of the applicants claimed they read the instructions provided with the medicine; 57.0% of the applicants claimed to use the prescribed medicine exactly as instructed. 68.9% of those aged 55 and above of the applicants, 63.0% of the women, 63.3% of the married women, 71.2% of illiterates, 70.6% of housewives, 68.9% of those having monthly income between 1001-1500 TL, and 68.8% of those who had someone with chronic disease at home claimed that they would ask the doctor to prescribe the medicines they wanted (p<0.05. Conclusion: Almost half of the participants did not apply to a health care institution and a substantial portion of them used home remedies in case of a health problem. In order to reduce irrational drug use, public education for rational use of medicines needs to be implemented.Keywords: Rational use of medicine, prescription, descriptive

SmArT solving : Tools and techniques for satisfiability solvers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Heule, M.J.H.

2008-01-01

The satisfiability problem (Sat) lies at the core of the complexity theory. This is a decision problem: Not the solution itself, but whether or not a solution exists given a specified set of requirements is the central question. Over the years, the satisfiability problem has taken center stage as a

A concept of a new undulator that will generate irrational higher harmonics in synchrotron radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hashimoto, Shinya; Sasaki, Shigemi

1994-03-01

A preliminary consideration has been made on an undulator with magnetic poles quasi-periodically aligned along the path of electron beams to discriminate the rational higher harmonics of radiation that are harmful in some synchrotron radiation experiments. The harmonics with irrational ratios in energy generated by the undulator is never simultaneously reflected by a crystal monochromator in the same orientation. A combination of the new undulator and high-resolution crystal monochromator is expected to be very useful on beamlines of high energy radiation in which X-ray mirrors are useless because of too small critical angles of total reflection. Further, a possibility of manufacturing the new undulator has been discussed. (author)

How satisfied are hospital systems with their ownership of retail clinics?

Science.gov (United States)

Kaissi, Amer; Charland, Thomas A

2013-01-01

Retail clinics--while innovative--can no longer be considered a new model of healthcare delivery, as an increasing number of hospitals and health systems now own them. The purpose of this article is to explore the extent to which hospital systems are satisfied with their ownership of retail clinics. In terms of operational challenges, respondents to our survey, administered to representatives from 19 health systems, were relatively satisfied with clinic staffing and their relationship with the retailers regarding lease terms, store locations, and shopper demographics. They expressed mostly neutral levels of satisfaction with regulations and laws related to retail clinics and low satisfaction with insurance reimbursement and clinics' seasonal patterns. The two areas that received the lowest respondent satisfaction ratings were patient volume and response to marketing initiatives. When asked to share their perceptions of their organization's satisfaction with various strategic aspects of retail clinic ownership, respondents revealed that the clinics were achieving several important strategic goals, such as improved access, increased referrals, defense against competitors, and increased brand exposure. They indicated overall dissatisfaction with profitability and cost-reduction outcomes. We conclude that serious operational challenges and strategic threats must be overcome if retail clinics are to be a successful service line for hospitals and health systems.

Introduction to number theory with cryptography

CERN Document Server

Kraft, James S

2013-01-01

IntroductionDiophantine EquationsModular ArithmeticPrimes and the Distribution of PrimesCryptographyDivisibilityDivisibilityEuclid's Theorem Euclid's Original Proof The Sieve of Eratosthenes The Division Algorithm The Greatest Common Divisor The Euclidean Algorithm Other BasesLinear Diophantine EquationsThe Postage Stamp Problem Fermat and Mersenne Numbers Chapter Highlights Problems Unique FactorizationPreliminary Results The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic Euclid and the Fundamental Theorem of ArithmeticChapter Highlights Problems Applications of Unique Factorization A Puzzle Irrationality Proofs The Rational Root Theorem Pythagorean Triples Differences of Squares Prime Factorization of Factorials The Riemann Zeta Function Chapter Highlights Problems CongruencesDefinitions and Examples Modular Exponentiation Divisibility TestsLinear Congruences The Chinese Remainder TheoremFractions mod m Fermat's Theorem Euler's Theorem Wilson's Theorem Queens on a Chessboard Chapter Highlights Problems Cryptographic App...

Psychometric evaluation of the Swedish version of the pure procrastination scale, the irrational procrastination scale, and the susceptibility to temptation scale in a clinical population.

Science.gov (United States)

Rozental, Alexander; Forsell, Erik; Svensson, Andreas; Forsström, David; Andersson, Gerhard; Carlbring, Per

2014-01-01

Procrastination is a prevalent self-regulatory failure associated with stress and anxiety, decreased well-being, and poorer performance in school as well as work. One-fifth of the adult population and half of the student population describe themselves as chronic and severe procrastinators. However, despite the fact that it can become a debilitating condition, valid and reliable self-report measures for assessing the occurrence and severity of procrastination are lacking, particularly for use in a clinical context. The current study explored the usefulness of the Swedish version of three Internet-administered self-report measures for evaluating procrastination; the Pure Procrastination Scale, the Irrational Procrastination Scale, and the Susceptibility to Temptation Scale, all having good psychometric properties in English. In total, 710 participants were recruited for a clinical trial of Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy for procrastination. All of the participants completed the scales as well as self-report measures of depression, anxiety, and quality of life. Principal Component Analysis was performed to assess the factor validity of the scales, and internal consistency and correlations between the scales were also determined. Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, Minimal Detectable Change, and Standard Error of Measurement were calculated for the Irrational Procrastination Scale. The Swedish version of the scales have a similar factor structure as the English version, generated good internal consistencies, with Cronbach's α ranging between .76 to .87, and were moderately to highly intercorrelated. The Irrational Procrastination Scale had an Intraclass Correlation Coefficient of .83, indicating excellent reliability. Furthermore, Standard Error of Measurement was 1.61, and Minimal Detectable Change was 4.47, suggesting that a change of almost five points on the scale is necessary to determine a reliable change in self-reported procrastination severity. The

An irrational trial equation method and its applications

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

equation method which is different from those direct methods. Liu's key idea is that exact solution to a differential equation can be given by solving an integration. For example, consider a differential equation of u. We always assume that its exact solution satisfies a solvable equation u = F(u). Therefore, our task is just to find.

Analysis of the Relation between Academic Procrastination, Academic Rational/Irrational Beliefs, Time Preferences to Study for Exams, and Academic Achievement: A Structural Model

Science.gov (United States)

Balkis, Murat; Duru, Erdinc; Bulus, Mustafa

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between academic rational/irrational beliefs, academic procrastination, and time preferences to study for exams and academic achievement by using the structural equation model. The sample consisted of 281 undergraduate students who filled in questionnaires at the 7-week-long summer course.…

A Geometric Presentation of Probabilistic Satisfiability

OpenAIRE

Morales-Luna, Guillermo

2010-01-01

By considering probability distributions over the set of assignments the expected truth values assignment to propositional variables are extended through linear operators, and the expected truth values of the clauses at any given conjunctive form are also extended through linear maps. The probabilistic satisfiability problems are discussed in terms of the introduced linear extensions. The case of multiple truth values is also discussed.

Being Irrationally Funny as a Cognitive Psychologist: Interview With Dan Ariely.

Science.gov (United States)

Ariely, Dan; Popescu, Beatrice

2015-11-01

The idea of interviewing Dan Ariely was somehow latent on my mind since I started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at Duke University. I picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as Kahnemann 'disciple', but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people's lives easier and more comfortable, by creating awareness on a lot of topics otherwise neglected. Dan Ariely's very agreeable personality and humor would not let you think of him as a burnt casualty who, in his youth struggled to survive a personal drama, so well-documented in his paper "Painful lessons" posted on the MIT website (http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/mypain.pdf). I think reading his paper and also this transcribed interview with him would be also comforting for people who found out about Bucharest fire incident that rocked our society and also for people who are personally related to this tragedy.

The Banality of Environmental Evil: From the Irrational Alienation Toward Democratic Deliberation in Environmental Law Formation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonardo da Rocha de Souza

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This study discusses the emergence of environmental banal evil in the complex societies since the concept of the banality of evil developed by Hannah Arendt in the book "Eichmann in Jerusalem". From this, proposes to develop a proactive action towards environmental protection, away from society in a neutral position in this area, as this neutrality creates an irrational alienation. Will use the deductive method and the indirect documentation of research technique. As a result, we intend to demonstrate that individuals must be willing to consciously democratic participation by developing an ability to think and formulate rational arguments on this subject in the public sphere.

The Formation of Rational and Irrational Behaviors in Risky Investment Decision Making: Laboratory Experiment of Coping Theory Implication in Investors' Adaptation Model

OpenAIRE

Wendy Wendy; Marwan Asri; Jogiyanto Hartono

2012-01-01

This study analyzes the stock investor's rational and irrational behavior formation through Investor's Adaptation model. Hypotheses testings were conducted by manipulating four market conditions using between-subject experimental design. The results supported the hypotheses proposed in this study. When given treatment one (opportunity-high control), investors tended to adapt the profit maximizing strategy (rational). Meanwhile, when given treatment two (opportunity-low control), three (threat-...

Validation of the Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Georgina Guilera

Full Text Available The present study is centered in adapting and validating a Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS. The sample consists of 365 adults aged 18-77 years (M = 37.70, SD = 12.64. Participants were administered two measures of procrastination, the IPS and the Decisional Procrastination Questionnaire, as well as the Big Five Inventory, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. First, the factor and replication analysis revealed that the internal structure of the scale is clearly one-dimensional, supporting the idea that IPS seems to measure general procrastination as a single trait. Second, the internal consistency is satisfactory as is the temporal stability of the IPS scores. Third, the correlations encountered between the IPS scores and other measures of procrastination, personality traits and satisfaction with life are all in the expected direction and magnitude. Finally, consistent with previous research, procrastination is related to age, with the youngest being the most procrastinating group. This study represents the first attempt in adapting and validating the IPS measure of procrastination into Spanish. Results suggest that the Spanish version of the IPS offers valid and reliable scores when applied to adult population.

Validation of the Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS)

Science.gov (United States)

Guilera, Georgina; Penelo, Eva; Morin, Christopher; Steel, Piers; Gómez-Benito, Juana

2018-01-01

The present study is centered in adapting and validating a Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS). The sample consists of 365 adults aged 18–77 years (M = 37.70, SD = 12.64). Participants were administered two measures of procrastination, the IPS and the Decisional Procrastination Questionnaire, as well as the Big Five Inventory, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. First, the factor and replication analysis revealed that the internal structure of the scale is clearly one-dimensional, supporting the idea that IPS seems to measure general procrastination as a single trait. Second, the internal consistency is satisfactory as is the temporal stability of the IPS scores. Third, the correlations encountered between the IPS scores and other measures of procrastination, personality traits and satisfaction with life are all in the expected direction and magnitude. Finally, consistent with previous research, procrastination is related to age, with the youngest being the most procrastinating group. This study represents the first attempt in adapting and validating the IPS measure of procrastination into Spanish. Results suggest that the Spanish version of the IPS offers valid and reliable scores when applied to adult population. PMID:29304119

Validation of the Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS).

Science.gov (United States)

Guilera, Georgina; Barrios, Maite; Penelo, Eva; Morin, Christopher; Steel, Piers; Gómez-Benito, Juana

2018-01-01

The present study is centered in adapting and validating a Spanish version of the Irrational Procrastination Scale (IPS). The sample consists of 365 adults aged 18-77 years (M = 37.70, SD = 12.64). Participants were administered two measures of procrastination, the IPS and the Decisional Procrastination Questionnaire, as well as the Big Five Inventory, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. First, the factor and replication analysis revealed that the internal structure of the scale is clearly one-dimensional, supporting the idea that IPS seems to measure general procrastination as a single trait. Second, the internal consistency is satisfactory as is the temporal stability of the IPS scores. Third, the correlations encountered between the IPS scores and other measures of procrastination, personality traits and satisfaction with life are all in the expected direction and magnitude. Finally, consistent with previous research, procrastination is related to age, with the youngest being the most procrastinating group. This study represents the first attempt in adapting and validating the IPS measure of procrastination into Spanish. Results suggest that the Spanish version of the IPS offers valid and reliable scores when applied to adult population.

What keeps Melbourne GPs satisfied in their jobs?

Science.gov (United States)

Walker, Kate Anne; Pirotta, Marie

2007-10-01

Workforce shortages make it important to promote job satisfaction and career longevity in general practitioners. We aimed to investigate strategies that maintain and improve Melbourne (Victoria) GP job satisfaction. A postal survey of a random selection of The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners vocationally recognised GPs (N=860). Open ended answers were coded according to themes and compared between genders. Thirty-eight percent of surveyed GPs responded. The mean satisfaction score was 50 out of 70 (SD 9). Women GPs were more satisfied than men with life-work balance (pwork and intellectual stimulation. Strategies to improve GP satisfaction were increased pay, reduced paperwork, and improved administrative systems. General practitioners were satisfied with their jobs due to the intrinsic qualities of their work and workplace. Decreasing the administrative burden, increasing remuneration and improving practice supports may improve metropolitan GP job satisfaction.

Modification of irrational ideas and test anxiety through rational stage directed hypnotherapy [RSDH].

Science.gov (United States)

Boutin, G E; Tosi, D J

1983-05-01

Examined the effects of four treatment conditions on the modification of Irrational Ideas and test anxiety in female nursing students. The treatments were Rational Stage Directed Hypnotherapy, a cognitive behavioral approach that utilized hypnosis and vivid-emotive-imagery, a hypnosis-only treatment, a placebo condition, and a no-treatment control. The 48 Ss were assigned randomly to one of these treatment groups, which met for 1 hour per week for 6 consecutive weeks with in-vivo homework assignments also utilized. Statistically significant treatment effects on cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological measures were noted for both the RSDH and hypnosis group at the posttest and at a 2-month follow-up. Post-hoc analyses revealed the RSDH treatment group to be significantly more effective than the hypnosis only group on both the post- and follow-up tests. The placebo and control groups showed no significant effects either at post-treatment or at follow-up.

Partially satisfied to fully satisfied transitions in co-evolving inverse voter model and possible scaling behavior

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, C.W.; Xu, C.; Hui, P.M.

2015-01-01

Understanding co-evolving networks characterized by the mutual influence of agents' actions and network structure remains a challenge. We study a co-evolving inverse voter model in which agents adapt to achieve a preferred environment with more opposite-opinion neighbors by rewiring their connections and switching opinion. Numerical studies reveal a transition from a dynamic partially satisfied phase to a frozen fully satisfied phase as the rewiring probability is varied. A simple mean field theory is shown to capture the behavior only qualitatively. An improved mean field theory carrying a longer spatial correlation gives better results. Motivated by numerical results in networks of different degrees and mean field results, we propose a scaling variable that combines the rewiring probability and mean degree in a special form. The scaling variable is shown to work well in analyzing data corresponding to different networks and different rewiring probabilities. An application is to predict the results for networks of different degrees based solely on results obtained from networks of one degree. Studying scaling behavior provides an alternative path for understanding co-evolving agent-based dynamical systems, especially in light of the trade-off between complexity of a theory and its accuracy. - Highlights: • Identified key features and phase transitions in coevolving inverse voter model. • Constructed a better theory incorporating longer spatial correlation. • Proposed scaling variable and illustrated possible scaling behavior. • Used scaling behavior to predict results of IVM in a different network.

[Intel random number generator-based true random number generator].

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Feng; Shen, Hong

2004-09-01

To establish a true random number generator on the basis of certain Intel chips. The random numbers were acquired by programming using Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 via register reading from the random number generator (RNG) unit of an Intel 815 chipset-based computer with Intel Security Driver (ISD). We tested the generator with 500 random numbers in NIST FIPS 140-1 and X(2) R-Squared test, and the result showed that the random number it generated satisfied the demand of independence and uniform distribution. We also compared the random numbers generated by Intel RNG-based true random number generator and those from the random number table statistically, by using the same amount of 7500 random numbers in the same value domain, which showed that the SD, SE and CV of Intel RNG-based random number generator were less than those of the random number table. The result of u test of two CVs revealed no significant difference between the two methods. Intel RNG-based random number generator can produce high-quality random numbers with good independence and uniform distribution, and solves some problems with random number table in acquisition of the random numbers.

Energy levels of one-dimensional systems satisfying the minimal length uncertainty relation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bernardo, Reginald Christian S., E-mail: rcbernardo@nip.upd.edu.ph; Esguerra, Jose Perico H., E-mail: jesguerra@nip.upd.edu.ph

2016-10-15

The standard approach to calculating the energy levels for quantum systems satisfying the minimal length uncertainty relation is to solve an eigenvalue problem involving a fourth- or higher-order differential equation in quasiposition space. It is shown that the problem can be reformulated so that the energy levels of these systems can be obtained by solving only a second-order quasiposition eigenvalue equation. Through this formulation the energy levels are calculated for the following potentials: particle in a box, harmonic oscillator, Pöschl–Teller well, Gaussian well, and double-Gaussian well. For the particle in a box, the second-order quasiposition eigenvalue equation is a second-order differential equation with constant coefficients. For the harmonic oscillator, Pöschl–Teller well, Gaussian well, and double-Gaussian well, a method that involves using Wronskians has been used to solve the second-order quasiposition eigenvalue equation. It is observed for all of these quantum systems that the introduction of a nonzero minimal length uncertainty induces a positive shift in the energy levels. It is shown that the calculation of energy levels in systems satisfying the minimal length uncertainty relation is not limited to a small number of problems like particle in a box and the harmonic oscillator but can be extended to a wider class of problems involving potentials such as the Pöschl–Teller and Gaussian wells.

Constraint programming for modelling and solving modal satisfiability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brand, S.; Gennari, R.; de Rijke, M.

2003-01-01

We explore to what extent and how efficiently constraint programmingcan be used in the context of automated reasoning for modal logics. We encode modal satisfiability problems as constraint satisfactionproblems with non-boolean domains, together with suitable constraints.Experiments show that the

Branding and Positioning to Satisfy the Customer's Appetite: An Educational Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Ham, Tim

2010-01-01

Rebranding and positioning a school district has become critical to satisfy the "customer's" appetite, enhance public relations, and advance consumer perceptions. A service design model provides a district with the framework to advance its position by identifying attributes and prompts to satisfy customer needs and increase student…

Explaining sex differences in managerial career satisfier preferences: the role of gender self-schema.

Science.gov (United States)

Eddleston, Kimberly A; Veiga, John F; Powell, Gary N

2006-03-01

Using survey data from 400 managers, the authors examined whether gender self-schema would explain sex differences in preferences for status-based and socioemotional career satisfiers. Female gender self-schema, represented by femininity and family role salience, completely mediated the relationship between managers' sex and preferences for socioemotional career satisfiers. However, male gender self-schema, represented by masculinity and career role salience, did not mediate the relationship between managers' sex and preferences for status-based career satisfiers. As expected, male managers regarded status-based career satisfiers as more important and socioemotional career satisfiers as less important than female managers did. The proposed conceptualization of male and female gender self-schemas, which was supported by the data, enhances understanding of adult self-schema and work-related attitudes and behavior.

Anatomy of Alternating Quantifier Satisfiability (Work in progress)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dung, Phan Anh; Bjørner, Nikolaj; Monniaux, David

We report on work in progress to generalize an algorithm recently introduced in [10] for checking satisfiability of formulas with quantifier alternation. The algorithm uses two auxiliary procedures: a procedure for producing a candidate formula for quantifier elimination and a procedure for elimi...

The golden mean, scale free extension of real number system, fuzzy sets and 1/f spectrum in physics and biology

CERN Document Server

Datta, D P

2003-01-01

We show that the generic 1/f spectrum problem acquires a natural explanation in a class of scale free solutions to the ordinary differential equations. We prove the existence and uniqueness of this class of solutions and show how this leads to a nonstandard, fuzzy extension of the ordinary framework of calculus, and hence, that of the classical dynamics and quantum mechanics. The exceptional role of the golden mean irrational number is also explained.

The golden mean, scale free extension of real number system, fuzzy sets and 1/f spectrum in physics and biology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Datta, Dhurjati Prasad

2003-01-01

We show that the generic 1/f spectrum problem acquires a natural explanation in a class of scale free solutions to the ordinary differential equations. We prove the existence and uniqueness of this class of solutions and show how this leads to a nonstandard, fuzzy extension of the ordinary framework of calculus, and hence, that of the classical dynamics and quantum mechanics. The exceptional role of the golden mean irrational number is also explained

Who to Blame: Irrational Decision-Makers or Stupid Modelers? (Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists Lecture)

Science.gov (United States)

Madani, Kaveh

2016-04-01

Water management benefits from a suite of modelling tools and techniques that help simplifying and understanding the complexities involved in managing water resource systems. Early water management models were mainly concerned with optimizing a single objective, related to the design, operations or management of water resource systems (e.g. economic cost, hydroelectricity production, reliability of water deliveries). Significant improvements in methodologies, computational capacity, and data availability over the last decades have resulted in developing more complex water management models that can now incorporate multiple objectives, various uncertainties, and big data. These models provide an improved understanding of complex water resource systems and provide opportunities for making positive impacts. Nevertheless, there remains an alarming mismatch between the optimal solutions developed by these models and the decisions made by managers and stakeholders of water resource systems. Modelers continue to consider decision makers as irrational agents who fail to implement the optimal solutions developed by sophisticated and mathematically rigours water management models. On the other hand, decision makers and stakeholders accuse modelers of being idealist, lacking a perfect understanding of reality, and developing 'smart' solutions that are not practical (stable). In this talk I will have a closer look at the mismatch between the optimality and stability of solutions and argue that conventional water resources management models suffer inherently from a full-cooperation assumption. According to this assumption, water resources management decisions are based on group rationality where in practice decisions are often based on individual rationality, making the group's optimal solution unstable for individually rational decision makers. I discuss how game theory can be used as an appropriate framework for addressing the irrational "rationality assumption" of water

Fractional Stochastic Differential Equations Satisfying Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Lei; Liu, Jian-Guo; Lu, Jianfeng

2017-10-01

We propose in this work a fractional stochastic differential equation (FSDE) model consistent with the over-damped limit of the generalized Langevin equation model. As a result of the `fluctuation-dissipation theorem', the differential equations driven by fractional Brownian noise to model memory effects should be paired with Caputo derivatives, and this FSDE model should be understood in an integral form. We establish the existence of strong solutions for such equations and discuss the ergodicity and convergence to Gibbs measure. In the linear forcing regime, we show rigorously the algebraic convergence to Gibbs measure when the `fluctuation-dissipation theorem' is satisfied, and this verifies that satisfying `fluctuation-dissipation theorem' indeed leads to the correct physical behavior. We further discuss possible approaches to analyze the ergodicity and convergence to Gibbs measure in the nonlinear forcing regime, while leave the rigorous analysis for future works. The FSDE model proposed is suitable for systems in contact with heat bath with power-law kernel and subdiffusion behaviors.

Simulating irrational human behavior to prevent resource depletion.

Science.gov (United States)

Sircova, Anna; Karimi, Fariba; Osin, Evgeny N; Lee, Sungmin; Holme, Petter; Strömbom, Daniel

2015-01-01

In a situation with a limited common resource, cooperation between individuals sharing the resource is essential. However, people often act upon self-interest in irrational ways that threaten the long-term survival of the whole group. A lack of sustainable or environmentally responsible behavior is often observed. In this study, we examine how the maximization of benefits principle works in a wider social interactive context of personality preferences in order to gain a more realistic insight into the evolution of cooperation. We used time perspective (TP), a concept reflecting individual differences in orientation towards past, present, or future, and relevant for making sustainable choices. We developed a personality-driven agent-based model that explores the role of personality in the outcomes of social dilemmas and includes multiple facets of diversity: (1) The agents have different behavior strategies: individual differences derived by applying cluster analysis to survey data from 22 countries (N = 10,940) and resulting in 7 cross-cultural profiles of TP; (2) The non-uniform distribution of the types of agents across countries; (3) The diverse interactions between the agents; and (4) diverse responses to those interactions in a well-mixed population. As one of the results, we introduced an index of overall cooperation for each of the 22 countries, which was validated against cultural, economic, and sustainability indicators (HDI, dimensions of national culture, and Environment Performance Index). It was associated with higher human development, higher individualism, lower power distance, and better environmental performance. The findings illustrate how individual differences in TP can be simulated to predict the ways people in different countries solve the personal vs. common gain dilemma in the global limited-resource situation. This interdisciplinary approach to social simulation can be adopted to explain the possible causes of global environmental issues

Simulating irrational human behavior to prevent resource depletion.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Sircova

Full Text Available In a situation with a limited common resource, cooperation between individuals sharing the resource is essential. However, people often act upon self-interest in irrational ways that threaten the long-term survival of the whole group. A lack of sustainable or environmentally responsible behavior is often observed. In this study, we examine how the maximization of benefits principle works in a wider social interactive context of personality preferences in order to gain a more realistic insight into the evolution of cooperation. We used time perspective (TP, a concept reflecting individual differences in orientation towards past, present, or future, and relevant for making sustainable choices. We developed a personality-driven agent-based model that explores the role of personality in the outcomes of social dilemmas and includes multiple facets of diversity: (1 The agents have different behavior strategies: individual differences derived by applying cluster analysis to survey data from 22 countries (N = 10,940 and resulting in 7 cross-cultural profiles of TP; (2 The non-uniform distribution of the types of agents across countries; (3 The diverse interactions between the agents; and (4 diverse responses to those interactions in a well-mixed population. As one of the results, we introduced an index of overall cooperation for each of the 22 countries, which was validated against cultural, economic, and sustainability indicators (HDI, dimensions of national culture, and Environment Performance Index. It was associated with higher human development, higher individualism, lower power distance, and better environmental performance. The findings illustrate how individual differences in TP can be simulated to predict the ways people in different countries solve the personal vs. common gain dilemma in the global limited-resource situation. This interdisciplinary approach to social simulation can be adopted to explain the possible causes of global

John Knopfmacher, [Abstract] Analytic Number Theory, and the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Abstract. In this paper some important contributions of John Knopfmacher to ' Analytic Number Theory' are described. This theory investigates semigroups with countably many generators (generalized 'primes'), with a norm map (or a 'degree map'), and satisfying certain conditions on the number of elements with norm less

The annual number of days that solar heated water satisfies a specified demand temperature

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yohanis, Y.G. [Thermal Systems Engineering Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Ulster, BT37 0QB Northern Ireland (United Kingdom); Popel, O.; Frid, S.E. [Non-traditional Renewable Energy Sources, Institute for High Temperatures, Russian Academy of Sciences, 13/19 Izhorskaya str., IVTAN, Moscow 127412 (Russian Federation); Norton, B. [Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier Street, Dublin 2 (Ireland)

2006-08-15

An analysis of solar water heating systems determines the number of days in each month when solar heated water wholly meets demand above a set temperature. The approach has been used to investigate the potential contribution to water heating loads of solar water heating in two UK locations. Correlations between the approach developed and the use of solar fractions are discussed. (author)

When Irrational Biases Are Smart: A Fuzzy-Trace Theory of Complex Decision Making

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Valerie Reyna

2018-06-01

Full Text Available I take a decision-making approach to consider ways of addressing the “unresolved and dramatic problems in the world”. Traditional approaches to good decision-making are reviewed. These approaches reduce complex decisions to tradeoffs between magnitudes of probabilities, and outcomes in which the quantity and precision of information are key to making good decisions. I discuss a contrasting framework, called “fuzzy-trace theory”, which emphasizes understanding the simple gist of options and applying core social and moral values. Importantly, the tendency to rely on meaningful but simple gist increases from childhood to adulthood (or, in adulthood, as people gain experience in a domain, so that specific irrational biases grow with knowledge and experience. As predicted theoretically, these violations of rationality in the traditional sense are associated empirically with healthier and more adaptive outcomes. Thus, interventions that help decision makers understand the essential gist of their options and how it connects to core values are practical approaches to reducing “unresolved and dramatic problems in the world” one decision at a time.

Quantum random number generator

Science.gov (United States)

Soubusta, Jan; Haderka, Ondrej; Hendrych, Martin

2001-03-01

Since reflection or transmission of a quantum particle on a beamsplitter is inherently random quantum process, a device built on this principle does not suffer from drawbacks of neither pseudo-random computer generators or classical noise sources. Nevertheless, a number of physical conditions necessary for high quality random numbers generation must be satisfied. Luckily, in quantum optics realization they can be well controlled. We present an easy random number generator based on the division of weak light pulses on a beamsplitter. The randomness of the generated bit stream is supported by passing the data through series of 15 statistical test. The device generates at a rate of 109.7 kbit/s.

Australian primary health care nurses most and least satisfying aspects of work.

Science.gov (United States)

Halcomb, Elizabeth; Ashley, Christine

2017-02-01

To identify the aspects of working in Australian primary health care that nurses rate as the most and least satisfying. The nursing workforce in Australian primary health care has grown exponentially to meet the growing demand for health care. To maintain and further growth requires the recruitment and retention of nurses to this setting. Understanding the factors that nurses' rate as the most and least satisfying about their job will inform strategies to enhance nurse retention. A cross-sectional online survey. Nurses employed in primary health care settings across Australia were recruited (n = 1166) to participate in a survey which combined items related to the respondent, their job, type of work, clinical activities, job satisfaction and future intention, with two open-ended items about the most and least satisfying aspects of their work. Patient interactions, respect, teamwork, collegiality and autonomy were identified as the most satisfying professional aspects of their role. Personal considerations such as family friendly work arrangements and a satisfactory work-life balance were also important, overriding negative components of the role. The least satisfying aspects were poor financial support and remuneration, lack of a career path, physical work environment and time constraints. National restructuring of the primary health care environment was seen as a barrier to role stability and ability to work to a full scope of practice. This study has identified a range of positive and negative professional and personal aspects of the primary health care nursing role, which may impact on staff recruitment and retention. Findings from the study should be considered by employers seeking to retain and maximise the skills of their primary health care workforce. Understanding the factors that nurses perceive as being the most and least satisfying aspects of the work is can open up dialogue about how to improve the working experience of nurses in primary health care. �

Overcoming state within the Friedrich Nietzsche’s irrational approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. F. Zakharchuk

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes the views of Nietzsche on the nature and significance of the state in the context of socio-political issues. Examines how the criticism of Nietzsche for the state’s phenomenon is related to his irrational approach to the socio-political sphere, and therefore also raises the question of the possibility of attracting these Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas regarding the institution of the state to understanding contemporary socio-political processes. For the disclosure of the above tasks in the work undertaken analysis of the Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas in terms of their correlation with some general philosophical ideas of the German philosopher. In particular understanding of Nietzsche role of the state has been analyzed in the context of ideas like the idea of a hierarchical society, the idea of the superman, the idea of true morality. These ideas go beyond the purely social and philosophical beliefs of the thinker, but they are essential for understanding the logic and purposes of the consideration of the Nietzschean idea of the state. These ideas have been analyzed in the study mainly critically, in particular given the Nietzsche’s controversial assessment of state as a negative phenomenon and situational positive assessment of the state’s role. It is noted that this duality of Nietzsche in this issue is just due to the formulation of more general philosophical problems then was stated above. At the same time, the work focuses on the possibility of positive reading Nietzsche’s position on the state, which is associated with the idea of the free will of the individual opposed to the dictates of the enslaved majority.

Does horizon entropy satisfy a quantum null energy conjecture?

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, Zicao; Marolf, Donald

2016-12-01

A modern version of the idea that the area of event horizons gives 4G times an entropy is the Hubeny-Rangamani causal holographic information (CHI) proposal for holographic field theories. Given a region R of a holographic QFTs, CHI computes A/4G on a certain cut of an event horizon in the gravitational dual. The result is naturally interpreted as a coarse-grained entropy for the QFT. CHI is known to be finitely greater than the fine-grained Hubeny-Rangamani-Takayanagi (HRT) entropy when \\partial R lies on a Killing horizon of the QFT spacetime, and in this context satisfies other non-trivial properties expected of an entropy. Here we present evidence that it also satisfies the quantum null energy condition (QNEC), which bounds the second derivative of the entropy of a quantum field theory on one side of a non-expanding null surface by the flux of stress-energy across the surface. In particular, we show CHI to satisfy the QNEC in 1  +  1 holographic CFTs when evaluated in states dual to conical defects in AdS3. This surprising result further supports the idea that CHI defines a useful notion of coarse-grained holographic entropy, and suggests unprecedented bounds on the rate at which bulk horizon generators emerge from a caustic. To supplement our motivation, we include an appendix deriving a corresponding coarse-grained generalized second law for 1  +  1 holographic CFTs perturbatively coupled to dilaton gravity.

A Geometrical Application of Number Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Srinivasan, V. K.

2013-01-01

Any quadruple of natural numbers {a, b, c, d} is called a "Pythagorean quadruple" if it satisfies the relationship "a[superscript 2] + b[superscript 2] + c[superscript 2]". This "Pythagorean quadruple" can always be identified with a rectangular box of dimensions "a greater than 0," "b greater than…

Rationalising the 'irrational': a think aloud study of discrete choice experiment responses.

Science.gov (United States)

Ryan, Mandy; Watson, Verity; Entwistle, Vikki

2009-03-01

Stated preference methods assume respondents' preferences are consistent with utility theory, but many empirical studies report evidence of preferences that violate utility theory. This evidence is often derived from quantitative tests that occur naturally within, or are added to, stated preference tasks. In this study, we use qualitative methods to explore three axioms of utility theory: completeness, monotonicity, and continuity. We take a novel approach, adopting a 'think aloud' technique to identify violations of the axioms of utility theory and to consider how well the quantitative tests incorporated within a discrete choice experiment are able to detect these. Results indicate that quantitative tests classify respondents as being 'irrational' when qualitative statements would indicate they are 'rational'. In particular, 'non-monotonic' responses can often be explained by respondents inferring additional information beyond what is presented in the task, and individuals who appear to adopt non-compensatory decision-making strategies do so because they rate particular attributes very highly (they are not attempting to simplify the task). The results also provide evidence of 'cost-based responses': respondents assumed tests with higher costs would be of higher quality. The value of including in-depth qualitative validation techniques in the development of stated preference tasks is shown.

Maximum-principle-satisfying space-time conservation element and solution element scheme applied to compressible multifluids

KAUST Repository

Shen, Hua; Wen, Chih-Yung; Parsani, Matteo; Shu, Chi-Wang

2016-01-01

A maximum-principle-satisfying space-time conservation element and solution element (CE/SE) scheme is constructed to solve a reduced five-equation model coupled with the stiffened equation of state for compressible multifluids. We first derive a sufficient condition for CE/SE schemes to satisfy maximum-principle when solving a general conservation law. And then we introduce a slope limiter to ensure the sufficient condition which is applicative for both central and upwind CE/SE schemes. Finally, we implement the upwind maximum-principle-satisfying CE/SE scheme to solve the volume-fraction-based five-equation model for compressible multifluids. Several numerical examples are carried out to carefully examine the accuracy, efficiency, conservativeness and maximum-principle-satisfying property of the proposed approach.

Maximum-principle-satisfying space-time conservation element and solution element scheme applied to compressible multifluids

KAUST Repository

Shen, Hua

2016-10-19

A maximum-principle-satisfying space-time conservation element and solution element (CE/SE) scheme is constructed to solve a reduced five-equation model coupled with the stiffened equation of state for compressible multifluids. We first derive a sufficient condition for CE/SE schemes to satisfy maximum-principle when solving a general conservation law. And then we introduce a slope limiter to ensure the sufficient condition which is applicative for both central and upwind CE/SE schemes. Finally, we implement the upwind maximum-principle-satisfying CE/SE scheme to solve the volume-fraction-based five-equation model for compressible multifluids. Several numerical examples are carried out to carefully examine the accuracy, efficiency, conservativeness and maximum-principle-satisfying property of the proposed approach.

Crenças irracionais, ajustamento psicológico e satisfação de vida em estudantes universitários Irrational beliefs, psychological adjustment and life satisfaction in college students

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adriana da Matta

2009-04-01

Full Text Available Crenças irracionais (CIs são interpretações ilógicas da realidade que colaboram para o desenvolvimento de perturbações emocionais. A premissa deste estudo é que as CIs podem estar relacionadas ao ajustamento emocional e à satisfação de vida. Estudantes universitários (n=157, responderam ao Questionário de Crenças Irracionais, à Escala de Crenças Irracionais, à Escala Fatorial de Neuroticismo e à Escala de Satisfação de Vida. As CIs apresentaram correlações positivas com dois fatores da Escala Fatorial de Neuroticismo (Vulnerabilidade e Ansiedade e negativa com idade e com satisfação de vida. Os resultados levam a reflexões importantes sobre a efetividade da Terapia Cognitiva, em especial da Terapia Racional Emotivo-Comportamental, para o ajustamento emocional e para a satisfação de vida dos clientes, que poderiam ser medidas indiretas de sucesso terapêutico.Irrational beliefs (IB are illogical interpretations of reality that contribute to the development of emotional problems. This study aims to show that irrational beliefs in college students (n=157 might be related to emotional adjustment and life satisfaction. The participants have completed Irrational Beliefs Questionnaire, Neuroticism Factorial Scale and Life Satisfaction Scale. The IB showed positive correlation with two factors of the Neuroticism Factorial Scale (Vulnerability and Anxiety, and negative correlation with age and life satisfaction. The results suggest important considerations on the effectiveness of Cognitive Therapy, especially of Rational Emotive Therapy, for the emotional adjustment and life satisfaction of the clients, which could be an indirect measure of the therapeutic success.

Social balance as a satisfiability problem of computer science.

Science.gov (United States)

Radicchi, Filippo; Vilone, Daniele; Yoon, Sooeyon; Meyer-Ortmanns, Hildegard

2007-02-01

Reduction of frustration was the driving force in an approach to social balance as it was recently considered by Antal [T. Antal, P. L. Krapivsky, and S. Redner, Phys. Rev. E 72, 036121 (2005)]. We generalize their triad dynamics to k-cycle dynamics for arbitrary integer k. We derive the phase structure, determine the stationary solutions, and calculate the time it takes to reach a frozen state. The main difference in the phase structure as a function of k is related to k being even or odd. As a second generalization we dilute the all-to-all coupling as considered by Antal to a random network with connection probability wcomputer science. The phase of social balance in our original interpretation then becomes the phase of satisfaction of all logical clauses in the satisfiability problem. In common to the cases we study, the ideal solution without any frustration always exists, but the question actually is as to whether this solution can be found by means of a local stochastic algorithm within a finite time. The answer depends on the choice of parameters. After establishing the mapping between the two classes of models, we generalize the social-balance problem to a diluted network topology for which the satisfiability problem is usually studied. On the other hand, in connection with the satisfiability problem we generalize the random local algorithm to a p-random local algorithm, including a parameter p that corresponds to the propensity parameter in the social balance problem. The qualitative effect of the inclusion of this parameter is a bias towards the optimal solution and a reduction of the needed simulation time.

Orthology and paralogy constraints: satisfiability and consistency.

Science.gov (United States)

Lafond, Manuel; El-Mabrouk, Nadia

2014-01-01

A variety of methods based on sequence similarity, reconciliation, synteny or functional characteristics, can be used to infer orthology and paralogy relations between genes of a given gene family  G. But is a given set  C of orthology/paralogy constraints possible, i.e., can they simultaneously co-exist in an evolutionary history for  G? While previous studies have focused on full sets of constraints, here we consider the general case where  C does not necessarily involve a constraint for each pair of genes. The problem is subdivided in two parts: (1) Is  C satisfiable, i.e. can we find an event-labeled gene tree G inducing  C? (2) Is there such a G which is consistent, i.e., such that all displayed triplet phylogenies are included in a species tree? Previous results on the Graph sandwich problem can be used to answer to (1), and we provide polynomial-time algorithms for satisfiability and consistency with a given species tree. We also describe a new polynomial-time algorithm for the case of consistency with an unknown species tree and full knowledge of pairwise orthology/paralogy relationships, as well as a branch-and-bound algorithm in the case when unknown relations are present. We show that our algorithms can be used in combination with ProteinOrtho, a sequence similarity-based orthology detection tool, to extract a set of robust orthology/paralogy relationships.

Multipath Detection Using Boolean Satisfiability Techniques

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fadi A. Aloul

2011-01-01

Full Text Available A new technique for multipath detection in wideband mobile radio systems is presented. The proposed scheme is based on an intelligent search algorithm using Boolean Satisfiability (SAT techniques to search through the uncertainty region of the multipath delays. The SAT-based scheme utilizes the known structure of the transmitted wideband signal, for example, pseudo-random (PN code, to effectively search through the entire space by eliminating subspaces that do not contain a possible solution. The paper presents a framework for modeling the multipath detection problem as a SAT application. It also provides simulation results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in detecting the multipath components in frequency-selective Rayleigh fading channels.

Solving satisfiability problems by the ground-state quantum computer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mao Wenjin

2005-01-01

A quantum algorithm is proposed to solve the satisfiability (SAT) problems by the ground-state quantum computer. The scale of the energy gap of the ground-state quantum computer is analyzed for the 3-bit exact cover problem. The time cost of this algorithm on the general SAT problems is discussed

Thierry De Putter, a geologist faced to the ''irrational'' fear of radioactive wastes; Thierry De Putter, un geologue face a la peur ''irrationnelle'' des dechets radioactifs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Putter, Th. de [Musee Royal de l' Afrique Centrale, Geologie Isotopique, Tervuren (Belgium); Pivot, A. [Paris-10 Univ., Sociologue, Ladyss/NSS, Maison Max Weber, 92 - Nanterre (France)

2004-06-01

The author analyses the origins of the irrational fear the public feels concerning the disposal of radioactive wastes in deep geological layers. This fear seems to be linked to the positive image of the earth that has been built for millenniums in all humane civilizations, according to it the earth appears as a universal, pure and prolific mother. The burial of radioactive wastes might be considered in an unconscious way as a direct and permanent threat to the integrity of the earth. In fact the earth is not so fragile, it has already undergone catastrophes worse than these that are looming like climate changing or extinction of species, but what is true is that humane civilizations settled on its surface are very fragile. Irrational fear might be an acute and unconscious awareness of this fragility. (A.C.)

Complementary Set Matrices Satisfying a Column Correlation Constraint

OpenAIRE

Wu, Di; Spasojevic, Predrag

2006-01-01

Motivated by the problem of reducing the peak to average power ratio (PAPR) of transmitted signals, we consider a design of complementary set matrices whose column sequences satisfy a correlation constraint. The design algorithm recursively builds a collection of $2^{t+1}$ mutually orthogonal (MO) complementary set matrices starting from a companion pair of sequences. We relate correlation properties of column sequences to that of the companion pair and illustrate how to select an appropriate...

Using a satisfiability solver to identify deterministic finite state automata

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Heule, M.J.H.; Verwer, S.

2009-01-01

We present an exact algorithm for identification of deterministic finite automata (DFA) which is based on satisfiability (SAT) solvers. Despite the size of the low level SAT representation, our approach seems to be competitive with alternative techniques. Our contributions are threefold: First, we

The Dilemma of Irrational Antibiotic and Corticosteroid Prescription in Iran: How Much It Can Affect the Medicine Expenditures?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Parisa Mehdizadeh

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In recent years the high cost of medicines and the lack of it were one of the major problems in developing countries that despite numerous efforts to solve the root causes of this problem, the issue remains, unfortunately. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the impact of antibiotics and corticosteroids prescription on the medicines expenditures. This was descriptive-analytical study that conducted to assess the function of medical expenditures through prescription letters and analysis the factors affecting medicine expenditures. We used the data of 91,994,667 selected prescription letters that were collected by the Ministry of the Health and Medical Education (MOHME throughout the country in the year 2011 which was analyzed through a logarithmic regression model and OLS estimator. The average number of prescription items in each prescription letter were varied from 2.7 to 3.6, and the average price of each letter was varied from 30223 to 69986 Rials. Between 39 to 61 percent of prescription letters containing antibiotic items and between 15 and 35% of them contain corticosteroids. Also, the impact of antibiotic and corticosteroid prescriptions on the average expenditure of prescription letters were -1.4 and 0.032 respectively. Excessive and irrational prescribing had the greatest impact on medicine expenditures. On the other hand, the expenditure of prescription letters had the negative elasticity to antibiotics prescription and relatively inelastic for corticosteroids. So, raising the price of medications to reduce the use of them could not play a successful role in a control policy.

The Dilemma of Irrational Antibiotic and Corticosteroid Prescription in Iran: How Much It Can Affect the Medicine Expenditures?

Science.gov (United States)

Mehdizadeh, Parisa; Dopeykar, Nooredin; Meskarpour-Amiri, Mohammad; Zekri, Hediyeh; Salesi, Mahmoud

2017-10-01

In recent years the high cost of medicines and the lack of it were one of the major problems in developing countries that despite numerous efforts to solve the root causes of this problem, the issue remains, unfortunately. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the impact of antibiotics and corticosteroids prescription on the medicines expenditures. This was descriptive-analytical study that conducted to assess the function of medical expenditures through prescription letters and analysis the factors affecting medicine expenditures. We used the data of 91,994,667 selected prescription letters that were collected by the Ministry of the Health and Medical Education (MOHME) throughout the country in the year 2011 which was analyzed through a logarithmic regression model and OLS estimator. The average number of prescription items in each prescription letter were varied from 2.7 to 3.6, and the average price of each letter was varied from 30223 to 69986 Rials. Between 39 to 61 percent of prescription letters containing antibiotic items and between 15 and 35% of them contain corticosteroids. Also, the impact of antibiotic and corticosteroid prescriptions on the average expenditure of prescription letters were -1.4 and 0.032 respectively. Excessive and irrational prescribing had the greatest impact on medicine expenditures. On the other hand, the expenditure of prescription letters had the negative elasticity to antibiotics prescription and relatively inelastic for corticosteroids. So, raising the price of medications to reduce the use of them could not play a successful role in a control policy.

On the satisfiability of quantum circuits of small treewidth

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

de Oliveira Oliveira, Mateus

2017-01-01

Roč. 61, č. 2 (2017), s. 656-688 ISSN 1432-4350 EU Projects: European Commission(XE) 339691 - FEALORA Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : treewidth * satisfiability of quantum circuits * tensor networks * Merlin-Arthur protocols Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics OBOR OECD: Pure mathematics Impact factor: 0.645, year: 2016 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00224-016-9727-8

Rationality and irrationality in estimating the risks of nuclear waste disposal

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Freudenburg, W.R.

1987-01-01

In addition to their intrinsic or ''academic'' interest, public perceptions of risks have begun to receive increased scientific attention for at least three reasons that are directly relevant to waste disposal. The first and most commonly recognized reason is that, if people perceive a problem to be real, it will be real in its consequences. This means that unless public perceptions are taken explicitly into account, decisionmaking will be based on inaccurate information, and the impacts of developments will not be properly understood, predicted, or mitigated. The second reason is that, now that perceptions are beginning to be the focus of increased scientific inquiry, the nature of public perceptions is beginning to be better understood. It is becoming clear that it is not accurate to characterize public perceptions and being simply unpredictable or ''irrational,'' and studies are making considerable progress in documenting the factors that tend to influence public perceptions of facilities such as nuclear waste repositories. Third, increasing evidence indicates that the real-versus-perceived distinction is not as clear as was once assumed, and for two reasons. One reason is that, while expert judgments are often taken as representing ''real'' risks for decisionmaking purposes, it is impossible to know the ''real'' risks of technologies for which little or no actual operating experience has accumulated, and expert judgments often prove under closer scrutiny to express the scientists' values as well as science's facts. The other reason is that the broader public's perceptions now appear to reflect more wisdom than was at first apparent

Some properties of the functions satisfying Bell's inequalities in relation to quantum mechanics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roussel, P.

1986-01-01

A detailed comparison of Bell's inequalities (B.I.) and quantum mechanics (Q.M.) in an E.P.R.B. situation is given. It is first shown that Q.M. violates the original (3 directions) or generalized (4 directions) B.I. almost everywhere. The properties of functions satisfying the original B.I. are then derived and compared to Q.M. predictions. Finally, the behaviour of functions which satisfy B.I. and attempt to fit Q.M. is described. Altogether, an incompatibility is shown to be stronger than that resulting from just the usual examination

Equation satisfied by electron-electron mutual Coulomb repulsion energy density functional

OpenAIRE

Joubert, Daniel P.

2011-01-01

The electron-electron mutual Coulomb repulsion energy density functional satisfies an equation that links functionals and functional derivatives at N-electron and (N-1)-electron densities for densities determined from the same adiabatic scaled external potential for the N-electron system.

The cross-cultural importance of satisfying vital needs.

Science.gov (United States)

Alvarez, Allen Andrew A

2009-11-01

Ethical beliefs may vary across cultures but there are things that must be valued as preconditions to any cultural practice. Physical and mental abilities vital to believing, valuing and practising a culture are such preconditions and it is always important to protect them. If one is to practise a distinct culture, she must at least have these basic abilities. Access to basic healthcare is one way to ensure that vital abilities are protected. John Rawls argued that access to all-purpose primary goods must be ensured. Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum claim that universal capabilities are what resources are meant to enable. Len Doyal and Ian Gough identify physical health and autonomy as basic needs of every person in every culture. When we disagree on what to prioritize, when resources to satisfy competing demands are scarce, our common needs can provide a point of normative convergence. Need-based rationing, however, has been criticized for being too indeterminate to give guidance for deciding which healthcare services to prioritize and for tending to create a bottomless-pit problem. But there is a difference between needing something (first-order need) and needing to have the ability to need (second-order need). Even if we disagree about which first-order need to prioritize, we must accept the importance of satisfying our second-order need to have the ability to value things. We all have a second-order need for basic healthcare as a means to protect our vital abilities even if we differ in what our cultures consider to be particular first-order needs.

Frustrated Achievers or Satisfied Losers? Inter- and Intragenerational Social Mobility and Happiness in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emma Zang

2016-09-01

Full Text Available How and to what extent is rank mobility associated with happiness of the Chinese population? Does mobility provide insight into the vast numbers of frustrated workers in times of economic growth? To date, few studies have examined the consequences of social mobility on happiness in transitional societies. The present analysis investigates the association of both inter- and intragenerational rank mobility with happiness in China using data from the General Social Survey's 2003, 2006, and 2008 waves. We examine two general mechanisms, social adaptation and social comparison, by statistically decomposing the independent contributions of social origin, social destination, and mobility. We find there is a significant positive association between short-distance intragenerational downward mobility and happiness, while not any intergenerational mobility pattern has been found to be significant. Apparently, we have a group of satisfied losers. Our findings favor social comparison explanations.

Finer Distinctions: Variability in Satisfied Older Couples' Problem-Solving Behaviors.

Science.gov (United States)

Rauer, Amy; Williams, Leah; Jensen, Jakob

2017-06-01

This study utilized observational and self-report data from 64 maritally satisfied and stable older couples to explore if there were meaningful differences in how couples approached marital disagreements. Using a typology approach to classify couples based on their behaviors in a 15-minute problem-solving interaction, findings revealed four types of couples: (1) problem solvers (characterized by both spouses' higher problem-solving skills and warmth), (2) supporters (characterized by both spouses' notable warmth), (3) even couples (characterized by both spouses' moderate problem-solving skills and warmth), and (4) cool couples (characterized by both spouses' greater negativity and lower problem-solving skills and warmth). Despite the differences in these behaviors, all couples had relatively high marital satisfaction and functioning. However, across nearly all indices, spouses in the cool couple cluster reported poorer marital functioning, particularly when compared to the problem solvers and supporters. These findings suggest that even modest doses of negativity (e.g., eye roll) may be problematic for some satisfied couples later in life. The implications of these typologies are discussed as they pertain to practitioners' efforts to tailor their approaches to a wider swath of the population. © 2015 Family Process Institute.

Towards a Framework for Generating Tests to Satisfy Complex Code Coverage in Java Pathfinder

Science.gov (United States)

Staats, Matt

2009-01-01

We present work on a prototype tool based on the JavaPathfinder (JPF) model checker for automatically generating tests satisfying the MC/DC code coverage criterion. Using the Eclipse IDE, developers and testers can quickly instrument Java source code with JPF annotations covering all MC/DC coverage obligations, and JPF can then be used to automatically generate tests that satisfy these obligations. The prototype extension to JPF enables various tasks useful in automatic test generation to be performed, such as test suite reduction and execution of generated tests.

Gauge theory for baryon and lepton numbers with leptoquarks.

Science.gov (United States)

Duerr, Michael; Fileviez Pérez, Pavel; Wise, Mark B

2013-06-07

Models where the baryon (B) and lepton (L) numbers are local gauge symmetries that are spontaneously broken at a low scale are revisited. We find new extensions of the standard model which predict the existence of fermions that carry both baryon and lepton numbers (i.e., leptoquarks). The local baryonic and leptonic symmetries can be broken at a scale close to the electroweak scale and we do not need to postulate the existence of a large desert to satisfy the experimental constraints on baryon number violating processes like proton decay.

Determine the Effectiveness of Learning of Coping Strategies with Irrational Beliefs Based on the Theory of Rational-Emotional Alice on Attitudes to Communicate Before Married Female High School Students in Yazd- Iran

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maryam Forat Yazdi

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Introduction This research was done with the objective of "Determine the effectiveness of learning coping strategies with Irrational Beliefs based on the theory of rational-emotional Alice on students’ attitude toward premarital relations in Yazd city". Materials and Methods In this semi experimental research 60 female students of Yazd-Iran, selected by using of Cochran’s formula and divided in two groups of control (30 persons and experiment (30 persons randomly. Learning of coping strategies with Irrational beliefs based on the theory of rational-emotional Alice during the 8 sessions of 90 minutes was conducted on experiment group, and the control group did not training; then post-test was conducted in two groups. Also, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA used in order to data analysis in descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Results The adjusted mean attitude scores of the relationship with the opposite sex in control group, on the pre-test and post-test was 51.27+12.16, 50.30+14.46 and in experimental group was 69.53+8.91, 43.63+10.96 respectively. The result Alice rational-emotional treatment method is effective on attitude to relationship before marriage of high school girls (P

On the Required Number of Antennas in a Point-to-Point Large-but-Finite MIMO System

KAUST Repository

Makki, Behrooz; Svensson, Tommy; Eriksson, Thomas; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2015-01-01

In this paper, we investigate the performance of the point-to-point multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems in the presence of a large but finite numbers of antennas at the transmitters and/or receivers. Considering the cases with and without hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback, we determine the minimum numbers of the transmit/receive antennas which are required to satisfy different outage probability constraints. We study the effect of the spatial correlation between the antennas on the system performance. Also, the required number of antennas are obtained for different fading conditions. Our results show that different outage requirements can be satisfied with relatively few transmit/receive antennas. © 2015 IEEE.

On the Required Number of Antennas in a Point-to-Point Large-but-Finite MIMO System

KAUST Repository

Makki, Behrooz

2015-11-12

In this paper, we investigate the performance of the point-to-point multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems in the presence of a large but finite numbers of antennas at the transmitters and/or receivers. Considering the cases with and without hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback, we determine the minimum numbers of the transmit/receive antennas which are required to satisfy different outage probability constraints. We study the effect of the spatial correlation between the antennas on the system performance. Also, the required number of antennas are obtained for different fading conditions. Our results show that different outage requirements can be satisfied with relatively few transmit/receive antennas. © 2015 IEEE.

(Ir)rational choices of humans, rhesus macaques, and capuchin monkeys in dynamic stochastic environments.

Science.gov (United States)

Watzek, Julia; Brosnan, Sarah F

2018-05-28

Human and animal decision-making is known to violate rational expectations in a variety of contexts. Previous models suggest that statistical structures of real-world environments can favor such seemingly irrational behavior, but this has not been tested empirically. We tested 16 capuchin monkeys, seven rhesus monkeys, and 30 humans in a computerized experiment that implemented such stochastic environments. Subjects chose from among up to three options of different value that disappeared and became available again with different probabilities. All species overwhelmingly chose transitively (A > B > C) in the control condition, where doing so maximized overall gain. Most subjects also adhered to transitivity in the test condition, where it was suboptimal, but ultimately led to negligible losses compared to the optimal, non-transitive strategy. We used a modelling approach to show that differences in temporal discounting may account for this pattern of choices on a proximate level. Specifically, when short- and long-term goals are valued similarly, near-optimal decision rules can map onto rational choice principles. Such cognitive shortcuts have been argued to have evolved to preserve mental resources without sacrificing good decision-making, and here we provide evidence that these heuristics can provide almost identical outcomes even in situations in which they lead to suboptimal choices. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Optimal decision procedures for satisfiability in fragments of alternating-time temporal logics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Goranko, Valentin; Vester, Steen

2014-01-01

We consider several natural fragments of the alternating-time temporal logics ATL*and ATL with restrictions on the nesting between temporal operators and strate-gicquantifiers. We develop optimal decision procedures for satisfiability in these fragments, showing that they have much lower complexi...

Constructing space difference schemes which satisfy a cell entropy inequality

Science.gov (United States)

Merriam, Marshal L.

1989-01-01

A numerical methodology for solving convection problems is presented, using finite difference schemes which satisfy the second law of thermodynamics on a cell-by-cell basis in addition to the usual conservation laws. It is shown that satisfaction of a cell entropy inequality is sufficient, in some cases, to guarantee nonlinear stability. Some details are given for several one-dimensional problems, including the quasi-one-dimensional Euler equations applied to flow in a nozzle.

Observers for Systems with Nonlinearities Satisfying an Incremental Quadratic Inequality

Science.gov (United States)

Acikmese, Ahmet Behcet; Corless, Martin

2004-01-01

We consider the problem of state estimation for nonlinear time-varying systems whose nonlinearities satisfy an incremental quadratic inequality. These observer results unifies earlier results in the literature; and extend it to some additional classes of nonlinearities. Observers are presented which guarantee that the state estimation error exponentially converges to zero. Observer design involves solving linear matrix inequalities for the observer gain matrices. Results are illustrated by application to a simple model of an underwater.

Observers for a class of systems with nonlinearities satisfying an incremental quadratic inequality

Science.gov (United States)

Acikmese, Ahmet Behcet; Martin, Corless

2004-01-01

We consider the problem of state estimation from nonlinear time-varying system whose nonlinearities satisfy an incremental quadratic inequality. Observers are presented which guarantee that the state estimation error exponentially converges to zero.

Real Hypersurfaces of Nonflat Complex Projective Planes Whose Jacobi Structure Operator Satisfies a Generalized Commutative Condition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Theocharis Theofanidis

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Real hypersurfaces satisfying the condition ϕl=lϕ(l=R(·,ξξ have been studied by many authors under at least one more condition, since the class of these hypersurfaces is quite tough to be classified. The aim of the present paper is the classification of real hypersurfaces in complex projective plane CP2 satisfying a generalization of ϕl=lϕ under an additional restriction on a specific function.

Complex architecture of primes and natural numbers.

Science.gov (United States)

García-Pérez, Guillermo; Serrano, M Ángeles; Boguñá, Marián

2014-08-01

Natural numbers can be divided in two nonoverlapping infinite sets, primes and composites, with composites factorizing into primes. Despite their apparent simplicity, the elucidation of the architecture of natural numbers with primes as building blocks remains elusive. Here, we propose a new approach to decoding the architecture of natural numbers based on complex networks and stochastic processes theory. We introduce a parameter-free non-Markovian dynamical model that naturally generates random primes and their relation with composite numbers with remarkable accuracy. Our model satisfies the prime number theorem as an emerging property and a refined version of Cramér's conjecture about the statistics of gaps between consecutive primes that seems closer to reality than the original Cramér's version. Regarding composites, the model helps us to derive the prime factors counting function, giving the probability of distinct prime factors for any integer. Probabilistic models like ours can help to get deeper insights about primes and the complex architecture of natural numbers.

Leading change to create a healthy and satisfying work environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanders, Carolyn L; Krugman, Mary; Schloffman, Danielle H

2013-01-01

Nurse executives must take a leadership role in creating a healthy work environment for nurses and all disciplines. Engaging in partnerships and empowering clinical nurses to construct the solutions to barriers that may stand in the way of the goal of a satisfied and healthy workforce are important strategies toward success. This publication outlines many projects a 3-time Magnet-designated academic hospital has implemented, working with our shared leadership councils, to meet the standards for a healthy work environment. These initiatives, from the unit to the hospital level, included standardizing a culture change of uninterrupted meal breaks, the creation of intensive care unit Zen rooms, strategies to better manage increased patient volumes, best practices for facility design, enhancing physician-nurse relations, and a hospital wellness program. Data were benchmarked against national nurse and employee surveys to compare progress and report outcomes. Two important nursing organization structures that have contributed to the success of a healthy and satisfied nursing work environment include UEXCEL, a longstanding clinical nurse professional practice program, and the hospital's 11-year participation in the University HealthSystem Consortium/American Association of Colleges of Nursing National Post-Baccalaureate Nurse Residency Program. A highly engaged, well-educated, and committed nursing workforce, nurtured by a strong leadership team, has created a positive work environment characterized by low turnover and high retention.

Some properties of the functions satisfying Bell's inequalities in relation to quantum mechanics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roussel, P.

1985-01-01

Having recalled the 1935 debate between A. Einstein and N. Bohr about quantum mechanics (Q.M.) the thought-experiment of D. Bohm is described and a new derivation of the Bell's inequalities is established to test the class of theories based on the hypothesis of hidden-parameters in the common past. It is shown that Q.M. violates these inequalities almost everywhere. The general properties of functions satisfying Bell's inequalities are studied in order to compare them to Q.M. predictions as regards derivatives, integrals, values, intervals, amplitudes and finally the overall behaviour: a few of the Bell's functions chosen to approach somehow Q.M. are given. Altogether, in the comparison between Q.M. and functions satisfying Bell's inequalities, an incompatibility is revealed that is stronger then that resulting from consideration of just the inequalities [fr

Linear representation of algebras with non-associative operations which are satisfy in the balanced functional equations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ehsani, Amir

2015-01-01

Algebras with a pair of non-associative binary operations (f, g) which are satisfy in the balanced quadratic functional equations with four object variables considered. First, we obtain a linear representation for the operations, of this kind of binary algebras (A,f,g), over an abelian group (A, +) and then we generalize the linear representation of operations, to an algebra (A,F) with non-associative binary operations which are satisfy in the balanced quadratic functional equations with four object variables. (paper)

Bayesian probability estimates are not necessary to make choices satisfying Bayes’ rule in elementary situations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Artur eDomurat

2015-08-01

Full Text Available This paper has two aims. First, we investigate how often people make choices conforming to Bayes’ rule when natural sampling is applied. Second, we show that using Bayes’ rule is not necessary to make choices satisfying Bayes’ rule. Simpler methods, even fallacious heuristics, might prescribe correct choices reasonably often under specific circumstances. We considered elementary situations with binary sets of hypotheses and data. We adopted an ecological approach and prepared two-stage computer tasks resembling natural sampling. Probabilistic relations were to be inferred from a set of pictures, followed by a choice between the data which was made to maximize a chance for a preferred outcome. Using Bayes’ rule was deduced indirectly from choices.Study 1 (N=60 followed a 2 (gender: female vs. male x 2 (education: humanities vs. pure sciences between-subjects factorial design with balanced cells, and a number of correct choices as a dependent variable. Choices satisfying Bayes’ rule were dominant. To investigate ways of making choices more directly, we replicated Study 1, adding a task with a verbal report. In Study 2 (N=76 choices conforming to Bayes’ rule dominated again. However, the verbal reports revealed use of a new, non-inverse rule, which always renders correct choices, but is easier than Bayes’ rule to apply. It does not require inversing conditions (transforming P(H and P(D|H into P(H|D when computing chances. Study 3 examined efficiency of the three fallacious heuristics (pre-Bayesian, representativeness, and evidence-only in producing choices concordant with Bayes’ rule. Computer-simulated scenarios revealed that the heuristics produce correct choices reasonably often under specific base rates and likelihood ratios. Summing up we conclude that natural sampling leads to most choices conforming to Bayes’ rule. However, people tend to replace Bayes’ rule with simpler methods, and even use of fallacious heuristics may

Irrational decision-making in an amoeboid organism: transitivity and context-dependent preferences.

Science.gov (United States)

Latty, Tanya; Beekman, Madeleine

2011-01-22

Most models of animal foraging and consumer choice assume that individuals make choices based on the absolute value of items and are therefore 'economically rational'. However, frequent violations of rationality by animals, including humans, suggest that animals use comparative valuation rules. Are comparative valuation strategies a consequence of the way brains process information, or are they an intrinsic feature of biological decision-making? Here, we examine the principles of rationality in an organism with radically different information-processing mechanisms: the brainless, unicellular, slime mould Physarum polycephalum. We offered P. polycephalum amoebas a choice between food options that varied in food quality and light exposure (P. polycephalum is photophobic). The use of an absolute valuation rule will lead to two properties: transitivity and independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA). Transitivity is satisfied if preferences have a consistent, linear ordering, while IIA states that a decision maker's preference for an item should not change if the choice set is expanded. A violation of either of these principles suggests the use of comparative rather than absolute valuation rules. Physarum polycephalum satisfied transitivity by having linear preference rankings. However, P. polycephalum's preference for a focal alternative increased when a third, inferior quality option was added to the choice set, thus violating IIA and suggesting the use of a comparative valuation process. The discovery of comparative valuation rules in a unicellular organism suggests that comparative valuation rules are ubiquitous, if not universal, among biological decision makers.

Exact solutions for a discrete unidimensional Boltzmann model satisfying all conservation laws

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cornille, H.

1989-01-01

We consider a four-velocity discrete and unidimensional Boltzmann model. The mass, momentum and energy conservation laws being satisfied we can define a temperature. We report the exact positive solutions which have been found: periodic in the space and propagating or not when the time is growing, shock waves similarity solutions and (1 + 1)-dimensional solutions [fr

Arbitrarily large numbers of kink internal modes in inhomogeneous sine-Gordon equations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

González, J.A., E-mail: jalbertgonz@yahoo.es [Department of Physics, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199 (United States); Department of Natural Sciences, Miami Dade College, 627 SW 27th Ave., Miami, FL 33135 (United States); Bellorín, A., E-mail: alberto.bellorin@ucv.ve [Escuela de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Apartado Postal 47586, Caracas 1041-A (Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of); García-Ñustes, M.A., E-mail: monica.garcia@pucv.cl [Instituto de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Casilla 4059 (Chile); Guerrero, L.E., E-mail: lguerre@usb.ve [Departamento de Física, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Apartado Postal 89000, Caracas 1080-A (Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of); Jiménez, S., E-mail: s.jimenez@upm.es [Departamento de Matemática Aplicada a las TT.II., E.T.S.I. Telecomunicación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040-Madrid (Spain); Vázquez, L., E-mail: lvazquez@fdi.ucm.es [Departamento de Matemática Aplicada, Facultad de Informática, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040-Madrid (Spain)

2017-06-28

We prove analytically the existence of an infinite number of internal (shape) modes of sine-Gordon solitons in the presence of some inhomogeneous long-range forces, provided some conditions are satisfied. - Highlights: • We have found exact kink solutions to the perturbed sine-Gordon equation. • We have been able to study analytically the kink stability problem. • A kink equilibrated by an exponentially-localized perturbation has a finite number of oscillation modes. • A sufficiently broad equilibrating perturbation supports an infinite number of soliton internal modes.

A hybrid-type quantum random number generator

Science.gov (United States)

Hai-Qiang, Ma; Wu, Zhu; Ke-Jin, Wei; Rui-Xue, Li; Hong-Wei, Liu

2016-05-01

This paper proposes a well-performing hybrid-type truly quantum random number generator based on the time interval between two independent single-photon detection signals, which is practical and intuitive, and generates the initial random number sources from a combination of multiple existing random number sources. A time-to-amplitude converter and multichannel analyzer are used for qualitative analysis to demonstrate that each and every step is random. Furthermore, a carefully designed data acquisition system is used to obtain a high-quality random sequence. Our scheme is simple and proves that the random number bit rate can be dramatically increased to satisfy practical requirements. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61178010 and 11374042), the Fund of State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications (Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications), China, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No. bupt2014TS01).

A Coupled Fixed Point Theorem in Fuzzy Metric Space Satisfying ϕ-Contractive Condition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. D. Pant

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The intent of this paper is to prove a coupled fixed point theorem for two pairs of compatible and subsequentially continuous (alternately subcompatible and reciprocally continuous mappings, satisfying ϕ-contractive conditions in a fuzzy metric space. We also furnish some illustrative examples to support our results.

Can quantum probes satisfy the weak equivalence principle?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seveso, Luigi; Paris, Matteo G.A.

2017-01-01

We address the question whether quantum probes in a gravitational field can be considered as test particles obeying the weak equivalence principle (WEP). A formulation of the WEP is proposed which applies also in the quantum regime, while maintaining the physical content of its classical counterpart. Such formulation requires the introduction of a gravitational field not to modify the Fisher information about the mass of a freely-falling probe, extractable through measurements of its position. We discover that, while in a uniform field quantum probes satisfy our formulation of the WEP exactly, gravity gradients can encode nontrivial information about the particle’s mass in its wavefunction, leading to violations of the WEP. - Highlights: • Can quantum probes under gravity be approximated as test-bodies? • A formulation of the weak equivalence principle for quantum probes is proposed. • Quantum probes are found to violate it as a matter of principle.

Can quantum probes satisfy the weak equivalence principle?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Seveso, Luigi, E-mail: luigi.seveso@unimi.it [Quantum Technology Lab, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, I-20133 Milano (Italy); Paris, Matteo G.A. [Quantum Technology Lab, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, I-20133 Milano (Italy); INFN, Sezione di Milano, I-20133 Milano (Italy)

2017-05-15

We address the question whether quantum probes in a gravitational field can be considered as test particles obeying the weak equivalence principle (WEP). A formulation of the WEP is proposed which applies also in the quantum regime, while maintaining the physical content of its classical counterpart. Such formulation requires the introduction of a gravitational field not to modify the Fisher information about the mass of a freely-falling probe, extractable through measurements of its position. We discover that, while in a uniform field quantum probes satisfy our formulation of the WEP exactly, gravity gradients can encode nontrivial information about the particle’s mass in its wavefunction, leading to violations of the WEP. - Highlights: • Can quantum probes under gravity be approximated as test-bodies? • A formulation of the weak equivalence principle for quantum probes is proposed. • Quantum probes are found to violate it as a matter of principle.

The viability of neural network for modeling the impact of individual job satisfiers on work commitment in Indian manufacturing unit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Therasa Chandrasekar

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This paper provides an exposition about application of neural networks in the context of research to find out the contribution of individual job satisfiers towards work commitment. The purpose of the current study is to build a predictive model to estimate the normalized importance of individual job satisfiers towards work commitment of employees working in TVS Group, an Indian automobile company. The study is based on the tool developed by Spector (1985 and Sue Hayday (2003.The input variable of the study consists of nine independent individual job satisfiers which includes Pay, Promotion, Supervision, Benefits, Rewards, Operating procedures, Co-workers, Work-itself and Communication of Spector (1985 and dependent variable as work commitment of Sue Hayday (2003.The primary data has been collected using a closed-ended questionnaire based on simple random sampling approach. This study employed the multilayer Perceptron neural network model to envisage the level of job satisfiers towards work commitment. The result from the multilayer Perceptron neural network model displayed with four hidden layer with correct classification rate of 70% and 30% for training and testing data set. The normalized importance shows high value for coworkers, superior satisfaction and communication and which acts as most significant attributes of job satisfiers that predicts the overall work commitment of employees.

Application of random survival forests in understanding the determinants of under-five child mortality in Uganda in the presence of covariates that satisfy the proportional and non-proportional hazards assumption.

Science.gov (United States)

Nasejje, Justine B; Mwambi, Henry

2017-09-07

Uganda just like any other Sub-Saharan African country, has a high under-five child mortality rate. To inform policy on intervention strategies, sound statistical methods are required to critically identify factors strongly associated with under-five child mortality rates. The Cox proportional hazards model has been a common choice in analysing data to understand factors strongly associated with high child mortality rates taking age as the time-to-event variable. However, due to its restrictive proportional hazards (PH) assumption, some covariates of interest which do not satisfy the assumption are often excluded in the analysis to avoid mis-specifying the model. Otherwise using covariates that clearly violate the assumption would mean invalid results. Survival trees and random survival forests are increasingly becoming popular in analysing survival data particularly in the case of large survey data and could be attractive alternatives to models with the restrictive PH assumption. In this article, we adopt random survival forests which have never been used in understanding factors affecting under-five child mortality rates in Uganda using Demographic and Health Survey data. Thus the first part of the analysis is based on the use of the classical Cox PH model and the second part of the analysis is based on the use of random survival forests in the presence of covariates that do not necessarily satisfy the PH assumption. Random survival forests and the Cox proportional hazards model agree that the sex of the household head, sex of the child, number of births in the past 1 year are strongly associated to under-five child mortality in Uganda given all the three covariates satisfy the PH assumption. Random survival forests further demonstrated that covariates that were originally excluded from the earlier analysis due to violation of the PH assumption were important in explaining under-five child mortality rates. These covariates include the number of children under the

What things make people with a learning disability happy and satisfied with their lives: an inclusive research project.

Science.gov (United States)

Haigh, Anna; Lee, Darren; Shaw, Carl; Hawthorne, Michelle; Chamberlain, Stephen; Newman, David W; Clarke, Zara; Beail, Nigel

2013-01-01

We looked at the research that other people have done about what makes people with a learning disability happy and satisfied with their lives. Researchers call being happy and satisfied with your life 'subjective well-being'. They found out that having things like money and good health does not always mean people are happy. They also found that some people are really happy, even if there are things in their lives they would like to change. None of the people who have done research about 'subjective well-being' have interviewed people with a learning disability about what makes them happy with their lives. We have carried out a study about what makes people with a learning disability happy and satisfied with their lives. This report talks about the research that we did, and what we found out. We interviewed 20 people with a learning disability who said they were very happy and satisfied. We asked them about what things helped them feel like this. The people we spoke to said things like relationships, choice and independence, activities and valuable social roles made them feel satisfied with their lives. They told us about the things that enable them to lead happy lives, and the things that disable them. We also found out about the importance of personal characteristics. These are things like looking on the bright side of life or having ways to manage difficult emotions like sadness or anger. We found out that it is important for people with a learning disability to have good things in their lives, but it is also important to be enabled to access these good things. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

An equation satisfied by the tangent to a shear-free, geodesic, null congruence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hogan, P.A.; Dublin Inst. for Advanced Studies

1987-01-01

A tensorial equation satisfied by the tangent to a shear-free geodesic, null congruence is presented. If the congruence is neither twist-free nor expansion-free then the equation defines a second, unique, null direction previously obtained, using the spinor formalism, by Somers. Some further properties of the equation are discussed. (orig.)

Solving satisfiability using inclusion-exclusion

OpenAIRE

Zaleski, Anthony

2017-01-01

Using Maple, we implement a SAT solver based on the principle of inclusion-exclusion and the Bonferroni inequalities. Using randomly generated input, we investigate the performance of our solver as a function of the number of variables and number of clauses. We also test it against Maple's built-in tautology procedure. Finally, we implement the Lov\\'asz local lemma with Maple and discuss its applicability to SAT.

Decision Engines for Software Analysis Using Satisfiability Modulo Theories Solvers

Science.gov (United States)

Bjorner, Nikolaj

2010-01-01

The area of software analysis, testing and verification is now undergoing a revolution thanks to the use of automated and scalable support for logical methods. A well-recognized premise is that at the core of software analysis engines is invariably a component using logical formulas for describing states and transformations between system states. The process of using this information for discovering and checking program properties (including such important properties as safety and security) amounts to automatic theorem proving. In particular, theorem provers that directly support common software constructs offer a compelling basis. Such provers are commonly called satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) solvers. Z3 is a state-of-the-art SMT solver. It is developed at Microsoft Research. It can be used to check the satisfiability of logical formulas over one or more theories such as arithmetic, bit-vectors, lists, records and arrays. The talk describes some of the technology behind modern SMT solvers, including the solver Z3. Z3 is currently mainly targeted at solving problems that arise in software analysis and verification. It has been applied to various contexts, such as systems for dynamic symbolic simulation (Pex, SAGE, Vigilante), for program verification and extended static checking (Spec#/Boggie, VCC, HAVOC), for software model checking (Yogi, SLAM), model-based design (FORMULA), security protocol code (F7), program run-time analysis and invariant generation (VS3). We will describe how it integrates support for a variety of theories that arise naturally in the context of the applications. There are several new promising avenues and the talk will touch on some of these and the challenges related to SMT solvers. Proceedings

Sandwiched Rényi divergence satisfies data processing inequality

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beigi, Salman

2013-01-01

Sandwiched (quantum) α-Rényi divergence has been recently defined in the independent works of Wilde et al. [“Strong converse for the classical capacity of entanglement-breaking channels,” preprint http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1306.1586 (2013)] and Müller-Lennert et al. [“On quantum Rényi entropies: a new definition, some properties and several conjectures,” preprint http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1306.3142v1 (2013)]. This new quantum divergence has already found applications in quantum information theory. Here we further investigate properties of this new quantum divergence. In particular, we show that sandwiched α-Rényi divergence satisfies the data processing inequality for all values of α > 1. Moreover we prove that α-Holevo information, a variant of Holevo information defined in terms of sandwiched α-Rényi divergence, is super-additive. Our results are based on Hölder's inequality, the Riesz-Thorin theorem and ideas from the theory of complex interpolation. We also employ Sion's minimax theorem

Event-based computer simulation model of aspect-type experiments strictly satisfying Einstein's locality conditions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

De Raedt, Hans; De Raedt, Koen; Michielsen, Kristel; Keimpema, Koenraad; Miyashita, Seiji

2007-01-01

Inspired by Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohtn experiments with photons, we construct an event-based simulation model in which every essential element in the ideal experiment has a counterpart. The model satisfies Einstein's criterion of local causality and does not rely on concepts of quantum and

Employees facing high job demands: How to keep them fit, satisfied, and intrinsically motivated?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van Yperen, N.W.; Nagao, DH

2002-01-01

The purpose of the present research was to determine why some employees faced with high job demands feel fatigued, dissatisfied, and unmotivated, whereas others feel fatigued but satisfied and intrinsically motivated. It is argued and demonstrated that two job conditions, namely job control and job

High Reynolds number oscillations of a circular cylinder

OpenAIRE

Hirata, Miguel H.; Pereira, Luiz Antonio A.; Recicar, Jan N.; Moura, Washington H. de

2008-01-01

This paper concerns the numerical simulation of the flow around an oscillating circular cylinder, which moves with constant velocity in a quiescent Newtonian fluid with constant properties. For each time step of the simulation a number of discrete Lamb vortices is placed close to the body surface; the intensity of each of these is determined such as to satisfy the no-slip boundary condition. The aerodynamic loads acting on the surface of cylinder are computed using the integral formulation de...

Causal holographic information does not satisfy the linearized quantum focusing condition

Science.gov (United States)

Fu, Zicao; Marolf, Donald; Qi, Marvin

2018-04-01

The Hubeny-Rangamani causal holographic information (CHI) defined by a region R of a holographic quantum field theory (QFT) is a modern version of the idea that the area of event horizons might be related to an entropy. Here the event horizon lives in a dual gravitational bulk theory with Newton's constant G bulk, and the relation involves a factor of 4 G bulk. The fact that CHI is bounded below by the von Neumann entropy S suggests that CHI is coarse-grained. Its properties could thus differ markedly from those of S. In particular, recent results imply that when d ≤ 4 holographic QFTs are perturbatively coupled to d-dimensional gravity, the combined system satisfies the so-called quantum focusing condition (QFC) at leading order in the new gravitational coupling G d when the QFT entropy is taken to be that of von Neumann. However, by studying states dual to spherical bulk (anti-de Sitter) Schwarschild black holes in the conformal frame for which the boundary is a (2 + 1)-dimensional de Sitter space, we find the QFC defined by CHI is violated even when perturbing about a Killing horizon and using a single null congruence. Since it is known that a generalized second law (GSL) holds in this context, our work demonstrates that the QFC is not required in order for an entropy, or an entropy-like quantity, to satisfy such a GSL.

Get the Message: Punishment Is Satisfying If the Transgressor Responds to Its Communicative Intent.

Science.gov (United States)

Funk, Friederike; McGeer, Victoria; Gollwitzer, Mario

2014-08-01

Results from three studies demonstrate that victims' justice-related satisfaction with punishment is influenced by the kind of feedback they receive from offenders after punishment. In contrast to previous studies that found a discrepancy between anticipated and experienced satisfaction from punishment (Carlsmith, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2008), participants were able to accurately predict their satisfaction when made aware of the presence or absence of offender feedback acknowledging the victim's intent to punish. Results also indicate that victims were most satisfied when offender feedback not only acknowledged the victim's intent to punish but also indicated a positive moral change in the offender's attitude toward wrongdoing. These findings indicate that punishment per se is neither satisfying nor dissatisfying but that it is crucial to take its communicative functions and its effects on the offender into account. Implications for psychological and philosophical theories on punishment motives as well as implications for justice procedures are discussed. © 2014 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

On the binary expansions of algebraic numbers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bailey, David H.; Borwein, Jonathan M.; Crandall, Richard E.; Pomerance, Carl

2003-07-01

Employing concepts from additive number theory, together with results on binary evaluations and partial series, we establish bounds on the density of 1's in the binary expansions of real algebraic numbers. A central result is that if a real y has algebraic degree D > 1, then the number {number_sign}(|y|, N) of 1-bits in the expansion of |y| through bit position N satisfies {number_sign}(|y|, N) > CN{sup 1/D} for a positive number C (depending on y) and sufficiently large N. This in itself establishes the transcendency of a class of reals {summation}{sub n{ge}0} 1/2{sup f(n)} where the integer-valued function f grows sufficiently fast; say, faster than any fixed power of n. By these methods we re-establish the transcendency of the Kempner--Mahler number {summation}{sub n{ge}0}1/2{sup 2{sup n}}, yet we can also handle numbers with a substantially denser occurrence of 1's. Though the number z = {summation}{sub n{ge}0}1/2{sup n{sup 2}} has too high a 1's density for application of our central result, we are able to invoke some rather intricate number-theoretical analysis and extended computations to reveal aspects of the binary structure of z{sup 2}.

Anderson localization in one-dimensional quasiperiodic lattice models with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor hopping

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gong, Longyan; Feng, Yan; Ding, Yougen

2017-01-01

Highlights: • Quasiperiodic lattice models with next-nearest-neighbor hopping are studied. • Shannon information entropies are used to reflect state localization properties. • Phase diagrams are obtained for the inverse bronze and golden means, respectively. • Our studies present a more complete picture than existing works. - Abstract: We explore the reduced relative Shannon information entropies SR for a quasiperiodic lattice model with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor hopping, where an irrational number is in the mathematical expression of incommensurate on-site potentials. Based on SR, we respectively unveil the phase diagrams for two irrationalities, i.e., the inverse bronze mean and the inverse golden mean. The corresponding phase diagrams include regions of purely localized phase, purely delocalized phase, pure critical phase, and regions with mobility edges. The boundaries of different regions depend on the values of irrational number. These studies present a more complete picture than existing works.

Anderson localization in one-dimensional quasiperiodic lattice models with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor hopping

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gong, Longyan, E-mail: lygong@njupt.edu.cn [Information Physics Research Center and Department of Applied Physics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210003 (China); Institute of Signal Processing and Transmission, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210003 (China); National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093 (China); Feng, Yan; Ding, Yougen [Information Physics Research Center and Department of Applied Physics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210003 (China); Institute of Signal Processing and Transmission, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210003 (China)

2017-02-12

Highlights: • Quasiperiodic lattice models with next-nearest-neighbor hopping are studied. • Shannon information entropies are used to reflect state localization properties. • Phase diagrams are obtained for the inverse bronze and golden means, respectively. • Our studies present a more complete picture than existing works. - Abstract: We explore the reduced relative Shannon information entropies SR for a quasiperiodic lattice model with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor hopping, where an irrational number is in the mathematical expression of incommensurate on-site potentials. Based on SR, we respectively unveil the phase diagrams for two irrationalities, i.e., the inverse bronze mean and the inverse golden mean. The corresponding phase diagrams include regions of purely localized phase, purely delocalized phase, pure critical phase, and regions with mobility edges. The boundaries of different regions depend on the values of irrational number. These studies present a more complete picture than existing works.

Reversed mining and reversed-reversed mining: the irrational context of geological disposal of nuclear waste

Science.gov (United States)

van Loon, A. J.

2000-06-01

Man does not only extract material from the Earth but increasingly uses the underground for storage and disposal purposes. One of the materials that might be disposed of this way is high-level nuclear waste. The development of safe disposal procedures, the choice of suitable host rocks, and the design of underground facilities have taken much time and money, but commissions in several countries have presented reports showing that — and how — safe geological disposal will be possible in such a way that definite isolation from the biosphere is achieved. Political views have changed in the past few years, however, and there is a strong tendency now to require that the high-level waste disposed of will be retrievable. Considering the underlying arguments for isolation from the biosphere, and also considering waste policy in general, this provides an irrational context. The development of new procedures and the design of new disposal facilities that allow retrieval will take much time again. A consequence may be that the high-active, heat-generating nuclear waste will be stored temporarily for a much longer time than objectively desirable. The delay in disposal and the counterproductive requirement of retrievability are partly due to the fact that earth-science organisations have failed to communicate in the way they should, possibly fearing public (and financial) reactions if taking a position that is (was?) considered as politically incorrect. Such an attitude should not be maintained in modern society, which has the right to be informed reliably by the scientific community.

Quantum random number generation for loophole-free Bell tests

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, Morgan; Abellan, Carlos; Amaya, Waldimar

2015-05-01

We describe the generation of quantum random numbers at multi-Gbps rates, combined with real-time randomness extraction, to give very high purity random numbers based on quantum events at most tens of ns in the past. The system satisfies the stringent requirements of quantum non-locality tests that aim to close the timing loophole. We describe the generation mechanism using spontaneous-emission-driven phase diffusion in a semiconductor laser, digitization, and extraction by parity calculation using multi-GHz logic chips. We pay special attention to experimental proof of the quality of the random numbers and analysis of the randomness extraction. In contrast to widely-used models of randomness generators in the computer science literature, we argue that randomness generation by spontaneous emission can be extracted from a single source.

A new representation of rotational flow fields satisfying Euler's equation of an ideal compressible fluid

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kambe, Tsutomu

2013-01-01

A new representation of the solution to Euler's equation of motion is presented by using a system of expressions for compressible rotational flows of an ideal fluid. This is regarded as a generalization of Bernoulli's theorem to compressible rotational flows. The present expressions are derived from the variational principle. The action functional for the principle consists of the main terms of the total kinetic, potential and internal energies, together with three additional terms yielding the equations of continuity, entropy and a third term that provides the rotational component of velocity field. The last term has the form of scalar product satisfying gauge symmetry with respect to both translation and rotation. This is a generalization of the Clebsch transformation from a physical point of view. It is verified that the system of new expressions, in fact, satisfies Euler's equation of motion. (paper)

Physical plausibility of cold star models satisfying Karmarkar conditions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fuloria, Pratibha [Kumaun University, Physics Dept., Almora (India); Pant, Neeraj [N.D.A., Maths Dept., Khadakwasla, Pune (India)

2017-11-15

In the present article, we have obtained a new well behaved solution to Einstein's field equations in the background of Karmarkar spacetime. The solution has been used for stellar modelling within the demand of current observational evidences. All the physical parameters are well behaved inside the stellar interior and our model satisfies all the required conditions to be physically realizable. The obtained compactness parameter is within the Buchdahl limit, i.e. 2M/R ≤ 8/9. The TOV equation is well maintained inside the fluid spheres. The stability of the models has been further confirmed by using Herrera's cracking method. The models proposed in the present work are compatible with observational data of compact objects 4U1608-52 and PSRJ1903+327. The necessary graphs have been shown to authenticate the physical viability of our models. (orig.)

Physical plausibility of cold star models satisfying Karmarkar conditions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fuloria, Pratibha; Pant, Neeraj

2017-01-01

In the present article, we have obtained a new well behaved solution to Einstein's field equations in the background of Karmarkar spacetime. The solution has been used for stellar modelling within the demand of current observational evidences. All the physical parameters are well behaved inside the stellar interior and our model satisfies all the required conditions to be physically realizable. The obtained compactness parameter is within the Buchdahl limit, i.e. 2M/R ≤ 8/9. The TOV equation is well maintained inside the fluid spheres. The stability of the models has been further confirmed by using Herrera's cracking method. The models proposed in the present work are compatible with observational data of compact objects 4U1608-52 and PSRJ1903+327. The necessary graphs have been shown to authenticate the physical viability of our models. (orig.)

Physical plausibility of cold star models satisfying Karmarkar conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Fuloria, Pratibha; Pant, Neeraj

2017-11-01

In the present article, we have obtained a new well behaved solution to Einstein's field equations in the background of Karmarkar spacetime. The solution has been used for stellar modelling within the demand of current observational evidences. All the physical parameters are well behaved inside the stellar interior and our model satisfies all the required conditions to be physically realizable. The obtained compactness parameter is within the Buchdahl limit, i.e. 2M/R ≤ 8/9 . The TOV equation is well maintained inside the fluid spheres. The stability of the models has been further confirmed by using Herrera's cracking method. The models proposed in the present work are compatible with observational data of compact objects 4U1608-52 and PSRJ1903+327. The necessary graphs have been shown to authenticate the physical viability of our models.

Attention to fat- and thin-related words in body-satisfied and body-dissatisfied women before and after thin model priming

Science.gov (United States)

Sears, Christopher R.; Zumbusch, Alicia S.; von Ranson, Kristin M.

2018-01-01

Understanding the cognitive processes underlying body dissatisfaction provides important information on the development and perpetuation of eating pathology. Previous research suggests that body-dissatisfied women process weight-related information differently than body-satisfied women, but the precise nature of these processing differences is not yet understood. In this study, eye-gaze tracking was used to measure attention to weight-related words in body-dissatisfied (n = 40) and body-satisfied (n = 38) women, before and after exposure to images of thin fashion models. Participants viewed 8-second displays containing fat-related, thin-related, and neutral words while their eye fixations were tracked and recorded. Based on previous research and theory, we predicted that body-dissatisfied women would attend to fat-related words more than body-satisfied women and would attend to thin-related words less. It was also predicted that exposure to thin model images would increase self-rated body dissatisfaction and heighten group differences in attention. The results indicated that body-dissatisfied women attended to both fat- and thin-related words more than body-satisfied women and that exposure to thin models did not increase this effect. Implications for cognitive models of eating disorders are discussed. PMID:29447251

On powerful numbers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. A. Mollin

1986-01-01

Full Text Available A powerful number is a positive integer n satisfying the property that p2 divides n whenever the prime p divides n; i.e., in the canonical prime decomposition of n, no prime appears with exponent 1. In [1], S.W. Golomb introduced and studied such numbers. In particular, he asked whether (25,27 is the only pair of consecutive odd powerful numbers. This question was settled in [2] by W.A. Sentance who gave necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such pairs. The first result of this paper is to provide a generalization of Sentance's result by giving necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of pairs of powerful numbers spaced evenly apart. This result leads us naturally to consider integers which are representable as a proper difference of two powerful numbers, i.e. n=p1−p2 where p1 and p2 are powerful numbers with g.c.d. (p1,p2=1. Golomb (op.cit. conjectured that 6 is not a proper difference of two powerful numbers, and that there are infinitely many numbers which cannot be represented as a proper difference of two powerful numbers. The antithesis of this conjecture was proved by W.L. McDaniel [3] who verified that every non-zero integer is in fact a proper difference of two powerful numbers in infinitely many ways. McDaniel's proof is essentially an existence proof. The second result of this paper is a simpler proof of McDaniel's result as well as an effective algorithm (in the proof for explicitly determining infinitely many such representations. However, in both our proof and McDaniel's proof one of the powerful numbers is almost always a perfect square (namely one is always a perfect square when n≢2(mod4. We provide in §2 a proof that all even integers are representable in infinitely many ways as a proper nonsquare difference; i.e., proper difference of two powerful numbers neither of which is a perfect square. This, in conjunction with the odd case in [4], shows that every integer is representable in

A multidimensional continued fraction and some of its statistical properties

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baldwin, P.R.

1992-01-01

The problem of simultaneously approximating a vector of irrational numbers with rationals is analyzed in a geometrical setting using notions of dynamical systems theory. The author discusses here a (vectorial) multidimensional continued-fraction algorithm (MCFA) of additive type, the generalized mediant algorithm (GMA), and gives a geometrical interpretation to it. He calculates the invariant measure of the GMA shift as well as its Kolmogorov-Sinai (KS) entropy for arbitrary number of irrationals. The KS entropy is related to the growth rate of denominators of the Euclidean algorithm. This is the first analytical calculation of the growth rate of denominators for any MCFA

A method for generating reduced-order combustion mechanisms that satisfy the differential entropy inequality

Science.gov (United States)

Ream, Allen E.; Slattery, John C.; Cizmas, Paul G. A.

2018-04-01

This paper presents a new method for determining the Arrhenius parameters of a reduced chemical mechanism such that it satisfies the second law of thermodynamics. The strategy is to approximate the progress of each reaction in the reduced mechanism from the species production rates of a detailed mechanism by using a linear least squares method. A series of non-linear least squares curve fittings are then carried out to find the optimal Arrhenius parameters for each reaction. At this step, the molar rates of production are written such that they comply with a theorem that provides the sufficient conditions for satisfying the second law of thermodynamics. This methodology was used to modify the Arrhenius parameters for the Westbrook and Dryer two-step mechanism and the Peters and Williams three-step mechanism for methane combustion. Both optimized mechanisms showed good agreement with the detailed mechanism for species mole fractions and production rates of most major species. Both optimized mechanisms showed significant improvement over previous mechanisms in minor species production rate prediction. Both optimized mechanisms produced no violations of the second law of thermodynamics.

A comparative study on generalized model of anisotropic compact star satisfying the Karmarkar condition

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bhar, Piyali [Government General Degree College, Department of Mathematics, Hooghly, West Bengal (India); Singh, Ksh. Newton [National Defence Academy, Department of Physics, Khadakwasla, Pune (India); Sarkar, Nayan; Rahaman, Farook [Jadavpur University, Department of Mathematics, Kolkata (India)

2017-09-15

A new solution satisfying the Karmarkar condition is presented here. We were first to have discovered a hypergeometric function metric potential representing embedding class I spacetime. This new solution yields finite values of metric potentials, density, pressure, redshift, etc. and hence a non-singular solution. The solution is well behaved with respect to the parameter n = 12 to n = 24 corresponding to a stable configuration of mass 2.01M {sub CircleDot} and radius 9.1 km. The internal properties of the solution are very different for n = 12 to n = 24; however, the total mass and radius is independent of the parameter n. The energy conditions are also holds good by the solution which thus can represent a physically viable matter distribution. The equilibrium condition and stability are also discussed through TOV-equation, cracking method and Γ > 4/3. The static stability criterion is also well satisfied and the turning point corresponds to 4.46M {sub CircleDot} for a radius of 9.1 km. (orig.)

On criteria for algebraic independence of collections of functions satisfying algebraic difference relations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hiroshi Ogawara

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This paper gives conditions for algebraic independence of a collection of functions satisfying a certain kind of algebraic difference relations. As applications, we show algebraic independence of two collections of special functions: (1 Vignéras' multiple gamma functions and derivatives of the gamma function, (2 the logarithmic function, \\(q\\-exponential functions and \\(q\\-polylogarithm functions. In a similar way, we give a generalization of Ostrowski's theorem.

Health Centre Staff Are Satisfied with Librarian-Mediated Search Services, Especially When Librarians Follow Up

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peace Ossom Williamson

2018-03-01

rate. Physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals comprised 85% of the responses, at 35%, 27%, and 23% respectively. Scientists, researchers, research coordinators, and other staff made up the remainder of responses. Responses indicated frequent search requests, with the average number of searches being five, and 68% of respondents reported searching for the information themselves before contacting the library for assistance. Most searches were for research/publishing (34% and teaching/training (20%. Requests were submitted via email (44%, online form (32%, in person (17.5%, and phone (6.5%, and most respondents rated themselves extremely satisfied (54% or very satisfied (42%. Most respondents (72% reported that the librarian followed up for further clarification of the request, and staff who received follow-up rated themselves extremely satisfied at a significantly higher rate than those who did not (p=0.002. Respondents whose request was submitted verbally (i.e., by phone or in person, in comparison with those whose request was submitted by email or online form, rated themselves extremely satisfied at a significantly higher rate (p=0.004 and rated the quality of results as excellent at a significantly higher rate (p=0.005. Conclusion – The need for comprehensive and expert searching when publishing or completing research and the availability of easy to use point-of-care resources may be why librarian-mediated literature searching was used for research and publishing at a rate much higher than for patient care. In addition, the fact that the institution was also engaged in efforts toward evidence-based standardization of care and electronic health records during that year may have also affected results. While satisfaction with the service was higher for those communicating verbally with a librarian, it is unclear whether this was caused by other factors or differences between staff members who engage in phone or in-person communication and those who submit

Gauge transformations with fractional winding numbers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abouelsaood, A.

1996-01-01

The role which gauge transformations of noninteger winding numbers might play in non-Abelian gauge theories is studied. The phase factor acquired by the semiclassical physical states in an arbitrary background gauge field when they undergo a gauge transformation of an arbitrary real winding number is calculated in the path integral formalism assuming that a θFF term added to the Lagrangian plays the same role as in the case of integer winding numbers. Requiring that these states provide a representation of the group of open-quote open-quote large close-quote close-quote gauge transformations, a condition on the allowed backgrounds is obtained. It is shown that this representability condition is only satisfied in the monopole sector of a spontaneously broken gauge theory, but not in the vacuum sector of an unbroken or a spontaneously broken non-Abelian gauge theory. It is further shown that the recent proof of the vanishing of the θ parameter when gauge transformations of arbitrary fractional winding numbers are allowed breaks down in precisely those cases where the representability condition is obeyed because certain gauge transformations needed for the proof, and whose existence is assumed, are either spontaneously broken or cannot be globally defined as a result of a topological obstruction. copyright 1996 The American Physical Society

Distance-Based Functional Diversity Measures and Their Decomposition: A Framework Based on Hill Numbers

Science.gov (United States)

Chiu, Chun-Huo; Chao, Anne

2014-01-01

Hill numbers (or the “effective number of species”) are increasingly used to characterize species diversity of an assemblage. This work extends Hill numbers to incorporate species pairwise functional distances calculated from species traits. We derive a parametric class of functional Hill numbers, which quantify “the effective number of equally abundant and (functionally) equally distinct species” in an assemblage. We also propose a class of mean functional diversity (per species), which quantifies the effective sum of functional distances between a fixed species to all other species. The product of the functional Hill number and the mean functional diversity thus quantifies the (total) functional diversity, i.e., the effective total distance between species of the assemblage. The three measures (functional Hill numbers, mean functional diversity and total functional diversity) quantify different aspects of species trait space, and all are based on species abundance and species pairwise functional distances. When all species are equally distinct, our functional Hill numbers reduce to ordinary Hill numbers. When species abundances are not considered or species are equally abundant, our total functional diversity reduces to the sum of all pairwise distances between species of an assemblage. The functional Hill numbers and the mean functional diversity both satisfy a replication principle, implying the total functional diversity satisfies a quadratic replication principle. When there are multiple assemblages defined by the investigator, each of the three measures of the pooled assemblage (gamma) can be multiplicatively decomposed into alpha and beta components, and the two components are independent. The resulting beta component measures pure functional differentiation among assemblages and can be further transformed to obtain several classes of normalized functional similarity (or differentiation) measures, including N-assemblage functional generalizations of

Distance-based functional diversity measures and their decomposition: a framework based on Hill numbers.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chun-Huo Chiu

Full Text Available Hill numbers (or the "effective number of species" are increasingly used to characterize species diversity of an assemblage. This work extends Hill numbers to incorporate species pairwise functional distances calculated from species traits. We derive a parametric class of functional Hill numbers, which quantify "the effective number of equally abundant and (functionally equally distinct species" in an assemblage. We also propose a class of mean functional diversity (per species, which quantifies the effective sum of functional distances between a fixed species to all other species. The product of the functional Hill number and the mean functional diversity thus quantifies the (total functional diversity, i.e., the effective total distance between species of the assemblage. The three measures (functional Hill numbers, mean functional diversity and total functional diversity quantify different aspects of species trait space, and all are based on species abundance and species pairwise functional distances. When all species are equally distinct, our functional Hill numbers reduce to ordinary Hill numbers. When species abundances are not considered or species are equally abundant, our total functional diversity reduces to the sum of all pairwise distances between species of an assemblage. The functional Hill numbers and the mean functional diversity both satisfy a replication principle, implying the total functional diversity satisfies a quadratic replication principle. When there are multiple assemblages defined by the investigator, each of the three measures of the pooled assemblage (gamma can be multiplicatively decomposed into alpha and beta components, and the two components are independent. The resulting beta component measures pure functional differentiation among assemblages and can be further transformed to obtain several classes of normalized functional similarity (or differentiation measures, including N-assemblage functional

Do different fairness contexts and facial emotions motivate 'irrational' social decision-making in major depression? An exploratory patient study.

Science.gov (United States)

Radke, Sina; Schäfer, Ina C; Müller, Bernhard W; de Bruijn, Ellen R A

2013-12-15

Although 'irrational' decision-making has been linked to depression, the contribution of biases in information processing to these findings remains unknown. To investigate the impact of cognitive biases and aberrant processing of facial emotions on social decision-making, we manipulated both context-related and emotion-related information in a modified Ultimatum Game. Unfair offers were (1) paired with different unselected alternatives, establishing the context in which an offer was made, and (2) accompanied by emotional facial expressions of proposers. Responder behavior was assessed in patients with major depressive disorder and healthy controls. In both groups alike, rejection rates were highest following unambiguous signals of unfairness, i.e. an angry proposer face or when an unfair distribution had deliberately been chosen over an equal split. However, depressed patients showed overall higher rejection rates than healthy volunteers, without exhibiting differential processing biases. This suggests that depressed patients were, as healthy individuals, basing their decisions on informative, salient features and differentiating between (i) fair and unfair offers, (ii) alternatives to unfair offers and (iii) proposers' facial emotions. Although more fundamental processes, e.g. reduced reward sensitivity, might underlie increased rejection in depression, the current study provides insight into mechanisms that shape fairness considerations in both depressed and healthy individuals. © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Determination of the number of software tests using probabilistic safety assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, H. K.; Seong, T. Y.; Lee, K. Y.

2000-01-01

The broader usage of digital equipment in nuclear power plants gives rise to the safety problems of software. The field test should be performed before the software is used in critical applications because it is well known that software shows non-linear response when it is applied to different target systems in different environment. In the case of safety-critical applications, the result of tests contains usually zero failure case and the satisfiable number of tests is hard to be determined. In this paper, we suggests the method to determine the number of software tests without failure using the probabilistic safety assessment. From the result of the probabilistic safety assessment on total system, the desirable unavailability of software is calculated and the number of tests is determined

Numerical transport of an arbitrary number of components

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jaouen, S.; Lagoutiere, F.

2007-01-01

This paper deals with the numerical transport of an arbitrary number of materials having the same velocity. One difficulty is to derive numerical algorithms that are conservative for the mass of each component and that satisfy some inequality and equality constraints: each mass fraction has to stay in [0, 1] and the sum of all mass fractions should be 1. These constraints are satisfied by the classical upwind scheme (which is very dissipative) but not for most of nonlinear (high-order or anti-dissipative) schemes. Here we propose local conditions of inequality type for the finite volume fluxes of mass fractions to ensure the aforementioned constraints. More precisely, we give explicit stability intervals for each flux. This is done in the manner of Despres and Lagoutiere for hyperbolic systems, for the transport of two components, for the same type of inequality constraints for nonlinear conservation laws. Comparisons on two dimensional test-cases with the Youngs' interface reconstruction algorithm show that results are qualitatively comparable. The advantages of this approach are its simplicity, its low computational cost, and its flexibility since it can deal with interfaces as well as mixing zones. (authors)

National Report presented by the Mexican United States to satisfy the compromises of the Nuclear Safety Convention

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1998-01-01

In order to satisfy to the compromises derived of the ratification by part of the Mexican Government for the Nuclear Safety Convention it is presented this National Report which is based on the directives proposed as a result of the preparatory meetings held in the IAEA Headquarters in the city of Vienna, Austria. This National Report represents a document summary and activities realized at present in relation with the only nuclear facility in Mexico: the Nuclear Power Plant in Laguna Verde, Veracruz. This report consists of two parts: In the first one it is described how have been satisfied each one of the compromises. The second one talks about the Laws and Regulations on nuclear activities in the country. (Author)

Optimization of structures to satisfy a flutter velocity constraint by use of quadratic equation fitting. M.S. Thesis

Science.gov (United States)

Motiwalla, S. K.

1973-01-01

Using the first and the second derivative of flutter velocity with respect to the parameters, the velocity hypersurface is made quadratic. This greatly simplifies the numerical procedure developed for determining the values of the design parameters such that a specified flutter velocity constraint is satisfied and the total structural mass is near a relative minimum. A search procedure is presented utilizing two gradient search methods and a gradient projection method. The procedure is applied to the design of a box beam, using finite-element representation. The results indicate that the procedure developed yields substantial design improvement satisfying the specified constraint and does converge to near a local optimum.

On the Required Number of Antennas in a Point-to-Point Large-but-Finite MIMO System: Outage-Limited Scenario

KAUST Repository

Makki, Behrooz

2016-03-22

This paper investigates the performance of the point-To-point multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems in the presence of a large but finite numbers of antennas at the transmitters and/or receivers. Considering the cases with and without hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) feedback, we determine the minimum numbers of the transmit/receive antennas, which are required to satisfy different outage probability constraints. Our results are obtained for different fading conditions and the effect of the power amplifiers efficiency/feedback error probability on the performance of the MIMO-HARQ systems is analyzed. Then, we use some recent results on the achievable rates of finite block-length codes, to analyze the effect of the codewords lengths on the system performance. Moreover, we derive closed-form expressions for the asymptotic performance of the MIMO-HARQ systems when the number of antennas increases. Our analytical and numerical results show that different outage requirements can be satisfied with relatively few transmit/receive antennas. © 1972-2012 IEEE.

When satisfied customers do not return : Variety seeking’s effect on short-and long-term intentions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sánchez-García, I.; Pieters, R.; Zeelenberg, M.; Bigné, E.

2012-01-01

Even satisfied consumers frequently do not come back, which challenges loyalty theory and marketing practice. It is reasoned that variety-seeking tendencies will significantly affect short-term revisit intentions, whereas satisfaction and regret will mostly determine long-term revisit intentions.

ARE AUTHENTIC LEADERS SATISFIED WITH THEIR JOB?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nebojsa Pavlovic

2016-06-01

Full Text Available A crisis in management has led to the appearance of Authentic leadership. The aim of this work is to determine the characteristics of Authentic leadership in educational institutions and to respond to the question as to whether authentic leaders are satisfied with their job. The third aim is to determine differences among the researched regions. The sample included 227 randomly selected directors from primary and secondary schools in Serbia, Montenegro and the Republika Srpska. The research used an ALQ questionnaire for the estimation of leadership behaviour. Descriptions for the results prediction and multiple linear regressions were used. A multivariance analysis of variance was used to compare the groups. The research results showed that every fourth director is an authentic leader. Authentic leadership has a significant influence on job satisfaction through two aspects: internalised perspective and balanced processing. There are no differences in Authentic leadership in the researched areas. The results could be useful for educational institutions in countries where the research was conducted. Further research could be carried out in other countries while cultural differences should be taken into account. One limiting factor consists of the fact that the analysed data are obtained only from school directors. Leaders of educational institutions should provide management through the development of their own authenticity and the authenticity of their followers. The characteristics of Authentic leadership were reviewed and tested practically in the West-Balkan environment.

More Similar but Less Satisfying: Comparing Preferences for and the Efficacy of Within- and Cross-Category Substitutes for Food.

Science.gov (United States)

Huh, Young Eun; Vosgerau, Joachim; Morewedge, Carey K

2016-06-01

When people cannot get what they want, they often satisfy their desire by consuming a substitute. Substitutes can originate from within the taxonomic category of the desired stimulus (i.e., within-category substitutes) or from a different taxonomic category that serves the same basic goal (i.e., cross-category substitutes). Both a store-brand chocolate (within-category substitute) and a granola bar (cross-category substitute), for example, can serve as substitutes for gourmet chocolate. Here, we found that people believe that within-category substitutes, which are more similar to desired stimuli, will more effectively satisfy their cravings than will cross-category substitutes (Experiments 1, 2a, and 2b). However, because within-category substitutes are more similar than cross-category substitutes to desired stimuli, they are more likely to evoke an unanticipated negative contrast effect. As a result, unless substitutes are equivalent in quality to the desired stimulus, cross-category substitutes more effectively satisfy cravings for the desired stimulus (Experiments 3 and 4). © The Author(s) 2016.

Expected Number of Fixed Points in Boolean Networks with Arbitrary Topology.

Science.gov (United States)

Mori, Fumito; Mochizuki, Atsushi

2017-07-14

Boolean network models describe genetic, neural, and social dynamics in complex networks, where the dynamics depend generally on network topology. Fixed points in a genetic regulatory network are typically considered to correspond to cell types in an organism. We prove that the expected number of fixed points in a Boolean network, with Boolean functions drawn from probability distributions that are not required to be uniform or identical, is one, and is independent of network topology if only a feedback arc set satisfies a stochastic neutrality condition. We also demonstrate that the expected number is increased by the predominance of positive feedback in a cycle.

Community mental health nurses speak out: the critical relationship between emotional wellbeing and satisfying professional practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, Jayln; Glass, Nel

2006-10-01

The article reports on selected findings of a research study concerning emotional wellbeing and professional nursing practice (Rose 2002). It highlights the relationship between community mental health nurses' and emotional wellbeing, and their capacity to provide satisfying professional nursing practice (Rose 2002). The notion of emotional wellbeing, factors that impacted upon the participants' emotional wellbeing, and the relationship of emotional wellbeing to professional practice were revealed in the study. These findings were based on a qualitative critical feminist research inquiry and specifically, interviews with five women community mental health nurses in Australia. Whilst complex, emotional wellbeing was found to be both implicitly and explicitly linked to the participants intertwined personal and professional experiences. Four key components were identified: the nebulous notion; the stress relationship; the mind, body, spirit connection; and, inner sense of balance. In terms of emotional wellbeing and professional practice, three themes were revealed. These were: being able to speak out (or not); being autonomous (or not) and being satisfied (or not). The authors argue that the emotional wellbeing of nurses working in community mental health settings is critical to satisfying professional practice. Furthermore nursing work involves emotional work which impacts on one's emotional wellbeing and emotional wellbeing is integrally linked to professional practice. It is recommended that health organisations must be pro-active in addressing the emotional needs of nurses to ensure the delivery of health care that is aligned to professional practice. This approach will ensure nurses will feel more recognised and validated in terms of their nursing practice.

31 CFR 29.312 - All requirements for credit must be satisfied by June 30, 1997.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false All requirements for credit must be satisfied by June 30, 1997. 29.312 Section 29.312 Money and Finance: Treasury Office of the Secretary of the... General Principles for Determining Service Credit to Calculate Federal Benefit Payments § 29.312 All...

Autotransplantation of Odontoma-Associated Impacted Teeth-A Treatment Strategy for Satisfying Immediate Esthetic Demands: A Case Report.

Science.gov (United States)

Hwang, Lisa Alice; Kuo, Chih-Yin; Yang, Jung-Wu; Chiang, Wei-Fan

2017-09-01

Compound odontomas are common odontogenic tumors associated with permanent tooth impaction in the premaxilla. This report describes the case of a 14-year-old girl with an odontoma-associated impaction over the premaxilla that was treated using autotransplantation to satisfy an immediate esthetic demand. At postoperative follow-up conducted in the 14th month, a satisfactory cosmetic appearance with a healthy periodontal status was observed. In addition, the authors discuss the possible complications of autotransplantation and different treatment strategies for odontoma-associated impaction and for correcting bone defects in this case report. Autotransplantation for treating odontoma-associated impaction can be an alternative solution for satisfying an immediate cosmetic demand and providing a favorable outcome. Copyright © 2017 American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

CREENCIAS IRRACIONALES, RENDIMIENTO Y DESERCIÓN ACADÉMICA EN INGRESANTES UNIVERSITARIOS/ IRRATIONAL BELIEFS, ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND ACADEMIC DESERTION IN UNIVERSITY CANDIDATES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonardo Adrián Medrano*;

2010-10-01

Full Text Available RESUMENEl ingreso a una carrera universitaria constituye un proceso de transición en el que pueden desarrollarse creenciasirracionales que obstaculicen el desempeño y la permanencia en los estudios. En efecto, las creencias irracionales denotanla existencia de pensamientos rígidos, ilógicos y dogmáticos que pueden afectar el funcionamiento psicosocial de losingresantes. Tomando esto en consideración, se desarrolló un estudio no experimental tendiente a examinar la relación entrecreencias irracionales, rendimiento y deserción universitaria en una muestra de ingresantes universitarios (n=31. Aunqueno se obtuvo una correlación significativa con el rendimiento académico (rs = -.17; p>.5, se observó que los estudiantesque abandonaban la universidad presentaban mayores creencias irracionales (U=28.00; Z=2.24; p.5, weobserved that students who abandoned the university course showed greater irrational beliefs (U=28.00; Z=2.24; p<.05.Results obtained show the importance of preventive interventions regarding students training in controlling and managingcognitive beliefs for a better adaptation in academic environments and the permanence in university studies.

The needs of foster children and how to satisfy them : A systematic review of the literature

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Steenbakkers, Anne; van der Steen, Steffie; Grietens, Hans

Family foster care deeply influences the needs of children and how these are satisfied. To increase our knowledge of foster children’s needs and how these are conceptualized, this paper presents a systematic literature review. Sixty- four empirical articles from six databases were reviewed and

THE MOMENTUM EFFECT EXEMPLIFIES THE INFLUENCE OF INVESTORS’ IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOUR ON CHANGING PRICES OF SHARES AND STOCKS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE MOMENTUM EFFECT ON THE WARSAW STOCK EXCHANGE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paweł Merło

2015-08-01

Full Text Available An efficient market should not show any anomalies. When new information reaches a market which is efficient, it should automatically translate into prices of assets, which ought to eliminate the possibility of gaining an advantage over other investors, thus preventing excess profits. However, studies on capital markets indicate that in reality it is possible to earn unusually high profits by taking advantage of certain anomalies which occur on a given market. Among such anomalies there is the momentum effect. This study performed on the Stock Exchange in Warsaw has shown that the momentum effect occurred throughout the entire analyzed time period. Positive returns demonstrated for investment strategies based on the momentum effect were unexplainable by the classical theory of finances. A correlation was found between the economic situation on the stock exchange and portfolio return rates, but it was too weak to attribute the effect to a single decisive factor. In addition, the returns from investments based on the momentum effect were statistically higher in January than in the other months, which was caused by the January effect, stimulating the occurrence of statistically higher returns at the beginning of a year rather than later on during the analyzed period of time. Research in this field carried out in other countries justifies the claim that there are many irrational factors which together create the momentum effect on the stock exchange. Thus, it is possible to conclude that irrational decisions may have strong impact on the pricing of stocks on the capital market. The momentum effect persisted throughout the entire analyzed period, although its power changed cyclically, which coincides with results of research carried out in other countries. The fact that the momentum effect did not disappear may suggest that the factors involved in its creation are an indispensable part of the market, and this seems to undermine the commonly accepted

Satisfying the diverse development needs of an engineering organization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zarkesh, L.P.

1991-01-01

The Engineering Department at Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station has established an aggressive philosophy for professionally developing their staff. This philosophy has evolved over the last four years into a program with specialized administrative tools which not only satisfies the intent of industry training guidelines, but also accentuates the development of the individual. This program consists of three parts: (1) The Development Program - A program constructed to actively integrate system and applied science courses, management and interpersonal skill courses, design basis courses (e.g., pipe break analysis, support design, etc.) special process courses (e.g., human factors, ALARA, etc.) and external seminars sponsored by industry experts; (2) The Individual Development Plan (IDP) - A documented course of action, developed annually, in which the employee and the line supervisor jointly contribute to the identification of career goals and strategic professional objectives; and (3) The Training Database - A PC database developed to retain and manage course information (e.g., requests, attendance priorities, schedule, history, etc.). The paper describes these three facets of the training program

Satisfying STEM Education Using the Arduino Microprocessor in C Programming

Science.gov (United States)

Hoffer, Brandyn M.

There exists a need to promote better Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) education at the high school level. To satisfy this need a series of hands-on laboratory assignments were created to be accompanied by 2 educational trainers that contain various electronic components. This project provides an interdisciplinary, hands-on approach to teaching C programming that meets several standards defined by the Tennessee Board of Education. Together the trainers and lab assignments also introduce key concepts in math and science while allowing students hands-on experience with various electronic components. This will allow students to mimic real world applications of using the C programming language while exposing them to technology not currently introduced in many high school classrooms. The developed project is targeted at high school students performing at or above the junior level and uses the Arduino Mega open-source Microprocessor and software as the primary control unit.

Prospects of Renewable Energies Evolution in the Context of EU Energy Policy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

- Amel Ghediri

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Generally, EU countries are not provided with sufficient amount of energy resources to satisfy an internal energy demand. According to this, such issues as country's energy security, usage of new energy sources, its economy and environmental consequences of irrational use of energy resources are becoming more acute. The article is devoted to various kinds of alternative energy sources, in particular, "green energy" and the issue of increasing use of renewable energy sources. The main goal of the publication is to analyze the energy policy of the EU countries, the expansion of renewable energy potential as the most energy-efficient sources.

A parallel attractor-finding algorithm based on Boolean satisfiability for genetic regulatory networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wensheng Guo

Full Text Available In biological systems, the dynamic analysis method has gained increasing attention in the past decade. The Boolean network is the most common model of a genetic regulatory network. The interactions of activation and inhibition in the genetic regulatory network are modeled as a set of functions of the Boolean network, while the state transitions in the Boolean network reflect the dynamic property of a genetic regulatory network. A difficult problem for state transition analysis is the finding of attractors. In this paper, we modeled the genetic regulatory network as a Boolean network and proposed a solving algorithm to tackle the attractor finding problem. In the proposed algorithm, we partitioned the Boolean network into several blocks consisting of the strongly connected components according to their gradients, and defined the connection between blocks as decision node. Based on the solutions calculated on the decision nodes and using a satisfiability solving algorithm, we identified the attractors in the state transition graph of each block. The proposed algorithm is benchmarked on a variety of genetic regulatory networks. Compared with existing algorithms, it achieved similar performance on small test cases, and outperformed it on larger and more complex ones, which happens to be the trend of the modern genetic regulatory network. Furthermore, while the existing satisfiability-based algorithms cannot be parallelized due to their inherent algorithm design, the proposed algorithm exhibits a good scalability on parallel computing architectures.

Complete lift of a structure satisfying FK−(−K+1F=0

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lovejoy S. Das

1992-01-01

Full Text Available The idea of f-structure manifold on a differentiable manifold was initiated and developed by Yano [1], Ishihara and Yano [2], Goldberg [3] and among others. The horizontal and complete lifts from a differentiable manifold Mn of class C∞ to its cotangent bundles have been studied by Yano and Patterson [4,5]. Yano and Ishihara [6] have studied lifts of an f-structure in the tangent and cotangent bundles. The purpose of this paper is to obtain integrability conditions of a structure satisfying FK−(−K+1F=0 and FW−(−W+1F≠0 for 1

Empirical Research on Effects of the Irrational Performance of Managers in Corporate Finance Decisions%管理者非理性与企业融资行为的实证研究

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

朱广印; 西爱琴; 丁建勋

2014-01-01

Capital structure and debt maturity structure is an important part of corporate finance decisions. Using the latest achievements in the theory and empirical of behavioral finance,we conduct an empirical research on the effects of the irrational performance of managers in corporate finance decisions.We find that managers with overconfidence behavior,the represented irrational behavior,affects the decision-making of corporate capital structure and debt maturity decisions.In detail,overconfidence managers often choose higher debt ratio,but also tend to use short-term debt financing.The results can help to explain the behavior of economic transition financing decisions of enterprises in China.%负债比例和债务期限是企业融资决策的重要内容。运用行为公司金融的理论和最新成果，对企业管理者广泛存在的非理性特征和行为方式是否对企业融资决策产生影响进行实证检验。结果发现，以过度自信为代表的管理者非理性认知和行为偏差的确影响了企业的负债比例决策和债务期限结构决策，过度自信的管理者通常选择更高的资本负债比例，而且更倾向于采用短期负债进行融资。该结果可以更好地解释资本市场不完善和经济体制转轨阶段中国企业的融资决策行为。

Expected number of real roots for random linear combinations of orthogonal polynomials associated with radial weights

OpenAIRE

Bayraktar, Turgay

2017-01-01

In this note, we obtain asymptotic expected number of real zeros for random polynomials of the form $$f_n(z)=\\sum_{j=0}^na^n_jc^n_jz^j$$ where $a^n_j$ are independent and identically distributed real random variables with bounded $(2+\\delta)$th absolute moment and the deterministic numbers $c^n_j$ are normalizing constants for the monomials $z^j$ within a weighted $L^2$-space induced by a radial weight function satisfying suitable smoothness and growth conditions.

A NEW VISION IN SALES: SATISFYING CUSTOMER NEEDS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ion Stancu

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The new vision in sales requires, among other things, changing the salespeople's position towards the potential client by applying a philosophy that involves taking into consideration the people they come into contact with and providing solutions to address their needs in a disinterested manner, without having to pretend reciprocity. All this must be based on the concept of total sales utility, solutions to solve clients' immediate needs: the urgent ones, those who are directly related to them (financial needs, but also those arising from the use of goods purchased by the seller. The purpose of this article is to analyse how easily we can discover clients' real needs; under what conditions these needs can be satisfied through sales activities, and which the social responsibilities of the salespeople are.

Development strategies to satisfy corporate average CO_2 emission regulations of light duty vehicles (LDVs) in Korea

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oh, Yunjung; Park, Junhong; Lee, Jong Tae; Seo, Jigu; Park, Sungwook

2016-01-01

In the present study, we generated vehicle dynamic based light-duty vehicle (LDV) models and investigated some technical strategies in order to meet the corporate average CO_2 emission (CACE) regulations of Korea, which will be applied from 2016 to 2020. Seven types of LDV simulation models (including gasoline, diesel, and hybrid cars) were generated based on the AVL CRUISE program and the LDV sales ratio was used to estimate the CACE value of five companies in Korea. The prediction accuracy of the LDV models was validated using chassis dynamometer test data. Then, the effectiveness of the CACE reduction strategies was investigated based on the developed LDV simulation models. From the results of this study, it was revealed that all of the companies cannot satisfy the 2020 CACE regulation by just adopting a single strategy. In order to solve this problem, two types of CACE plans that combined several strategies (reducing the mass drag and fuel consumption rate, and adding a hybrid module, etc.) were proposed. After implementing the two types of CACE plan, it was predicted that five companies will be able to satisfy the 2020 CACE regulation. - Highlights: • Seven types of LDV models were generated to predict CO_2 emission. • Five companies were selected as the major car makers in Korea. • Diverse of strategies were considered to meet the future CO_2 standards in Korea. • All of the companies cannot satisfy the 2020 regulation by adopting a single item. • Two types of plans that combined several strategies were proposed.

Network and system diagrams revisited: Satisfying CEA requirements for causality analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perdicoulis, Anastassios; Piper, Jake

2008-01-01

Published guidelines for Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA) have called for the identification of cause-and-effect relationships, or causality, challenging researchers to identify methods that can possibly meet CEA's specific requirements. Together with an outline of these requirements from CEA key literature, the various definitions of cumulative effects point to the direction of a method for causality analysis that is visually-oriented and qualitative. This article consequently revisits network and system diagrams, resolves their reported shortcomings, and extends their capabilities with causal loop diagramming methodology. The application of the resulting composite causality analysis method to three Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) case studies appears to satisfy the specific requirements of CEA regarding causality. Three 'moments' are envisaged for the use of the proposed method: during the scoping stage, during the assessment process, and during the stakeholder participation process

Satisfiability of logic programming based on radial basis function neural networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hamadneh, Nawaf; Sathasivam, Saratha; Tilahun, Surafel Luleseged; Choon, Ong Hong

2014-01-01

In this paper, we propose a new technique to test the Satisfiability of propositional logic programming and quantified Boolean formula problem in radial basis function neural networks. For this purpose, we built radial basis function neural networks to represent the proportional logic which has exactly three variables in each clause. We used the Prey-predator algorithm to calculate the output weights of the neural networks, while the K-means clustering algorithm is used to determine the hidden parameters (the centers and the widths). Mean of the sum squared error function is used to measure the activity of the two algorithms. We applied the developed technique with the recurrent radial basis function neural networks to represent the quantified Boolean formulas. The new technique can be applied to solve many applications such as electronic circuits and NP-complete problems

Satisfiability of logic programming based on radial basis function neural networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hamadneh, Nawaf; Sathasivam, Saratha; Tilahun, Surafel Luleseged; Choon, Ong Hong [School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM, Penang (Malaysia)

2014-07-10

In this paper, we propose a new technique to test the Satisfiability of propositional logic programming and quantified Boolean formula problem in radial basis function neural networks. For this purpose, we built radial basis function neural networks to represent the proportional logic which has exactly three variables in each clause. We used the Prey-predator algorithm to calculate the output weights of the neural networks, while the K-means clustering algorithm is used to determine the hidden parameters (the centers and the widths). Mean of the sum squared error function is used to measure the activity of the two algorithms. We applied the developed technique with the recurrent radial basis function neural networks to represent the quantified Boolean formulas. The new technique can be applied to solve many applications such as electronic circuits and NP-complete problems.

Zero-Tolerance Math : A Defense of “No Math”

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wilkinson, Michael H.F.

2002-01-01

In this paper I extend the concept of “No Math” which was first introduced during the Florida elections. The results of this work show the existence of a hitherto unknown class of numbers, dubbed politically correct numbers. It is also shown that all other numbers are either illegal or irrational,

Are Emotionally Intelligent EFL Teachers More Satisfied Professionally?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Hossein Hekmatzadeh

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Despite the fact that Intelligence Quotient (IQ is an important factor in one’s success in terms of working environment, it is believed that emotional quotient or EQ plays a more important role. With that in mind, this study investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction of English as Foreign Language (EFL teachers who work at private language institutes in Iran/Shiraz. Furthermore, this study tried to answer whether there is a significant difference between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction of Iranian’s EFL teachers in terms of gender.  A 90-item Bar-On questionnaire was used to measure the teachers’ emotional intelligence; also, a modified version of Karavas’s (2010 job satisfaction scale was used to see how satisfied our teachers are with their teaching career. To answer the research question, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient statistical test was run. The results showed that there was a positive and significant correlation between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction of EFL teachers in Iran/Shiraz. Furthermore, the results revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in emotional intelligence between EFL male and female teachers, but there was no statistically significant relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ job satisfaction in terms of gender. Based on our findings, it is suggested that some preparatory courses aiming at enhancing the important psychological traits such as emotional intelligence should be incorporated in educational programs designed for novice teachers so that it will contribute to pedagogical improvement.

Prescribing patterns and perceptions of health care professionals about rational drug use in a specialist hospital clinic.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moses A. Ojo

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Irrational drug use is associated with adverse consequences including drug resistance and avoidable adverse drug reactions. Studies of rational drug use in psychiatric facilities are scanty. This study evaluated prescription practices and perception of health care professionals regarding causes of irrational drug use. A retrospective study conducted at the outpatient clinic of Federal Neuro- psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos. Data on drug use indicators were analyzed. A cross-sectional assessment of perception of prescribers and dispensers regarding rational drug use was conducted. A total of 600 prescriptions were analyzed. Mean number of drugs per encounter was 3.5 and percentage generic prescribed was 58.5%. Poly-pharmacy (P=0.024, 95% CI=1.082-1.315 and non-generic prescribing (P=0.032, 95% CI=1.495-1.821 were significantly associated with young prescribers. Factors associated with irrational drug use include demand from patients, patients’ beliefs about injection drugs and influence of pharmaceutical sale representatives. Certain aspect of prescribers indicators are still poor in the hospital studied. Health care professionals identified possible associated factors for irrational drug use. Concerted efforts are required to ensure rational drug use especially in psychiatric facilities in Nigeria.

Are the French neurology residents satisfied with their training?

Science.gov (United States)

Codron, P; Roux, T; Le Guennec, L; Zuber, M

2015-11-01

There have been dramatic changes in neurology over the past decade; these advances require a constant adaptation of residents' theoretical and practical training. The French Association of Neurology Residents and the College of Neurology Teachers conducted a national survey to assess the French neurology residents' satisfaction about their training. A 16-item questionnaire was sent via e-mail to French neurology residents completing training in 2014. Data were collected and processed anonymously. Of eligible respondents, 126 returned the survey, representing approximately 40% of all the French neurology residents. Most residents (78%) rated their clinical training favorably. Seventy-two percent reported good to excellent quality teaching of neurology courses from their faculty. However, many residents (40%) felt insufficient their doctoral thesis supervision. All residents intended to enter fellowship training after their residency, and most of them (68%) planned to practice in a medical center. French neurology residents seemed satisfied with the structure and quality of their training program. However, efforts are required to improve management of the doctoral thesis and make private practice more attractive and accessible during the residency. In the future, similar surveys should be scheduled to regularly assess neurology residents' satisfaction and the impact of the forthcoming national and European reforms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Predictors of employees’ psychophysical health and sickness absenteeism: Modelling based on REBT framework

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Popov Boris

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The main objective of the study was to examine whether negative experiences at work, irrational beliefs, alone and in interaction, and negative affectivity as a mediator, could predict psychosomatic complaints and frequency of sickness absenteeism. The hypothesized model showed acceptable fit to the data, suggesting that negative affectivity mediates the relationship between negative experiences and irrational beliefs on the one hand, and psychosomatic complaints on the other. The results also revealed no significant effect of interaction between negative experiences and irrational beliefs, while fatigue and physical symptoms have a significant and direct effect on the number of days of absence. It was concluded that the lack of an effect of psychological symptoms on absenteeism may indicate that employees in Serbia do not see them as a sufficient reason for sick leave. The results are discussed within frameworks of Rational-emotive behaviour therapy and strategic stress management approach.

ONR (Office of Naval Research) Far East Scientific Information Bulletin. Volume 14, Number 3, July-September 1989

Science.gov (United States)

1989-09-01

34rational or irrational," and are motivation seems to have come from an "harmonious." assessment of the history of materials science and of the future in...areas where the Japanese These three categories have a hier- have developed great strength. "The history archy of intelligence and, presumably, utility...the new Mazda RX-7 car was shortcoming of the equilibrium Baldwin/ calculated using the same procedure as in Lomax turbulence model for shock/boundary

CTC-ask: a new algorithm for conversion of CT numbers to tissue parameters for Monte Carlo dose calculations applying DICOM RS knowledge

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ottosson, Rickard O; Behrens, Claus F

2011-01-01

One of the building blocks in Monte Carlo (MC) treatment planning is to convert patient CT data to MC compatible phantoms, consisting of density and media matrices. The resulting dose distribution is highly influenced by the accuracy of the conversion. Two major contributing factors are precise conversion of CT number to density and proper differentiation between air and lung. Existing tools do not address this issue specifically. Moreover, their density conversion may depend on the number of media used. Differentiation between air and lung is an important task in MC treatment planning and misassignment may lead to local dose errors on the order of 10%. A novel algorithm, CTC-ask, is presented in this study. It enables locally confined constraints for the media assignment and is independent of the number of media used for the conversion of CT number to density. MC compatible phantoms were generated for two clinical cases using a CT-conversion scheme implemented in both CTC-ask and the DICOM-RT toolbox. Full MC dose calculation was subsequently conducted and the resulting dose distributions were compared. The DICOM-RT toolbox inaccurately assigned lung in 9.9% and 12.2% of the voxels located outside of the lungs for the two cases studied, respectively. This was completely avoided by CTC-ask. CTC-ask is able to reduce anatomically irrational media assignment. The CTC-ask source code can be made available upon request to the authors. (note)

Mean values and measures in quantum mechanics and classical mechanics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bass, J.

1980-01-01

In quantum mechanics, for a system at a fixed time, the theory of operators associates to every physical quantity X a probability law. But it is not possible to associate a probability law to a pair (X, Y) of operators, when they do not commute. Therefore it is not possible to represent the physical quantities by the usual methods of probability theory. The aim of this paper is to show that, if X, Y are represented by non random functions which are oscillating in such a way that they generate temporal averages their exist pairs of functions X, Y which have properties similar to pairs of operators. To X and to Y it is possible to associate two measures analogous to probability measures, but that is not possible for the pair (X, Y). The functions satisfying to such conditions are the pseudo-random function, a class of stationary functions which is complementary of the class of almost-periodic functions. The construction of these functions makes use of uniformly distributed sequences of real numbers, which constitute a simulation of random variables uniformly distributed over [0, 1]. Their properties are consequences of the ergodic theorems of H. Weyl (1916) and are related to the properties of irrational numbers [fr

Testing random number generators for Monte Carlo applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sim, L.H.

1992-01-01

Central to any system for modelling radiation transport phenomena using Monte Carlo techniques is the method by which pseudo random numbers are generated. This method is commonly referred to as the Random Number Generator (RNG). It is usually a computer implemented mathematical algorithm which produces a series of numbers uniformly distributed on the interval [0,1]. If this series satisfies certain statistical tests for randomness, then for practical purposes the pseudo random numbers in the series can be considered to be random. Tests of this nature are important not only for new RNGs but also to test the implementation of known RNG algorithms in different computer environments. Six RNGs have been tested using six statistical tests and one visual test. The statistical tests are the moments, frequency (digit and number), serial, gap, and poker tests. The visual test is a simple two dimensional ordered pair display. In addition the RNGs have been tested in a specific Monte Carlo application. This type of test is often overlooked, however it is important that in addition to satisfactory performance in statistical tests, the RNG be able to perform effectively in the applications of interest. The RNGs tested here are based on a variety of algorithms, including multiplicative and linear congruential, lagged Fibonacci, and combination arithmetic and lagged Fibonacci. The effect of the Bays-Durham shuffling algorithm on the output of a known bad RNG has also been investigated. 18 refs., 11 tabs., 4 figs. of

The role of bio-fuels in satisfying US transportation fuel demands

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Akinci, Berk; Fitch, Jonathan V. [Department of Electrical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609 (United States); Kassebaum, Paul G. [Department of Mechanical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609 (United States); Thompson, Robert W. [Department of Chemical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA 01609 (United States)

2008-09-15

In spite of the abundant interest in conversion of agricultural products into useful energy carriers, there have been relatively few studies assessing the magnitude of the impact these fuels can make on satisfying US energy demands. There have been fewer studies of unintended consequences stemming from these enterprises, although several research groups have begun questioning the appropriate levels of subsidies provided to individuals and companies to stimulate production of bio-fuels. In this paper, the production capacities for bio-fuels - ethanol and biodiesel - are evaluated for their potential impact on the US energy market. Several ramifications of these technologies are reviewed. This study concludes that ethanol or biodiesel production do not appear scalable to make a significant difference on the US fossil fuel demand for transportation. Aspects of this study point to systemic changes that may be required in lifestyles and attitudes toward energy consumption. Finally, comments regarding US energy policies are included to stimulate discussion. (author)

The role of bio-fuels in satisfying US transportation fuel demands

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Akinci, Berk; Kassebaum, Paul G.; Fitch, Jonathan V.; Thompson, Robert W.

2008-01-01

In spite of the abundant interest in conversion of agricultural products into useful energy carriers, there have been relatively few studies assessing the magnitude of the impact these fuels can make on satisfying US energy demands. There have been fewer studies of unintended consequences stemming from these enterprises, although several research groups have begun questioning the appropriate levels of subsidies provided to individuals and companies to stimulate production of bio-fuels. In this paper, the production capacities for bio-fuels-ethanol and biodiesel-are evaluated for their potential impact on the US energy market. Several ramifications of these technologies are reviewed. This study concludes that ethanol or biodiesel production do not appear scalable to make a significant difference on the US fossil fuel demand for transportation. Aspects of this study point to systemic changes that may be required in lifestyles and attitudes toward energy consumption. Finally, comments regarding US energy policies are included to stimulate discussion

Why do even satisfied newlyweds eventually go on to divorce?

Science.gov (United States)

Lavner, Justin A; Bradbury, Thomas N

2012-02-01

Although divorce typically follows an extended period of unhappiness that begins early in marriage, some couples who are very happy throughout the first several years of marriage will also go on to divorce. This study aimed to identify risk factors early in marriage that distinguish initially satisfied couples who eventually divorce from those who remain married. We identified 136 couples reporting stably high levels of relationship satisfaction in the first 4 years of marriage. We compared the couples who went on to divorce by the 10-year follow-up with the couples who remained married on initial measures of commitment, observed communication, stress, and personality. Divorcing couples displayed more negative communication, emotion, and social support as newlyweds compared with couples who did not divorce. No significant differences were found in the other domains, in relationship satisfaction, or in positive behaviors. Overall, results indicate that even couples who are very successful at navigating the early years of marriage can be vulnerable to later dissolution if their interpersonal exchanges are poorly regulated. We speculate that, paradoxically, the many strengths possessed by these couples may mask their potent interpersonal liabilities, posing challenges for educational interventions designed to help these couples.

Maximizing the number of satisfied subscribers in Pub/Sub systems under capacity constraints

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Setty, V.J.; Kreitz, G; Urdaneta, G; Vitenberg, R; van Steen, M.R.

2014-01-01

Publish/subscribe (pub/sub) is a popular communication paradigm in the design of large-scale distributed systems. A provider of a pub/sub service (whether centralized, peer-assisted, or based on a federated organization of cooperatively managed servers) commonly faces a fundamental challenge: given

25 CFR 166.819 - What happens if the BIA does not collect enough money to satisfy the penalty?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false What happens if the BIA does not collect enough money to... does not collect enough money to satisfy the penalty? We will send written notice to the trespasser demanding immediate settlement and advising the trespasser that unless settlement is received within five...

45 CFR 2552.27 - What two search components of the National Service Criminal History Check must I satisfy to...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... position? 2552.27 Section 2552.27 Public Welfare Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued... satisfy to determine an individual's suitability to serve in a covered position? Unless the Corporation... time of application; and (b) National Sex Offender Public Registry. A name-based search of the...

Are patients satisfied with a web-based followup after total joint arthroplasty?

Science.gov (United States)

Marsh, Jacquelyn; Bryant, Dianne; MacDonald, Steven J; Naudie, Douglas; Remtulla, Alliya; McCalden, Richard; Howard, James; Bourne, Robert; McAuley, James

2014-06-01

A web-based followup assessment may be a feasible, cost-saving alternative of tracking patient outcomes after total joint arthroplasty. However, before implementing a web-based program, it is important to determine patient satisfaction levels with the new followup method. Satisfaction with the care received is becoming an increasingly important metric, and we do not know to what degree patients are satisfied with an approach to followup that does not involve an in-person visit with their surgeons. We determined (1) patient satisfaction and (2) patients' preferences for followup method (web-based or in-person) after total joint arthroplasty. We randomized patients who were at least 12 months after primary THA or TKA to complete a web-based followup or to have their appointment at the clinic. There were 410 eligible patients contacted for the study during the recruitment period. Of these, 256 agreed to participate, and a total of 229 patients completed the study (89% of those enrolled, 56% of those potentially eligible; 111 in the usual-care group, 118 in the web-based group). Their mean age was 69 years (range, 38-86 years). There was no crossover between groups. All 229 patients completed a satisfaction questionnaire at the time of their followup appointments. Patients in the web-based group also completed a satisfaction and preference questionnaire 1 year later. Only patients from the web-based group were asked to indicate preference as they had experienced the web-based and in-person followup methods. We used descriptive statistics to summarize the satisfaction questionnaires and compared results using Pearson's chi-square test. Ninety-one patients (82.0%) in the usual-care group indicated that they were either extremely or very satisfied with the followup process compared with 90 patients (75.6%) who were in the web-based group (p person followup assessment reported greater satisfaction; however, the difference was small and may not outweigh the additional cost

42 CFR 137.18 - What criteria must an Indian Tribe satisfy to be eligible to participate in self-governance?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... eligible to participate in self-governance? 137.18 Section 137.18 Public Health PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE... SELF-GOVERNANCE Selection of Indian Tribes for Participation in Self-Governance § 137.18 What criteria must an Indian Tribe satisfy to be eligible to participate in self-governance? To be eligible to...

A coupled-mode theory for multiwaveguide systems satisfying the reciprocity theorem and power conservation

Science.gov (United States)

Chuang, Shun-Lien

1987-01-01

Two sets of coupled-mode equations for multiwaveguide systems are derived using a generalized reciprocity relation; one set for a lossless system, and the other for a general lossy or lossless system. The second set of equations also reduces to those of the first set in the lossless case under the condition that the transverse field components are chosen to be real. Analytical relations between the coupling coefficients are shown and applied to the coupling of mode equations. It is shown analytically that these results satisfy exactly both the reciprocity theorem and power conservation. New orthogonal relations between the supermodes are derived in matrix form, with the overlap integrals taken into account.

Anger and the ABC model underlying Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Ziegler, Daniel J; Smith, Phillip N

2004-06-01

The ABC model underlying Ellis's Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy predicts that people who think more irrationally should display greater trait anger than do people who think less irrationally. This study tested this prediction regarding the ABC model. 186 college students were administered the Survey of Personal Beliefs and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-Second Edition to measure irrational thinking and trait anger, respectively. Students who scored higher on Overall Irrational Thinking and Low Frustration Tolerance scored significantly higher on Trait Anger than did those who scored lower on Overall Irrational Thinking and Low Frustration Tolerance. This indicates support for the ABC model, especially Ellis's construct of irrational beliefs which is central to the model.

Nakula's Extraordinary Talent -44 ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

thought of as the points on a straight line. For this reason, R is also referred to as the 'Real Line'. It is a disjoint union of. 'rational' and 'irrational' numbers. Rational numbers are the fractions min of integers m and n with n ~ O. The set of all rational numbers is denoted by Q. It is obvious that the sums and products of rational ...

Pocket book of integrals and mathematical formulas

CERN Document Server

Tallarida, Ronald J

1999-01-01

Elementary Algebra and GeometryFundamental Properties (Real Numbers)ExponentsFractional ExponentsIrrational ExponentsLogarithmsFactorialsBinomial TheoremFactors and ExpansionProgressionsComplex NumbersPolar FormPermutationsCombinationsAlgebraic EquationsGeometryDeterminants, Matrices, and Systems of EquationsDeterminantsEvaluation by CofactorsProperties of DeterminantsMatricesOperationsPropertiesTransposeIdentity MatrixAdjointInverse MatrixSystems of Linear EquationsMatrix Solution

Fixed point theorems for mappings satisfying contractive conditions of integral type and applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kang Shin

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract In this paper, the existence, uniqueness and iterative approximations of fixed points for contractive mappings of integral type in complete metric spaces are established. As applications, the existence, uniqueness and iterative approximations of solutions for a class of functional equations arising in dynamic programming are discussed. The results presented in this paper extend and improve essentially the results of Branciari (A fixed point theorem for mappings satisfying a general contractive condition of integral type. Int. J. Math. Math. Sci. 29, 531-536, 2002, Kannan (Some results on fixed points. Bull. Calcutta Math. Soc. 60, 71-76, 1968 and several known results. Four concrete examples involving the contractive mappings of integral type with uncountably many points are constructed. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classfication: 54H25, 47H10, 49L20, 49L99, 90C39

Satisfied, but Will They Spread a Word? The Role of Customer Satisfaction at Jamu Café

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Usep Suhud

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This research aimed to investigate consumers’ intention to repurchase jamu at Jamu Café. Service quality, customer satisfaction, and Word-of-Mouth (WOM were selected as the predictor variables. In total, 200 participants who purchased jamu at the café were selected conveniently. Data were analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses as well as Structural Equation Model (SEM. As a result, service quality influences customer satisfaction significantly. As customers are satisfied, they do word-of-mouth and repurchase. On the other hand, WOM has an insignificant impact on repurchase intention.

Foliated eight-manifolds for M-theory compactification

Science.gov (United States)

Babalic, Elena Mirela; Lazaroiu, Calin Iuliu

2015-01-01

We characterize compact eight-manifolds M which arise as internal spaces in flux compactifications of M-theory down to AdS3 using the theory of foliations, for the case when the internal part ξ of the supersymmetry generator is everywhere non-chiral. We prove that specifying such a supersymmetric background is equivalent with giving a codimension one foliation of M which carries a leafwise G 2 structure, such that the O'Neill-Gray tensors, non-adapted part of the normal connection and the torsion classes of the G 2 structure are given in terms of the supergravity four-form field strength by explicit formulas which we derive. We discuss the topology of such foliations, showing that the C * algebra is a noncommutative torus of dimension given by the irrationality rank of a certain cohomology class constructed from G, which must satisfy the Latour obstruction. We also give a criterion in terms of this class for when such foliations are fibrations over the circle. When the criterion is not satisfied, each leaf of is dense in M.

13 CFR 127.504 - What additional requirements must a concern satisfy to submit an offer on an EDWOSB or WOSB...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 13 Business Credit and Assistance 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false What additional requirements must a concern satisfy to submit an offer on an EDWOSB or WOSB requirement? 127.504 Section 127.504 Business Credit and Assistance SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION WOMEN-OWNED SMALL BUSINESS FEDERAL CONTRACT...

Challenging the myth of the irrational dairy farmer; understanding decision-making related to herd health.

Science.gov (United States)

Kristensen, E; Jakobsen, E B

2011-01-01

Veterinarians working with dairy cows are suggested to refocus their efforts from being task-oriented providers of single-cow therapy and develop themselves into advice-oriented herd health management advisors. The practising cattle veterinarian's ability to translate knowledge into on-farm application requires a profound understanding of the dairy farm as an integrated system. Consequently, educating and motivating farmers are key issues. To achieve such insight the veterinarian needs to work with several scientific disciplines, especially epidemiology and (behavioural) economics. This trans-disciplinary approach offers new methodological possibilities and challenges to students of dairy herd health management. Advisors working with dairy herd health management may sometimes experience that farmers do not follow their advice. Potentially, this could lead to the interpretation that such farmers are behaving irrationally. However, farmers who are confronted with advice suggesting a change of behaviour are placed in a state of cognitive dissonance. To solve such dissonance they may either comply with the advice or reduce the dissonance by convincing themselves that the suggested change in management is impossible to implement. Consequently, herd health management advisors must understand the fundamental and instrumental relationships between individual farmers' values, behaviour and perception of risk, to stimulate and qualify the farmer's decision-making in a way that will increase the farmer's satisfaction and subjective well-being. Traditionally, studies on herd health economics have focussed on financial methods to measure the value of technical outcomes from suggested changes in management, following the basic assumption that farmers strive to maximise profit. Farmers, however, may be motivated by very different activities, e.g. animal health and welfare or other farmers' recognition, making it impossible to provide 'one-size-fts-all' consultancy because the

STUDY OF PRESCRIBING PATTERN OF ANTIMICROBIAL AGENTS IN SELECTED PATIENTS ATTENDING TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL IN INDIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anjan Adhikari

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drugs in hospitals and their irrational use is one of the important factors for the development and spread of resistance. The objective of this study was to evaluate the antibiotic prescription pattern in the patient attending the tertiary care hospital. It was found that a total of 333 antibiotics where prescribed in 245 prescriptions. The average number of antibiotics per prescription was approximately1.4. The most commonly used antibiotics were moxifloxacin 19.5%, metronidazole 10.4%, amoxicillin + cloxacillin 10.2% and ciprofloxacin 6%. antibiotics were almost equally prescribed to both male and female. 45.5% of the antibiotics shows adherence with the National List of Essential Medicines of India. 76.6% of the antibiotics were single products while 23.4% were fixed dose combination. The most commonly used dosage forms were tablets (57%, drops (23.5% and creams (11.7%.57.3% were prescribed irrationally. Quinolones (48.2% and antifungals (21.5% were the most common types of prescribed antibiotics in which irrationality was found.

Pesticide poisoning: a major health problem in Sri Lanka

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hoek, Wim van der; Konradsen, F; Athukorala, K

1998-01-01

pesticides is the most important reason for this high number of poisoning cases. The frequent application of highly hazardous pesticides in high concentrations was often irrational and posed serious health and financial risks to the farmers. Sales promotion activities and credit facilities promoted...

A test of the ABC model underlying rational emotive behavior therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Ziegler, Daniel J; Leslie, Yvonne M

2003-02-01

The ABC model underlying Ellis's Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy predicts that people who think more irrationally should respond to daily stressors or hassles differently than do people who think less irrationally. This study tested this aspect of the ABC model. 192 college students were administered the Survey of Personal Beliefs and the Hassles Scale to measure irrational thinking and daily hassles, respectively. Students who scored higher on overall irrational thinking reported a significantly higher frequency of hassles than did those who scored lower on overall irrational thinking, while students who scored higher on awfulizing and low frustration tolerance reported a significantly greater intensity of hassles than did those who scored lower on awfulizing and low frustration tolerance. This indicates support for the ABC model, especially Ellis's construct of irrational beliefs central to this model.

Determination of the number of radicals in the initial chain reactions by mathematical methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pejović Branko B.

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Starting from the fact that the real mechanism in a chemical equation takes places through a certain number of radicals which participate in simultaneous reactions and initiate chain reactions according to a particular pattern, the aim of this study is to determine their number in the first couple of steps of the reaction. Based on this, the numbers of radicals were determined in the general case, in the form of linear difference equations, which, by certain mathematical transformations, were reduced to one equation that satisfies a particular numeric series, entirely defined if its first members are known. The equation obtained was solved by a common method developed in the theory of numeric series, in which its solutions represent the number of radicals in an arbitrary step of the reaction observed, in the analytical form. In the final part of the study, the method was tested and verified using two characteristic examples from general chemistry. The study also gives a suggestion of a more efficient procedure by reducing the difference equation to a lower order.

Statistical evaluation of PACSTAT random number generation capabilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Piepel, G.F.; Toland, M.R.; Harty, H.; Budden, M.J.; Bartley, C.L.

1988-05-01

This report summarizes the work performed in verifying the general purpose Monte Carlo driver-program PACSTAT. The main objective of the work was to verify the performance of PACSTAT's random number generation capabilities. Secondary objectives were to document (using controlled configuration management procedures) changes made in PACSTAT at Pacific Northwest Laboratory, and to assure that PACSTAT input and output files satisfy quality assurance traceability constraints. Upon receipt of the PRIME version of the PACSTAT code from the Basalt Waste Isolation Project, Pacific Northwest Laboratory staff converted the code to run on Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VAXs. The modifications to PACSTAT were implemented using the WITNESS configuration management system, with the modifications themselves intended to make the code as portable as possible. Certain modifications were made to make the PACSTAT input and output files conform to quality assurance traceability constraints. 10 refs., 17 figs., 6 tabs.

European Unique Hull Identification Number for Inland Navigation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivica Ružić

2006-03-01

Full Text Available To enable efficient management of inland navigation processes,specialized information systems should be developedthrough the application of modern information and communicationtechnology (ICT. For this purpose, individual Europeanwaterway and port authorities have developed their ownlocal information systems and databases. Due to the non-conformityof these databases, their integration at the Europeanlevel is confronted with selious problems (COMPRIS, 2003.One of the major problems is the lack of a common Europeanunique identification number for inland barges. For this reason,in some locally managed databases several different identificationnumbers are attributed to one and the same inlandbarge or certain identification numbers are not available. Thesame problem occurs in the communication between waterwayautholities and between waterway and port authorities. Therefore,a unique identification number for all floating objects onthe European waterways should be introduced. At the momentthere are only two official numbers for vessels. The first, the!MO number, introduced in 1978, is only used by maritimevessels. The second, the OFS number (Official Ship Number,is used only for vessels that have a Rhine patent (issued by theCCNR. The OFS number cannot satisfy all the requirementsof RIS Directive 2005/44/EC and the amendment to Directive82/714/EEC on technical requirements for inland navigationvessels in the enlarged European Union. The fact is that only20% of the ranges of codes are reserved for the non-Rhinecountries. A special Electronic Reporting International group(ER! was appointed to formulate a new system for uniqueidentification of inland vessels and also define a databasemodel for vessel characteristics. The initial suggestion of ERIwas to add one character in front of the OFS number in orderto increase its coding capacity. The intention was to make asfew as possible differences/modifications to the system currentlyused under the regime of

A Brownian dynamics study on ferrofluid colloidal dispersions using an iterative constraint method to satisfy Maxwell’s equations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dubina, Sean Hyun, E-mail: sdubin2@uic.edu; Wedgewood, Lewis Edward, E-mail: wedge@uic.edu [Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, 810 S. Clinton St. (MC 110), Chicago, Illinois 60607-4408 (United States)

2016-07-15

Ferrofluids are often favored for their ability to be remotely positioned via external magnetic fields. The behavior of particles in ferromagnetic clusters under uniformly applied magnetic fields has been computationally simulated using the Brownian dynamics, Stokesian dynamics, and Monte Carlo methods. However, few methods have been established that effectively handle the basic principles of magnetic materials, namely, Maxwell’s equations. An iterative constraint method was developed to satisfy Maxwell’s equations when a uniform magnetic field is imposed on ferrofluids in a heterogeneous Brownian dynamics simulation that examines the impact of ferromagnetic clusters in a mesoscale particle collection. This was accomplished by allowing a particulate system in a simple shear flow to advance by a time step under a uniformly applied magnetic field, then adjusting the ferroparticles via an iterative constraint method applied over sub-volume length scales until Maxwell’s equations were satisfied. The resultant ferrofluid model with constraints demonstrates that the magnetoviscosity contribution is not as substantial when compared to homogeneous simulations that assume the material’s magnetism is a direct response to the external magnetic field. This was detected across varying intensities of particle-particle interaction, Brownian motion, and shear flow. Ferroparticle aggregation was still extensively present but less so than typically observed.

A Brownian dynamics study on ferrofluid colloidal dispersions using an iterative constraint method to satisfy Maxwell’s equations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dubina, Sean Hyun; Wedgewood, Lewis Edward

2016-01-01

Ferrofluids are often favored for their ability to be remotely positioned via external magnetic fields. The behavior of particles in ferromagnetic clusters under uniformly applied magnetic fields has been computationally simulated using the Brownian dynamics, Stokesian dynamics, and Monte Carlo methods. However, few methods have been established that effectively handle the basic principles of magnetic materials, namely, Maxwell’s equations. An iterative constraint method was developed to satisfy Maxwell’s equations when a uniform magnetic field is imposed on ferrofluids in a heterogeneous Brownian dynamics simulation that examines the impact of ferromagnetic clusters in a mesoscale particle collection. This was accomplished by allowing a particulate system in a simple shear flow to advance by a time step under a uniformly applied magnetic field, then adjusting the ferroparticles via an iterative constraint method applied over sub-volume length scales until Maxwell’s equations were satisfied. The resultant ferrofluid model with constraints demonstrates that the magnetoviscosity contribution is not as substantial when compared to homogeneous simulations that assume the material’s magnetism is a direct response to the external magnetic field. This was detected across varying intensities of particle-particle interaction, Brownian motion, and shear flow. Ferroparticle aggregation was still extensively present but less so than typically observed.

Bayesian probability estimates are not necessary to make choices satisfying Bayes’ rule in elementary situations

Science.gov (United States)

Domurat, Artur; Kowalczuk, Olga; Idzikowska, Katarzyna; Borzymowska, Zuzanna; Nowak-Przygodzka, Marta

2015-01-01

This paper has two aims. First, we investigate how often people make choices conforming to Bayes’ rule when natural sampling is applied. Second, we show that using Bayes’ rule is not necessary to make choices satisfying Bayes’ rule. Simpler methods, even fallacious heuristics, might prescribe correct choices reasonably often under specific circumstances. We considered elementary situations with binary sets of hypotheses and data. We adopted an ecological approach and prepared two-stage computer tasks resembling natural sampling. Probabilistic relations were inferred from a set of pictures, followed by a choice which was made to maximize the chance of a preferred outcome. Use of Bayes’ rule was deduced indirectly from choices. Study 1 used a stratified sample of N = 60 participants equally distributed with regard to gender and type of education (humanities vs. pure sciences). Choices satisfying Bayes’ rule were dominant. To investigate ways of making choices more directly, we replicated Study 1, adding a task with a verbal report. In Study 2 (N = 76) choices conforming to Bayes’ rule dominated again. However, the verbal reports revealed use of a new, non-inverse rule, which always renders correct choices, but is easier than Bayes’ rule to apply. It does not require inversion of conditions [transforming P(H) and P(D|H) into P(H|D)] when computing chances. Study 3 examined the efficiency of three fallacious heuristics (pre-Bayesian, representativeness, and evidence-only) in producing choices concordant with Bayes’ rule. Computer-simulated scenarios revealed that the heuristics produced correct choices reasonably often under specific base rates and likelihood ratios. Summing up we conclude that natural sampling results in most choices conforming to Bayes’ rule. However, people tend to replace Bayes’ rule with simpler methods, and even use of fallacious heuristics may be satisfactorily efficient. PMID:26347676

Remarks on the conformally flat submanifolds satisfying the R.C-condition or the C.R-condition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zafindratafa, G.K.

1988-06-01

The hypersurfaces of E n+1 have been studied for the particular case when they satisfy the R.C-condition or the C.R-condition. One objective is to generalize this situation to a higher codimension. More precisely, we consider the case of dimension 4, and replace the condition of quasiumbilicity by the conformal flatness. In this way, we construct an example of 4-submanifold of IE 6 which is conformally flat at a particular point without being quasiumbilical. That such submanifolds exist, was asserted without proof. Thus, we present another counter-example. (author). 4 refs

Determining the number of samples required for decisions concerning remedial actions at hazardous waste sites

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Skiles, J.L.; Redfearn, A.; White, R.K.

1991-01-01

An important consideration for every risk analyst is how many field samples should be taken so that scientifically defensible decisions concerning the need for remediation of a hazardous waste site can be made. Since any plausible remedial action alternative must, at a minimum, satisfy the condition of protectiveness of human and environmental health, we propose a risk-based approach for determining the number of samples to take during remedial investigations rather than using more traditional approaches such as considering background levels of contamination or federal or state cleanup standards

Institutional and programmatic suggestions for satisfying public policy responsibilities in a retail competitive electric industry

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tonn, B.E.; Schweitzer, M. [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)

1997-01-01

The emergence of retail competition in the US electric power industry places at risk various environmental and social programmes such as demand side management, low income programmes and renewable energy. This paper presents institutional and programmatic suggestions for satisfying these kinds of public policy responsibilities in a disintegrated industry. Suggestions include customer owned electricity franchises, electricity facility siting marketplaces, electric industry foresight councils, model systems programmes, integrated social services programmes, collaborative electric service programmes, ISO standards and portfolio standards. These recommendations would be funded by a national transmission charge, a state level distribution charge and franchise level sales taxes, to be paid by transmission organizations, distribution organizations and electricity consumers, respectively. (author)

At the intersection of Behavioural Economics and Philosophy ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The field of behavioural economics has produced a number of valuable insights into the psychology of irrational behaviour, consumerism and morality. One particularly interesting line of research is that of dishonesty, especially the episodic dishonesty of generally honest people. Currently, an experimental paradigm ...

Are underground coal miners satisfied with their work boots?

Science.gov (United States)

Dobson, Jessica A; Riddiford-Harland, Diane L; Bell, Alison F; Steele, Julie R

2018-01-01

Dissatisfaction with work boot design is common in the mining industry. Many underground coal miners believe their work boots contribute to the high incidence of lower limb injuries they experience. Despite this, the most recent research to examine underground coal mining work boot satisfaction was conducted over a decade ago. This present study aimed to address this gap in the literature by assessing current mining work boot satisfaction in relation to the work-related requirements for underground coal mining. 358 underground coal miners (355 men; mean age = 39.1 ± 10.7 years) completed a 54-question survey regarding their job details, work footwear habits, foot problems, lower limb and lower back pain history, and work footwear fit and comfort. Results revealed that underground coal miners were not satisfied with their current mining work boots. This was evident in the high incidence of reported foot problems (55.3%), lower back pain (44.5%), knee pain (21.5%), ankle pain (24.9%) and foot pain (42.3%). Over half of the underground coal miners surveyed believed their work boots contributed to their lower limb pain and reported their work boots were uncomfortable. Different working roles and environments resulted in differences in the incidence of foot problems, lower limb pain and comfort scores, confirming that one boot design cannot meet all the work-related requirements of underground coal mining. Further research examining the interaction of a variety of boot designs across the different underground surfaces and the different tasks miners perform is paramount to identify key boot design features that affect the way underground coal miners perform. Enhanced work boot design could improve worker comfort and productivity by reducing the high rates of reported foot problems and pain amongst underground coal miners. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Corrigendum to ;Lotka-Volterra systems satisfying a strong Painlevé property; [Phys. Lett. A 380 (47) (2016) 3977-3982

Science.gov (United States)

Bountis, Tassos; Vanhaecke, Pol

2017-12-01

The comment made after the proof of Proposition 3.3, in our paper [T. Bountis, P. Vanhaecke, Lotka-Volterra systems satisfying a strong Pailevé property, Phys. Lett. A 380 (47) (2016) 3977-3982], saying that the proposition can be generalized when linear terms are added to the Lotka-Volterra systems considered in the paper, is wrong. In general such deformed systems are not even Hamiltonian.

Energy balance of Georgia

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Demur Chomakhidze

2016-09-01

It is shown that, traditionally, the energy balance of Georgia is in deep deficit. The suggestions for its improvement are provided in the Article. The country imports almost all amount of oil and natural gas. Electricity balance is relatively stable. In the recent years, some amount of electricity is exported to the neighboring countries. Generally, the country satisfies only 30–35% of own energy consumption by local generation, and the rest amount of resources are imported from abroad. The reason of deficit to some extent is irrational and wasteful consumption of energy resources. The article examines the organizational difficulties in drawing up energy balance of Georgia and statistical problems of recording of energy production and consumption at the initial stage of market economy.

A conservative, thermodynamically consistent numerical approach for low Mach number combustion. Part I: Single-level integration

Science.gov (United States)

Nonaka, Andrew; Day, Marcus S.; Bell, John B.

2018-01-01

We present a numerical approach for low Mach number combustion that conserves both mass and energy while remaining on the equation of state to a desired tolerance. We present both unconfined and confined cases, where in the latter the ambient pressure changes over time. Our overall scheme is a projection method for the velocity coupled to a multi-implicit spectral deferred corrections (SDC) approach to integrate the mass and energy equations. The iterative nature of SDC methods allows us to incorporate a series of pressure discrepancy corrections naturally that lead to additional mass and energy influx/outflux in each finite volume cell in order to satisfy the equation of state. The method is second order, and satisfies the equation of state to a desired tolerance with increasing iterations. Motivated by experimental results, we test our algorithm on hydrogen flames with detailed kinetics. We examine the morphology of thermodiffusively unstable cylindrical premixed flames in high-pressure environments for confined and unconfined cases. We also demonstrate that our algorithm maintains the equation of state for premixed methane flames and non-premixed dimethyl ether jet flames.

Examination of a cognitive model of stress, burnout, and intention to resign for Japanese nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Ohue, Takashi; Moriyama, Michiko; Nakaya, Takashi

2011-06-01

A reduction in burnout is required to decrease the voluntary turnover of nurses. This study was carried out with the aim of establishing a cognitive model of stress, burnout, and intention to resign for nurses. A questionnaire survey was administered to 336 nurses (27 male and 309 female) who had worked for ≤5 years at a hospital with multiple departments. The survey included an evaluation of burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory), stress (Nursing Job Stressor Scale), automatic thoughts (Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Revised), and irrational beliefs (Japanese Irrational Belief Test), in addition to the intention to resign. The stressors that affected burnout in the nurses included conflict with other nursing staff, nursing role conflict, qualitative workload, quantitative workload, and conflict with patients. The irrational beliefs that were related to burnout included dependence, problem avoidance, and helplessness. In order to examine the automatic thoughts affecting burnout, groups with low and high negative automatic thoughts and low and high positive automatic thoughts were established. A two-way ANOVA showed a significant interaction of these factors with emotional exhaustion, but no significant interaction with depersonalization and a personal sense of accomplishment. Only the major effect was significant. The final model showed a process of "stressor → irrational beliefs → negative automatic thoughts/positive automatic thoughts → burnout". In addition, a relationship between burnout and an intention to resign was shown. These results suggest that stress and burnout in nurses might be prevented and that the number of nurses who leave their position could be decreased by changing irrational beliefs to rational beliefs, decreasing negative automatic thoughts, and facilitating positive automatic thoughts. © 2010 The Authors. Japan Journal of Nursing Science © 2010 Japan Academy of Nursing Science.

Particle creation and particle number in an expanding universe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parker, Leonard

2012-01-01

I describe the logical basis of the method that I developed in 1962 and 1963 to define a quantum operator corresponding to the observable particle number of a quantized free scalar field in a spatially-flat isotropically expanding (and/or contracting) universe. This work also showed for the first time that particles were created from the vacuum by the curved spacetime of an expanding spatially-flat Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) universe. The same process is responsible for creating the nearly scale-invariant spectrum of quantized perturbations of the inflaton scalar field during the inflationary stage of the expansion of the universe. I explain how the method that I used to obtain the observable particle number operator involved adiabatic invariance of the particle number (hence, the name adiabatic regularization) and the quantum theory of measurement of particle number in an expanding universe. I also show how I was led in a surprising way, to the discovery in 1964 that there would be no particle creation by these spatially-flat FLRW universes for free fields of any integer or half-integer spin satisfying field equations that are invariant under conformal transformations of the metric. The methods I used to define adiabatic regularization for particle number were based on generally-covariant concepts like adiabatic invariance and measurement that were fundamental and determined results that were unique to each given adiabatic order. This article is part of a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical in honour of Stuart Dowker's 75th birthday devoted to ‘Applications of zeta functions and other spectral functions in mathematics and physics’. (paper)

Effect of Number of Blades on Performance of Ceiling Fans

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Adeeb Ehsan

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, the effect of number of blades on ceiling fan performance is discussed. This approach helps to satisfy tradeoff between high air flow (performance and power consumption (energy efficiency. Specifically, variation from two to six blades is considered with nonlinear forward sweep profile. Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS technique is used to model the flow field induced by the ceiling fan inside a generic room. The performance is gauged through response parameters namely volumetric flow rate, mass flow rate, torque and energy efficiency. The results indicate that mass and volumetric flow rates are maximized for six blade configuration and energy efficiency is maximized for two blade configuration. The study indicates the importance of tradeoff between high air flow through ceiling fan and associated energy efficiency.

Nuclear power as a public issue. Protection of the public interest

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Doederlein, J.M.

1977-01-01

In evaluating the future role of nuclear power, it should be necessary to perform a rational and quantitative comparison of power production alternatives on at least the following four parameters: health effects, environmental effects, economy, and resource availability. The evaluations should cover all steps from fuel production through waste disposal. Less detailed knowledge is available on health effects from air pollution than from radioactivity. However, the present body of knowledge clearly indicates that large-scale use of nuclear power instead of fossil fuels will save thousands of human lives annually. This is probably one of the most compelling arguments for nuclear power. A number of irrational political, ethical and emotional factors may be of decisive importance in a large-scale choice of power plant types. However, an evaluation of rational and quantifiable factors may serve one important function in telling how many lives, which environmental improvements and what economic advantages must be sacrificed in order to satisfy such irrational demands. In any case it should be recognized that the public interest is best served by maximum use of the broad knowledge available on costs and benefits of alternative electric power generation forms. Obviously, energy policy is not an area where all questions can be tackled in an absolutely rational and objective way. However, a number of absolute restrictions are set by the laws of nature, others by present technological abilities. Such restrictions cannot be changed by wishful thinking, political or otherwise. On one hand, this may serve to define the role of the technological community in making both the nuclear and other more important decisions. On the other hand, these are facts which are not fully appreciated by those making a controversial issue of nuclear power. When defining the role of the professional in the nuclear issue the following point should be considered. A scientist or technologist using his

IN A “GREEN” RESTAURANT, WHAT MAKES THE CUSTOM ERS SATISFIED? THE RESTAURANT ATTRIBUTES OF TRIP ADVISOR REVIEWERS

OpenAIRE

TÜVER, Ilgaz Feray; GÜZEL, Berrin

2017-01-01

The aim of the study is to examine the restaurant attributes of green restaurants that make customers satisfied and dissatisfied. After the sustainability and green movement in food sector has gained importance, green restaurants have emerged. In this study, the main attributes that created satisfaction in a green restaurant are the food, atmosphere and the location, while food, price and the staff are the dissatisfaction creating attributes. However, none of the themes are related to sustain...

On The (honest) truth about dishonesty: How we lie to everyone: Especially ourselves by Dan Ariely

OpenAIRE

Hajdu, Csongor

2016-01-01

In this book Dan Ariely follows the topic he started to discuss in his prior book, the Predictably Irrational: stating that there is logic and consistency behind irrational human thinking and actions. Ariely goes into more details and leads the general topic of irrationality through a narrow-down approach to the topic of cheating, one of the fields we could observe to work irrationally in some cases, and even within that to cheating within organizational environment.

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Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

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12. Mayer-Jensen Shell Model and Magic Numbers. An Independent Nucleon Model with Spin-Orbit. Coupling. R Velusamy. 46. 25 Antifreeze Proteins of Bacteria. MK Chattopadhyay. Collimator. 31 Seven Different Proofs of the Irrationality of 12. VG Tikekar. Prism Table. Telescope. 40 Getting Sloshed in Outer Space.

A parametric study of quasi-2D LES on Low-Reynolds-number transitional flows past an airfoil

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yuan, W.; Xu, H.; Khalid, M. [National Research Council (NRC), Inst. for Aerospace Research (IAR), Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)]. E-mail: Weixing.Yuan@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

2004-07-01

Low-Reynolds-number aerodynamic performance of small sized air vehicles is an area of increasing interest. In this study, we investigate low-Reynolds-number flows past an SD7003 airfoil to understand substantial viscous features of laminar separation and transitional flow followed by the intractable behavior of reattachment. In order to satisfy the three-dimensional (3D) requirement of the code, a simple '3D wing' is constructed from a two-dimensional (2D) airfoil and only four grid points are used in the spanwise direction. A parametric study of quasi-2D LES on the low-Reynolds-number airfoil flows at Re=60000 is performed. Effects of grid resolution and sub-grid scale (SGS) models are investigated. Although three-dimensional effects cannot be accurately captured, the quasi-2D LES calculations do reveal some important flow characteristics such as leading edge laminar separation and vortex shedding from the primary laminar separation bubble on the low-Reynolds-number airfoil. (author)

Traversable wormholes satisfying the weak energy condition in third-order Lovelock gravity

Science.gov (United States)

Zangeneh, Mahdi Kord; Lobo, Francisco S. N.; Dehghani, Mohammad Hossein

2015-12-01

In this paper, we consider third-order Lovelock gravity with a cosmological constant term in an n -dimensional spacetime M4×Kn -4, where Kn -4 is a constant curvature space. We decompose the equations of motion to four and higher dimensional ones and find wormhole solutions by considering a vacuum Kn -4 space. Applying the latter constraint, we determine the second- and third-order Lovelock coefficients and the cosmological constant in terms of specific parameters of the model, such as the size of the extra dimensions. Using the obtained Lovelock coefficients and Λ , we obtain the four-dimensional matter distribution threading the wormhole. Furthermore, by considering the zero tidal force case and a specific equation of state, given by ρ =(γ p -τ )/[ω (1 +γ )], we find the exact solution for the shape function which represents both asymptotically flat and nonflat wormhole solutions. We show explicitly that these wormhole solutions in addition to traversibility satisfy the energy conditions for suitable choices of parameters and that the existence of a limited spherically symmetric traversable wormhole with normal matter in a four-dimensional spacetime implies a negative effective cosmological constant.

Rational approximations to linear forms of exponentials and binomials.

Science.gov (United States)

Chudnovsky, G V

1983-05-01

Mahler proved the following quantitative result supplementing the Lindemann-Weierstrass theorem: Sigma(i=0) (n)C(i)e(ri) > H(-n-epsilon) for any distinct rational numbers r(0),r(1),..., r(n) and rational integers C(0),C(1),...,C(n) with H = max(0 1 - epsilon. The simplest examples of new numbers with the irrationality exponent "2 + epsilon" are sinh 1 or sin 1.

Fibonacci order in the period-doubling cascade to chaos

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Linage, G.; Montoya, Fernando; Sarmiento, A.; Showalter, K.; Parmananda, P.

2006-01-01

In this contribution, we describe how the Fibonacci sequence appears within the Feigenbaum scaling of the period-doubling cascade to chaos. An important consequence of this discovery is that the ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers converges to the golden mean in every period-doubling sequence and therefore the convergence to φ, the most irrational number, occurs in concert with the onset of deterministic chaos

Fibonacci order in the period-doubling cascade to chaos

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Linage, G. [Facultad de Ciencias UAEM, Avenida Universidad 1001, Colonia Chamilpa, C.P. 62210 Cuernavaca, Morelos (Mexico); Montoya, Fernando [Facultad de Ciencias UAEM, Avenida Universidad 1001, Colonia Chamilpa, C.P. 62210 Cuernavaca, Morelos (Mexico); Sarmiento, A. [Instituto de Matematicas, UNAM, Colonia Chamilpa, C.P. 62210 Cuernavaca, Morelos (Mexico); Showalter, K. [Department of Chemistry, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506-6045 (United States); Parmananda, P. [Facultad de Ciencias UAEM, Avenida Universidad 1001, Colonia Chamilpa, C.P. 62210 Cuernavaca, Morelos (Mexico)]. E-mail: punit@servm.fc.uaem.mx

2006-12-11

In this contribution, we describe how the Fibonacci sequence appears within the Feigenbaum scaling of the period-doubling cascade to chaos. An important consequence of this discovery is that the ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers converges to the golden mean in every period-doubling sequence and therefore the convergence to {phi}, the most irrational number, occurs in concert with the onset of deterministic chaos.

Irrational choice behavior in human and nonhuman primates.

Science.gov (United States)

Perdue, Bonnie M; Brown, Ella R

2018-03-01

Choice behavior in humans has motivated a large body of research with a focus on whether decisions can be considered to be rational. In general, humans prefer having choice, as do a number of other species that have been tested, even though having increased choice does not necessarily yield a positive outcome. Humans have been found to choose an option more often only because the opportunity to select it was diminishing, an example of a deviation from economic rationality. Here we extend this paradigm to nonhuman primates in an effort to understand the mechanisms underlying this finding. In this study, we presented two groups of laboratory monkeys, capuchins (Cebus apella) and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), as well as human subjects, with a computerized task in which subjects were presented with two differently colored icons. When the subject selected an icon, differing numbers of food pellets were dispensed (or points were assigned), making each icon correspond to a certain level of risk (one icon yielded 1 or 4 pellets/points and the other yielded 2 or 3). Initially, both options remained constantly available and we established choice preference scores for each subject. Then, we assessed preference patterns once the options were not continuously available. Specifically, choosing one icon would cause the other to shrink in size on the screen and eventually disappear if never selected. Selecting it would restore it to its full size. As predicted, humans shifted their risk preferences in the diminishing options phase, choosing to click on both icons more equally in order to keep both options available. At the group level, capuchin monkeys showed this pattern as well, but there was a great deal of individual variability in both capuchins and macaques. The present work suggests that there is some degree of continuity between human and nonhuman primates in the desire to have choice simply for the sake of having choice.

More similar but less satisfying: comparing preferences for and the efficacy of within- and cross-category substitutes for food

OpenAIRE

Huh, Young Eun; Vosgerau, Joachim; Morewedge, Carey

2016-01-01

When people cannot get what they want, they often satisfy their desire by consuming a substitute. Substitutes can originate from within the taxonomic category of the desired stimulus (i.e., within-category substitutes) or from a different taxonomic category that serves the same basic goal (i.e., cross-category substitutes). Both a store-brand chocolate (within-category substitute) and a granola bar (cross-category substitute), for example, can serve as substitutes for gourmet chocolate. Here,...

The suitability of the food consumed by children in primary schools for satisfying their needs

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Yeşim İşgüzar

2014-12-01

Full Text Available AbstractObjective: This study evaluates the suitability of the food consumed by children in primary schools including the role of the lunch menus in satisfying the children’s needs. Methods: 852 first-grade students were chosen from 14 randomly selected primary schools in Gaziantep to participate in this descriptive, cross-sectional study. Demographic and personal data of the students and their parents, their anthropometric measurements, food consumption habits and the lunch menus served in schools were studied. The Body Mass Index (BMI of students was evaluated according to World Health Organization (WHO’s percentile tables. Data were analyzed by SPSS 18 software, using the chi-square test for analyses. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee. Results: 51.4% of students were male, 48.6% were female (mean age, 7.05±0.24 years. According to the BMI results, 26.6% of the students were thin and 25.9% were overweight/obese. 73.5% and 85.8% of the children were having breakfast or lunch regularly, respectively. Maternal education levels and employment status did not affect the child’s having breakfast on a daily basis (p>0.05. 27.7 % of children who ate lunch regularly, 15.7% of children who did not eat lunch regularly were overweight/obese (p<0.05. The most consumed food on a regular basis was bread (92.6 %, followed by milk and dairy products (76.5%. When lunch was served in schools (for 24.9% of the students, regular lunch consumption increased among children (p<0.05. The food group the most consumed by the students having lunch at school was fats-sugars-cereals. Only 43.3% of the lunch menus served at schools were found adequate. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that there is a need to improve lunch menus served in primary schools in order to satisfy energy and nutritional needs of children.Keywords: Nutrition, school health, primary school 

Predicting dyadic adjustment from general and relationship-specific beliefs.

Science.gov (United States)

DeBord, J; Romans, J S; Krieshok, T

1996-05-01

The cognitive mediation model of human psychological functioning has received increasing attention by researchers studying the role of cognitive variables in relationship distress. This study is an examination of the role of general irrational beliefs, as measured by the Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT; Jones, 1968), and relationship-specific irrational beliefs, as measured by the Relationship Belief Questionnaire (RBQ; Romans & DeBord, 1994), in predicting the perceived quality of relationships by married or cohabiting couples. Results indicated that respondents who reported higher levels of relationship-specific irrational beliefs also reported higher levels of dyadic adjustment; but contrary to expectation, higher levels of general irrational beliefs correlated with lower levels of dyadic adjustment. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the depressive realism hypothesis.

The law concerning the conduct of lineups in England and Wales: how well does it satisfy the recommendations of the American Psychology-Law Society?

Science.gov (United States)

Kebbell, M R

2000-06-01

Four rules minimize the likelihood of a false conviction resulting from the misidentification of a suspect from a lineup: (1) The person conducting the lineup should not know which member of the lineup is the suspect. (2) The eyewitness should be warned that the criminal might not be present. (3) Foils should be selected based on the eyewitness's verbal description of the criminal. (4) Confidence should be recorded at the time of identification. In this paper the relevant law relating to lineups in England and Wales is outlined and the extent to which they satisfy the four rules is reviewed. It is concluded that the way in which lineups are conducted in England and Wales would, with minor modifications, satisfy the four rules, and this demonstrates that the rules can be applied practically.

An algebraic fractional order differentiator for a class of signals satisfying a linear differential equation

KAUST Repository

Liu, Da-Yan; Tian, Yang; Boutat, Driss; Laleg-Kirati, Taous-Meriem

2015-01-01

This paper aims at designing a digital fractional order differentiator for a class of signals satisfying a linear differential equation to estimate fractional derivatives with an arbitrary order in noisy case, where the input can be unknown or known with noises. Firstly, an integer order differentiator for the input is constructed using a truncated Jacobi orthogonal series expansion. Then, a new algebraic formula for the Riemann-Liouville derivative is derived, which is enlightened by the algebraic parametric method. Secondly, a digital fractional order differentiator is proposed using a numerical integration method in discrete noisy case. Then, the noise error contribution is analyzed, where an error bound useful for the selection of the design parameter is provided. Finally, numerical examples illustrate the accuracy and the robustness of the proposed fractional order differentiator.

An algebraic fractional order differentiator for a class of signals satisfying a linear differential equation

KAUST Repository

Liu, Da-Yan

2015-04-30

This paper aims at designing a digital fractional order differentiator for a class of signals satisfying a linear differential equation to estimate fractional derivatives with an arbitrary order in noisy case, where the input can be unknown or known with noises. Firstly, an integer order differentiator for the input is constructed using a truncated Jacobi orthogonal series expansion. Then, a new algebraic formula for the Riemann-Liouville derivative is derived, which is enlightened by the algebraic parametric method. Secondly, a digital fractional order differentiator is proposed using a numerical integration method in discrete noisy case. Then, the noise error contribution is analyzed, where an error bound useful for the selection of the design parameter is provided. Finally, numerical examples illustrate the accuracy and the robustness of the proposed fractional order differentiator.

Refining Lane-Based Traffic Signal Settings to Satisfy Spatial Lane Length Requirements

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Yanping Liu

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In conventional lane-based signal optimization models, lane markings guiding road users in making turns are optimized with traffic signal settings in a unified framework to maximize the overall intersection capacity or minimize the total delay. The spatial queue requirements of road lanes should be considered to avoid overdesigns of green durations. Point queue system adopted in the conventional lane-based framework causes overflow in practice. Based on the optimization results from the original lane-based designs, a refinement is proposed to enhance the lane-based settings to ensure that spatial holding limits of the approaching traffic lanes are not exceeded. A solution heuristic is developed to modify the green start times, green durations, and cycle length by considering the vehicle queuing patterns and physical holding capacities along the approaching traffic lanes. To show the effectiveness of this traffic signal refinement, a case study of one of the busiest and most complicated intersections in Hong Kong is given for demonstration. A site survey was conducted to collect existing traffic demand patterns and existing traffic signal settings in peak periods. Results show that the proposed refinement method is effective to ensure that all vehicle queue lengths satisfy spatial lane capacity limits, including short lanes, for daily operation.

Self-consistent perturbation expansion for Bose-Einstein condensates satisfying Goldstone's theorem and conservation laws

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kita, Takafumi

2009-01-01

Quantum-field-theoretic descriptions of interacting condensed bosons have suffered from the lack of self-consistent approximation schemes satisfying Goldstone's theorem and dynamical conservation laws simultaneously. We present a procedure to construct such approximations systematically by using either an exact relation for the interaction energy or the Hugenholtz-Pines relation to express the thermodynamic potential in a Luttinger-Ward form. Inspection of the self-consistent perturbation expansion up to the third order with respect to the interaction shows that the two relations yield a unique identical result at each order, reproducing the conserving-gapless mean-field theory [T. Kita, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 74, 1891 (2005)] as the lowest-order approximation. The uniqueness implies that the series becomes exact when infinite terms are retained. We also derive useful expressions for the entropy and superfluid density in terms of Green's function and a set of real-time dynamical equations to describe thermalization of the condensate.

Periodic modulations controlling Kuznetsov–Ma soliton formation in nonlinear Schrödinger equations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tiofack, C.G.L., E-mail: glatchio@yahoo.fr [Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 8523 – PhLAM – Physique des Lasers Atomes et Molécules, F-59000 Lille (France); Coulibaly, S.; Taki, M. [Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 8523 – PhLAM – Physique des Lasers Atomes et Molécules, F-59000 Lille (France); De Bièvre, S.; Dujardin, G. [Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 8524 – Laboratoire Paul Painlevé, F-59000 Lille (France); Équipe-Projet Mephysto, INRIA Lille-Nord Europe (France)

2017-06-28

We analyze the exact Kuznetsov–Ma soliton solution of the one-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation in the presence of periodic modulations satisfying an integrability condition. We show that, in contrast to the case without modulation, the Kuznetsov–Ma soliton develops multiple compression points whose number, shape and position are controlled both by the intensity of the modulation and by its frequency. In addition, when this modulation frequency is a rational multiple of the natural frequency of the Kuznetsov–Ma soliton, a scenario similar to a nonlinear resonance is obtained: in this case the spatial oscillations of the Kuznetsov–Ma soliton's intensity are periodic. When the ratio of the two frequencies is irrational, the soliton's intensity is a quasiperiodic function. A striking and important result of our analysis is the possibility to suppress any component of the output spectrum of the Kuznetsov–Ma soliton by a judicious choice of the amplitude and frequency of the modulation. - Highlights: • Exact Kuznetsov–Ma soliton solution in presence of periodic coefficients is obtained. • The multiple compression points of the solution are studied. • The quasi-periodicity of the solution is discussed. • The possibility to suppress any component of the spectrum is analyzed.

JMBR VOLUME 14 Number 2.cdr

African Journals Online (AJOL)

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optometric practices in health insurance systems in Nigeria. By convenience, 40 ... 1 care seekers . It could be government run ... organizations and employment based. 7,. 8 .... practices are satisfied with out of pocket payments for ..... Sauerborn, R, & Dong, H. Performance evaluation of ... Family Income and the. Impact of a ...

The online Prescriptive Index platform for the assessment of managerial competencies and coaching needs: development and initial validation of the experience sampling Mood Wheel and the Manager-Rational and Irrational Beliefs Scale

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David, O.A.

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The Prescriptive Index platform is dedicated to the appraisal and development of managerial competencies, and it is comprised of such measures as the multi-rater Freeman-Gavita Prescriptive Executive Coaching (PEC Assessment for assessing core managerial skills, and the multi-rater Managerial Coaching Assessment System (MCAS for the evaluation of coaching competencies in managers. The aim of this research was to present the development and psychometric properties of new tools, part of the Prescriptive Index platform, for the assessment of managerial emotional competencies: the web and mobile based Mood Wheel measure using experience sampling procedures, for the assessment of current/previous distress and positive emotions; and the self-report Manager Rational and Irrational Beliefs Scale (M-RIBS for the assessment of managerial attitudes involved in emotion-regulation processes. Results obtained show that both instruments integrated in the Prescriptive Index platform have adequate initial psychometric support and predictive validity. Practical implications of our findings are discussed in the light of the importance of enabling organizations to accurately identify managerial competencies and coaching needs.

CTC-ask: a new algorithm for conversion of CT numbers to tissue parameters for Monte Carlo dose calculations applying DICOM RS knowledge

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ottosson, Rickard; Behrens, Claus F.

2011-01-01

One of the building blocks in Monte Carlo (MC) treatment planning is to convert patient CT data to MC compatible phantoms, consisting of density and media matrices. The resulting dose distribution is highly influenced by the accuracy of the conversion. Two major contributing factors are precise c...... outside of the lungs for the two cases studied, respectively. This was completely avoided by CTC-ask. CTC-ask is able to reduce anatomically irrational media assignment. The CTC-ask source code can be made available upon request to the authors....

Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems: An Ethical Leadership Dilemma to Satisfy Patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Piper, Llewellyn E; Tallman, Erin

2016-01-01

This article examines the parameters and the dynamics of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) that create an ethical leadership dilemma to satisfy patients in the hospital setting while still ensuring appropriate care for quality clinical outcomes. Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals and health care systems are in a high-stakes struggle of winners and losers based on HCAHPS scores. This high-stakes struggle creates unintended consequences of an ethical dilemma of doing what is right for the patient versus doing whatever it takes to please the patient in order to achieve high scores of satisfaction that are tied to better reimbursements. This article also reports the results of a national survey of 500 chief executive officers by the authors about the attitudes and frustrations of chief executive officers confronting the wild unrest caused by HCAHPS.

Quantum-Like Representation of Non-Bayesian Inference

Science.gov (United States)

Asano, M.; Basieva, I.; Khrennikov, A.; Ohya, M.; Tanaka, Y.

2013-01-01

This research is related to the problem of "irrational decision making or inference" that have been discussed in cognitive psychology. There are some experimental studies, and these statistical data cannot be described by classical probability theory. The process of decision making generating these data cannot be reduced to the classical Bayesian inference. For this problem, a number of quantum-like coginitive models of decision making was proposed. Our previous work represented in a natural way the classical Bayesian inference in the frame work of quantum mechanics. By using this representation, in this paper, we try to discuss the non-Bayesian (irrational) inference that is biased by effects like the quantum interference. Further, we describe "psychological factor" disturbing "rationality" as an "environment" correlating with the "main system" of usual Bayesian inference.

Comparison of the effectiveness of three manual physical therapy techniques in a subgroup of patients with low back pain who satisfy a clinical prediction rule: Study protocol of a randomized clinical trial [NCT00257998

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Childs John D

2006-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Recently a clinical prediction rule (CPR has been developed and validated that accurately identifies patients with low back pain (LBP that are likely to benefit from a lumbo-pelvic thrust manipulation. The studies that developed and validated the rule used the identical manipulation procedure. However, recent evidence suggests that different manual therapy techniques may result similar outcomes. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of three different manual therapy techniques in a subgroup of patient with low back pain that satisfy the CPR. Methods/Design Consecutive patients with LBP referred to physical therapy clinics in one of four geographical locations who satisfy the CPR will be invited to participate in this randomized clinical trial. Subjects who agree to participate will undergo a standard evaluation and complete a number of patient self-report questionnaires including the Oswestry Disability Index (OSW, which will serve as the primary outcome measure. Following the baseline examination patients will be randomly assigned to receive the lumbopelvic manipulation used in the development of the CPR, an alternative lumbar manipulation technique, or non-thrust lumbar mobilization technique for the first 2 visits. Beginning on visit 3, all 3 groups will receive an identical standard exercise program for 3 visits (visits 3,4,5. Outcomes of interest will be captured by a therapist blind to group assignment at 1 week (3rd visit, 4 weeks (6th visit and at a 6-month follow-up. The primary aim of the study will be tested with analysis of variance (ANOVA using the change in OSW score from baseline to 4-weeks (OSWBaseline – OSW4-weeks as the dependent variable. The independent variable will be treatment with three levels (lumbo-pelvic manipulation, alternative lumbar manipulation, lumbar mobilization. Discussion This trial will be the first to investigate the effectiveness of various manual therapy

Phase structure of lattice QCD for general number of flavors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iwasaki, Y.; Kanaya, K.; Yoshie, T.; Kaya, S.; Sakai, S.

2004-01-01

We investigate the phase structure of lattice QCD for the general number of flavors in the parameter space of gauge coupling constant and quark mass, employing the one-plaquette gauge action and the standard Wilson quark action. Performing a series of simulations for the number of flavors N F =6-360 with degenerate-mass quarks, we find that when N F ≥7 there is a line of a bulk first order phase transition between the confined phase and a deconfined phase at a finite current quark mass in the strong coupling region and the intermediate coupling region. The massless quark line exists only in the deconfined phase. Based on these numerical results in the strong coupling limit and in the intermediate coupling region, we propose the following phase structure, depending on the number of flavors whose masses are less than Λ d which is the physical scale characterizing the phase transition in the weak coupling region: When N F ≥17, there is only a trivial IR fixed point and therefore the theory in the continuum limit is free. On the other hand, when 16≥N F ≥7, there is a nontrivial IR fixed point and therefore the theory is nontrivial with anomalous dimensions, however, without quark confinement. Theories which satisfy both quark confinement and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in the continuum limit exist only for N F ≤6

Analysis of entropy extraction efficiencies in random number generation systems

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chao; Wang, Shuang; Chen, Wei; Yin, Zhen-Qiang; Han, Zheng-Fu

2016-05-01

Random numbers (RNs) have applications in many areas: lottery games, gambling, computer simulation, and, most importantly, cryptography [N. Gisin et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 74 (2002) 145]. In cryptography theory, the theoretical security of the system calls for high quality RNs. Therefore, developing methods for producing unpredictable RNs with adequate speed is an attractive topic. Early on, despite the lack of theoretical support, pseudo RNs generated by algorithmic methods performed well and satisfied reasonable statistical requirements. However, as implemented, those pseudorandom sequences were completely determined by mathematical formulas and initial seeds, which cannot introduce extra entropy or information. In these cases, “random” bits are generated that are not at all random. Physical random number generators (RNGs), which, in contrast to algorithmic methods, are based on unpredictable physical random phenomena, have attracted considerable research interest. However, the way that we extract random bits from those physical entropy sources has a large influence on the efficiency and performance of the system. In this manuscript, we will review and discuss several randomness extraction schemes that are based on radiation or photon arrival times. We analyze the robustness, post-processing requirements and, in particular, the extraction efficiency of those methods to aid in the construction of efficient, compact and robust physical RNG systems.

An introduction to real analysis

CERN Document Server

Ball, Derek G

1973-01-01

An Introduction to Real Analysis presents the concepts of real analysis and highlights the problems which necessitate the introduction of these concepts. Topics range from sets, relations, and functions to numbers, sequences, series, derivatives, and the Riemann integral. This volume begins with an introduction to some of the problems which are met in the use of numbers for measuring, and which provide motivation for the creation of real analysis. Attention then turns to real numbers that are built up from natural numbers, with emphasis on integers, rationals, and irrationals. The chapters tha

Can varying the number of teams in a shift schedule constitute a preventive strategy?

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Hans Jeppe Jeppesen

2004-12-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: The study examines the implications for shiftworkers of applying different numbers of teams in the organization of shiftwork. METHODS: The participating operators came from five different companies applying continuous shift rotation systems. The companies shared the same product organization and a common corporate culture belonging to the same multinational company. Each company had a shift system consisting of four, five or six teams, with the proportion of shifts outside day work decreasing as the number of teams increased. Questionnaire and documentary data were used as data sources. RESULTS: Operators in systems with additional teams had more daywork but also more irregular working hours due to both overtime and schedule changes. Operators using six teams used fewer social compensation strategies. Operators in four teams were most satisfied with their work hours. Satisfaction with the time available for various social activities outside work varied inconsistently between the groups. CONCLUSIONS: In rotating systems the application of more teams reduces the number of shifts outside day work. This apparent improvement for shiftworkers was counteracted by a concomitant irregularity produced by greater organizational requirements for flexibility. The balance of this interaction was found to have a critical impact on employees.

A non-destructive technique for assigning effective atomic number to scientific samples by scattering of 59.54 keV gamma photons

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Singh, M.P.; Sharma, Amandeep; Singh, Bhajan; Sandhu, B.S.

2010-01-01

The objective of present experiment, employing a scattering of 59.54 keV gamma photons, is to assign effective atomic number (Z eff ) to scientific samples (rare earths) of known composition. An HPGe semiconductor detector, placed at 90 o to the incident beam, detects gamma photons scattered from the sample under investigation. The experiment is performed on various elements with atomic number satisfying, 6≤Z≤82, for 59.54 keV incident photons. The intensity ratio of Rayleigh to Compton scattered peaks, corrected for photo-peak efficiency of gamma detector and absorption of photons in the sample and air, is plotted as a function of atomic number and constituted a best fit-curve. From this fit-curve, the respective effective atomic numbers to samples of rare earths are determined. The agreement of measured values of Z eff with theoretical calculations is quite satisfactory.

Minimal Liouville gravity correlation numbers from Douglas string equation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Belavin, Alexander; Dubrovin, Boris; Mukhametzhanov, Baur

2014-01-01

We continue the study of (q,p) Minimal Liouville Gravity with the help of Douglas string equation. We generalize the results of http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0550-3213(91)90548-Chttp://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1751-8113/42/30/304004, where Lee-Yang series (2,2s+1) was studied, to (3,3s+p 0 ) Minimal Liouville Gravity, where p 0 =1,2. We demonstrate that there exist such coordinates τ m,n on the space of the perturbed Minimal Liouville Gravity theories, in which the partition function of the theory is determined by the Douglas string equation. The coordinates τ m,n are related in a non-linear fashion to the natural coupling constants λ m,n of the perturbations of Minimal Lioville Gravity by the physical operators O m,n . We find this relation from the requirement that the correlation numbers in Minimal Liouville Gravity must satisfy the conformal and fusion selection rules. After fixing this relation we compute three- and four-point correlation numbers when they are not zero. The results are in agreement with the direct calculations in Minimal Liouville Gravity available in the literature http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.66.2051http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11232-005-0003-3http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11232-006-0075-8

On a connection between the limit set of the Moebius-Klein transformation, periodic continued fractions, El Naschie's topological theory of high energy particle physics and the possibility of a new axion-like particle

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marek-Crnjac, L.

2004-01-01

In the present work we first give a general representation of the derivatives of the irrational number phi, for instance ((1)/(phi)), ((1)/(phi 2 )), ((1)/(phi 3 )) etc., as periodic continued fractions. Any irrational number can then be expanded in an infinite continued fraction. The limit set of the Kleinian transformation acting on the E-infinity Cantorian spacetime turned out to be this set of periodic continued fractions, consequently the vacuum of the E-infinity is described by this limit set. As discussed by El Naschie, every particle can be interpreted geometrically as a scaling of another. This is done using the topology of hyperbolic Kleinian space of VAK, which is nothing but our limit set. Here we will present the ratios of the theoretical masses of certain elementary particles to that of some chosen particles in term of phi. Many of these masses are quite close to integer multiples of the mass of a chosen particle. Finally we discuss the possibility of new transfinite, axion-like particles as discussed recently by Krauss and El Naschie [Quintessence, Vintage, London, 1999

China could satisfied her energy demand by her domestic resource of renewable and hydrogen energy and with her favorite condition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bao De You

2006-01-01

Paper described recent situation and the reason of oils consumed increasing rapidly and the activity for searching oil around the world wide and proposed some suggestion for rapid development and commercialization of hydrogen energy system in China with her domestic resources. China could satisfy the energy demand with her domestic resources of renewable energies and depending on her domestic scientific and technology and personal resources etc. It could Clean up the misunderstanding of other country and worried about the oil price increasing. (author)

My Way of Teaching Mathematics in a Social Context (In Junior High School)

Science.gov (United States)

Kneller, Shmuel

2012-01-01

This article is not comprehensive. It aims at encouraging all teachers of mathematics "to look behind the subject matter" and to probe what educational values it contains. More examples can easily be found. Suffice it to say that when Pythagoras proved his famous theorem, mankind "discovered" that the square root of 2 is an irrational number. The…

A Classroom Note on Generating Examples for the Laws of Sines and Cosines from Pythagorean Triangles

Science.gov (United States)

Sher, Lawrence; Sher, David

2007-01-01

By selecting certain special triangles, students can learn about the laws of sines and cosines without wrestling with long decimal representations or irrational numbers. Since the law of cosines requires only one of the three angles of a triangle, there are many examples of triangles with integral sides and a cosine that can be represented exactly…

Irrational drug use in neuropathic pain treatment: a two- year data ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

McRoy

Data retrieved from the Information Medical. Statistics (IMS) and PROMED Healthcare. Consultancy database were used for prescription calculations, and the database of Turkish Ministry of Health was used for cost analysis.[14-16]. Number of patients receiving NSAID treatment was estimated for the analysis regarding ...

Pocket book of integrals and mathematical formulas

CERN Document Server

Tallarida, Ronald J

2015-01-01

Preface to the Fifth EditionPreface to the Fourth EditionPreface to the Third EditionPreface to the Second EditionPreface to the First EditionAuthorGreek LettersElementary Algebra and GeometryFundamental Properties (Real Numbers)ExponentsFractional ExponentsIrrational ExponentsLogarithmsFactorialsBinomial TheoremFactors and ExpansionProgressionComplex NumbersPolar FormPermutationsCombinationsAlgebraic EquationsGeometryPythagorean TheoremDeterminants, Matrices, and Linear Systems of EquationsDeterminantsEvaluation by CofactorsProperties of DeterminantsMatricesOperationsPropertiesTransposeIdenti

Daily users compared to less frequent users find vape as or more satisfying and less dangerous than cigarettes, and are likelier to use non-cig-alike vaping products.

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Kozlowski, Lynn T; Homish, D Lynn; Homish, Gregory G

2017-06-01

We assessed the roles of perceived satisfaction and perceived danger and vaping-product-type as correlates of more frequent use of vaping products. In a baseline assessment of a longitudinal study of US Army Reserve/National Guard Soldiers and their partners (New York State, USA, 2014-2016), participants were asked about current use of vaping products (e-cigarettes) and perceived satisfaction and danger in comparison to cigarettes as well as type of product used. Fisher-exact tests and multiple ordinal logistic regressions were used. In multivariable and univariate models, more perceived satisfaction, less perceived danger, and use of non-cig-alike products were associated with more frequent use of vaping products ( p s < 0.05, two-tailed). For self-selected, more frequent adult users, e-cigs can be at least as satisfying as cigarettes and often more satisfying and are perceived as less dangerous than cigarettes. Non-cig-alike products were more likely in daily users. Some concern that e-cigs are a gateway to cigarettes arises from assuming that e-cigs may not be as reinforcing and pleasurable as cigarettes. These results indicate that accurate perception of comparative risk and use of more effective-nicotine delivery product can produce for some users a highly-satisfying alternative to cigarettes.

Daily users compared to less frequent users find vape as or more satisfying and less dangerous than cigarettes, and are likelier to use non-cig-alike vaping products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lynn T. Kozlowski

2017-06-01

Full Text Available We assessed the roles of perceived satisfaction and perceived danger and vaping-product-type as correlates of more frequent use of vaping products. In a baseline assessment of a longitudinal study of US Army Reserve/National Guard Soldiers and their partners (New York State, USA, 2014–2016, participants were asked about current use of vaping products (e-cigarettes and perceived satisfaction and danger in comparison to cigarettes as well as type of product used. Fisher-exact tests and multiple ordinal logistic regressions were used. In multivariable and univariate models, more perceived satisfaction, less perceived danger, and use of non-cig-alike products were associated with more frequent use of vaping products (ps < 0.05, two-tailed. For self-selected, more frequent adult users, e-cigs can be at least as satisfying as cigarettes and often more satisfying and are perceived as less dangerous than cigarettes. Non-cig-alike products were more likely in daily users. Some concern that e-cigs are a gateway to cigarettes arises from assuming that e-cigs may not be as reinforcing and pleasurable as cigarettes. These results indicate that accurate perception of comparative risk and use of more effective-nicotine delivery product can produce for some users a highly-satisfying alternative to cigarettes.

Seeing the world through rose-colored glasses: People who are happy and satisfied with life preferentially attend to positive stimuli.

Science.gov (United States)

Raila, Hannah; Scholl, Brian J; Gruber, June

2015-08-01

Given the many benefits conferred by trait happiness and life satisfaction, a primary goal is to determine how these traits relate to underlying cognitive processes. For example, visual attention acts as a gateway to awareness, raising the question of whether happy and satisfied people attend to (and therefore see) the world differently. Previous work suggests that biases in selective attention are associated with both trait negativity and with positive affect states, but to our knowledge, no previous work has explored whether trait-happy individuals attend to the world differently. Here, we employed eye tracking as a continuous measure of sustained overt attention during passive viewing of displays containing positive and neutral photographs to determine whether selective attention to positive scenes is associated with measures of trait happiness and life satisfaction. Both trait measures were significantly correlated with selective attention for positive (vs. neutral) scenes, and this general pattern was robust across several types of positive stimuli (achievement, social, and primary reward), and not because of positive or negative state affect. Such effects were especially prominent during the later phases of sustained viewing. This suggests that people who are happy and satisfied with life may literally see the world in a more positive light, as if through rose-colored glasses. Future work should investigate the causal relationship between such attention biases and one's happiness and life satisfaction. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Rationality in collective decision-making by ant colonies.

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Edwards, Susan C; Pratt, Stephen C

2009-10-22

Economic models of animal behaviour assume that decision-makers are rational, meaning that they assess options according to intrinsic fitness value and not by comparison with available alternatives. This expectation is frequently violated, but the significance of irrational behaviour remains controversial. One possibility is that irrationality arises from cognitive constraints that necessitate short cuts like comparative evaluation. If so, the study of whether and when irrationality occurs can illuminate cognitive mechanisms. We applied this logic in a novel setting: the collective decisions of insect societies. We tested for irrationality in colonies of Temnothorax ants choosing between two nest sites that varied in multiple attributes, such that neither site was clearly superior. In similar situations, individual animals show irrational changes in preference when a third relatively unattractive option is introduced. In contrast, we found no such effect in colonies. We suggest that immunity to irrationality in this case may result from the ants' decentralized decision mechanism. A colony's choice does not depend on site comparison by individuals, but instead self-organizes from the interactions of multiple ants, most of which are aware of only a single site. This strategy may filter out comparative effects, preventing systematic errors that would otherwise arise from the cognitive limitations of individuals.

constNJ: an algorithm to reconstruct sets of phylogenetic trees satisfying pairwise topological constraints.

Science.gov (United States)

Matsen, Frederick A

2010-06-01

This article introduces constNJ (constrained neighbor-joining), an algorithm for phylogenetic reconstruction of sets of trees with constrained pairwise rooted subtree-prune-regraft (rSPR) distance. We are motivated by the problem of constructing sets of trees that must fit into a recombination, hybridization, or similar network. Rather than first finding a set of trees that are optimal according to a phylogenetic criterion (e.g., likelihood or parsimony) and then attempting to fit them into a network, constNJ estimates the trees while enforcing specified rSPR distance constraints. The primary input for constNJ is a collection of distance matrices derived from sequence blocks which are assumed to have evolved in a tree-like manner, such as blocks of an alignment which do not contain any recombination breakpoints. The other input is a set of rSPR constraint inequalities for any set of pairs of trees. constNJ is consistent and a strict generalization of the neighbor-joining algorithm; it uses the new notion of maximum agreement partitions (MAPs) to assure that the resulting trees satisfy the given rSPR distance constraints.

Gender Differences in Pathways to Compulsive Buying in Chinese College Students in Hong Kong and Macau

Science.gov (United States)

Ching, Terence H. W.; Tang, Catherine S.; Wu, Anise; Yan, Elsie

2016-01-01

Background and aims The addictive nature of compulsive buying implies that mood disturbances, stress, and cognitive biases that underlie compulsive buying might operate in ways similar in both genders. In the current study, we aimed to test hypothetical pathways of mood compensation and irrational cognitions, which may explain compulsive buying tendencies. We also examined potential gender differences in these pathways. Methods Two-hundred and thirty-two male (age: M = 20.30, SD = 1.74) and 373 female Chinese college students (age: M = 19.97, SD = 1.74) in Hong Kong and Macau completed measures assessing compulsive buying, psychological distress, avoidance coping, materialism, and buying-related cognitions. Mediation analyses via a structural equation modeling approach explained by Cheung (2007, 2009) were conducted, with gender as a grouping variable. Results There was a gender difference in the mood compensation pathway; avoidance coping partially mediated the link between psychological distress and compulsive buying severity in females only. On the other hand, the irrational cognitive pathway, in which irrational buying-related cognitions fully mediated the link between materialism and compulsive buying severity, was supported for both genders. There was no gender difference in the extent of mediation within the irrational cognitive pathway, and the mediation effect within the irrational cognitive pathway was larger than that within the mood compensation pathway for both genders. Conclusions Mood compensation processes in compulsive buying might be female specific, and secondary to irrational cognitions, which were gender invariant. Gender-dependent mechanisms and irrational cognitions should be emphasized in compulsive buying treatment. PMID:27156378

Gender Differences in Pathways to Compulsive Buying in Chinese College Students in Hong Kong and Macau.

Science.gov (United States)

Ching, Terence H W; Tang, Catherine S; Wu, Anise; Yan, Elsie

2016-06-01

Background and aims The addictive nature of compulsive buying implies that mood disturbances, stress, and cognitive biases that underlie compulsive buying might operate in ways similar in both genders. In the current study, we aimed to test hypothetical pathways of mood compensation and irrational cognitions, which may explain compulsive buying tendencies. We also examined potential gender differences in these pathways. Methods Two-hundred and thirty-two male (age: M = 20.30, SD = 1.74) and 373 female Chinese college students (age: M = 19.97, SD = 1.74) in Hong Kong and Macau completed measures assessing compulsive buying, psychological distress, avoidance coping, materialism, and buying-related cognitions. Mediation analyses via a structural equation modeling approach explained by Cheung (2007, 2009) were conducted, with gender as a grouping variable. Results There was a gender difference in the mood compensation pathway; avoidance coping partially mediated the link between psychological distress and compulsive buying severity in females only. On the other hand, the irrational cognitive pathway, in which irrational buying-related cognitions fully mediated the link between materialism and compulsive buying severity, was supported for both genders. There was no gender difference in the extent of mediation within the irrational cognitive pathway, and the mediation effect within the irrational cognitive pathway was larger than that within the mood compensation pathway for both genders. Conclusions Mood compensation processes in compulsive buying might be female specific, and secondary to irrational cognitions, which were gender invariant. Gender-dependent mechanisms and irrational cognitions should be emphasized in compulsive buying treatment.

How satisfied are the major customers of electric utilities?; Wie zufrieden sind die grossen Stromkunden?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Edelmann, H. [VEW Energie AG, Dortmund (Germany). Abt. Marktforschung und Volkswirtschaft

1998-07-27

In the liberalised electric power market, satisfying customers is a very important objective of utilities, as customers are free to enter into supply contracts with competitors in the market. Satisfaction of customers enhances customer loyalty, as many electric utilities know by now, but only few utilities have a clear picture of the level of satisfaction of their customers, and of their standing in their customers` opinion in comparison with other marketers. The article explains approaches and methods for a systematic and well-founded survey of customers and assessment of customer satisfaction. (orig./CB) [Deutsch] In einem liberalisierten Elektrizitaetsmarkt kommt der Kundenzufriedenheit eine zentrale Bedeutung zu. Diese ist massgebend dafuer, ob ein Kunde zu einem anderen Anbieter wechselt oder nicht. Hohe Kundenzufriedenheit bedeutet hohe Kundenbindung. Viele Stromversorger haben das bereits erkannt, doch nur bei wenigen existiert ein klares Bild darueber, wie zufrieden ihre Kunden tatsaechlich mit ihnen sind und wie sie im Vergleich zu anderen Stromversorgern stehen. Wie dargestellt wird, laesst sich ein solches Bild nur ueber eine systematische und fundierte Messung der Kundenzufriedenheit gewinnen. (orig./RHM)

Philosophy and foundations of mathematics L. E. J. Brouwer

CERN Document Server

Heyting, A

1974-01-01

L.E.J. Brouwer: Collected Works, Volume 1: Philosophy and Foundations of Mathematics focuses on the principles, operations, and approaches promoted by Brouwer in studying the philosophy and foundations of mathematics. The publication first ponders on the construction of mathematics. Topics include arithmetic of integers, negative numbers, measurable continuum, irrational numbers, Cartesian geometry, similarity group, characterization of the linear system of the Cartesian or Euclidean and hyperbolic space, and non-Archimedean uniform groups on the one-dimensional continuum. The book then examin

Quantifying the Sources and Sinks of Greenhouse Gases: What Does It Take to Satisfy Scientific and Decision-Making Needs?

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, K. J.; Keller, K.; Ogle, S. M.; Smith, S.

2014-12-01

Changes in the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are key drivers of anthropogenic climate change. It is hence not surprising that current and emerging U.S. governmental science priorities and programs focused on climate change (e.g. a U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan; the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, Executive Order 13653 'Preparing the U.S. for the Impacts of Climate Change') all call for an improved understanding of these sources and sinks.. Measurements of the total atmospheric burden of these gases are well established, but measurements of their sources and sinks are difficult to make over spatial and temporal scales that are relevant for scientific and decisionmaking needs. Quantifying the uncertainty in these measurements is particularly challenging. This talk reviews the intersection of the state of knowledge of GHG sources and sinks, focusing in particular on CO2 and CH4, and science and decision-making needs for this information. Different science and decision-making needs require differing levels of uncertainty. A number of high-priority needs (early detection of changes in the Earth system, projections of future climate, support of markets or regulations) often require a high degree of accuracy and/or precision. We will critically evaluate current U.S. planning to documents to infer current perceived needs for GHG source/sink quantification, attempting to translate these needs into quantitative uncertainty metrics. We will compare these perceived needs with the current state of the art of GHG source/sink quantification, including the apparent pattern of systematic differences between so-called "top down" and "bottom-up" flux estimates. This comparison will enable us to identify where needs can be readily satisfied, and where gaps in technology exist. Finally, we will examine what steps could be taken to close existing gaps.

Critique of Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stuart Farrand

2010-11-01

Full Text Available Bryan Caplan’s 2007 book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, created some controversy by stating that voters make irrational political decisions. While it has commonly been accepted in public choice discourse that citizens are ignorant of the complexities of politics, Caplan takes the argument one step further and states that citizens hold extreme anti-economic biases that invoke certain irrational demands of politicians. Caplan also asserts that democratic failure is thoroughly a result of the these irrational biases, and that citizens deserve the primary blame for problems within the American political system. This critique analyzes several inconsistencies in Caplan’s assessment of the political condition, which include his doctrine of rational irrationality, his skepticism towards democratic failure, and his apologetic attitude towards politicians. Under closer scrutiny, one can see that Caplan’s main thesis, the concept of rational irrationality, is largely unfounded. Furthermore, the theoretical model he constructs is largely incomplete, since he focuses primarily on the failures of citizens, but does not take into account numerous other factors within the political process that can lead to democratic failure.

Copy number variation plays an important role in clinical epilepsy

Science.gov (United States)

Olson, Heather; Shen, Yiping; Avallone, Jennifer; Sheidley, Beth R.; Pinsky, Rebecca; Bergin, Ann M.; Berry, Gerard T.; Duffy, Frank H.; Eksioglu, Yaman; Harris, David J.; Hisama, Fuki M.; Ho, Eugenia; Irons, Mira; Jacobsen, Christina M.; James, Philip; Kothare, Sanjeev; Khwaja, Omar; Lipton, Jonathan; Loddenkemper, Tobias; Markowitz, Jennifer; Maski, Kiran; Megerian, J. Thomas; Neilan, Edward; Raffalli, Peter C.; Robbins, Michael; Roberts, Amy; Roe, Eugene; Rollins, Caitlin; Sahin, Mustafa; Sarco, Dean; Schonwald, Alison; Smith, Sharon E.; Soul, Janet; Stoler, Joan M.; Takeoka, Masanori; Tan, Wen-Han; Torres, Alcy R.; Tsai, Peter; Urion, David K.; Weissman, Laura; Wolff, Robert; Wu, Bai-Lin; Miller, David T.; Poduri, Annapurna

2015-01-01

Objective To evaluate the role of copy number abnormalities detectable by chromosomal microarray (CMA) testing in patients with epilepsy at a tertiary care center. Methods We identified patients with ICD-9 codes for epilepsy or seizures and clinical CMA testing performed between October 2006 and February 2011 at Boston Children’s Hospital. We reviewed medical records and included patients meeting criteria for epilepsy. We phenotypically characterized patients with epilepsy-associated abnormalities on CMA. Results Of 973 patients who had CMA and ICD-9 codes for epilepsy or seizures, 805 patients satisfied criteria for epilepsy. We observed 437 copy number variants (CNVs) in 323 patients (1–4 per patient), including 185 (42%) deletions and 252 (58%) duplications. Forty (9%) were confirmed de novo, 186 (43%) were inherited, and parental data were unavailable for 211 (48%). Excluding full chromosome trisomies, CNV size ranged from 18 kb to 142 Mb, and 34% were over 500 kb. In at least 40 cases (5%), the epilepsy phenotype was explained by a CNV, including 29 patients with epilepsy-associated syndromes and 11 with likely disease-associated CNVs involving epilepsy genes or “hotspots.” We observed numerous recurrent CNVs including 10 involving loss or gain of Xp22.31, a region described in patients with and without epilepsy. Interpretation Copy number abnormalities play an important role in patients with epilepsy. Given that the diagnostic yield of CMA for epilepsy patients is similar to the yield in autism spectrum disorders and in prenatal diagnosis, for which published guidelines recommend testing with CMA, we recommend the implementation of CMA in the evaluation of unexplained epilepsy. PMID:24811917

The determination of the Dirac density matrix of the d-dimensional harmonic oscillator for an arbitrary number of closed shells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Howard, I.A.; March, N.H.; Nieto, L.M.

2002-01-01

In 1959, March and Young (Nucl. Phys. 12 237) rewrote the equation of motion for the Dirac density matrix γ(x, x 0 ) in terms of sum and difference variables. Here, γ(r-bar, r-bar 0 ) for the d-dimensional isotropic harmonic oscillator for an arbitrary number of closed shells is shown to satisfy, using the variables vertical bar r-bar + r-bar 0 vertical bar/2 and vertical bar r-bar - r-bar 0 vertical bar/2, a generalized partial differential equation embracing the March-Young equation for d=1. As applications, we take in turn the cases d=1, 2, 3 and 4, and obtain both the density matrix γ (r-bar, r-bar 0 ) and the diagonal density ρ(r)=γ(r-bar, r-bar 0 ) vertical bar r-bar 0 =r-bar, this diagonal element already being known to satisfy a third-order linear homogeneous differential equation for d=1 through 3. Some comments are finally made on the d-dimensional kinetic energy density, which is important for first-principles density functional theory in allowing one to bypass one-particle Schroedinger equations (the so-called Slater-Kohn-Sham equations). (author)

Why Are Men Satisfied or Dissatisfied with Penile Implants? A Mixed Method Study on Satisfaction with Penile Prosthesis Implantation.

Science.gov (United States)

Carvalheira, Ana; Santana, Rita; Pereira, Nuno M

2015-12-01

Studies have demonstrated high levels of satisfaction with penile prosthesis implantation (PPI). However, qualitative research exploring the experience of PPI through men's narratives is scarce. The main goals were to analyze (i) the level of sexual satisfaction (quantitatively), and (ii) the reasons for satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction with PPI (qualitatively). Participants were 47 men with erectile dysfunction who underwent surgery between 2003 and 2012, placed by a single surgeon. Structured telephone interviews were carried out. Satisfaction with PPI was a qualitative and quantitative measure assessed through the following four items: (i) "Would you repeat the PPI surgery?"; (ii) "Would you recommend the PPI surgery?"; (iii) "How satisfied are you with the PP?"; and (iv) "Could you explain the motives of your satisfaction/dissatisfaction?". The majority of men (79%) reported to be satisfied with PPI. Content analysis revealed four main themes for men's satisfaction with the PPI: (i) psychological factors were reported 54 times (n = 54) and included positive emotions, self-esteem, confidence, enhancement of male identity, major live change, and self-image; (ii) improvement of sexual function was reported 54 times (n = 54) and referred to achievement of vaginal penetration, increase of sexual desire, sexual satisfaction, penis size, and improvement of erectile function; (iii) relationship factors were reported 11 times (n = 11) and referred to relationship improvement and the possibility of giving pleasure to the partner; and (iv) improvement in urinary function (n = 3). The level of satisfaction with the implementation of penile prostheses is very high, therefore constituting a treatment for erectile dysfunction with a positive impact on the experience of men at sexual, psychological and relational level. © 2015 International Society for Sexual Medicine.

Number Sense on the Number Line

Science.gov (United States)

Woods, Dawn Marie; Ketterlin Geller, Leanne; Basaraba, Deni

2018-01-01

A strong foundation in early number concepts is critical for students' future success in mathematics. Research suggests that visual representations, like a number line, support students' development of number sense by helping them create a mental representation of the order and magnitude of numbers. In addition, explicitly sequencing instruction…

Value management : functional expression of the need and functional performance specification : requirements for expressing and validating the need to be satisfied within the process of purchasing or obtaining a product

CERN Document Server

Association Française de Normalisation. Paris

2013-01-01

Value management : functional expression of the need and functional performance specification : requirements for expressing and validating the need to be satisfied within the process of purchasing or obtaining a product

Irrational Rationality of Terrorism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robert Nalbandov

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The present article deals with the ontological problem of applying the rational choice frameworks to the study of terrorism. It testing the application of the rational choice to the “old” (before the end of the Cold War and the “new” (after the end of the Cold War terrorisms. It starts with analyzing the fundamentals of rationality and applies it at two levels: the individual (actors and group (collective via two outlooks: tactical (short-term and strategic (long-term. The main argument of the article is that while the “old” terrorism can be explained by the rational choice theory its “new” version represents a substantial departure from rationality.

'In-between' and other reasonable ways to deal with risk and uncertainty: A review article.

Science.gov (United States)

Zinn, Jens O

2016-11-16

How people deal with risk and uncertainty has fuelled public and academic debate in recent decades. Researchers have shown that common distinctions between rational and 'irrational' strategies underestimate the complexity of how people approach an uncertain future. I suggested in 2008 that strategies in-between do not follow standards of instrumental rationality nor they are 'irrational' but follow their own logic which works well under particular circumstances. Strategies such as trust, intuition and emotion are an important part of the mix when people deal with risk and uncertainty. In this article, I develop my original argument. It explores in-between strategies to deal with possible undesired outcomes of decisions. I examine 'non-rational strategies' and in particular the notions of active, passive and reflexive hope. Furthermore, I argue that my original typology should be seen as a triangular of reasonable strategies which work well under specific circumstances. Finally, I highlight a number of different ways in which these strategies combine.

Quantum Brownian motion model for the stock market

Science.gov (United States)

Meng, Xiangyi; Zhang, Jian-Wei; Guo, Hong

2016-06-01

It is believed by the majority today that the efficient market hypothesis is imperfect because of market irrationality. Using the physical concepts and mathematical structures of quantum mechanics, we construct an econophysical framework for the stock market, based on which we analogously map massive numbers of single stocks into a reservoir consisting of many quantum harmonic oscillators and their stock index into a typical quantum open system-a quantum Brownian particle. In particular, the irrationality of stock transactions is quantitatively considered as the Planck constant within Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship of quantum mechanics in an analogous manner. We analyze real stock data of Shanghai Stock Exchange of China and investigate fat-tail phenomena and non-Markovian behaviors of the stock index with the assistance of the quantum Brownian motion model, thereby interpreting and studying the limitations of the classical Brownian motion model for the efficient market hypothesis from a new perspective of quantum open system dynamics.

Procrastination and predictor variables among a group of dental students in Turkey.

Science.gov (United States)

Atalayin, Cigdem; Balkis, Murat; Tezel, Huseyin; Kayrak, Gul

2018-07-01

The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of procrastination among a group of Turkish dental students and to determine the predictors and consequences of procrastination. A total number of 273 females and 179 males (aged between 18 and 28) were included in the study. Tuckman procrastination scale, Academic Life Satisfaction Scale, Concern over Mistake Scale, Poor Time Management Scale, Self-Doubt Scale, Irrational Beliefs about Studying Scale, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and Life Satisfaction Scale were used to gather data. Results indicated that 50% of participants were more likely to procrastinate their academic assignments or tasks. Procrastination score did not differ according to gender. The findings suggested that procrastinating students had a higher level of poor time management, self-doubt and irrational beliefs about studying, and poor academic performance and well-being than their non-procrastinating counterparts. Preventive strategies are necessary to overcome procrastination which affects the academic achievement, satisfaction, and well-being of dental students.

Polyfarmacie en irrationele combinaties van psychofarmaca bij verblijfspatiënten in het APZ: Kunstfout of onvermijdelijk?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sterrenburg-Van de Nieuwegiessen, C.M.; Loonen, A.J.M.; Bakker, J.B.

2000-01-01

BACKGROUND: In chronic inpatients polypharmacy is common and sometimes the combinations of psychotropics are irrational from a theoretical point of view. AIMS Registration of polypharmacy and irrational combinations in clinical practice. METHODS: In this descriptive study of 127 longstay patients in

A positive and entropy-satisfying finite volume scheme for the Baer-Nunziato model

Science.gov (United States)

Coquel, Frédéric; Hérard, Jean-Marc; Saleh, Khaled

2017-02-01

We present a relaxation scheme for approximating the entropy dissipating weak solutions of the Baer-Nunziato two-phase flow model. This relaxation scheme is straightforwardly obtained as an extension of the relaxation scheme designed in [16] for the isentropic Baer-Nunziato model and consequently inherits its main properties. To our knowledge, this is the only existing scheme for which the approximated phase fractions, phase densities and phase internal energies are proven to remain positive without any restrictive condition other than a classical fully computable CFL condition. For ideal gas and stiffened gas equations of state, real values of the phasic speeds of sound are also proven to be maintained by the numerical scheme. It is also the only scheme for which a discrete entropy inequality is proven, under a CFL condition derived from the natural sub-characteristic condition associated with the relaxation approximation. This last property, which ensures the non-linear stability of the numerical method, is satisfied for any admissible equation of state. We provide a numerical study for the convergence of the approximate solutions towards some exact Riemann solutions. The numerical simulations show that the relaxation scheme compares well with two of the most popular existing schemes available for the Baer-Nunziato model, namely Schwendeman-Wahle-Kapila's Godunov-type scheme [39] and Tokareva-Toro's HLLC scheme [44]. The relaxation scheme also shows a higher precision and a lower computational cost (for comparable accuracy) than a standard numerical scheme used in the nuclear industry, namely Rusanov's scheme. Finally, we assess the good behavior of the scheme when approximating vanishing phase solutions.

Number names and number understanding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ejersbo, Lisser Rye; Misfeldt, Morten

2014-01-01

This paper concerns the results from the first year of a three-year research project involving the relationship between Danish number names and their corresponding digits in the canonical base 10 system. The project aims to develop a system to help the students’ understanding of the base 10 syste...... the Danish number names are more complicated than in other languages. Keywords: A research project in grade 0 and 1th in a Danish school, Base-10 system, two-digit number names, semiotic, cognitive perspectives....

How Cannibalistic is the Internet Channel?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

B. Deleersnyder (Barbara); I. Geyskens; K. Gielens (Katrijn); M.G. Dekimpe (Marnik)

2002-01-01

textabstractDuring the past decade, irrational exuberance has turned into a possibly equally irrational pessimism about what the Internet can accomplish. The fear of getting ruined through cannibalization losses has recently deterred many firms from deploying the Internet as a distribution channel.

Increased number of IgG4-positive plasma cells in chronic rhinosinusitis.

Science.gov (United States)

Ohno, Keiko; Kimura, Yurika; Matsuda, Yoko; Takahashi, Masatoki; Honjyou, Motomu; Arai, Tomio; Tsutsumi, Takeshi

2017-02-01

High levels of IgG4-positive plasma cells were observed in tissue samples from ∼30% of patients with chronic rhinosinusitis who satisfied the comprehensive diagnostic criteria for IgG4-related disease. Detection of increased numbers of IgG4-positive plasma cells in the nasal cavity or paranasal sinuses might not be sufficient to make a diagnosis of IgG4-related rhinosinusitis, and a comprehensive evaluation is required. This study aimed to clarify the clinicopathological characteristics of IgG4-positive plasma cells in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis. This study examined nasal mucosal specimens from 35 patients and assigned them to high-IgG4 and low-IgG4 groups based on infiltration of IgG4-positive plasma cells. It compared the pathological characteristics of the two groups, including the presence of fibrosis, phlebitis, hyperplasia of the nasal glands and infiltration of inflammatory cells. No cases of chronic rhinosinusitis showed storiform fibrosis or obliterative phlebitis. The mean number of IgG4-positive plasma cells in samples from all patients was 29.8 ± 40.3/high-power field. Eleven of the 35 cases (31.4%) were classified as high-IgG4. Hyperplasia of the nasal glands was observed significantly more frequently in the high-IgG4 group than in the low-IgG4 group (p = .03).

Connecting the dots: Illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural.

Science.gov (United States)

van Prooijen, Jan-Willem; Douglas, Karen M; De Inocencio, Clara

2018-04-01

A common assumption is that belief in conspiracy theories and supernatural phenomena are grounded in illusory pattern perception. In the present research we systematically tested this assumption. Study 1 revealed that such irrational beliefs are related to perceiving patterns in randomly generated coin toss outcomes. In Study 2, pattern search instructions exerted an indirect effect on irrational beliefs through pattern perception. Study 3 revealed that perceiving patterns in chaotic but not in structured paintings predicted irrational beliefs. In Study 4, we found that agreement with texts supporting paranormal phenomena or conspiracy theories predicted pattern perception. In Study 5, we manipulated belief in a specific conspiracy theory. This manipulation influenced the extent to which people perceive patterns in world events, which in turn predicted unrelated irrational beliefs. We conclude that illusory pattern perception is a central cognitive mechanism accounting for conspiracy theories and supernatural beliefs.

Connecting the dots: Illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural

Science.gov (United States)

Douglas, Karen M.; De Inocencio, Clara

2017-01-01

Abstract A common assumption is that belief in conspiracy theories and supernatural phenomena are grounded in illusory pattern perception. In the present research we systematically tested this assumption. Study 1 revealed that such irrational beliefs are related to perceiving patterns in randomly generated coin toss outcomes. In Study 2, pattern search instructions exerted an indirect effect on irrational beliefs through pattern perception. Study 3 revealed that perceiving patterns in chaotic but not in structured paintings predicted irrational beliefs. In Study 4, we found that agreement with texts supporting paranormal phenomena or conspiracy theories predicted pattern perception. In Study 5, we manipulated belief in a specific conspiracy theory. This manipulation influenced the extent to which people perceive patterns in world events, which in turn predicted unrelated irrational beliefs. We conclude that illusory pattern perception is a central cognitive mechanism accounting for conspiracy theories and supernatural beliefs. PMID:29695889

The problem of the possible rationality of suicide and the ethics of physician-assisted suicide.

Science.gov (United States)

Wittwer, Héctor

2013-01-01

Opponents of the legalization of physician assisted suicide (PAS) often claim that physicians must not give a helping hand to suicidal patients because (i) it is morally forbidden to help somebody to carry out an action which is inherently irrational and which will probably cause him severe harm, and (ii) the act of self-killing is necessarily irrational and self-harming. The article focuses on the second premise of this paternalistic argument against the moral permissibility of PAS and its legalization. First, it is shown that this premise can be understood in two ways, depending on whether the predicate "irrational" is taken to refer to a human being's lack of the capacity to decide and act rationally or irrationally, or to the property of the decision to end one's life. Whereas the first variant of the premise stating that all suicidal individuals lack the capacity to act rationally can only be verified or falsified by empirical studies, the second assumption is a normative one which only philosophy can deal with. Restated in another way, it says that is always rationally forbidden to kill oneself because the decision to end one's own life is necessarily irrational. The five arguments which have been brought forward to justify this claim are analyzed and criticized. It is argued that there is no valid argument for the necessary irrationality of suicide. Hence, the claim that PAS is morally forbidden and, therefore, ought not to be legalized cannot rest on that premise. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Are patients with severe epistaxis caused by hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia satisfied with nostril closure surgery?

Science.gov (United States)

Ichimura, Keiichi; Kikuchi, Hisashi; Imayoshi, Shoichiro; Yamauchi, Tomohiko; Ishikawa, Kotaro

2012-02-01

Recurrent epistaxis as a manifestation of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is usually difficult to control. Although no treatment is regarded to be completely efficacious, nostril closure is considered a modality of choice for the most severe cases. The cessation of airflow resulting from this procedure can stop bleeding by minimizing risk factors. However, loss of nasal functions is a disadvantage of nostril closure. We conducted a questionnaire survey of patients who underwent nostril closure surgery, regarding the effects and disadvantages of the operation. Seven patients were asked questions on issues including frequency and severity of epistaxis pre- and post-operatively, satisfaction of treatment, and impairment in daily living activities. Most patients reported complete cessation of bleeding. Some still had bleeding, but the frequency and severity were far lower. No transfusions were required in any of the cases. Patients reported some disadvantages, for example, respiratory, olfactory, and phonatory issues. Six out of seven patients were very satisfied with the outcome of surgery. Nostril closure surgery can remarkably reduce frequency and volume of epistaxis. Our survey indicated that satisfactory results were achieved. However, difficulties caused by complete nasal obstruction varied. Thus, individualized coping strategies are required. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

69-74 A Retrospective Analysis of Prescribing Prac

African Journals Online (AJOL)

user

A Retrospective Analysis of Prescribing Practice Based on WHO Prescribing Indicators at Four. Selected Hospitals of West ... Key words: World Health Organization, prescribing indicators, rational drug use. INTRODUCTION. Indicators of ... factors, the risk of irrational prescribing could raise several folds. Irrational use of ...

Group-Wise Herding Behavior in Financial Markets: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Minsung; Kim, Minki

2014-01-01

In this paper, we shed light on the dynamic characteristics of rational group behaviors and the relationship between monetary policy and economic units in the financial market by using an agent-based model (ABM), the Hurst exponent, and the Shannon entropy. First, an agent-based model is used to analyze the characteristics of the group behaviors at different levels of irrationality. Second, the Hurst exponent is applied to analyze the characteristics of the trend-following irrationality group. Third, the Shannon entropy is used to analyze the randomness and unpredictability of group behavior. We show that in a system that focuses on macro-monetary policy, steep fluctuations occur, meaning that the medium-level irrationality group has the highest Hurst exponent and Shannon entropy among all of the groups. However, in a system that focuses on micro-monetary policy, all group behaviors follow a stable trend, and the medium irrationality group thus remains stable, too. Likewise, in a system that focuses on both micro- and macro-monetary policies, all groups tend to be stable. Consequently, we find that group behavior varies across economic units at each irrationality level for micro- and macro-monetary policy in the financial market. Together, these findings offer key insights into monetary policy. PMID:24714635

Modeling the structure of the attitudes and belief scale 2 using CFA and bifactor approaches: Toward the development of an abbreviated version.

Science.gov (United States)

Hyland, Philip; Shevlin, Mark; Adamson, Gary; Boduszek, Daniel

2014-01-01

The Attitudes and Belief Scale-2 (ABS-2: DiGiuseppe, Leaf, Exner, & Robin, 1988. The development of a measure of rational/irrational thinking. Paper presented at the World Congress of Behavior Therapy, Edinburg, Scotland.) is a 72-item self-report measure of evaluative rational and irrational beliefs widely used in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy research contexts. However, little psychometric evidence exists regarding the measure's underlying factor structure. Furthermore, given the length of the ABS-2 there is a need for an abbreviated version that can be administered when there are time demands on the researcher, such as in clinical settings. This study sought to examine a series of theoretical models hypothesized to represent the latent structure of the ABS-2 within an alternative models framework using traditional confirmatory factor analysis as well as utilizing a bifactor modeling approach. Furthermore, this study also sought to develop a psychometrically sound abbreviated version of the ABS-2. Three hundred and thirteen (N = 313) active emergency service personnel completed the ABS-2. Results indicated that for each model, the application of bifactor modeling procedures improved model fit statistics, and a novel eight-factor intercorrelated solution was identified as the best fitting model of the ABS-2. However, the observed fit indices failed to satisfy commonly accepted standards. A 24-item abbreviated version was thus constructed and an intercorrelated eight-factor solution yielded satisfactory model fit statistics. Current results support the use of a bifactor modeling approach to determining the factor structure of the ABS-2. Furthermore, results provide empirical support for the psychometric properties of the newly developed abbreviated version.

A positive and entropy-satisfying finite volume scheme for the Baer–Nunziato model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Coquel, Frédéric, E-mail: frederic.coquel@cmap.polytechnique.fr [CMAP, École Polytechnique CNRS, UMR 7641, Route de Saclay, F-91128 Palaiseau cedex (France); Hérard, Jean-Marc, E-mail: jean-marc.herard@edf.fr [EDF-R& D, Département MFEE, 6 Quai Watier, F-78401 Chatou Cedex (France); Saleh, Khaled, E-mail: saleh@math.univ-lyon1.fr [Université de Lyon, CNRS UMR 5208, Université Lyon 1, Institut Camille Jordan, 43 bd 11 novembre 1918, F-69622 Villeurbanne cedex (France)

2017-02-01

We present a relaxation scheme for approximating the entropy dissipating weak solutions of the Baer–Nunziato two-phase flow model. This relaxation scheme is straightforwardly obtained as an extension of the relaxation scheme designed in for the isentropic Baer–Nunziato model and consequently inherits its main properties. To our knowledge, this is the only existing scheme for which the approximated phase fractions, phase densities and phase internal energies are proven to remain positive without any restrictive condition other than a classical fully computable CFL condition. For ideal gas and stiffened gas equations of state, real values of the phasic speeds of sound are also proven to be maintained by the numerical scheme. It is also the only scheme for which a discrete entropy inequality is proven, under a CFL condition derived from the natural sub-characteristic condition associated with the relaxation approximation. This last property, which ensures the non-linear stability of the numerical method, is satisfied for any admissible equation of state. We provide a numerical study for the convergence of the approximate solutions towards some exact Riemann solutions. The numerical simulations show that the relaxation scheme compares well with two of the most popular existing schemes available for the Baer–Nunziato model, namely Schwendeman–Wahle–Kapila's Godunov-type scheme and Tokareva–Toro's HLLC scheme . The relaxation scheme also shows a higher precision and a lower computational cost (for comparable accuracy) than a standard numerical scheme used in the nuclear industry, namely Rusanov's scheme. Finally, we assess the good behavior of the scheme when approximating vanishing phase solutions.

Body integrity identity disorder beyond amputation: consent and liberty.

Science.gov (United States)

White, Amy

2014-09-01

In this article, I argue that persons suffering from Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) can give informed consent to surgical measures designed to treat this disorder. This is true even if the surgery seems radical or irrational to most people. The decision to have surgery made by a BIID patient is not necessarily coerced, incompetent or uninformed. If surgery for BIID is offered, there should certainly be a screening process in place to insure informed consent. It is beyond the scope of this work, however, to define all the conditions that should be placed on the availability of surgery. However, I argue, given the similarities between BIID and gender dysphoria and the success of such gatekeeping measures for the surgical treatment of gender dysphoria, it is reasonable that similar conditions be in place for BIID. Once other treatment options are tried and gatekeeping measures satisfied, A BIID patient can give informed consent to radical surgery.

Noble magnetic barriers in the ASDEX UG tokamak

Science.gov (United States)

Ali, Halima; Punjabi, Alkesh; Vazquez, Justin

2010-02-01

The second-order perturbation method of creating invariant tori inside chaos in Hamiltonian systems (Ali, H.; Punjabi, A. Plasma Phys. Contr. F. 2007, 49, 1565-1582) is applied to the axially symmetric divertor experiment upgrade (ASDEX UG) tokamak to build noble irrational magnetic barriers inside chaos created by resonant magnetic perturbations (m, n)=(3, 2)+(4, 3), with m and n the poloidal and toroidal mode numbers of the Fourier expansion of the magnetic perturbation. The radial dependence of the Fourier modes is ignored. The modes are considered to be locked and have the same amplitude δ. A symplectic mathematical mapping in magnetic coordinates is used to integrate magnetic field line trajectories in the ASDEX UG. Tori with noble irrational rotational transform are the last ones to be destroyed by perturbation in Hamiltonian systems. For this reason, noble irrational magnetic barriers are built inside chaos, and the strongest noble irrational barrier is identified. Three candidate locations for the strongest noble barrier in ASDEX UG are selected. All three candidate locations are chosen to be roughly midway between the resonant rational surfaces ψ32 and ψ43. ψ is the magnetic coordinate of the flux surface. The three candidate surfaces are the noble irrational surfaces close to the surface with q value that is a mediant of q=3/2 and 4/3, q value of the physical midpoint of the two resonant surfaces, and the q value of the surface where the islands of the two perturbing modes just overlap. These q values of the candidate surfaces are denoted by q MED, q MID, and q OVERLAP. The strongest noble barrier close to q MED has the continued fraction representation (CFR) [1;2,2,1∞] and exists for δ≤2.6599×10-4; the strongest noble barrier close to q MID has CFR [1;2,2,2,1∞] and exists for δ≤4.6311×10-4; and the strongest noble barrier close to q OVERLAP has CFR [1;2,2,6,2,1∞] and exists for δ≤1.367770×10-4. From these results, the strongest

Rational-Emotive Assessment of School-Aged Children.

Science.gov (United States)

DiGiuseppe, Raymond

1990-01-01

Focuses on assessment of emotions and irrational beliefs in Rational-Emotive Therapy with school-aged children. Argues that, for children to understand and agree to process of disputing irrational beliefs, practitioner first assesses individual child's emotional vocabulary, his/her understanding of relationship between disturbed emotion and…

Design of a multi-vehicles delivery tours satisfying duration constraints

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Langevin, A; Soumis, F

1987-01-01

The following organization was studied for the letter and parcel pick-up and delivery problem in an urban environment. The day is divided in periods of time in which each vehicle starts from a sorting centre, travels to a very precise area of the region, picks up and delivers letters and parcels, and returns to the depot to have the collected material sorted out for delivery during the following period. The intent of this approach is to have each zone serviced by one vehicle only, in order to facilitate the work of the dispatcher and routing of each vehicle. A method has been developed of partitioning an urban region into zones to be assigned, each one to a specific vehicle, so as to minimize the total number of vehicles used or the total distance travelled by all vehicles. The first part of the method determines the zones and the average number of points to visit. Then, a first refinement of the method takes into account the daily variability of the demand in each zone, whereas a second refinement examines the advantage of allowing some overlapping of zones for the purpose of having an overloaded vehicle relieved by one from an adjacent zone. 17 refs., 11 figs., 2 tabs.

There's More Than Catastrophizing in Chronic Pain: Low Frustration Tolerance and Self-Downing Also Predict Mental Health in Chronic Pain Patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Suso-Ribera, Carlos; Jornet-Gibert, Montsant; Ribera Canudas, Maria Victoria; McCracken, Lance M; Maydeu-Olivares, Alberto; Gallardo-Pujol, David

2016-06-01

Among the potential range of irrational beliefs that could be used as predictors of physical and mental health, catastrophizing is the process that has received most attention in chronic pain research. Other irrational processes such as demandingness, low frustration tolerance, and self-downing have rarely been studied. The goal of this study was to explore whether this wider range of beliefs is associated with health in chronic pain patients beyond catastrophizing. A total of 492 chronic pain patients completed a measure of irrational beliefs, a measure of physical and mental health, and a numerical rating scale designed to assess pain intensity and interference. Irrational processes were more strongly associated with mental than with physical health. Low frustration tolerance and self-downing were found to be significantly related to mental health even after controlling for the effect of catastrophizing. Processes other than catastrophizing appear to have potentially important relationships with the mental health of people with chronic pain. These results may offer new intervention targets for practitioners.

A systematic design method for robust synthetic biology to satisfy design specifications.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Bor-Sen; Wu, Chih-Hung

2009-06-30

Synthetic biology is foreseen to have important applications in biotechnology and medicine, and is expected to contribute significantly to a better understanding of the functioning of complex biological systems. However, the development of synthetic gene networks is still difficult and most newly created gene networks are non-functioning due to intrinsic parameter uncertainties, external disturbances and functional variations of intra- and extra-cellular environments. The design method for a robust synthetic gene network that works properly in a host cell under these intrinsic parameter uncertainties and external disturbances is the most important topic in synthetic biology. In this study, we propose a stochastic model that includes parameter fluctuations and external disturbances to mimic the dynamic behaviors of a synthetic gene network in the host cell. Then, based on this stochastic model, four design specifications are introduced to guarantee that a synthetic gene network can achieve its desired steady state behavior in spite of parameter fluctuations, external disturbances and functional variations in the host cell. We propose a systematic method to select a set of appropriate design parameters for a synthetic gene network that will satisfy these design specifications so that the intrinsic parameter fluctuations can be tolerated, the external disturbances can be efficiently filtered, and most importantly, the desired steady states can be achieved. Thus the synthetic gene network can work properly in a host cell under intrinsic parameter uncertainties, external disturbances and functional variations. Finally, a design procedure for the robust synthetic gene network is developed and a design example is given in silico to confirm the performance of the proposed method. Based on four design specifications, a systematic design procedure is developed for designers to engineer a robust synthetic biology network that can achieve its desired steady state behavior

Simultaneous projection of particle-number and angular momentum BCS wave-functions in the rare-earth nuclei

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oudih, M.R.; Fellah, M.; Allal, N.H.; Benhamouda, N.

1999-01-01

It is well established that the BCS wave-functions are neither eigen-functions of the particle-number operator nor of the angular momentum operator. In a previous paper, we have developed a particle-number projection before variation method (of FBCS type). This discrete projection method is based on the SBCS wave-function. The aim of the present contribution is to perform a subsequent angular momentum projection by means of the Peierls-Yoccoz method. The general expression of the system energy, after the double projection, is established in the case of axial symmetry. For practical calculations, an approximation method is introduced. It leads to a semi-classical form of the rotational energy. The rotational spectra have been evaluated numerically for some even-even rare-earth nuclei. The single-particle energies and eigen-states are those of a deformed Woods-Saxon mean field. The obtained results are compared on one hand, to the experimental data, and on the other hand, to the theoretical spectra evaluated by a particle-number projection after variation method (of PBCS type). For all studied nuclei, the spectra determined by the FBCS method reproduce the experimental data better than those of the PBCS method. However, even if the present method is satisfying for low angular momenta, the agreement with the experimental data is lesser for I ≥ 8, particularly for the lighter studied nuclei. (authors)

Cosmic numbers the numbers that define our universe

CERN Document Server

Stein, James D

2011-01-01

Our fascination with numbers begins when we are children and continues throughout our lives. We start counting our fingers and toes and end up balancing checkbooks and calculating risk. So powerful is the appeal of numbers that many people ascribe to them a mystical significance. Other numbers go beyond the supernatural, working to explain our universe and how it behaves. In Cosmic Numbers , mathematics professor James D. Stein traces the discovery, evolution, and interrelationships of the numbers that define our world. Everyone knows about the speed of light and absolute zero, but numbers lik

Rollerchain, a Blockchain With Safely Pruneable Full Blocks

OpenAIRE

Chepurnoy, Alexander; Larangeira, Mario; Ojiganov, Alexander

2016-01-01

Bitcoin is the first successful decentralized global digital cash system. Its mining process requires intense computational resources, therefore its usefulness remains a disputable topic. We aim to solve three problems with Bitcoin and other blockchain systems of today by repurposing their work. First, space to store a blockchain is growing linearly with number of transactions. Second, a honest node is forced to be irrational regarding storing full blocks by a way implementations are done. Th...

The Mental Number Line in Dyscalculia: Impaired Number Sense or Access from Symbolic Numbers?

Science.gov (United States)

Lafay, Anne; St-Pierre, Marie-Catherine; Macoir, Joël

2017-01-01

Numbers may be manipulated and represented mentally over a compressible number line oriented from left to right. According to numerous studies, one of the primary reasons for dyscalculia is related to improper understanding of the mental number line. Children with dyscalculia usually show difficulty when they have to place Arabic numbers on a…

A comparison of the job-satisfied and job-dissatisfied environmental health officer in South Africa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. D. Louw

2000-06-01

Full Text Available Environmental health is one of the key areas in the Reconstruction and Development Programme in South Africa because of its close links with the primary prevention of disease. The possibility of individual differences between job-satisfied and job-dissatisfied environmental health officers were investigated. The individual differences found between these groups can be used to select and train students for training who show a tendency towards the indicated personality traits. A relationship is indicated by researchers between job-satisfaction and job performance; it can therefore be expected that the selection of environmental health officers with the indicated tendencies in personality, values, achievement motivation, interests and biographical information will have a positive effect on productivity in environmental health. Opsomming Omgewingsgesondheid is een van die sleutelareas in die Heropbou- en Ontwikkelingsprogram in Suid-Afrika, vanwee die noue band wat dit met die primere voorkoming van siektes het. Hierdie studie ondersoek die moontlikheid van individuele verskille tussen werkstevrede en nie-werkstevrede omgewingsgesondheidsbeamptes. Die individuele verskille wat tussen die groepe gevind is, kan gebruik word vir die keuring en opieiding van studente met n neiging tot die aangeduide persoonlikheidstrekke.'n Verband word tussen werkstevredenheid en werksprestasie word deur navorsers aangedui. Daar kan dus verwag word dat die keuring van omgewingsgesondheidsbeamptes met die aangeduide geneigdhede in persoonlikheid, waardes, prestasiemotiverings, belangstellings en biografiese besonderhede, n positiewe bydrae tot produktiwiteit in Omgewingsgesondheid sal lewer.

European Guidelines for AP/PA chest X-rays: routinely satisfiable in a paediatric radiology division?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tschauner, Sebastian; Marterer, Robert; Guebitz, Michael; Weissensteiner, Sabine; Sorantin, Erich [Medical University of Graz, Division of Paediatric Radiology, Department of Radiology, Graz (Austria); Kalmar, Peter I. [Medical University of Graz, Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Department of Radiology, Graz (Austria); Talakic, Emina [Medical University of Graz, Division of General Radiological Diagnostics, Department of Radiology, Graz (Austria)

2016-02-15

Accurate collimation helps to reduce unnecessary irradiation and improves radiographic image quality, which is especially important in the radiosensitive paediatric population. For AP/PA chest radiographs in children, a minimal field size (MinFS) from ''just above the lung apices'' to ''T12/L1'' with age-dependent tolerance is suggested by the 1996 European Commission (EC) guidelines, which were examined qualitatively and quantitatively at a paediatric radiology division. Five hundred ninety-eight unprocessed chest X-rays (45 % boys, 55 % girls; mean age 3.9 years, range 0-18 years) were analysed with a self-developed tool. Qualitative standards were assessed based on the EC guidelines, as well as the overexposed field size and needlessly irradiated tissue compared to the MinFS. While qualitative guideline recommendations were satisfied, mean overexposure of +45.1 ± 18.9 % (range +10.2 % to +107.9 %) and tissue overexposure of +33.3 ± 13.3 % were found. Only 4 % (26/598) of the examined X-rays completely fulfilled the EC guidelines. This study presents a new chest radiography quality control tool which allows assessment of field sizes, distances, overexposures and quality parameters based on the EC guidelines. Utilising this tool, we detected inadequate field sizes, inspiration depths, and patient positioning. Furthermore, some debatable EC guideline aspects were revealed. (orig.)

The satisfied user

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blommaert, F.J.J.; Janssen, T.J.W.M.

1999-01-01

We interpret human-system interaction as a sequence of information-processing operations. According to computational cognition (Newell, 1990; Simon & Kaplan, 1989) and computational vision (Marr, 1982), information processing should be studied at three different levels of abstraction, that is, at

Argumentation in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Response to Haiman's "Farewell to Rational Discourse."

Science.gov (United States)

Grice, George L.; Schunk, John F.

In a 1968 address, Franklyn S. Haiman stated that public discourse at that time was marked by irrationality because of emphases on emotional appeals, disorganization, and aggressive or abusive style and language. He also cited "body rhetoric" (lawful protests or marches) and civil disobedience (illegal actions) as examples of irrational arguments.…

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NUMBER NAMES AND NUMBER CONCEPTS

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ejersbo, Lisser Rye; Misfeldt, Morten

Different countries have different names for numbers. These names are often related in a regular way to the base-10 place value system used for writing numbers as digits. However, in several languages, this regularity breaks down (e.g., between 10 and 20), and there is limited knowledge of how th......, a second, regular set of number names is introduced in primary school. The study’s findings suggest that the regularity of number names influences the development of number concepts and creates a positive impact on the understanding of the base-10 system....

KT an S4 satisfiability in a constraint logic environment

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Stevenson, L

2008-12-01

Full Text Available to limit the domain of a propositional variable which occurs only positively or only negatively to a single value. This allows us to reduce the number of conjunctive clauses in the modal layer, thereby significantly reducing the search space. Because.... The solver developed by Brand et al. is, however, limited to the modal logic K. It only deals with formulae that are in conjunctive normal form (CNF), and have not been optimized using any of the standard techniques such as caching. In this paper, we...

A Research on a Certain Family of Numbers and Polynomials Related to Stirling Numbers, Central Factorial Numbers, and Euler Numbers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Y. Kang

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Recently, many mathematicians have studied different kinds of the Euler, Bernoulli, and Genocchi numbers and polynomials. In this paper, we give another definition of polynomials Ũn(x. We observe an interesting phenomenon of “scattering” of the zeros of the polynomials Ũn(x in complex plane. We find out some identities and properties related to polynomials Ũn(x. Finally, we also derive interesting relations between polynomials Ũn(x, Stirling numbers, central factorial numbers, and Euler numbers.

Maximization of the Supportable Number of Sensors in QoS-Aware Cluster-Based Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thi-Tham Nguyen

2014-03-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a practical low-complexity MAC (medium access control scheme for quality of service (QoS-aware and cluster-based underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASN, in which the provision of differentiated QoS is required. In such a network, underwater sensors (U-sensor in a cluster are divided into several classes, each of which has a different QoS requirement. The major problem considered in this paper is the maximization of the number of nodes that a cluster can accommodate while still providing the required QoS for each class in terms of the PDR (packet delivery ratio. In order to address the problem, we first estimate the packet delivery probability (PDP and use it to formulate an optimization problem to determine the optimal value of the maximum packet retransmissions for each QoS class. The custom greedy and interior-point algorithms are used to find the optimal solutions, which are verified by extensive simulations. The simulation results show that, by solving the proposed optimization problem, the supportable number of underwater sensor nodes can be maximized while satisfying the QoS requirements for each class.

Empirical evidence for resource-rational anchoring and adjustment.

Science.gov (United States)

Lieder, Falk; Griffiths, Thomas L; M Huys, Quentin J; Goodman, Noah D

2018-04-01

People's estimates of numerical quantities are systematically biased towards their initial guess. This anchoring bias is usually interpreted as sign of human irrationality, but it has recently been suggested that the anchoring bias instead results from people's rational use of their finite time and limited cognitive resources. If this were true, then adjustment should decrease with the relative cost of time. To test this hypothesis, we designed a new numerical estimation paradigm that controls people's knowledge and varies the cost of time and error independently while allowing people to invest as much or as little time and effort into refining their estimate as they wish. Two experiments confirmed the prediction that adjustment decreases with time cost but increases with error cost regardless of whether the anchor was self-generated or provided. These results support the hypothesis that people rationally adapt their number of adjustments to achieve a near-optimal speed-accuracy tradeoff. This suggests that the anchoring bias might be a signature of the rational use of finite time and limited cognitive resources rather than a sign of human irrationality.

Act first, think later: the presence and absence of inferential planning in problem solving.

Science.gov (United States)

Ormerod, Thomas C; Macgregor, James N; Chronicle, Edward P; Dewald, Andrew D; Chu, Yun

2013-10-01

Planning is fundamental to successful problem solving, yet individuals sometimes fail to plan even one step ahead when it lies within their competence to do so. In this article, we report two experiments in which we explored variants of a ball-weighing puzzle, a problem that has only two steps, yet nonetheless yields performance consistent with a failure to plan. The results fit a computational model in which a solver's attempts are determined by two heuristics: maximization of the apparent progress made toward the problem goal and minimization of the problem space in which attempts are sought. The effectiveness of these heuristics was determined by lookahead, defined operationally as the number of steps evaluated in a planned move. Where move outcomes cannot be visualized but must be inferred, planning is constrained to the point where some individuals apply zero lookahead, which with n-ball problems yields seemingly irrational unequal weighs. Applying general-purpose heuristics with or without lookahead accounts for a range of rational and irrational phenomena found with insight and noninsight problems.

Iracionalita v nákupním chování

OpenAIRE

HERMANOVÁ, Eliška

2012-01-01

The aim of the work titled ?Irrationality in shopping behavior" was to realize several experiments aimed to confirm the irrationality in the shopping behavior and then make cross-cultural comparisons. To allow the comparison of results, were selected experiments already performed by Dan Ariely with American students. During the works were progressively evaluated predetermined hypotheses.

The role of cognitive, emotional and personality factors in the experience of fatigue in a university and community sample.

Science.gov (United States)

Kangas, Maria; Montgomery, Guy H

2011-05-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of cognitive, emotional and personality factors to the experience of fatigue severity in healthy adult individuals. Specifically, the study examined whether fatigue catastrophising and emotional distress mediated the relationships between neuroticism, general irrational and rational thoughts to fatigue severity. One hundred and eighty nine university students and community volunteers completed self-report questionnaires assessing fatigue catastrophising and symptom severity, neuroticism, general rational and irrational thoughts and emotional distress. A series of correlational and path analyses were conducted to test the study hypotheses. Neuroticism and more general negative, irrational cognitions were associated with elevated fatigue catastrophising and fatigue severity, whereas more adaptive, rational cognitions were related to lower fatigue catastrophising and fatigue severity. Both elevated fatigue catastrophising and emotional distress uniquely and simultaneously mediated the relationships between irrational and rational cognitions and neuroticism to fatigue severity. These findings demonstrate that cognitions play a role in fatigue severity. The results have implications in the assessment and treatment of fatigue disturbances in the general community.

Straight flavor of Binary Number in Decimal Number System

OpenAIRE

MD. Abdul Awal Ansary; Sushanta Acharjee

2012-01-01

Different number systems are available on the basis of their base numbers. For instance, decimal number system is of base 10, hexadecimal number system which base is 16 and, Binary number system which base is 2 etc. Some numbers systems are easy to understand by the human being and some are easy to understand by electronics machine for instance digital computers. Computers only can understand data and instructions that are stored in binary form, though we input the data and instruction in dec...

Surgery in cerebral metastases: Are numbers so important?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alessandro Agnoletti

2014-01-01

The selection of candidates for surgery requires several considerations and entails the success rate of this treatment. In patients with the multiple lesions who fulfilled the selection criteria we observed a nevertheless satisfying success after the operation. Our results imply that surgery may be applied also in selected patients with more diffuse intracranial disease. A pre-operative accurate patient selection is related to acceptable quality-of-life following the operation even in cases of multiple MTS.

A novel permanent maglev impeller TAH: most requirements on blood pumps have been satisfied.

Science.gov (United States)

Qian, K X; Zeng, P; Ru, W M; Yuan, H Y

2003-07-01

Based on the development of an impeller total artificial heart (TAH) (1987) and a permanent maglev (magnetic levitation) impeller pump (2002), as well as a patented magnetic bearing and magnetic spring (1996), a novel permanent maglev impeller TAH has been developed. The device consists of a rotor and a stator. The rotor is driven radially. Two impellers with different dimensions are fixed at both the ends of the rotor. The levitation of the rotor is achieved by using two permanent magnetic bearings, which have double function: radial bearing and axial spring. As the rotor rotates at a periodic changing speed, two pumps deliver the pulsatile flow synchronously. The volume balance between the two pumps is realized due to self-modulation property of the impeller pumps, without need for detection and control. Because the hemo-dynamic force acting on the left impeller is larger than that on the right impeller, and this force during systole is larger than that during diastole, the rotor reciprocates axially once a cycle. This is beneficial to prevent the thrombosis in the pump. Furthermore, a small flow via the gap between stator and rotor from left pump into right pump comes to a full washout in the motor and the pumps. Therefore, it seems neither mechanical wear nor thrombosis could occur. The previously developed prototype impeller TAH had demonstrated that it could operate in animal experiments indefinitely, if the bearing would not fail to work. Expectantly, this novel permanent magnetic levitation impeller TAH with simplicity, implantability, pulsatility, compatibility and durability has satisfied the most requirements on blood pumps and will have more extensive applications in experiments and clinics.

Sagan numbers

OpenAIRE

Mendonça, J. Ricardo G.

2012-01-01

We define a new class of numbers based on the first occurrence of certain patterns of zeros and ones in the expansion of irracional numbers in a given basis and call them Sagan numbers, since they were first mentioned, in a special case, by the North-american astronomer Carl E. Sagan in his science-fiction novel "Contact." Sagan numbers hold connections with a wealth of mathematical ideas. We describe some properties of the newly defined numbers and indicate directions for further amusement.

The effect of essential medicines programme on rational use of medicines in China.

Science.gov (United States)

Gong, Yanhong; Yang, Chen; Yin, Xiaoxv; Zhu, Minmin; Yang, Huajie; Wang, Yunxia; Li, Yongbin; Liu, Liqun; Dong, Xiaoxin; Cao, Shiyi; Lu, Zuxun

2016-02-01

Irrational use of medicines is a serious problem in China and has been the primary target of China's national essential medicines programme (NEMP). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the NEMP on rational use of medicines in China. A nationwide sample of 3 76 700 prescriptions written by primary care providers from 2007 to 2011 was obtained following a multistage sampling process. Six prescribing indicators were measured: average number of drugs prescribed per prescription, average expenditure per prescription, percentage of prescriptions with antibiotics, with injections, with two or more antibiotics and with corticosteroids. The pre-post with control study design and the difference-in-difference (DID) methodology were employed to evaluate the effect of NEMP. Prescriptions from primary care institutions with the NEMP implementation were better than those without NEMP implementation. Adjusting for the institution's sizes, ownership, economic geographic regions and the year of NEMP implementation, the DID estimator was statistically significant in all prescribing indicators except for the percentage of prescriptions with injection. The number of drugs per prescription decreased by 0.2 per prescription [95% confidence interval (CI): -0.3, -0.1] after the NEMP was implemented; the percentages of prescriptions with antibiotics, with corticosteroids and with two or more antibiotics decreased by 7% (95% CI: -10, -4), 1% (95% CI: -2, 0) and 2% (95% CI: -3, 0), respectively; and the average expenditure per prescription decreased by eight Renminbi Yuan (95% CI: -14, -2). The effect of NEMP on reducing irrational prescribing was greater in public institutions than in private institutions (P rational use of medicines, and the effect is greater in public institutions than in private institutions. However, the irrational use is still high, pointing to the need for further reforms to tackle the underlying causes, such as clinical guidelines and patient

Bernoulli-Carlitz and Cauchy-Carlitz numbers with Stirling-Carlitz numbers

OpenAIRE

Kaneko, Hajime; Komatsu, Takao

2017-01-01

Recently, the Cauchy-Carlitz number was defined as the counterpart of the Bernoulli-Carlitz number. Both numbers can be expressed explicitly in terms of so-called Stirling-Carlitz numbers. In this paper, we study the second analogue of Stirling-Carlitz numbers and give some general formulae, including Bernoulli and Cauchy numbers in formal power series with complex coefficients, and Bernoulli-Carlitz and Cauchy-Carlitz numbers in function fields. We also give some applications of Hasse-Teichm...

National Report presented by the Mexican United States to satisfy the compromises of the Nuclear Safety Convention; Informe Nacional que presentan los Estados Unidos Mexicanos para satisfacer los compromisos de la Convencion de Seguridad Nuclear

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards, Mexico City (Mexico); Federal Commission for Electricity, Mexico City (Mexico)

1998-12-31

In order to satisfy to the compromises derived of the ratification by part of the Mexican Government for the Nuclear Safety Convention it is presented this National Report which is based on the directives proposed as a result of the preparatory meetings held in the IAEA Headquarters in the city of Vienna, Austria. This National Report represents a document summary and activities realized at present in relation with the only nuclear facility in Mexico: the Nuclear Power Plant in Laguna Verde, Veracruz. This report consists of two parts: In the first one it is described how have been satisfied each one of the compromises. The second one talks about the Laws and Regulations on nuclear activities in the country. (Author)

National Report presented by the Mexican United States to satisfy the compromises of the Nuclear Safety Convention; Informe Nacional que presentan los Estados Unidos Mexicanos para satisfacer los compromisos de la Convencion de Seguridad Nuclear

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

National Commission of Nuclear Safety and Safeguards, Mexico City (Mexico); Federal Commission for Electricity, Mexico City (Mexico)

1999-12-31

In order to satisfy to the compromises derived of the ratification by part of the Mexican Government for the Nuclear Safety Convention it is presented this National Report which is based on the directives proposed as a result of the preparatory meetings held in the IAEA Headquarters in the city of Vienna, Austria. This National Report represents a document summary and activities realized at present in relation with the only nuclear facility in Mexico: the Nuclear Power Plant in Laguna Verde, Veracruz. This report consists of two parts: In the first one it is described how have been satisfied each one of the compromises. The second one talks about the Laws and Regulations on nuclear activities in the country. (Author)

Photon number projection using non-number-resolving detectors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rohde, Peter P; Webb, James G; Huntington, Elanor H; Ralph, Timothy C

2007-01-01

Number-resolving photo-detection is necessary for many quantum optics experiments, especially in the application of entangled state preparation. Several schemes have been proposed for approximating number-resolving photo-detection using non-number-resolving detectors. Such techniques include multi-port detection and time-division multiplexing. We provide a detailed analysis and comparison of different number-resolving detection schemes, with a view to creating a useful reference for experimentalists. We show that the ideal architecture for projective measurements is a function of the detector's dark count and efficiency parameters. We also describe a process for selecting an appropriate topology given actual experimental component parameters

Rationality in Human Movement.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Brien, Megan K; Ahmed, Alaa A

2016-01-01

It long has been appreciated that humans behave irrationally in economic decisions under risk: they fail to objectively consider uncertainty, costs, and rewards and instead exhibit risk-seeking or risk-averse behavior. We hypothesize that poor estimates of motor variability (influenced by motor task) and distorted probability weighting (influenced by relevant emotional processes) contribute to characteristic irrationality in human movement decisions.

ANÁLISIS Y PRONÓSTICO DEL PRECIO DE LA VIVIENDA EN ESPAÑA: MODELO ECONOMÉTRICO DESDE UNA PERSPECTIVA CONDUCTUAL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaume Roig Hernando

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The present paper develops an econometric model of the real estate cycle, focused on the analysis of the residential market in Spain, and aims to predict the future evolution of the average and fundamental prices of the housing industry. Unlike traditional models, the Econometric Model developed incorporates not only an extrinsic and intrinsic approach, but also analytical assumptions and criteria inherited from the Behavioral School. Contrasting the Modern Financial School theory, the Behavioral Finance School assumes the presence of irrational investors in the market. Thereby irrational decisions substantially influence, in a persistent way, whether underestimating or overestimating, the evolution of asset prices. This irrational influence is the fundamental basis of both expansive and depressive phases that shape the real estate cycle.

The evolving regulation of uranium recovery operations in the United States: Inovative approaches are necessary for cost effective regulatory oversight

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thompson, A.J.; Lehrenbaum, W.U.; Lashway, D.C.

2000-01-01

The US domestic uranium industry is at a crossroads. Historic low prices for uranium, combined with stringent and often irrational regulatory requirements, pose a very real threat to the industry's continued viability. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken a number of innovative steps to reform and rationalize its regulatory program. However, if the domestic uranium recovery industry is to remain viable, additional steps toward innovation and reform are needed, and effective implementation of reforms adopted by the Commission is essential. (author)

The evolving regulation of uranium recovery operations in the United States of America: Innovative approaches are necessary for cost effective regulatory oversight

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thompson, A.J.; Lehrenbaum, W.U.; Lashway, D.C.

2002-01-01

The US domestic uranium industry is at a crossroads. Historic low prices for uranium, combined with stringent and often irrational regulatory requirements, pose a very real threat to the industry's continued viability. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken a number of innovative steps to reform and rationalize its regulatory programme. However, if the domestic uranium recovery industry is to remain viable, additional steps toward innovation and reform are needed, and effective implementation of reforms adopted by the Commission is essential. (author)

Finding golden mean in a physics exercise

Science.gov (United States)

Benedetto, Elmo

2017-07-01

The golden mean is an algebraic irrational number that has captured the popular imagination and is discussed in many books. Indeed, some scientists believe that it appears in some patterns in nature, including the spiral arrangement of leaves and other plant parts. Generally, the golden mean is introduced in geometry and the textbooks give the definition showing a graphical method to determine it. In this short note, we want to find this number by studying projectile motion. This could be a way to introduce the golden mean (also said to be the golden ratio, golden section, Fidia constant, divine proportion or extreme and mean ratio) in a physics course.

Problems for the seminar, ICTP, 2007-2008

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arnold, V.

2008-01-01

The following problems for the ICPT seminar 2007-2008 are specified: topological classification of polynomials; equipartition of indivisible integer vectors; geometrical progressions? fractional parts? equipartitions; statistics of continued fractions of eigenvalues of matrices; growth rate of elements of periodic continued fractions; periods of geometrical progressions of residues; Kolmogorov?s distributions; stochasticity degree of arithmetical progressions of fractional parts; is a generic geometrical progression of fractional parts random?; prime numbers distribution?s randomness; algorithmic unsolvability of problems of higher dimensional continued fractions; periods of continued fractions of roots of quadratic equations; statistics of lengths of periods of continued fractions of quadratic irrational numbers; random matrices? characteristic polynomials distributions

Nice numbers

CERN Document Server

Barnes, John

2016-01-01

In this intriguing book, John Barnes takes us on a journey through aspects of numbers much as he took us on a geometrical journey in Gems of Geometry. Similarly originating from a series of lectures for adult students at Reading and Oxford University, this book touches a variety of amusing and fascinating topics regarding numbers and their uses both ancient and modern. The author intrigues and challenges his audience with both fundamental number topics such as prime numbers and cryptography, and themes of daily needs and pleasures such as counting one's assets, keeping track of time, and enjoying music. Puzzles and exercises at the end of each lecture offer additional inspiration, and numerous illustrations accompany the reader. Furthermore, a number of appendices provides in-depth insights into diverse topics such as Pascal’s triangle, the Rubik cube, Mersenne’s curious keyboards, and many others. A theme running through is the thought of what is our favourite number. Written in an engaging and witty sty...

Eulerian numbers

CERN Document Server

Petersen, T Kyle

2015-01-01

This text presents the Eulerian numbers in the context of modern enumerative, algebraic, and geometric combinatorics. The book first studies Eulerian numbers from a purely combinatorial point of view, then embarks on a tour of how these numbers arise in the study of hyperplane arrangements, polytopes, and simplicial complexes. Some topics include a thorough discussion of gamma-nonnegativity and real-rootedness for Eulerian polynomials, as well as the weak order and the shard intersection order of the symmetric group. The book also includes a parallel story of Catalan combinatorics, wherein the Eulerian numbers are replaced with Narayana numbers. Again there is a progression from combinatorics to geometry, including discussion of the associahedron and the lattice of noncrossing partitions. The final chapters discuss how both the Eulerian and Narayana numbers have analogues in any finite Coxeter group, with many of the same enumerative and geometric properties. There are four supplemental chapters throughout, ...

Diamond Fuzzy Number

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Pathinathan

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper we define diamond fuzzy number with the help of triangular fuzzy number. We include basic arithmetic operations like addition, subtraction of diamond fuzzy numbers with examples. We define diamond fuzzy matrix with some matrix properties. We have defined Nested diamond fuzzy number and Linked diamond fuzzy number. We have further classified Right Linked Diamond Fuzzy number and Left Linked Diamond Fuzzy number. Finally we have verified the arithmetic operations for the above mentioned types of Diamond Fuzzy Numbers.

Proth Numbers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Schwarzweller Christoph

2015-02-01

Full Text Available In this article we introduce Proth numbers and prove two theorems on such numbers being prime [3]. We also give revised versions of Pocklington’s theorem and of the Legendre symbol. Finally, we prove Pepin’s theorem and that the fifth Fermat number is not prime.

Rational-number comparison across notation: Fractions, decimals, and whole numbers.

Science.gov (United States)

Hurst, Michelle; Cordes, Sara

2016-02-01

Although fractions, decimals, and whole numbers can be used to represent the same rational-number values, it is unclear whether adults conceive of these rational-number magnitudes as lying along the same ordered mental continuum. In the current study, we investigated whether adults' processing of rational-number magnitudes in fraction, decimal, and whole-number notation show systematic ratio-dependent responding characteristic of an integrated mental continuum. Both reaction time (RT) and eye-tracking data from a number-magnitude comparison task revealed ratio-dependent performance when adults compared the relative magnitudes of rational numbers, both within the same notation (e.g., fractions vs. fractions) and across different notations (e.g., fractions vs. decimals), pointing to an integrated mental continuum for rational numbers across notation types. In addition, eye-tracking analyses provided evidence of an implicit whole-number bias when we compared values in fraction notation, and individual differences in this whole-number bias were related to the individual's performance on a fraction arithmetic task. Implications of our results for both cognitive development research and math education are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Those fascinating numbers

CERN Document Server

Koninck, Jean-Marie De

2009-01-01

Who would have thought that listing the positive integers along with their most remarkable properties could end up being such an engaging and stimulating adventure? The author uses this approach to explore elementary and advanced topics in classical number theory. A large variety of numbers are contemplated: Fermat numbers, Mersenne primes, powerful numbers, sublime numbers, Wieferich primes, insolite numbers, Sastry numbers, voracious numbers, to name only a few. The author also presents short proofs of miscellaneous results and constantly challenges the reader with a variety of old and new n

Triangular Numbers

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Admin

Triangular number, figurate num- ber, rangoli, Brahmagupta–Pell equation, Jacobi triple product identity. Figure 1. The first four triangular numbers. Left: Anuradha S Garge completed her PhD from. Pune University in 2008 under the supervision of Prof. S A Katre. Her research interests include K-theory and number theory.

Will the beneficiaries of the “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” program be satisfied? Empirical evidence in the state of Minas Gerais [doi: 10.21529/RECADM.2017008

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vinicius Souza Moreira

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The “Minha Casa, Minha Vida” Program (PMCMV is the main Brazilian government initiative to remedy the country's housing deficit, which, due to its reality, requires adequate management, avoiding detours that could make it unfeasible. In this sense, the objective was to evaluate the PMCMV results based on the perception of the beneficiary families. The theoretical framework was based on the concepts of evaluation of social programs and their application to the housing context. The investigation occurred in Minas Gerais, considering a sample of 110 families distributed in eight municipalities. We adopted three categories: housing unit, housing complex and environment. In relation to the housing unit, beneficiaries of horizontal housing were more satisfied; large families showed lower satisfaction and the second phase of the Program was better evaluated. On the housing set, beneficiaries of the vertical groups, with less members and of enterprises of the second phase were more satisfied. As for the environment, there was a decrease in satisfaction with infrastructure and access to the city as family size increased. From the contact with the beneficiaries was clear the social importance of the PMCMV and the modification promoted in their lives. It is considered necessary, based on the critical points raised, to continue making corrections in the Program so that the promoted improvements can solve the social inequalities.   Keywords Housing; Evaluation; Public policy; Satisfaction.

Combinatorial chemistry

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, John

1994-01-01

An overview of combinatorial chemistry is presented. Combinatorial chemistry, sometimes referred to as `irrational drug design,' involves the generation of molecular diversity. The resulting chemical library is then screened for biologically active compounds.......An overview of combinatorial chemistry is presented. Combinatorial chemistry, sometimes referred to as `irrational drug design,' involves the generation of molecular diversity. The resulting chemical library is then screened for biologically active compounds....

Generalized Bernoulli-Hurwitz numbers and the universal Bernoulli numbers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ônishi, Yoshihiro

2011-01-01

The three fundamental properties of the Bernoulli numbers, namely, the von Staudt-Clausen theorem, von Staudt's second theorem, and Kummer's original congruence, are generalized to new numbers that we call generalized Bernoulli-Hurwitz numbers. These are coefficients in the power series expansion of a higher-genus algebraic function with respect to a suitable variable. Our generalization differs strongly from previous works. Indeed, the order of the power of the modulus prime in our Kummer-type congruences is exactly the same as in the trigonometric function case (namely, Kummer's own congruence for the original Bernoulli numbers), and as in the elliptic function case (namely, H. Lang's extension for the Hurwitz numbers). However, in other past results on higher-genus algebraic functions, the modulus was at most half of its value in these classical cases. This contrast is clarified by investigating the analogue of the three properties above for the universal Bernoulli numbers. Bibliography: 34 titles.

Generalized Bernoulli-Hurwitz numbers and the universal Bernoulli numbers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Onishi, Yoshihiro [Faculty of Education Human Sciences, University of Yamanashi, Takeda, Kofu (Japan)

2011-10-31

The three fundamental properties of the Bernoulli numbers, namely, the von Staudt-Clausen theorem, von Staudt's second theorem, and Kummer's original congruence, are generalized to new numbers that we call generalized Bernoulli-Hurwitz numbers. These are coefficients in the power series expansion of a higher-genus algebraic function with respect to a suitable variable. Our generalization differs strongly from previous works. Indeed, the order of the power of the modulus prime in our Kummer-type congruences is exactly the same as in the trigonometric function case (namely, Kummer's own congruence for the original Bernoulli numbers), and as in the elliptic function case (namely, H. Lang's extension for the Hurwitz numbers). However, in other past results on higher-genus algebraic functions, the modulus was at most half of its value in these classical cases. This contrast is clarified by investigating the analogue of the three properties above for the universal Bernoulli numbers. Bibliography: 34 titles.

[Is the ICU staff satisfied with the computerized physician order entry? A cross-sectional survey study].

Science.gov (United States)

Fumis, Renata Rego Lins; Costa, Eduardo Leite Vieira; Martins, Paulo Sergio; Pizzo, Vladimir; Souza, Ivens Augusto; Schettino, Guilherme de Paula Pinto

2014-01-01

To evaluate the satisfaction of the intensive care unit staff with a computerized physician order entry and to compare the concept of the computerized physician order entry relevance among intensive care unit healthcare workers. We performed a cross-sectional survey to assess the satisfaction of the intensive care unit staff with the computerized physician order entry in a 30-bed medical/surgical adult intensive care unit using a self-administered questionnaire. The questions used for grading satisfaction levels were answered according to a numerical scale that ranged from 1 point (low satisfaction) to 10 points (high satisfaction). The majority of the respondents (n=250) were female (66%) between the ages of 30 and 35 years of age (69%). The overall satisfaction with the computerized physician order entry scored 5.74±2.14 points. The satisfaction was lower among physicians (n=42) than among nurses, nurse technicians, respiratory therapists, clinical pharmacists and diet specialists (4.62±1.79 versus 5.97±2.14, phealthcare workers were satisfied, albeit not entirely, with the computerized physician order entry. The overall users' satisfaction with computerized physician order entry was lower among physicians compared to other healthcare professionals. The factors associated with satisfaction included the belief that digitalization decreased the workload and contributed to the intensive care unit quality with a user-friendly and accurate system and that digitalization provided concise information within a reasonable time frame.

Big losses lead to irrational decision-making in gambling situations: relationship between deliberation and impulsivity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuji Takano

Full Text Available In gambling situations, we found a paradoxical reinforcing effect of high-risk decision-making after repeated big monetary losses. The computerized version of the Iowa Gambling Task (Bechara et al., 2000, which contained six big loss cards in deck B', was conducted on normal healthy college students. The results indicated that the total number of selections from deck A' and deck B' decreased across trials. However, there was no decrease in selections from deck B'. Detailed analysis of the card selections revealed that some people persisted in selecting from the "risky" deck B' as the number of big losses increased. This tendency was prominent in self-rated deliberative people. However, they were implicitly impulsive, as revealed by the matching familiar figure test. These results suggest that the gap between explicit deliberation and implicit impulsivity drew them into pathological gambling.

The Om mani padme hum, the Platonic Soul, the Tao, and the Greek Cross are an Architectural Tool

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tine Kurent

1989-12-01

Full Text Available The plan of Borobuclur conforms with two concentric octagrams. The lines of the scheme, their lengths, and their intersections, determine the articulation of the Borobudur composition, i. e. the sizes of every part and of the whole as well. The sizes of Borobudur are modular. Their modular multiples are Pell numbers, the ratios of which rationally approximate the irrational proportions in octagram  If Borobudur numbers are located in the Peli number-pattern and connected with a line, the syllable OM, written in Sanskrit, appears. The word octagram is only the modern European name of the symbol of OM. The prayer OM MANI PADME HUM, translated as 'the JEWEL and the LOTOS', is a good description of octagram.

European Guidelines for AP/PA chest X-rays: routinely satisfiable in a paediatric radiology division?

Science.gov (United States)

Tschauner, Sebastian; Marterer, Robert; Gübitz, Michael; Kalmar, Peter I; Talakic, Emina; Weissensteiner, Sabine; Sorantin, Erich

2016-02-01

Accurate collimation helps to reduce unnecessary irradiation and improves radiographic image quality, which is especially important in the radiosensitive paediatric population. For AP/PA chest radiographs in children, a minimal field size (MinFS) from "just above the lung apices" to "T12/L1" with age-dependent tolerance is suggested by the 1996 European Commission (EC) guidelines, which were examined qualitatively and quantitatively at a paediatric radiology division. Five hundred ninety-eight unprocessed chest X-rays (45% boys, 55% girls; mean age 3.9 years, range 0-18 years) were analysed with a self-developed tool. Qualitative standards were assessed based on the EC guidelines, as well as the overexposed field size and needlessly irradiated tissue compared to the MinFS. While qualitative guideline recommendations were satisfied, mean overexposure of +45.1 ± 18.9% (range +10.2% to +107.9%) and tissue overexposure of +33.3 ± 13.3% were found. Only 4% (26/598) of the examined X-rays completely fulfilled the EC guidelines. This study presents a new chest radiography quality control tool which allows assessment of field sizes, distances, overexposures and quality parameters based on the EC guidelines. Utilising this tool, we detected inadequate field sizes, inspiration depths, and patient positioning. Furthermore, some debatable EC guideline aspects were revealed. • European Guidelines on X-ray quality recommend exposed field sizes for common examinations. • The major failing in paediatric radiographic imaging techniques is inappropriate field size. • Optimal handling of radiographic units can reduce radiation exposure to paediatric patients. • Constant quality control helps ensure optimal chest radiographic image acquisition in children.

Hupa Numbers.

Science.gov (United States)

Bennett, Ruth, Ed.; And Others

An introduction to the Hupa number system is provided in this workbook, one in a series of numerous materials developed to promote the use of the Hupa language. The book is written in English with Hupa terms used only for the names of numbers. The opening pages present the numbers from 1-10, giving the numeral, the Hupa word, the English word, and…

Approximation of complex algebraic numbers by algebraic numbers of bounded degree

OpenAIRE

Bugeaud, Yann; Evertse, Jan-Hendrik

2007-01-01

We investigate how well complex algebraic numbers can be approximated by algebraic numbers of degree at most n. We also investigate how well complex algebraic numbers can be approximated by algebraic integers of degree at most n+1. It follows from our investigations that for every positive integer n there are complex algebraic numbers of degree larger than n that are better approximable by algebraic numbers of degree at most n than almost all complex numbers. As it turns out, these numbers ar...

Teorie prospektů – alternativa k teorii očekávaného užitku?

OpenAIRE

Stanislav Škapa; Martin Vémola

2013-01-01

Purpose of the article: Economic theory has long relied on a descriptively sparse model of individuals behavior based on the premise that people are rational and held in accordance with the expected utility theory, but in the reality there are many situations when people behave irrationally (e.g. buying stocks when the prices are too hight and selling stocks when prices sharply drop, underwrite the event with an extremely low probability, playing a lottery). We present a number of empirical d...

Nuclear power as a public issue protection of the public interest

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Doederlein, J.M.

1977-01-01

In evaluating the future role of nuclear power, it should be required to perform a rational and quantitative comparison of power production alternatives on at least the following four parameters: health effects, environmental effects, economy and resource availability. The evaluations should cover all steps from fuel production through waste disposal. We have less detailed knowledge on health effects from air pollution than from radioactivity. However our present body of knowledge clearly indicates that large scale use of nuclear power instead of fossil fuels will save thousands of human lives annually. This is probably one of the most compelling arguments for nuclear power. Clearly a number of irrational political, ethical and emotional factors may be of decisive importance in a large scale choice of power plant types. However an evaluation of rational and quantifiable factors may serve one important function in telling us how many lives, which environmental improvements and what economical advantages we have to sacrifice in order to satisfy such irrational demands. In any case it should be recognized that the public interest is best served by maximum use of the broad knowledge we have on costs and benefits of alternative electric power generation forms. Obviously energy policy is not an area where all questions can be tackled in an absolutely rational and objective way. However a number of absolute restrictions are set by the laws of nature, others by our present technological abilities. Such restrictions can not be changed by wishful thinking, political or otherwise. On the one hand this may serve to define the role of the technological community in making both the nuclear and other more important decisions. On the other hand these are facts which are not fully appreciated by those making a controversial issue of nuclear power. One disturbing aspect of the discussions in many countries, is the plethora of manifestos for or against nuclear power. These are issued

Beurling generalized numbers

CERN Document Server

Diamond, Harold G; Cheung, Man Ping

2016-01-01

"Generalized numbers" is a multiplicative structure introduced by A. Beurling to study how independent prime number theory is from the additivity of the natural numbers. The results and techniques of this theory apply to other systems having the character of prime numbers and integers; for example, it is used in the study of the prime number theorem (PNT) for ideals of algebraic number fields. Using both analytic and elementary methods, this book presents many old and new theorems, including several of the authors' results, and many examples of extremal behavior of g-number systems. Also, the authors give detailed accounts of the L^2 PNT theorem of J. P. Kahane and of the example created with H. L. Montgomery, showing that additive structure is needed for proving the Riemann hypothesis. Other interesting topics discussed are propositions "equivalent" to the PNT, the role of multiplicative convolution and Chebyshev's prime number formula for g-numbers, and how Beurling theory provides an interpretation of the ...

p-adic numbers

OpenAIRE

Grešak, Rozalija

2015-01-01

The field of real numbers is usually constructed using Dedekind cuts. In these thesis we focus on the construction of the field of real numbers using metric completion of rational numbers using Cauchy sequences. In a similar manner we construct the field of p-adic numbers, describe some of their basic and topological properties. We follow by a construction of complex p-adic numbers and we compare them with the ordinary complex numbers. We conclude the thesis by giving a motivation for the int...

Hysteria makes locations less attractive. Or: Germany, a Republic of scaremongerers? Keynote lecture given at the annual conference on nuclear technology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kraemer, W.

2005-01-01

'Panic, Fear and Risk' has become an almost permanent part of the agenda of nuclear technology. This contribution deals with the subject from the perspective of an economic statistician. The question put, analyzed and discussed is about the way in which our society copes with hazards, lives with risks, and handles uncertainties and probabilities. In a nutshell, hazards are coped with in a very inefficient way, risks are evaluated very selectively, and uncertainties and probabilities are handled most imprudently. Incidentally, this irrational attitude towards, and way of coping with, hazards and risks is not an individual, personal problem; it also causes considerable damage to business, industry, and to the national economy as a whole. Rational decisions are obstructed, even prevented, by this type of behavior. A number of blatant, topical examples are given to explain this irrational attitude, which causes actual risks to be regarded as less severe than hypothetical, more spectacular ones, also against the backdrop of this aspect of statistics. The facts determining risk perception and risk acceptance are explained and illustrated. In addition, the role of the media is analyzed critically, in particular the amplification or even marked exaggeration of risks by the media. (orig.)

Social nudging with condorcet juries and its strategic implications for a paternalistic implementation of LED bulbs

OpenAIRE

Kalmbach, Bettina

2016-01-01

In the light of irrational behaviour and decision biases leading people to commit systematic blunders, Thaler and Sunstein (2003) presented in their approach of libertarian paternalism the concept of choice architecture, to face the problem of wrong decisionmaking and resulting welfare losses by "Nudging" irrational agents. The debate about this approach focuses on its compatibility with libertarian principles, on its welfare-enhancing character and on the knowledge problem about peoples' tru...

Teleological reasoning in 4-month-old infants: pupil dilations and contextual constraints.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gustaf Gredebäck

Full Text Available Four-month-old infants were presented with feeding actions performed in a rational or irrational manner. Infants reacted to the irrational feeding actions by dilating their pupils, but only in the presence of rich contextual constraints. The study demonstrates that teleological processes are online at 4 months of age and illustrates the usefulness of pupil dilations as a measure of social cognitive processes early in infancy.

Can Defense Spending Be Justified during a Period of Continual Peace?

Science.gov (United States)

1991-06-07

although this was clearly unsatisfactory from a strictly theoretical perspective. 66Revealed Preference is a technique used to explain comsumer behavior ...insurgencies therefore a case cf irrational behavior ? In behaviorial sciences, it is usually tempting to assume away deviations from the prediction of a model...as irrational behavior or an inadequacy of the model. Rationality is axiomatic. All nation-states always act according to what they perceive (as

A cost-emission model for fuel cell/PV/battery hybrid energy system in the presence of demand response program: ε-constraint method and fuzzy satisfying approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nojavan, Sayyad; Majidi, Majid; Najafi-Ghalelou, Afshin; Ghahramani, Mehrdad; Zare, Kazem

2017-01-01

Highlights: • Cost-emission performance of PV/battery/fuel cell hybrid energy system is studied. • Multi-objective optimization model for cost-emission performance is proposed. • ε-constraint method is proposed to produce Pareto solutions of multi-objective model. • Fuzzy satisfying approach selected the best optimal solution from Pareto solutions. • Demand response program is proposed to reduce both cost and emission. - Abstract: Optimal operation of hybrid energy systems is a big challenge in power systems. Nowadays, in addition to the optimum performance of energy systems, their pollution issue has been a hot topic between researchers. In this paper, a multi-objective model is proposed for economic and environmental operation of a battery/fuel cell/photovoltaic (PV) hybrid energy system in the presence of demand response program (DRP). In the proposed paper, the first objective function is minimization of total cost of hybrid energy system. The second objective function is minimization of total CO_2 emission which is in conflict with the first objective function. So, a multi-objective optimization model is presented to model the hybrid system’s optimal and environmental performance problem with considering DRP. The proposed multi-objective model is solved by ε-constraint method and then fuzzy satisfying technique is employed to select the best possible solution. Also, positive effects of DRP on the economic and environmental performance of hybrid system are analyzed. A mixed-integer linear program is used to simulate the proposed model and the obtained results are compared with weighted sum approach to show the effectiveness of proposed method.

MTU engines for locomotives satisfying the EU stage IIIB emission standard; MTU-Lokomotivantriebe fuer die Emissionsstufe EU IIIB

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wintruff, Ingo; Reich, Christian; Geiselmann, Wolfgang; Gottschalch, Harald; Jansen, Eddy [MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH, Friedrichshafen (Germany)

2011-07-01

The emission limits for diesel locomotives inside the European Union are included within the scope of Directive 97/68/EC, which is sometimes referred to as the ''non-road directive''. The pollutants limited by it are NO{sub x}, particulates, CO and HCs. The aim, through the directive, is to reduce railway emissions by a factor of ten by the year 2020. The EU stage IIIB standard is due to take effect on 1 January 2012. This envisages a further drastic reduction in limit values compared with EU stage IIIA, which is applicable today. For diesel locomotives, EU stage IIIA only came into force as recently as 2009. The manufacturers of engines and locomotives are thus having to face up to the huge challenge of getting the technologies needed for EU stage IIIB ready for the production line within a period of only three years. MTU has succeeded in developing engines for diesel locomotives that comply with the EU stage IIIB emission standard, which appreciably lower emissions compared with engines satisfying EU stage IIIA, thanks to the incorporation of the most modern technologies available, and has even gone as far as preparing them for the EU stage IV, the next one to come into force. (orig.)

Aesthetically and functionally satisfying reconstruction of an Achilles tendon and overlying skin defect in a 15 year old girl: a case report.

Science.gov (United States)

Wurzer, Paul; Eberl, Robert; Kamolz, Lars-Peter; Parvizi, Daryousch; Rappl, Thomas; Spendel, Stephan

2015-03-01

Achilles tendon and overlying soft tissue reconstruction presents an interdisciplinary challenge. In the literature many possible procedures are described, but each reconstruction in this region has its specific demands. Single stage reconstruction is normally pursued, but it is not always the best procedure for the patient, either aesthetically or functionally. We present a case of a 15 year old girl who suffered a soft tissue defect of 10cm×6cm in size at the area of the Achilles tendon due to a contact burn by an exhaust pipe during a motorcycle accident. For this case, reconstruction of the soft tissue defect using a free temporoparietal fascial flap (TPFF) and a full-thickness skin autograft was the best means to provide a satisfying result for both the patient and the surgeon. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.

Noble Cantor sets acting as partial internal transport barriers in fusion plasmas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Misguich, J.H.; Reuss, J.D.; Constantinescu, D.; Steinbrecher, G.; Vlad, M.; Spineanu, F.; Weyssow, B.; Balescu, R.

2002-03-01

In hot laboratory plasmas, Internal Transport Barriers (ITB) have recently been observed, localized in the radial profile 'around' rational values of the winding number ω(r)=1/q(r). Such barriers are obviously related to the perturbed magnetic structure, described by a 1+1/2 Hamiltonian in presence of a perturbation. From the point of view of non-linear Hamiltonian dynamical systems this experimental result appears highly paradoxical since rational q-values generally correspond to the less robust tori. We have studied the appearance of chaos of toroidal magnetic lines by a discrete area-preserving map named 'tokamap'. By increasing the perturbation, we have observed in a wide chaotic sea the destruction of the last confining Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) surfaces, broken and transformed into permeable Cantor sets (Cantori). The flux across a Cantorus has been computed by using refined mathematical techniques due to MacKay, Mather and Aubry. We have proved that the ITB observed in the tokamap is actually composed of two permeable Cantori with 'noble' values of ω (in the definition of Percival). More generally, between the dominant chains of rational islands q = m/m-1, the most resistant barriers between q = m+2/m+1 and m+1/m have been checked (Green, MacKay and Stark) to be localized on the 'most irrational' numbers in these Farey intervals, i.e. on the noble numbers N(1,m)≡ 1+[1/(m+1/G)] (where G is the Golden number) defined by their continuous fraction expansion N(i,m) = [i,m,(1) ∞ ]. In conclusion, the study of the tokamap mapping allowed us to predict on mathematical basis that ITB can occur in tokamak plasmas not only 'around' rational magnetic surfaces but more precisely on noble q-values of irrational surfaces, and to localize them by the Fibonacci series of their convergent. (authors)

Time dependent and asymptotic neutron number probability distribution calculation using discrete Fourier transform

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Humbert, Ph.

2005-01-01

In this paper we consider the probability distribution of neutrons in a multiplying assembly. The problem is studied using a space independent one group neutron point reactor model without delayed neutrons. We recall the generating function methodology and analytical results obtained by G.I. Bell when the c 2 approximation is used and we present numerical solutions in the general case, without this approximation. The neutron source induced distribution is calculated using the single initial neutron distribution which satisfies a master (Kolmogorov backward) equation. This equation is solved using the generating function method. The generating function satisfies a differential equation and the probability distribution is derived by inversion of the generating function. Numerical results are obtained using the same methodology where the generating function is the Fourier transform of the probability distribution. Discrete Fourier transforms are used to calculate the discrete time dependent distributions and continuous Fourier transforms are used to calculate the asymptotic continuous probability distributions. Numerical applications are presented to illustrate the method. (author)

Statistical data analysis method for multi-zonal airflow measurement using multiple kinds of perfluorocarbon tracer gas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Okuyama, Hiroyasu; Onishi, Yoshinori [Institute of Technology, Shimizu Corporation, 4-17, Etchujima 3-chome, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-8530 (Japan); Tanabe, Shin-ichi [School of Science and Engineering, Department of Architecture, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjyuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8555 (Japan); Kashihara, Seiichi [R and D Laboratories, Asahi Kasei Homes Corporation, 2-1, Samejima Fuji-shi, Shizuoka 416-8501 (Japan)

2009-03-15

Conventional multi-zonal ventilation measurement methods by multiple types of perfluorocarbon tracers use a number of different gases equal to the number of zones (n). The possible n x n+n airflows are estimated from the mass balance of the gases and the airflow balance. However, some airflows may not occur because of inter-zonal geometry, and the introduction of unnecessary, unknown parameters can impair the accuracy of the estimation. Also, various error factors often yield an irrational negative airflow rate. Conventional methods are insufficient for the evaluation of error. This study describes a way of using the least-squares technique to improve the precision of estimation and to evaluate reliability. From the equations' residual, the error variance-covariance matrix {lambda}{sub q} of the estimated airflow rate error is deduced. In addition, the coefficient of determinant using the residual sum of squares and total variation is introduced. Furthermore, the error matrix{sub m}{lambda}{sub q} from the measurement errors in the gas concentration and gas emission rate is deduced. The discrepancy ratio of the model premises is defined by dividing the diagonal elements of the former by those of the latter. Moreover, the index of irrationality of the estimated negative airflow rate is defined, based on the different results of the three estimation methods. Some numerical experiments are also carried out to verify the flow rate estimation and the reliability evaluation theory. (author)

Cognitive Support using BDI Agent and Adaptive User Modeling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hossain, Shabbir

2012-01-01

-known framework to measure the individual health status and functioning level. The third goal is to develop an approach for supporting for users with irrational behaviour due to cognitive impairment. To deal with this challenge, a Belief, Desire and Intention (BDI) agent based approach is proposed due to its...... mentalistic characteristics, such as autonomy, adaptivity, extensibility, and human like reasoning capability. Although, BDI is unable to reason about plans, which is important for generating plans based on the current situation to handle the irrational behaviour of the user. An integration of Partially...... Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) in the BDI agent is proposed in this thesis to handle the irrational behaviour of the user. The fourth goal represents the implementation of the research approaches and performs validation of the system through experiments. The empirical results of the experiments...

Contrarian Speculation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bondo Hansen, Kristian

into account the seemingly irrational behavior of the market crowd. This article’s focal point is the ‘Vermont Ruminator’ Humphrey B. Neill’s conceptualization of ‘The Theory of Contrary Opinion’, a market theory preconditioning the existence of a market crowd as an inherent part of financial markets......This article examines the efforts made in early 20th century novels and investment handbooks to describe allegedly irrational behavior in financial markets, via the employment of late 19th century crowd psychology and the vocabulary that grew out of this theoretical tradition. Crowd psychology...... of ‘problematization’, the article analysis and examines Neill’s contrarian speculation philosophy as a certain field of experience offering an answer to a concrete problem concerning seemingly irrational behavior and inexplicable fluctuations in financial markets. The aim of the article is to understand how ideas...

Rationality and the illusion of choice.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Jonathan St B T

2014-01-01

The psychology of reasoning and decision making (RDM) shares the methodology of cognitive psychology in that researchers assume that participants are doing their best to solve the problems according to the instruction. Unlike other cognitive researchers, however, they often view erroneous answers evidence of irrationality rather than limited efficiency in the cognitive systems studied. Philosophers and psychologists also talk of people being irrational in a special sense that does not apply to other animals, who are seen as having no choice in their own behavior. I argue here that (a) RDM is no different from other fields of cognitive psychology and should be subject to the same kind of scientific inferences, and (b) the special human sense of irrationality derives from folk psychology and the illusory belief that there are conscious people in charge of their minds and decisions.

Rationality and the illusion of choice

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonathan St B T Evans

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The psychology of reasoning and decision making (RDM shares the methodology of cognitive psychology in that researchers assume that participants are doing their best to solve the problems according to the instruction. Unlike other cognitive researchers, however, they often view erroneous answers evidence of irrationality rather than limited efficiency in the cognitive systems studied. Philosophers and psychologists also talk of people being irrational in a special sense that does not apply to other animals, who are seen as having no choice in their own behaviour. I argue here that (a RDM is no different from other fields of cognitive psychology and should be subject to the same kind of scientific inferences, and (b the special human sense of irrationality derives from folk psychology and the illusory belief that there are conscious people in charge of their minds and decisions.

Variational coupling between q-number and c-number dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Amaral, C.M. do; Joffily, S.

1984-01-01

The time-dependent quantum variational principle is generalized for the case of hamiltonian operators having real parameters and their time derivates. The obtained variational system is formed by a Schroedinger equation coupled to a Lagrange equation system, where the lagrangian is the average value of the parametrized hamiltonian operator. The consequent dynamics of the variational principle, describes the interaction between a q-number sub-dynamics with a c-number sub-dynamics. In the ((h/2π)) 0 -order W.K.B. approximation, the variational system reduces to a Hamilton-Jacobi-like equation, coupled to a Lagrange equation family. The formal features of the obtained variational system are appropriated for the description of, adiabatics and non-adiabatics, time-dependent q-number c-number interactions. (L.C.) [pt

Chocolate Numbers

OpenAIRE

Ji, Caleb; Khovanova, Tanya; Park, Robin; Song, Angela

2015-01-01

In this paper, we consider a game played on a rectangular $m \\times n$ gridded chocolate bar. Each move, a player breaks the bar along a grid line. Each move after that consists of taking any piece of chocolate and breaking it again along existing grid lines, until just $mn$ individual squares remain. This paper enumerates the number of ways to break an $m \\times n$ bar, which we call chocolate numbers, and introduces four new sequences related to these numbers. Using various techniques, we p...

Vulture numbers are cut to the bone Extinction fears for a scavenger ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

2007-03-01

Mar 1, 2007 ... gives them the gift to see the future. – are eating vulture meat to acquire the power of clairvoyance. ... Asia over the past five years, the use of the painkiller diclofenac in cattle has wiped out three species ... need for vulture flesh to satisfy markets for traditional medicines, their links with clairvoyance, hunting ...

Antibiotic use in dentistry: A cross-sectional survey from a developing country

OpenAIRE

Sivaramakrishnan Gowri; Deeksha Mehta; Sridharan Kannan

2015-01-01

Introduction: Antimicrobial resistance is a well-known entity and the most common factor leading to this is the irrational use of antibiotics. Several studies from the West have substantiated the irrational use of antibiotics in dentistry. Aims: The aim was to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of antimicrobial drug use among dental fraternity in a tertiary care teaching dental college and hospital. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional survey of various dental fraternities...

Jehovah's Witnesses and autonomy: honouring the refusal of blood transfusions.

Science.gov (United States)

Bock, Gregory L

2012-11-01

This paper explores the scriptural and theological reasons given by Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) to refuse blood transfusions. Julian Savulescu and Richard W Momeyer argue that informed consent should be based on rational beliefs and that the refusal of blood transfusions by JWs is irrational, but after examining the reasons given by JWs, I challenge the claim that JW beliefs are irrational. I also question whether we should give up the traditional notion of informed consent.

The Super Patalan Numbers

OpenAIRE

Richardson, Thomas M.

2014-01-01

We introduce the super Patalan numbers, a generalization of the super Catalan numbers in the sense of Gessel, and prove a number of properties analagous to those of the super Catalan numbers. The super Patalan numbers generalize the super Catalan numbers similarly to how the Patalan numbers generalize the Catalan numbers.

On the relation between grammatical number and cardinal numbers in development.

Science.gov (United States)

Sarnecka, Barbara W

2014-01-01

This mini-review focuses on the question of how the grammatical number system of a child's language may help the child learn the meanings of cardinal number words (e.g., "one" and "two"). Evidence from young children learning English, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, Slovenian, or Saudi Arabic suggests that trajectories of number-word learning differ for children learning different languages. Children learning English, which distinguishes between singular and plural, seem to learn the meaning of the cardinal number "one" earlier than children learning Japanese or Mandarin, which have very little singular/plural marking. Similarly, children whose languages have a singular/dual/plural system (Slovenian and Saudi Arabic) learn the meaning of "two" earlier than English-speaking children. This relation between grammatical and cardinal number may shed light on how humans acquire cardinal-number concepts. There is an ongoing debate about whether mental symbols for small cardinalities (concepts for "oneness," "twoness," etc.) are innate or learned. Although an effect of grammatical number on number-word learning does not rule out nativist accounts, it seems more consistent with constructivist accounts, which portray the number-learning process as one that requires significant conceptual change.

Theory and discretization of ideal magnetohydrodynamic equilibria with fractal pressure profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Kraus, B. F.; Hudson, S. R.

2017-09-01

In three-dimensional ideal magnetohydrodynamics, closed flux surfaces cannot maintain both rational rotational-transform and pressure gradients, as these features together produce unphysical, infinite currents. A proposed set of equilibria nullifies these currents by flattening the pressure on sufficiently wide intervals around each rational surface. Such rational surfaces exist at every scale, which characterizes the pressure profile as self-similar and thus fractal. The pressure profile is approximated numerically by considering a finite number of rational regions and analyzed mathematically by classifying the irrational numbers that support gradients into subsets. Applying these results to a given rotational-transform profile in cylindrical geometry, we find magnetic field and current density profiles compatible with the fractal pressure.

Number theory

CERN Document Server

Andrews, George E

1994-01-01

Although mathematics majors are usually conversant with number theory by the time they have completed a course in abstract algebra, other undergraduates, especially those in education and the liberal arts, often need a more basic introduction to the topic.In this book the author solves the problem of maintaining the interest of students at both levels by offering a combinatorial approach to elementary number theory. In studying number theory from such a perspective, mathematics majors are spared repetition and provided with new insights, while other students benefit from the consequent simpl

Number Worlds: Visual and Experimental Access to Elementary Number Theory Concepts

Science.gov (United States)

Sinclair, Nathalie; Zazkis, Rina; Liljedahl, Peter

2004-01-01

Recent research demonstrates that many issues related to the structure of natural numbers and the relationship among numbers are not well grasped by students. In this article, we describe a computer-based learning environment called "Number Worlds" that was designed to support the exploration of elementary number theory concepts by…

Introducing the Filtered Park's and Filtered Extended Park's Vector Approach to detect broken rotor bars in induction motors independently from the rotor slots number

Science.gov (United States)

Gyftakis, Konstantinos N.; Marques Cardoso, Antonio J.; Antonino-Daviu, Jose A.

2017-09-01

The Park's Vector Approach (PVA), together with its variations, has been one of the most widespread diagnostic methods for electrical machines and drives. Regarding the broken rotor bars fault diagnosis in induction motors, the common practice is to rely on the width increase of the Park's Vector (PV) ring and then apply some more sophisticated signal processing methods. It is shown in this paper that this method can be unreliable and is strongly dependent on the magnetic poles and rotor slot numbers. To overcome this constraint, the novel Filtered Park's/Extended Park's Vector Approach (FPVA/FEPVA) is introduced. The investigation is carried out with FEM simulations and experimental testing. The results prove to satisfyingly coincide, whereas the proposed advanced FPVA method is desirably reliable.

Applied number theory

CERN Document Server

Niederreiter, Harald

2015-01-01

This textbook effectively builds a bridge from basic number theory to recent advances in applied number theory. It presents the first unified account of the four major areas of application where number theory plays a fundamental role, namely cryptography, coding theory, quasi-Monte Carlo methods, and pseudorandom number generation, allowing the authors to delineate the manifold links and interrelations between these areas.  Number theory, which Carl-Friedrich Gauss famously dubbed the queen of mathematics, has always been considered a very beautiful field of mathematics, producing lovely results and elegant proofs. While only very few real-life applications were known in the past, today number theory can be found in everyday life: in supermarket bar code scanners, in our cars’ GPS systems, in online banking, etc.  Starting with a brief introductory course on number theory in Chapter 1, which makes the book more accessible for undergraduates, the authors describe the four main application areas in Chapters...

Mathematics

CERN Document Server

Stein, Sherman K

2010-01-01

Anyone can appreciate the beauty, depth, and vitality of mathematics with the help of this highly readable text, specially developed from a college course designed to appeal to students in a variety of fields. Readers with little mathematical background are exposed to a broad range of subjects chosen from number theory, topology, set theory, geometry, algebra, and analysis. Starting with a survey of questions on weight, the text discusses the primes, the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, rationals and irrationals, tiling, tiling and electricity, probability, infinite sets, and many other topi

Public understanding of nuclear energy: it's not (just) about the science

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grimston, M.

2015-01-01

In this series of slides the author analyses why the safest large-scale energy source is regarded as the most dangerous by significant numbers of people. A detailed analysis is made about the perception of risks, the myth of the irrational fear of radiation and what public information should be. Recommendations are given and the most relevant ones are first a better communication that does not bang on so much about safety and secondly to stop considering nuclear power and radiation as if they are vastly more dangerous than they actually are

Computer simulations of anomalous transport

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, W.W.; Okuda, H.

1980-07-01

Numerical plasma simulations have been carried out to study: (1) the turbulent spectrum and anomalous plasma transport associated with a steady state electrostatic drift turbulence; and (2) the anomalous energy transport of electrons due to shear-Alfven waves in a finite-β plasma. For the simulation of the steady state drift turbulence, it is observed that, in the absence of magnetic shear, the turbulence is quenched to a low level when the rotational transform is a rational number, while the turbulent level remains high for an irrational rotational transform

On the Relation Between Grammatical Number and Cardinal Numbers in Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Barbara W Sarnecka

2014-10-01

Full Text Available This mini-review focuses on the question of how the grammatical number system of a child’s language may help the child learn the meanings of cardinal number words (e.g., ‘one’ and ‘two’. Evidence from young children learning English, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, Slovenian or Saudi Arabic suggests that trajectories of number-word learning differ for children learning different languages. Children learning English, which distinguishes between singular and plural, seem to learn the meaning of the cardinal number ‘one’ earlier than children learning Japanese or Mandarin, which have very little singular/plural marking. Similarly, children whose languages have a singular/dual/plural system (Slovenian and Saudi Arabic learn the meaning of ‘two’ earlier than English-speaking children. This relation between grammatical and cardinal number may shed light on how humans acquire cardinal-number concepts. There is an ongoing debate about whether mental symbols for small cardinalities (concepts for ‘oneness,’ ‘twoness,’ etc. are innate or learned. Although an effect of grammatical number on number-word learning does not rule out nativist accounts, it seems more consistent with constructivist accounts, which portray the number-learning process as one that requires significant conceptual change.

Number words and number symbols a cultural history of numbers

CERN Document Server

Menninger, Karl

1992-01-01

Classic study discusses number sequence and language and explores written numerals and computations in many cultures. "The historian of mathematics will find much to interest him here both in the contents and viewpoint, while the casual reader is likely to be intrigued by the author's superior narrative ability.

Safety-in-numbers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Elvik, Rune; Bjørnskau, Torkel

2017-01-01

Highlights •26 studies of the safety-in-numbers effect are reviewed. •The existence of a safety-in-numbers effect is confirmed. •Results are consistent. •Causes of the safety-in-numbers effect are incompletely known....

SMART Grid Evaluation Using Fuzzy Numbers and TOPSIS

Science.gov (United States)

El Alaoui, Mohammed

2018-05-01

In recent advent of smart grids, the end-users aims to satisfy simultaneously low electricity bills, with a reasonable level of comfort. While cost evaluation appears to be an easy task, capturing human preferences seems to be more challenging. Here we propose the use of fuzzy logic and a modified version of the TOPSIS method, to quantify end-users’ preferences in a smart grid. While classical smart grid focus only on the technological side, it is proven that smart grid effectiveness is hugely linked to end-users’ behaviours. The main objective here, is to involve smart grid users in order to get maximum satisfaction, preserving classical smart grid objectives.

Sociologické aspekty impulzivního nakupování

OpenAIRE

Pfeiferová, Jitka

2012-01-01

This thesis concerns topic of decision-making, primarily whether is it more rational or irrational process and what does it imply. To make the topic more concrete the thesis and qualitative research, which is its important part, is focused on decision making during shopping. The research is aimed at exploring proportion of rational and irrational purchases, course of whole process and factors which influence it. Starting point represents result of published research, which says that 70% of pu...

Quantum-like dynamics of decision-making in prisoner's dilemma game

Science.gov (United States)

Asano, Masanari; Basieva, Irina; Khrennikov, Andrei; Ohya, Masanori; Tanaka, Yoshiharu

2012-03-01

In cognitive psychology, some experiments of games were reported [1, 2, 3, 4], and these demonstrated that real players did not use the "rational strategy" provided by classical game theory. To discuss probabilities of such "irrational choice", recently, we proposed a decision-making model which is based on the formalism of quantum mechanics [5, 6, 7, 8]. In this paper, we briefly explain the above model and calculate the probability of irrational choice in several prisoner's dilemma (PD) games.

How appealing is "Free"?

OpenAIRE

Corbett, Karina

2007-01-01

Many marketing strategies seem based on the notion that consumers respond more strongly to products that are being offered for free than a rational calculation would predict. Such a preference would be consistent with some existing research on ways that marketing takes advantage of irrational behavior, and research findings in mental accounting and budgeting might bear on the apparent irrational appeal of free. A series of experiments on people’s preferences produced mixed results. One exper...

Development and aging of decision-making rationality under risk framework

OpenAIRE

Han-hui LIU; Yan-yan AN; Hui-min LI; Zhen WEI; Xing-ting ZHU; Hui-jie LI

2014-01-01

Background Humans often display irrational choice and decision-making due to the frame effect. However, it is unclear whether this irrational choice and decision-making will increase during the aging process. Methods The present research explored development and aging of risky-seeking and rational decision-making with 232 younger adults and 120 older adults. The experiment was a 2 (Age:younger adult and old adult) × 2 (Frame: positive and negative) × 2 (Relevance: lower level and higher level...

Predicting Lotto Numbers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Claus Bjørn; Suetens, Sigrid; Tyran, Jean-Robert

numbers based on recent drawings. While most players pick the same set of numbers week after week without regards of numbers drawn or anything else, we find that those who do change, act on average in the way predicted by the law of small numbers as formalized in recent behavioral theory. In particular......We investigate the “law of small numbers” using a unique panel data set on lotto gambling. Because we can track individual players over time, we can measure how they react to outcomes of recent lotto drawings. We can therefore test whether they behave as if they believe they can predict lotto......, on average they move away from numbers that have recently been drawn, as suggested by the “gambler’s fallacy”, and move toward numbers that are on streak, i.e. have been drawn several weeks in a row, consistent with the “hot hand fallacy”....

Comment on ''Boltzmann equation and the conservation of particle number''

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zanette, D.

1990-09-01

In a recent paper (Z. Banggu, Phys. Rev. A 42, 761 (1990)) it is argued that some solutions of the Boltzmann equation do not satisfy particle conservation as a consequence of the independence of velocity on position. In this comment, the arguments and conclusions of that paper are discussed. In particular, it is stressed that the temporal series used for solving the kinetic equation are generally divergent. A discussion about the particle conservation in its solutions is also provided. (author). 4 refs

Transfinite Numbers

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Transfinite Numbers. What is Infinity? S M Srivastava. In a series of revolutionary articles written during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the great Ger- man mathematician Georg Cantor removed the age-old mistrust of infinity and created an exceptionally beau- tiful and useful theory of transfinite numbers. This is.