WorldWideScience

Sample records for reaching mutual agreement

  1. Nordic Mutual Emergency Assistance Agreement in Connection with Radiation Accidents

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1963-01-01

    The text of the Nordic Mutual Emergency Assistance Agreement in Connection with Radiation Accidents, which was signed on 17 October 1963 by the Director General and by representatives of the Governments of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, is reproduced in this document for the information of all Members. The entry into force of the Agreement in accordance with Article IX will be notified to Members in an Addendum to this document

  2. Nordic Mutual Emergency Assistance Agreement in Connection with Radiation Accidents

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1963-01-01

    The text of the Nordic Mutual Emergency Assistance Agreement in Connection with Radiation Accidents, which was signed on 17 October 1963 by the Director General and by representatives of the Governments of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, is reproduced in this document for the information of all Members. The entry into force of the Agreement in accordance with Article IX will be notified to Members in an Addendum to this document [es

  3. How Do Professional Mutual Recognition Agreements Affect Higher Education? Examining Regional Policy in North America

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sa, Creso; Gaviria, Patricia

    2011-01-01

    Professional mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) are one of the policy instruments employed in global and regional trade agreements to facilitate the mobility of skilled labour. While such agreements have been noted in the literature examining cross-border academic mobility, little is known about how they impact higher education. This paper…

  4. Medical device registration, agreements on mutual recognition - a step forward to global harmonization?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Eidenberger, R.Reiner

    2000-01-01

    The purpose of this article is to give a short overview of some different regulations in Europe and the United States with regard to the clearance of medical devices and to give an outlook of what the Agreements on Mutual Recognition will bring in terms of Global Harmonization. Recent European legislation, the Council Directive 93/42/EEC of 14 June 1993 concerning medical devices (Medical Device Directive, MDD), requires that all medical devices placed on the European market bear the CE marking. From 14 June 1998, medical devices fall under the scope of this European Medical Device Directive and there is a harmonization within the European market. Similar to this, but for another market, are the USA FDA requirements, Premarket Approval (PMA) and Premarket notification (510(k)). The same medical device, the same goal - a safe product - but different legislation and thus duplication of registration procedures. The European Commission is presently discussing a series of agreements with third countries, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Japan and Eastern European countries wishing to join the EU, concerning the mutual acceptance of inspection bodies and, ultimately, proof of conformity (for example reports on examination, certificates, licenses and marks of conformity) in connection with medical devices. Meanwhile agreements with Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada came into force. (author)

  5. Agreement reached on integrated safeguards in European Union

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2010-01-01

    Full text: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in cooperation with the European Commission, has reached agreement on arrangements to implement 'integrated safeguards' in all non-nuclear-weapon States of the European Union with significant nuclear activities. 'This important milestone is the result of the constructive common efforts of all parties concerned. It is a clear signal of the importance attributed by the EU and its Member States, as well as the IAEA, to the reinforcement of the nuclear non-proliferation regime,' said Andris Piebalgs, Member of the European Commission in charge of Energy. 'Once we have sufficient confidence that a State' s nuclear activities are purely peaceful, we can apply safeguards measures in a less prescriptive, more customised manner. This reduces the inspection burden on the State and the inspection effort of the IAEA, while enabling the IAEA to maintain the conclusion that all nuclear material has remained in peaceful activities,' said Olli Heinonen, Deputy Director General and Head of IAEA Safeguards Department. Background The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is the main international Treaty prohibiting the spread of nuclear weapons. It entrusts the IAEA to verify that nuclear material is not diverted to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices through the application of 'safeguards'. IAEA safeguards include comprehensive safeguards agreements and additional protocols that enable the IAEA to conclude that all nuclear material has remained in peaceful activities in a State. Integrated Safeguards refers to the optimum combination of all safeguards measures available to the Agency under comprehensive safeguards agreements and additional protocols to achieve maximum effectiveness and efficiency in meeting the Agency ' s safeguards obligations. In the European Union, nuclear safeguards are implemented on the basis of the Euratom Treaty and trilateral agreements between Euratom, its Member States and the IAEA

  6. EGYPTIAN MUTUAL FUNDS ANALYSIS: HISTORY, PERFORMANCE, OBJECTIVES, RISK AND RETURN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petru STEFEA

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available The present research aims to overview the mutual fund in Egypt. The establishment of the first mutual funds was achieved in 1994. Nowadays, the total mutual funds reached 90 funds , approximately. The income funds represent the largest share of the Egyptian mutual funds (40%, growth funds (25% and the private equity funds is at least (1%. The total population of the Egyptian mutual funds reached 22. Finally, the study proved that the Egyptian mutual funds have an impact on fund return , total risk and systemic; when analysis relationship between risk and return. The study found influencing for mutual fund's objectives on Sharpe and Terynor ratios.

  7. An Energy Efficient Mutual Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme Preserving Anonymity for Wireless Sensor Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Yanrong; Li, Lixiang; Peng, Haipeng; Yang, Yixian

    2016-01-01

    WSNs (Wireless sensor networks) are nowadays viewed as a vital portion of the IoTs (Internet of Things). Security is a significant issue in WSNs, especially in resource-constrained environments. AKA (Authentication and key agreement) enhances the security of WSNs against adversaries attempting to get sensitive sensor data. Various AKA schemes have been developed for verifying the legitimate users of a WSN. Firstly, we scrutinize Amin-Biswas’s currently scheme and demonstrate the major security loopholes in their works. Next, we propose a lightweight AKA scheme, using symmetric key cryptography based on smart card, which is resilient against all well known security attacks. Furthermore, we prove the scheme accomplishes mutual handshake and session key agreement property securely between the participates involved under BAN (Burrows, Abadi and Needham) logic. Moreover, formal security analysis and simulations are also conducted using AVISPA(Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) to show that our scheme is secure against active and passive attacks. Additionally, performance analysis shows that our proposed scheme is secure and efficient to apply for resource-constrained WSNs. PMID:27338382

  8. An Energy Efficient Mutual Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme Preserving Anonymity for Wireless Sensor Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Yanrong; Li, Lixiang; Peng, Haipeng; Yang, Yixian

    2016-06-08

    WSNs (Wireless sensor networks) are nowadays viewed as a vital portion of the IoTs (Internet of Things). Security is a significant issue in WSNs, especially in resource-constrained environments. AKA (Authentication and key agreement) enhances the security of WSNs against adversaries attempting to get sensitive sensor data. Various AKA schemes have been developed for verifying the legitimate users of a WSN. Firstly, we scrutinize Amin-Biswas's currently scheme and demonstrate the major security loopholes in their works. Next, we propose a lightweight AKA scheme, using symmetric key cryptography based on smart card, which is resilient against all well known security attacks. Furthermore, we prove the scheme accomplishes mutual handshake and session key agreement property securely between the participates involved under BAN (Burrows, Abadi and Needham) logic. Moreover, formal security analysis and simulations are also conducted using AVISPA(Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications) to show that our scheme is secure against active and passive attacks. Additionally, performance analysis shows that our proposed scheme is secure and efficient to apply for resource-constrained WSNs.

  9. An Energy Efficient Mutual Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme Preserving Anonymity for Wireless Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yanrong Lu

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available WSNs (Wireless sensor networks are nowadays viewed as a vital portion of the IoTs (Internet of Things. Security is a significant issue in WSNs, especially in resource-constrained environments. AKA (Authentication and key agreement enhances the security of WSNs against adversaries attempting to get sensitive sensor data. Various AKA schemes have been developed for verifying the legitimate users of a WSN. Firstly, we scrutinize Amin-Biswas’s currently scheme and demonstrate the major security loopholes in their works. Next, we propose a lightweight AKA scheme, using symmetric key cryptography based on smart card, which is resilient against all well known security attacks. Furthermore, we prove the scheme accomplishes mutual handshake and session key agreement property securely between the participates involved under BAN (Burrows, Abadi and Needham logic. Moreover, formal security analysis and simulations are also conducted using AVISPA(Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications to show that our scheme is secure against active and passive attacks. Additionally, performance analysis shows that our proposed scheme is secure and efficient to apply for resource-constrained WSNs.

  10. Agreement on Access and Benefit-sharing for Academic Research: A toolbox for drafting Mutually Agreed Terms for access to Genetic Resources and to Associated Traditional Knowledge and Benefit-sharing

    OpenAIRE

    Biber-Klemm, Susette; Martinez, Sylvia I.; Jacob, Anne; Jevtic, Ana

    2016-01-01

    This manual contains a set of model clauses that enables users and providers of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge to set up a legal contract that is adapted to the individual academic research situation. If mutually negotiated and agreed upon by the involved partners this agreement can yield a “Mutually Agreed Terms” ABS contract.

  11. The effects of urgency to reach agreement on the process and outcome of multi-party natural resource negotiations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lamb, B.L.; Taylor, J.G.; Burkardt, N.; Gillette, S.C.

    2005-01-01

    We studied seven hydropower license consultations to examine the role of a sense of urgency to reach agreement. Hydropower licensing consultations were studied because the statutory requirement for consultation encourages negotiation, all such consultations are similar, and a negotiated settlement is not a foregone result. Cases selected for analysis met screening criteria. Structured interviews were conducted with participants after the negotiations had been concluded. Respondent recollections were checked against the documentary record. A sense of urgency to reach agreement was a significant factor in the completion of these negotiations; where there was no shared sense of urgency, purposeful delay adversely affected the negotiations. Although a sense of urgency was experienced by at least one party in each case, only a shared sense of urgency at the end of the process proved significant. Delay did not prevent ultimate agreement but a shared sense of urgency brought speedier agreement and greater satisfaction with the negotiation.

  12. Resource Availability Modulates the Cooperative and Competitive Nature of a Microbial Cross-Feeding Mutualism.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tim A Hoek

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Mutualisms between species play an important role in ecosystem function and stability. However, in some environments, the competitive aspects of an interaction may dominate the mutualistic aspects. Although these transitions could have far-reaching implications, it has been difficult to study the causes and consequences of this mutualistic-competitive transition in experimentally tractable systems. Here, we study a microbial cross-feeding mutualism in which each yeast strain supplies an essential amino acid for its partner strain. We find that, depending upon the amount of freely available amino acid in the environment, this pair of strains can exhibit an obligatory mutualism, facultative mutualism, competition, parasitism, competitive exclusion, or failed mutualism leading to extinction of the population. A simple model capturing the essential features of this interaction explains how resource availability modulates the interaction and predicts that changes in the dynamics of the mutualism in deteriorating environments can provide advance warning that collapse of the mutualism is imminent. We confirm this prediction experimentally by showing that, in the high nutrient competitive regime, the strains rapidly reach a common carrying capacity before slowly reaching the equilibrium ratio between the strains. However, in the low nutrient regime, before collapse of the obligate mutualism, we find that the ratio rapidly reaches its equilibrium and it is the total abundance that is slow to reach equilibrium. Our results provide a general framework for how mutualisms may transition between qualitatively different regimes of interaction in response to changes in nutrient availability in the environment.

  13. Agreement between the Government of the French Republic and the Swiss Federal Council on Mutual Assistance in case of a catastrophe or a serious accident

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1989-01-01

    This agreement, signed on 14 January 1987, was formally approved in France by Act No. 88-1255 of 30 December 1988 (published in the Journal Officiel de la Republique Francaise of 4 January 1989). The agreement was published by Decree No. 89-207 of 7 April 1989. It lays down a comprehensive legal framework for mutual emergency assistance. It provides, in particular, that rescue teams will be sent by the Parties in all cases of catastrophe and serious accidents, including nuclear incidents. (NEA) [fr

  14. Modeling the Substrate Skin Effects in Mutual RL Characteristics.,

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D. de Roest

    2003-12-01

    Full Text Available The goal of this work was to model the influence of the substrateskin effects on the distributed mutual impedance per unit lengthparameters of multiple coupled on-chip interconnects. The proposedanalytic model is based on the frequency-dependent distribution of thecurrent in the silicon substrate and the closed form integrationapproach. It is shown that the calculated frequency-dependentdistributed mutual inductance and the associated mutual resistance arein good agreement with the results obtained from CAD-oriented circuitmodeling technique.

  15. Signature of the CERN – EGO (European Gravitational Observatory) Agreement concerning Collaboration in Scientific, Technological, Educational and other Domains of Mutual Interest, by R. Heuer, Director-General and Prof. F. Ferrini.

    CERN Multimedia

    Maximilien Brice

    2012-01-01

    Signature of the CERN – EGO (European Gravitational Observatory) Agreement concerning Collaboration in Scientific, Technological, Educational and other Domains of Mutual Interest, by R. Heuer, Director-General and Prof. F. Ferrini.

  16. An Analysis of the Mutual Fund Industry: Mutual Fund Investors, Mutual Fund Managers and Mutual Fund Companies

    OpenAIRE

    Fang, Jieyan

    2012-01-01

    In this dissertation I investigate the mutual fund industry, especially the three most important participants within this industry: mutual fund investors, mutual fund companies and mutual fund managers. The main research questions of this dissertation are: 1. Does rapid trading exist among German equity mutual fund investors? What are the determinants of rapid trading? Does rapid trading have a negative impact on mutual fund performance? 2. Do mutual fund investors, as a whole, have...

  17. Will the UE, USA, and China reach an agreement in Copenhagen? BIP-Enerpresse, June 23, 2009

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2009-01-01

    This paper is a synthesis of a debate on the possibilities to reach an international agreement of the greenhouse gas emissions during the Copenhagen meeting in December 2009. The interveners are discussing these opportunities with respect to present political and actual orientations of the European Union, the United States of America, and China. They also recall the objectives of previous international agreement in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. They compare the options and decisions of these three main actors with respect to the climate change threat, and in their different economic situation and context. Thus, they outline the possible incompatibilities between these options and decisions

  18. Mutual emergency assistance arrangements at the international level

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Swindell, G.E.; Ha Vinh Phuong

    1979-01-01

    All countries do not necessarily have resources in skilled manpower and equipment enabling them to deal satisfactorily with the consequences of a nuclear incident. Therefore, a mechanism whereby such countries could obtain or provide mutual emergency assistance at international level is extremely useful. This article analyses the provisions of the Nordic Mutual Emergency Assistance Agreement and the measures taken in respect of emergency assistance by international organisations such as IAEA. (NEA) [fr

  19. Security analysis and improvements of two-factor mutual authentication with key agreement in wireless sensor networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jiye; Lee, Donghoon; Jeon, Woongryul; Lee, Youngsook; Won, Dongho

    2014-04-09

    User authentication and key management are two important security issues in WSNs (Wireless Sensor Networks). In WSNs, for some applications, the user needs to obtain real-time data directly from sensors and several user authentication schemes have been recently proposed for this case. We found that a two-factor mutual authentication scheme with key agreement in WSNs is vulnerable to gateway node bypassing attacks and user impersonation attacks using secret data stored in sensor nodes or an attacker's own smart card. In this paper, we propose an improved scheme to overcome these security weaknesses by storing secret data in unique ciphertext form in each node. In addition, our proposed scheme should provide not only security, but also efficiency since sensors in a WSN operate with resource constraints such as limited power, computation, and storage space. Therefore, we also analyze the performance of the proposed scheme by comparing its computation and communication costs with those of other schemes.

  20. Security Analysis and Improvements of Two-Factor Mutual Authentication with Key Agreement in Wireless Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiye Kim

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available User authentication and key management are two important security issues in WSNs (Wireless Sensor Networks. In WSNs, for some applications, the user needs to obtain real-time data directly from sensors and several user authentication schemes have been recently proposed for this case. We found that a two-factor mutual authentication scheme with key agreement in WSNs is vulnerable to gateway node bypassing attacks and user impersonation attacks using secret data stored in sensor nodes or an attacker’s own smart card. In this paper, we propose an improved scheme to overcome these security weaknesses by storing secret data in unique ciphertext form in each node. In addition, our proposed scheme should provide not only security, but also efficiency since sensors in a WSN operate with resource constraints such as limited power, computation, and storage space. Therefore, we also analyze the performance of the proposed scheme by comparing its computation and communication costs with those of other schemes.

  1. An advanced temporal credential-based security scheme with mutual authentication and key agreement for wireless sensor networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Chun-Ta; Weng, Chi-Yao; Lee, Cheng-Chi

    2013-07-24

    Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be quickly and randomly deployed in any harsh and unattended environment and only authorized users are allowed to access reliable sensor nodes in WSNs with the aid of gateways (GWNs). Secure authentication models among the users, the sensor nodes and GWN are important research issues for ensuring communication security and data privacy in WSNs. In 2013, Xue et al. proposed a temporal-credential-based mutual authentication and key agreement scheme for WSNs. However, in this paper, we point out that Xue et al.'s scheme cannot resist stolen-verifier, insider, off-line password guessing, smart card lost problem and many logged-in users' attacks and these security weaknesses make the scheme inapplicable to practical WSN applications. To tackle these problems, we suggest a simple countermeasure to prevent proposed attacks while the other merits of Xue et al.'s authentication scheme are left unchanged.

  2. An Advanced Temporal Credential-Based Security Scheme with Mutual Authentication and Key Agreement for Wireless Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chun-Ta Li

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Wireless sensor networks (WSNs can be quickly and randomly deployed in any harsh and unattended environment and only authorized users are allowed to access reliable sensor nodes in WSNs with the aid of gateways (GWNs. Secure authentication models among the users, the sensor nodes and GWN are important research issues for ensuring communication security and data privacy in WSNs. In 2013, Xue et al. proposed a temporal-credential-based mutual authentication and key agreement scheme for WSNs. However, in this paper, we point out that Xue et al.’s scheme cannot resist stolen-verifier, insider, off-line password guessing, smart card lost problem and many logged-in users’ attacks and these security weaknesses make the scheme inapplicable to practical WSN applications. To tackle these problems, we suggest a simple countermeasure to prevent proposed attacks while the other merits of Xue et al.’s authentication scheme are left unchanged.

  3. Act of 9 December 1983 approving an Agreement between the Governments of Belgium and France on mutual assistance in the event of catastrophes and serious accidents, signed in Paris on 21 April 1981

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1984-01-01

    This Agreement between Belgium and France lays down a comprehensive legal framework for mutual emergency assistance. It provides that rescue teams will be sent by the Parties in all cases of catastrophe and serious accidents, including nuclear incidents. The Agreement also contains provisions on administrative competences, on quick border crossings by the rescue teams as well as on their supervision. Finally, other provisions settle the question of the costs incurred by assistance, compensation of damage and exchange of information. (NEA) [fr

  4. Mutual expectation compacts: a means to link practice culture and vision.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drury, Ivo; Slomski, Carol

    2007-01-01

    We describe the development of a mutual expectation compact in an academic department of surgery as a means of reinforcing the department's vision document and promoting cultural change. The compact makes explicit those implicit agreements that exist between a physician and his or her practice. It strengthens the relationship by avoiding the misunderstandings that can arise when agreements are implicit.

  5. Sense and purpose of bilateral agreements - a general survey

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Buehler, O.

    1999-01-01

    Switzerland has concluded with its neighbouring States several bilateral agreements on nuclear information and on mutual help in case of catastrophes. The following general survey explains the sense and purpose of these agreements which complement the IAEA-Conventions referring to the same matters. (orig.) [de

  6. 26 CFR 1.831-3 - Tax on insurance companies (other than life or mutual), mutual marine insurance companies, mutual...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... mutual), mutual marine insurance companies, mutual fire insurance companies issuing perpetual policies, and mutual fire or flood insurance companies operating on the basis of premium deposits; taxable years... fire insurance companies issuing perpetual policies, and mutual fire or flood insurance companies...

  7. Indian Mutual Fund Industry in the first decade of 21st Millennium

    OpenAIRE

    Ms. Vanipriya .R; Dr.Venkatramaraju.D

    2011-01-01

    The Indian mutual fund industry has witnessed significant growth in the past few years driven by several favorable economic and demographic factors such as rising income levels and the increasing reach of Asset Management Companies (AMCs) and distributors. Recent developments triggered by the global economic crisis have served to highlight the vulnerability of the Indian mutual fund industry to global economic turbulence and exposed our increased dependence on corporate customers and the reta...

  8. Classification of brain signals associated with imagination of hand grasping, opening and reaching by means of wavelet-based common spatial pattern and mutual information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amanpour, Behzad; Erfanian, Abbas

    2013-01-01

    An important issue in designing a practical brain-computer interface (BCI) is the selection of mental tasks to be imagined. Different types of mental tasks have been used in BCI including left, right, foot, and tongue motor imageries. However, the mental tasks are different from the actions to be controlled by the BCI. It is desirable to select a mental task to be consistent with the desired action to be performed by BCI. In this paper, we investigated the detecting the imagination of the hand grasping, hand opening, and hand reaching in one hand using electroencephalographic (EEG) signals. The results show that the ERD/ERS patterns, associated with the imagination of hand grasping, opening, and reaching are different. For classification of brain signals associated with these mental tasks and feature extraction, a method based on wavelet packet, regularized common spatial pattern (CSP), and mutual information is proposed. The results of an offline analysis on five subjects show that the two-class mental tasks can be classified with an average accuracy of 77.6% using proposed method. In addition, we examine the proposed method on datasets IVa from BCI Competition III and IIa from BCI Competition IV.

  9. Environmental quality modulates the cooperative and competitive nature of a microbial cross-feeding mutualism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoek, Tim; Axelrod, Kevin; Yurtsev, Eugene; Gore, Jeff

    Mutualisms are essential for ecosystem function and stability. However, in some environments the competitive aspects of an interaction may dominate the mutualistic aspects. Although these transitions could have far-reaching implications, it has been difficult to study the causes and consequences of this mutualistic-competitive transition in experimentally tractable systems. Here we experimentally study a microbial cross-feeding mutualism in which each yeast strain supplies an essential amino acid for its partner strain. We find that, depending upon the amino acid concentration, this pair of strains can exhibit any of: obligatory mutualism, facultative mutualism, competition, parasitism, competitive exclusion, or failed mutualism leading to extinction of the population. A simple model capturing the essential features of this interaction predicts that environmental quality specifies the outcome and provides a ``phase diagram'' of net interactions in this mutualism. In addition, the model accurately predicts that changes in the dynamics of the mutualism in deteriorating environments can predict that population collapse is imminent. Our results provide a general framework for how mutualisms may transition between qualitatively different regimes of interaction.

  10. Mutual information and the fidelity of response of gene regulatory models

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tabbaa, Omar P; Jayaprakash, C

    2014-01-01

    We investigate cellular response to extracellular signals by using information theory techniques motivated by recent experiments. We present results for the steady state of the following gene regulatory models found in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells: a linear transcription-translation model and a positive or negative auto-regulatory model. We calculate both the information capacity and the mutual information exactly for simple models and approximately for the full model. We find that (1) small changes in mutual information can lead to potentially important changes in cellular response and (2) there are diminishing returns in the fidelity of response as the mutual information increases. We calculate the information capacity using Gillespie simulations of a model for the TNF-α-NF-κ B network and find good agreement with the measured value for an experimental realization of this network. Our results provide a quantitative understanding of the differences in cellular response when comparing experimentally measured mutual information values of different gene regulatory models. Our calculations demonstrate that Gillespie simulations can be used to compute the mutual information of more complex gene regulatory models, providing a potentially useful tool in synthetic biology. (paper)

  11. Behavioral aspects of negotiations on mutual security

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Druckman, D.; Hopmann, P.T.

    1989-01-01

    This article surveys theory and research about the process of international negotiation. The goal, of this paper is to apply behavioral science research to find ways to negotiate an improved mutual security regime between the nuclear superpowers that would make nuclear war less likely in the years ahead. When President John F. Kennedy presented the first nuclear arms control agreement, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, to the U.S. public in 1963 he noted the ancient Chinese proverb: A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. Just as the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty represented for Kennedy the first step on the road to nuclear arms control, so the research reviewed here represents at best the first few steps in a long journey to a better understanding of how to negotiate a regime of mutual security between the nuclear superpowers

  12. 78 FR 18877 - Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement: New Free Trade Agreement With Colombia (DFARS...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-03-28

    ... Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement: New Free Trade Agreement With Colombia (DFARS Case 2012-D032... Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to implement the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. This Trade Promotion Agreement is a free trade agreement that provides for mutually non-discriminatory treatment of...

  13. Calculation of the mutual diffusion coefficient by equilibrium and nonequilibrium molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Erpenbeck, J.J.; Kincaid, J.M.

    1986-01-01

    A nonequilibrium molecular dynamics method for the calculation of the mutual diffusion coefficient for a mixture of hard spheres is described. The method is applied to a 50-50 mixture of equidiameter particles having a mass ratio of 0.1 for the two species, at a volume of three times close-packing. By extrapolating the results to the limit of vanishing concentration gradient and infinite system size, we obtain a value in statistical agreement with the result obtained using a Green-Kubo molecular dynamics procedure, which is also described. The nonequilibrium calculation yields a mutual diffusion coefficient which decreases slightly with increasing concentration gradient. The Green-Kubo timecorrelation function for mutual diffusion displays a slow decay with time, qualitatively similar to the long-time tail which has been predicted by the hydrodynamic theory of Pomeau

  14. 45 CFR 98.11 - Administration under contracts and agreements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... Agency shall be governed by written agreements that specify the mutual roles and responsibilities of the... subgrantee in any: disallowance under subpart G; complaint or compliance action under subpart J; or hearing...

  15. Community-based naming agreement, familiarity, image agreement and visual complexity ratings among adult Indians

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    George Annamma

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available The validity of Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures and their norms derived on a western population on naming, familiarity, imageability and visual-complexity, is not established on a population with cultural background different from the west. We developed, therefore, a set of culturally appropriate pictures for and derived norms on Indians. Line-drawings of 103 concepts (67 from Snodgrass and Vanderwart, 36 new from 10 semantic-categories were normed on 200 community-based older subjects. Only 31% of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart items showed a concept-agreement on the Indians comparable to western norms. Naming, familiarity and image-agreement mutually correlated but not with visual-complexity. Low-education and rural-residence tended to reduced concept-agreement. The output of this study will be of use in national and cross-national studies.

  16. Mutuality and reciprocity in the psychological contracts of employees and employers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dabos, Guillermo E; Rousseau, Denise M

    2004-02-01

    The authors assessed the joint perceptions of the employee and his or her employer to examine mutuality and reciprocity in the employment relationship. Paired psychological contract reports were obtained from 80 employee-employer dyads in 16 university-based research centers. On the basis of in-depth study of the research setting, research directors were identified as primary agents for the university (employer) in shaping the terms of employment of staff scientists (employees). By assessing the extent of consistency between employee and employer beliefs regarding their exchange agreement, the present study mapped the variation and consequences of mutuality and reciprocity in psychological contracts. Results indicate that both mutuality and reciprocity are positively related to archival indicators of research productivity and career advancement, in addition to self-reported measures of Met Expectations and intention to continue working with the employer. Implications for psychological contract theory are presented. ((c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)

  17. Calculation of the mutual diffusion coefficient by equilibrium and nonequilibrium molecular dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Erpenbeck, J.J.; Kincaid, J.M.

    1985-01-01

    A nonequilibrium molecular dynamics method for the calculation of the mutual diffusion coefficient for a mixture of hard spheres is described. The method is applied to a 50-50 mixture of equidiameter particles having a mass ratio of 0.1 for the two species, at a volume of three times close-packing. By extrapolating the results to the limit of vanishing concentration gradient and infinite system size, we obtain a value in statistical agreement with the result obtained using a Green-Kubo molecular dynamics procedure which is also described. The nonequilibrium calculation yields a mutual diffusion coefficient which decreases slightly with increasing concentration gradient. The Green-Kubo time correlation function for mutual diffusion displays a slow decay with time, qualitatively similar to the long-time tail which has been predicted by the hydrodynamic theory of Pomeau

  18. China, The Regional Hegemon with Global Reach

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-03-07

    31 China’s commercial diplomacy has benefitted from the region’s widespread interest in free trade agreements (FTAs) which began to mushroom in...Asia in the late 1990s.32 For China these FTAs offer a means of using the China market to cultivate influence and compete with Japan and the U.S...the least. Current and future U.S. 23 administrations must be able to cultivate those mutual interests: economic and climate change (identified

  19. Mutual learning in a tree parity machine and its application to cryptography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rosen-Zvi, Michal; Klein, Einat; Kanter, Ido; Kinzel, Wolfgang

    2002-01-01

    Mutual learning of a pair of tree parity machines with continuous and discrete weight vectors is studied analytically. The analysis is based on a mapping procedure that maps the mutual learning in tree parity machines onto mutual learning in noisy perceptrons. The stationary solution of the mutual learning in the case of continuous tree parity machines depends on the learning rate where a phase transition from partial to full synchronization is observed. In the discrete case the learning process is based on a finite increment and a full synchronized state is achieved in a finite number of steps. The synchronization of discrete parity machines is introduced in order to construct an ephemeral key-exchange protocol. The dynamic learning of a third tree parity machine (an attacker) that tries to imitate one of the two machines while the two still update their weight vectors is also analyzed. In particular, the synchronization times of the naive attacker and the flipping attacker recently introduced in Ref. 9 are analyzed. All analytical results are found to be in good agreement with simulation results

  20. Innovative approaches to structuring the transaction agreement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Droppo, D.L.

    1999-01-01

    Several issues regarding the negotiation and structuring of oil and gas property transactions are reviewed. They include: (1) areas of mutual exclusion covenants, (2) use of the short-form term sheet or letter agreement or the longer, more comprehensive formal offer or letter agreement, (3) coping with standard form purchase and sale agreements and property bid packages, (4) allocations of purchase price and their effect on ROFRs, (5) interim operations covenants, including maintaining insurance, contractual relationships and operational integrity, (6) structuring the transaction to facilitate unique financing requirements, (7) making effective use of adjustment clauses, (8) dealing with the cyclicity of commodity prices in the purchase and sale agreement, and (9) using escrow and trust arrangements to meet closure deadlines

  1. A measurement of Rb using mutually exclusive tags

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barate, R.; Buskulic, D.; Decamp, D.; Ghez, P.; Goy, C.; Lees, J.-P.; Lucotte, A.; Minard, M.-N.; Nief, J.-Y.; Pietrzyk, B.; Casado, M. P.; Chmeissani, M.; Comas, P.; Crespo, J. M.; Delfino, M.; Fernandez, E.; Fernandez-Bosman, M.; Garrido, Ll.; Juste, A.; Martinez, M.; Miquel, R.; Mir, Ll. M.; Orteu, S.; Padilla, C.; Park, I. C.; Pascual, A.; Perlas, J. A.; Riu, I.; Sanchez, F.; Teubert, F.; Colaleo, A.; Creanza, D.; de Palma, M.; Gelao, G.; Iaselli, G.; Maggi, G.; Maggi, M.; Marinelli, N.; Nuzzo, S.; Ranieri, A.; Raso, G.; Ruggieri, F.; Selvaggi, G.; Silvestris, L.; Tempesta, P.; Tricomi, A.; Zito, G.; Huang, X.; Lin, J.; Ouyang, Q.; Wang, T.; Xie, Y.; Xu, R.; Xue, S.; Zhang, J.; Zhang, L.; Zhao, W.; Abbaneo, D.; Alemany, R.; Becker, U.; Bazarko, A. O.; Bright-Thomas, P.; Cattaneo, M.; Cerutti, F.; Drevermann, H.; Forty, R. W.; Frank, M.; Hagelberg, R.; Harvey, J.; Janot, P.; Jost, B.; Kneringer, E.; Knobloch, J.; Lehraus, I.; Lutters, G.; Mato, P.; Minten, A.; Moneta, L.; Pacheco, A.; Pusztaszeri, J.-F.; Ranjard, F.; Rensing, P.; Rizzo, G.; Rolandi, L.; Schlatter, D.; Schmitt, M.; Schneider, O.; Tejessy, W.; Tomalin, I. R.; Wachsmuth, H.; Wagner, A.; Ajaltouni, Z.; Barrès, A.; Boyer, C.; Falvard, A.; Ferdi, C.; Gay, P.; Guicheney, C.; Henrard, P.; Jousset, J.; Michel, B.; Monteil, S.; Montret, J.-C.; Pallin, D.; Perret, P.; Podlyski, F.; Proriol, J.; Rosnet, P.; Rossignol, J.-M.; Fearnley, T.; Hansen, J. B.; Hansen, J. D.; Hansen, J. R.; Hansen, P. H.; Nilsson, B. S.; Rensch, B.; Wäänänen, A.; Daskalakis, G.; Kyriakis, A.; Markou, C.; Simopoulou, E.; Siotis, I.; Vayaki, A.; Blondel, A.; Bonneaud, G.; Brient, J. C.; Bourdon, P.; Rougé, A.; Rumpf, M.; Valassi, A.; Verderi, M.; Videau, H.; Candlin, D. J.; Parsons, M. I.; Focardi, E.; Parrini, G.; Zachariadou, K.; Corden, M.; Georgiopoulos, C.; Jaffe, D. E.; Antonelli, A.; Bencivenni, G.; Bologna, G.; Bossi, F.; Campana, P.; Capon, G.; Casper, D.; Chiarella, V.; Felici, G.; Laurelli, P.; Mannocchi, G.; Murtas, F.; Murtas, G. P.; Passalacqua, L.; Pepe-Altarelli, M.; Curtis, L.; Dorris, S. J.; Halley, A. W.; Knowles, I. G.; Lynch, J. G.; O'Shea, V.; Raine, C.; Scarr, J. M.; Smith, K.; Teixeira-Dias, P.; Thompson, A. S.; Thomson, E.; Thomson, F.; Turnbull, R. M.; Geweniger, C.; Graefe, G.; Hanke, P.; Hansper, G.; Hepp, V.; Kluge, E. E.; Putzer, A.; Schmidt, M.; Sommer, J.; Tittel, K.; Werner, S.; Wunsch, M.; Beuselinck, R.; Binnie, D. M.; Cameron, W.; Dornan, P. J.; Girone, M.; Goodsir, S.; Martin, E. B.; Moutoussi, A.; Nash, J.; Sedgbeer, J. K.; Stacey, A. M.; Williams, M. D.; Dissertori, G.; Ghete, V. M.; Girtler, P.; Kuhn, D.; Rudolph, G.; Betteridge, A. P.; Bowdery, C. K.; Colrain, P.; Crawford, G.; Finch, A. J.; Foster, F.; Hughes, G.; Sloan, T.; Williams, M. I.; Galla, A.; Giehl, I.; Greene, A. M.; Hoffmann, C.; Jakobs, K.; Kleinknecht, K.; Quast, G.; Renk, B.; Rohne, E.; Sander, H.-G.; van Gemmeren, P.; Zeitnitz, C.; Aubert, J. J.; Benchouk, C.; Bonissent, A.; Bujosa, G.; Calvet, D.; Carr, J.; Coyle, P.; Diaconu, C.; Etienne, F.; Konstantinidis, N.; Leroy, O.; Motsch, F.; Payre, P.; Rousseau, D.; Talby, M.; Sadouki, A.; Thulasidas, M.; Trabelsi, K.; Aleppo, M.; Ragusa, F.; Berlich, R.; Blum, W.; Brown, D.; Büscher, V.; Dietl, H.; Dydak, F.; Ganis, G.; Gotzhein, C.; Kroha, H.; Lütjens, G.; Lutz, G.; Männer, W.; Moser, H.-G.; Richter, R.; Rosado-Schlosser, A.; Schael, S.; Settles, R.; Seywerd, H.; St. Denis, R.; Stenzel, H.; Wiedenmann, W.; Wolf, G.; Boucrot, J.; Callot, O.; Chen, S.; Choi, Y.; Cordier, A.; Davier, M.; Duflot, L.; Grivaz, J.-F.; Heusse, Ph.; Höcker, A.; Jacholkowska, A.; Jacquet, M.; Kim, D. W.; Le Diberder, F.; Lefrançois, J.; Lutz, A.-M.; Nilolic, I.; Schune, M.-H.; Simion, S.; Tournefier, E.; Veillet, J.-J.; Videau, I.; Zerwas, D.; Azzurri, P.; Bagliesi, G.; Batignani, G.; Bettarini, S.; Bozzi, C.; Calderini, G.; Carpinelli, M.; Ciocci, M. A.; Ciulli, V.; dell'Orso, R.; Fantechi, R.; Ferrante, I.; Foà, L.; Forti, F.; Giassi, A.; Giorgi, M. A.; Gregorio, A.; Ligabue, F.; Lusiani, A.; Marrocchesi, P. S.; Messineo, A.; Palla, F.; Sanguinetti, G.; Sciabà, A.; Spagnolo, P.; Steinberger, J.; Tenchini, R.; Tonelli, G.; Vannini, C.; Venturi, A.; Verdini, P. G.; Blair, G. A.; Bryant, L. M.; Chambers, J. T.; Gao, Y.; Green, M. G.; Medcalf, T.; Perrodo, P.; Strong, J. A.; von Wimmersperg-Toeller, J. H.; Botterill, D. R.; Clifft, R. W.; Edgecock, T. R.; Haywood, S.; Maley, P.; Norton, P. R.; Thompson, J. C.; Wright, A. E.; Bloch-Devaux, B.; Colas, P.; Emery, S.; Kozanecki, W.; Lançon, E.; Lemaire, M. C.; Locci, E.; Perez, P.; Rander, J.; Renardy, J.-F.; Roussarie, A.; Schuller, J.-P.; Schwindling, J.; Trabelsi, A.; Vallage, B.; Black, S. N.; Dann, J. H.; Johnson, R. P.; Kim, H. Y.; Litke, A. M.; McNeil, M. A.; Taylor, G.; Booth, C. N.; Boswell, R.; Brew, C. A. J.; Cartwright, S.; Combley, F.; Kelly, M. S.; Lehto, M.; Newton, W. M.; Reeve, J.; Thompson, L. F.; Böhrer, A.; Brandt, S.; Cowan, G.; Grupen, C.; Saraiva, P.; Smolik, L.; Stephan, F.; Apollonio, M.; Bosisio, L.; Della Marina, R.; Giannini, G.; Gobbo, B.; Musolino, G.; Rothberg, J.; Wasserbaech, S.; Armstrong, S. R.; Charles, E.; Elmer, P.; Ferguson, D. P. S.; Gao, Y. S.; González, S.; Greening, T. C.; Hayes, O. J.; Hu, H.; Jin, S.; McNamara, P. A.; Nachtman, J. M.; Nielsen, J.; Orejudos, W.; Pan, Y. B.; Saadi, Y.; Scott, I. J.; Walsh, J.; Sau, Lan Wu; Wu, X.; Yamartino, J. M.; Zobernig, G.

    1997-02-01

    A measurement of Rb using five mutually exclusive hemisphere tags has been performed by ALEPH using the full LEP1 statistics. Three tags are designed to select the decay of the Z0 to b quarks, while the remaining two selectZ0 decays to c and light quarks, and are used to measure the tagging efficiencies. The result, Rb = 0.2159 +/- 0.0009 (stat) +/- 0.0011 (syst), is in agreement with the electroweak theory prediction of 0.2158 +/- 0.0003.

  2. Side-band mutual interactions in the magnetosphere

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, D. C. D.; Helliwell, R. A.; Bell, T. F.

    1980-01-01

    Sideband mutual interactions between VLF waves in the magnetosphere are investigated. Results of an experimental program involving the generation of sidebands by means of frequency shift keying are presented which indicate that the energetic electrons in the magnetosphere can interact only with sidebands generated by signals with short modulation periods. Using the value of the memory time during which electrons interact with the waves implied by the above result, it is estimated that the length of the electron interaction region in the magnetosphere is between 4000 and 2000 km. Sideband interactions are found to be similar to those between constant-frequency signals, exhibiting suppression and energy coupling. Results from a second sideband transmitting program show that for most cases the coherence bandwidth of sidebands is about 50 Hz. Sideband mutual interactions are then explained by the overlap of the ranges of the parallel velocity of the electrons which the sidebands organize, and the wave intensity in the interaction region is estimated to be 2.5-10 milli-gamma, in agreement with satellite measurements.

  3. The mutual impact of organizational culture and structure

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Janićijević Nebojša

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the relationship between the structure and culture of an organization. The starting assumption is that organizational structure and organizational culture impact each other, and that there is a causal relationship due to which the agreement of the two components of organization leads to better performance. First, the mechanism through which organizational culture impacts the design of organizational structures and the manner in which organizational structure affects the maintenance, strengthening, or changing of organizational culture is explained at the conceptual level. Then, based on the known classifications of organizational structure and culture, they are put into a relationship of direct mutual interdependence. This is done by generating hypotheses about the agreement of particular types of organizational culture and particular types of organizational structure.

  4. A secure key agreement protocol based on chaotic maps

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Xing-Yuan; Luan Da-Peng

    2013-01-01

    To guarantee the security of communication in the public channel, many key agreement protocols have been proposed. Recently, Gong et al. proposed a key agreement protocol based on chaotic maps with password sharing. In this paper, Gong et al.'s protocol is analyzed, and we find that this protocol exhibits key management issues and potential security problems. Furthermore, the paper presents a new key agreement protocol based on enhanced Chebyshev polynomials to overcome these problems. Through our analysis, our key agreement protocol not only provides mutual authentication and the ability to resist a variety of common attacks, but also solve the problems of key management and security issues existing in Gong et al.'s protocol

  5. Resource Availability Modulates the Cooperative and Competitive Nature of a Microbial Cross-Feeding Mutualism

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoek, Tim A.; Axelrod, Kevin; Biancalani, Tommaso; Yurtsev, Eugene A.; Liu, Jinghui; Gore, Jeff

    2016-01-01

    Mutualisms between species play an important role in ecosystem function and stability. However, in some environments, the competitive aspects of an interaction may dominate the mutualistic aspects. Although these transitions could have far-reaching implications, it has been difficult to study the

  6. Minimizing Mutual Couping

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2010-01-01

    Disclosed herein are techniques, systems, and methods relating to minimizing mutual coupling between a first antenna and a second antenna.......Disclosed herein are techniques, systems, and methods relating to minimizing mutual coupling between a first antenna and a second antenna....

  7. Caring as predominantly ‘silent’, sociomaterial acts of mutual well-becoming

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Chimirri, Niklas Alexander

    of what good care in childrearing institutions entails. This verbal/non-verbal discrepancy becomes particularly evident when investigating children’s contributions to promoting one another’s as well as one’s own well-being, as a current participatory practice study situated at the Danish Center for Early...... Childhood and Care Research underlines: While acts of promoting well-being through caring pervade daycare institutions, the language available for negotiating and agreeing on which direction our mutual caregiving is to take tends to either draw on technocratic indicator models alienated from everyday...... practice, or on everyday concepts that can describe some of the more immediate emotional experiencing but have a difficult time projecting current practice into the future. Both possibilities render it difficult to ground negotiations and agreements on the directionality of mutual caregiving processes...

  8. 42 CFR 137.55 - What is the term of a funding agreement?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES TRIBAL SELF-GOVERNANCE Funding Agreements Term of A... term mutually agreed to by the parties. Absent notification from an Indian Tribe that it is withdrawing...

  9. 26 CFR 1.831-1 - Tax on insurance companies (other than life or mutual), mutual marine insurance companies, and...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... mutual), mutual marine insurance companies, and mutual fire insurance companies issuing perpetual... companies (other than life or mutual), mutual marine insurance companies, and mutual fire insurance... insurance companies and mutual fire insurance companies exclusively issuing either perpetual policies, or...

  10. Mutual capacitor and its applications

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chun Li

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available This study presents a new ac circuit element – the mutual capacitor, being a dual of the mutual inductor, which is also a new ac transformer. This element is characteristic of the mutual-capacitance coupling of a multi-capacitance system. A unity-coupled mutual capacitor works as an ideal current or voltage transformer, and incidentally acts as waveform separating when inductor employed or waveform converting from square-wave to quasi-sine or waveform filtering, between ports. As a transformer, the mutual capacitor is easy to design, easy for heat cooling, more accurate for current or voltage transformation, dissipating less energy as well as saving materials, suitable for high-power and high-voltage applications. Experiments to demonstrate performances of unity-coupled mutual capacitors are also given.

  11. Strategy Diversity Stabilizes Mutualism through Investment Cycles, Phase Polymorphism, and Spatial Bubbles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boza, Gergely; Kun, Ádám; Scheuring, István; Dieckmann, Ulf

    2012-01-01

    There is continuing interest in understanding factors that facilitate the evolution and stability of cooperation within and between species. Such interactions will often involve plasticity in investment behavior, in response to the interacting partner's investments. Our aim here is to investigate the evolution and stability of reciprocal investment behavior in interspecific interactions, a key phenomenon strongly supported by experimental observations. In particular, we present a comprehensive analysis of a continuous reciprocal investment game between mutualists, both in well-mixed and spatially structured populations, and we demonstrate a series of novel mechanisms for maintaining interspecific mutualism. We demonstrate that mutualistic partners invariably follow investment cycles, during which mutualism first increases, before both partners eventually reduce their investments to zero, so that these cycles always conclude with full defection. We show that the key mechanism for stabilizing mutualism is phase polymorphism along the investment cycle. Although mutualistic partners perpetually change their strategies, the community-level distribution of investment levels becomes stationary. In spatially structured populations, the maintenance of polymorphism is further facilitated by dynamic mosaic structures, in which mutualistic partners form expanding and collapsing spatial bubbles or clusters. Additionally, we reveal strategy-diversity thresholds, both for well-mixed and spatially structured mutualistic communities, and discuss factors for meeting these thresholds, and thus maintaining mutualism. Our results demonstrate that interspecific mutualism, when considered as plastic investment behavior, can be unstable, and, in agreement with empirical observations, may involve a polymorphism of investment levels, varying both in space and in time. Identifying the mechanisms maintaining such polymorphism, and hence mutualism in natural communities, provides a significant

  12. The agreement between Austria and the German Democratic Republic concerning environment protection

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Moser, B.

    1989-01-01

    The agreement between Austria and the German Democratic Republic concerning the cooperation in the field of environment protection is in force since 1988 07 01. The mutual pollutant-immission should be reduced by exchange of knowledge and experience, cooperation of experts and development of working plans. The problems of brown-coal combustion should be reduced by extended use of nuclear energy. The article examines the content of the agreement and its coordination with the international agreement about long range transfrontier air-pollution

  13. Evolution of mutualism between species

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Post, W.M.; Travis, C.C.; DeAngelis, D.L.

    1980-01-01

    Recent theoretical work on mutualism, the interaction between species populations that is mutually beneficial, is reviewed. Several ecological facts that should be addressed in the construction of dynamic models for mutualism are examined. Basic terminology is clarified. (PSB)

  14. Nondisclosure Agreements in the Classroom: A Student Entrepreneur's Refuge or Risk?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katz, Jerome A.; Harshman, Ellen F.; Dean, Kathy Lund

    2000-01-01

    Review of academic, legal, and ethical considerations leads to the conclusion that nondisclosure agreements are ineffective for protecting students' ideas in the entrepreneurship classroom. Appeals to the ethics of information value and mutual responsibility may be a better approach. (SK)

  15. A Measurement of $R_b$ using Mutually Exclusive Tags

    CERN Document Server

    Barate, R; Décamp, D; Ghez, P; Goy, C; Lees, J P; Lucotte, A; Minard, M N; Nief, J Y; Pietrzyk, B; Casado, M P; Chmeissani, M; Comas, P; Crespo, J M; Delfino, M C; Fernández, E; Fernández-Bosman, M; Garrido, L; Juste, A; Martínez, M; Miquel, R; Mir, L M; Orteu, S; Padilla, C; Park, I C; Pascual, A; Perlas, J A; Riu, I; Sánchez, F; Teubert, F; Colaleo, A; Creanza, D; De Palma, M; Gelao, G; Iaselli, Giuseppe; Maggi, G; Maggi, M; Marinelli, N; Nuzzo, S; Ranieri, A; Raso, G; Ruggieri, F; Selvaggi, G; Silvestris, L; Tempesta, P; Tricomi, A; Zito, G; Huang, X; Lin, J; Ouyang, Q; Wang, T; Xie, Y; Xu, R; Xue, S; Zhang, J; Zhang, L; Zhao, W; Abbaneo, D; Alemany, R; Becker, U; Bazarko, A O; Bright-Thomas, P G; Cattaneo, M; Cerutti, F; Drevermann, H; Forty, Roger W; Frank, M; Hagelberg, R; Harvey, J; Janot, P; Jost, B; Kneringer, E; Knobloch, J; Lehraus, Ivan; Lutters, G; Mato, P; Minten, Adolf G; Moneta, L; Pacheco, A; Pusztaszeri, J F; Ranjard, F; Rensing, P E; Rizzo, G; Rolandi, Luigi; Schlatter, W D; Schmitt, M; Schneider, O; Tejessy, W; Tomalin, I R; Wachsmuth, H W; Wagner, A; Ajaltouni, Ziad J; Barrès, A; Boyer, C; Falvard, A; Ferdi, C; Gay, P; Guicheney, C; Henrard, P; Jousset, J; Michel, B; Monteil, S; Montret, J C; Pallin, D; Perret, P; Podlyski, F; Proriol, J; Rosnet, P; Rossignol, J M; Fearnley, Tom; Hansen, J B; Hansen, J D; Hansen, J R; Hansen, P H; Nilsson, B S; Rensch, B; Wäänänen, A; Daskalakis, G; Kyriakis, A; Markou, C; Simopoulou, Errietta; Siotis, I; Vayaki, Anna; Blondel, A; Bonneaud, G R; Brient, J C; Bourdon, P; Rougé, A; Rumpf, M; Valassi, Andrea; Verderi, M; Videau, H L; Candlin, D J; Parsons, M I; Focardi, E; Parrini, G; Zachariadou, K; Corden, M; Georgiopoulos, C H; Jaffe, D E; Antonelli, A; Bencivenni, G; Bologna, G; Bossi, F; Campana, P; Capon, G; Casper, David William; Chiarella, V; Felici, G; Laurelli, P; Mannocchi, G; Murtas, F; Murtas, G P; Passalacqua, L; Pepé-Altarelli, M; Curtis, L; Dorris, S J; Halley, A W; Knowles, I G; Lynch, J G; O'Shea, V; Raine, C; Scarr, J M; Smith, K; Teixeira-Dias, P; Thompson, A S; Thomson, E; Thomson, F; Turnbull, R M; Geweniger, C; Graefe, G; Hanke, P; Hansper, G; Hepp, V; Kluge, E E; Putzer, A; Schmidt, M; Sommer, J; Tittel, K; Werner, S; Wunsch, M; Beuselinck, R; Binnie, David M; Cameron, W; Dornan, Peter J; Girone, M; Goodsir, S M; Martin, E B; Moutoussi, A; Nash, J; Sedgbeer, J K; Stacey, A M; Williams, M D; Dissertori, G; Ghete, V M; Girtler, P; Kuhn, D; Rudolph, G; Betteridge, A P; Bowdery, C K; Colrain, P; Crawford, G; Finch, A J; Foster, F; Hughes, G; Sloan, Terence; Williams, M I; Galla, A; Giehl, I; Greene, A M; Hoffmann, C; Jakobs, K; Kleinknecht, K; Quast, G; Renk, B; Rohne, E; Sander, H G; Van Gemmeren, P; Zeitnitz, C; Aubert, Jean-Jacques; Benchouk, C; Bonissent, A; Bujosa, G; Calvet, D; Carr, J; Coyle, P; Diaconu, C A; Etienne, F; Konstantinidis, N P; Leroy, O; Motsch, F; Payre, P; Rousseau, D; Talby, M; Sadouki, A; Thulasidas, M; Trabelsi, K; Aleppo, M; Ragusa, F; Berlich, R; Blum, Walter; Brown, D; Büscher, V; Dietl, H; Dydak, Friedrich; Ganis, G; Gotzhein, C; Kroha, H; Lütjens, G; Lutz, Gerhard; Männer, W; Moser, H G; Richter, R H; Rosado-Schlosser, A; Schael, S; Settles, Ronald; Seywerd, H C J; Saint-Denis, R; Stenzel, H; Wiedenmann, W; Wolf, G; Boucrot, J; Callot, O; Chen, S; Choi, Y; Cordier, A; Davier, M; Duflot, L; Grivaz, J F; Heusse, P; Höcker, A; Jacholkowska, A; Jacquet, M; Kim, D W; Le Diberder, F R; Lefrançois, J; Lutz, A M; Nikolic, I A; Schune, M H; Simion, S; Tournefier, E; Veillet, J J; Videau, I; Zerwas, D; Azzurri, P; Bagliesi, G; Batignani, G; Bettarini, S; Bozzi, C; Calderini, G; Carpinelli, M; Ciocci, M A; Ciulli, V; Dell'Orso, R; Fantechi, R; Ferrante, I; Foà, L; Forti, F; Giassi, A; Giorgi, M A; Gregorio, A; Ligabue, F; Lusiani, A; Marrocchesi, P S; Messineo, A; Palla, Fabrizio; Sanguinetti, G; Sciabà, A; Spagnolo, P; Steinberger, Jack; Tenchini, Roberto; Tonelli, G; Vannini, C; Venturi, A; Verdini, P G; Blair, G A; Bryant, L M; Chambers, J T; Gao, Y; Green, M G; Medcalf, T; Perrodo, P; Strong, J A; Von Wimmersperg-Töller, J H; Botterill, David R; Clifft, R W; Edgecock, T R; Haywood, S; Maley, P; Norton, P R; Thompson, J C; Wright, A E; Bloch-Devaux, B; Colas, P; Emery, S; Kozanecki, Witold; Lançon, E; Lemaire, M C; Locci, E; Pérez, P; Rander, J; Renardy, J F; Roussarie, A; Schuller, J P; Schwindling, J; Trabelsi, A; Vallage, B; Black, S N; Dann, J H; Johnson, R P; Kim, H Y; Litke, A M; McNeil, M A; Taylor, G; Booth, C N; Boswell, R; Brew, C A J; Cartwright, S L; Combley, F; Kelly, M S; Lehto, M H; Newton, W M; Reeve, J; Thompson, L F; Böhrer, A; Brandt, S; Cowan, G D; Grupen, Claus; Saraiva, P; Smolik, L; Stephan, F; Apollonio, M; Bosisio, L; Della Marina, R; Giannini, G; Gobbo, B; Musolino, G; Rothberg, J E; Wasserbaech, S R; Armstrong, S R; Charles, E; Elmer, P; Ferguson, D P S; Gao, Y S; González, S; Greening, T C; Hayes, O J; Hu, H; Jin, S; McNamara, P A; Nachtman, J M; Nielsen, J; Orejudos, W; Pan, Y B; Saadi, Y; Scott, I J; Walsh, J; Wu Sau Lan; Wu, X; Yamartino, J M; Zobernig, G

    1997-01-01

    A measurement of $R_b$ using five mutually exclusive hemisphere tags has been pe rformed by ALEPH using the full LEP1 statistics. Three tags are designed to sele ct the decay of the $Z^0$ to $b$ quarks, while the remaining two select $Z^0$ decays to $c$ and light quarks, and are used to measure the tagging efficiencies. The result, {$R_b~=~0.2159~\\pm~0.0009\\mbox{(stat)}~\\pm 0.0011\\mbox{(syst)}$}, is in agreement with the electroweak theory prediction of $0.2158 \\pm 0.0003$.

  16. On Banks, Courts and International Law: The Intergovernmental Agreement on the Single Resolution Fund in Context

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fabbrini, Federico

    2014-01-01

    In May 2014, 26 Member States of the EU concluded an intergovernmental agreement on the transfer and mutualization of contribution to the Single Resolution Fund (SRF). This international treaty constitutes a core component of the second pillar of the European Banking Union – the Single Resolution...... Mechanism, to wind down failing banks in the Euro-zone – and complements an EU regulation adopted by the European Parliament and the Council creating the SRF. This article critically analyses the choice to use international law to adopt the rules on transfer and mutualization of contributions to the SRF....... Moreover, as the article explains, resort to international law is unsound from a policy point of view. The use of an international treaty to regulate the transfer and mutualization of contributions to the SRF opens the door for national courts’ review of the agreement – a prospect which contrasts...

  17. Why mutualist partners vary in quality: mutation-selection balance and incentives to cheat in the fig tree-fig wasp mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jandér, K Charlotte; Steidinger, Brian S

    2017-07-01

    Mutualisms between species are ecologically ubiquitous but evolutionarily puzzling. Host discrimination mechanisms that reduce the fitness of uncooperative symbionts can stabilise mutualism against collapse, but also present a paradox - if discrimination is effective, why do uncooperative symbionts persist? Here, we test whether mutations or fitness benefits of cheating best explain the prevalence of uncooperative wasps in the fig tree-fig wasp mutualism. By combining theory with field-collected data we demonstrate that the proportions of pollen-free wasps of strongly discriminating hosts are reached with reasonable mutation rates. In contrast, in weakly discriminating hosts, the required mutation rates, assuming a single locus, are untenably high, but the required cheater advantages fall within expected ranges. We propose that when discrimination is weak, uncooperative symbionts proliferate until they reach the equilibrium proportion that balances costs and benefits of cheating. Our results suggest that mechanisms that resolve the paradox of uncooperative symbionts differ among host species. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.

  18. India’s Participation In The Regional Trade Agreements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. I. Baronov

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The main objective of the proposed study is to identify the specifics of India’s participation in the regional trade agreements (RTAs, a comparative analysis of the main provisions of the RTAs and the impact of membership in the integration agreements on the country’s foreign trade relations. In the world economic literature there is no unity of opinions on the economic effect of the participation of states in RTAs. The author’s thesis is that the final effect of membership in the RTAs depends on the amount of customs duties on the date of signing the agreement (the higher they are, the greater the effect of trade creation, and also on the place of the partner country in the trade of another participating state (the greater is mutual turnover, the greater effect of trade creation. Of course, other factors affect, such as geographical proximity, transportation and other transaction costs. India’s participation in the regional trade agreements (RTA was one of the tasks of implementing the policy “Look East”, which was approved in 1991. The countries of Southeast Asia have been identified as a regional priority, which was caused by the geo-strategic and economic reasons. Later, regional coverage has been extended to the countries of Northeast and South Asia because of increasing the role of China in the world economy and politics, which has become a strategic challenge and economic opportunities for the Indian economy. India is a participant of 13 RTAs, the majority of which are bilateral. In India’s integration practice, one of four types of RTAs is applied: (1 agreement on comprehensive economic partnership, which differ in the widest scope of mutual economic relations; (2 agreement on comprehensive economic cooperation; (3 free trade agreement; (4 preferential trade agreement. Most often, there is used classical integration model (of preferential or free trade area.Initially, the Indian policy of RTA dominated the political factor

  19. Agreement signed by the DG with the ITU

    CERN Multimedia

    CERN Bulletin

    2010-01-01

    Dr Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General, and Professor Rolf-Dieter Heuer, CERN Director General, sign a Memorandum of Understanding at the ITU Headquarters.(Photo ITU) On 10 May CERN and the International telecommunication union (ITU) signed a framework agreement that is intended to strengthen the collaboration between the two organizations on scientific and technological issues. The agreement will facilitate the setting-up and implementation of joint initiatives of mutual interest, which in the near future are expected to concern the following fields: citizen cyberscience; extension of broadband communication systems to developing countries; training in digital libraries in these countries, as well as cybersecurity.

  20. Mutualism, hybrid inviability and speciation in a tropical ant-plant.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Léotard, G; Saltmarsh, A; Kjellberg, F; McKey, D

    2008-07-01

    Although biotic interactions are particularly intricate in the tropics, few studies have examined whether divergent adaptations to biotic interactions lead to speciation in tropical organisms. Ant-plant mutualisms are widespread in the tropics. Within Leonardoxa africana, two subspecies present contrasting defences against herbivores. Young leaves of subsp. africana are defended by mutualistic ants, whereas subsp. gracilicaulis satiates herbivores by synchronized leaf production. Subsp. africana possesses hollow internodes and many large foliar nectaries, housing and feeding ants. We detected no genetic introgression between the two subspecies in the contact zone between them. F1 hybrids were present. They were intermediate in phenotype, expressing reduced, nonfunctional but costly myrmecophilic traits. However, they suffered more herbivory than their parents. Hybrids remained small, failing to reach reproductive size, probably due to their maladapted defence phenotype. Hence, there could be a direct link between adaptation to mutualism and reproductive isolation: biotic interactions could be a driver of tropical diversity.

  1. Semantic Representation of Mutual-Consent Divorce

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    مهری سادات موسوی

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available This article discussed mutual-consent divorce in the context of thoughts and attitude of female applicants of this type of divorce with an inductive qualitative and ethnographic method. Based on the qualitative purposive sampling, 30 women of those who had referred for divorce to family court of Karaj, were selected and deeply interviewed. The results obtained in six major categories as follows: Rethinking the role of men as families’ breadwinners, inappropriate sexual relationships, emotional conflicts, cultural- social dissensions, normative pressures of family and relatives, and personality and behavioral disorders. The core-oriented category of this study is "Women's attitude towards mutual-consent divorce" that includes other major categories and can semantically alter and redirect women’s opinion about mutual-consent divorce. According to the results, the term of mutual-consent is thought-provoking in this type of divorce; because considering the situations which were leaded to mutual-consent divorce and quantifying them revealed that nearly 32% of mutual-consent divorces were not mutual in fact; since, these women accepted divorce with desperation, coercion and threat.

  2. CFE-DOE agreement for the study of Mexican geothermal fields

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Le Bert, G.

    1990-01-01

    The Commission Federal de Electricidad (CFE) is the public utility in Mexico in charge of electric energy service, as well as harnessing geothermal resources. An agreement of mutual benefit to achieve a thorough understanding of the nature of geothermal reservoirs was signed on April 17, 1986 with the United State Department of Energy (DOE). The major objective of this agreement was to investigate how geothermal resources can best be explored and exploited. The duration of the agreement was for 3 years, but as happens in many long-term research programs, new topics and problems appear. Thus an extension of 5 years was foreseen. A brief discussion on the results of the main tasks is presented in this paper, as well as of the new tasks and scopes for the 5-year extension of the agreement

  3. Harmonization versus Mutual Recognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, Jan Guldager; Schröder, Philipp

    The present paper examines trade liberalization driven by the coordination of product standards. For oligopolistic firms situated in separate markets that are initially sheltered by national standards, mutual recognition of standards implies entry and reduced profits at home paired with the oppor......The present paper examines trade liberalization driven by the coordination of product standards. For oligopolistic firms situated in separate markets that are initially sheltered by national standards, mutual recognition of standards implies entry and reduced profits at home paired...... countries and three firms, where firms first lobby for the policy coordination regime (harmonization versus mutual recognition), and subsequently, in case of harmonization, the global standard is auctioned among the firms. We discuss welfare effects and conclude with policy implications. In particular......, harmonized standards may fail to harvest the full pro-competitive effects from trade liberalization compared to mutual recognition; moreover, the issue is most pronounced in markets featuring price competition....

  4. Maximum mutual information regularized classification

    KAUST Repository

    Wang, Jim Jing-Yan

    2014-09-07

    In this paper, a novel pattern classification approach is proposed by regularizing the classifier learning to maximize mutual information between the classification response and the true class label. We argue that, with the learned classifier, the uncertainty of the true class label of a data sample should be reduced by knowing its classification response as much as possible. The reduced uncertainty is measured by the mutual information between the classification response and the true class label. To this end, when learning a linear classifier, we propose to maximize the mutual information between classification responses and true class labels of training samples, besides minimizing the classification error and reducing the classifier complexity. An objective function is constructed by modeling mutual information with entropy estimation, and it is optimized by a gradient descend method in an iterative algorithm. Experiments on two real world pattern classification problems show the significant improvements achieved by maximum mutual information regularization.

  5. Maximum mutual information regularized classification

    KAUST Repository

    Wang, Jim Jing-Yan; Wang, Yi; Zhao, Shiguang; Gao, Xin

    2014-01-01

    In this paper, a novel pattern classification approach is proposed by regularizing the classifier learning to maximize mutual information between the classification response and the true class label. We argue that, with the learned classifier, the uncertainty of the true class label of a data sample should be reduced by knowing its classification response as much as possible. The reduced uncertainty is measured by the mutual information between the classification response and the true class label. To this end, when learning a linear classifier, we propose to maximize the mutual information between classification responses and true class labels of training samples, besides minimizing the classification error and reducing the classifier complexity. An objective function is constructed by modeling mutual information with entropy estimation, and it is optimized by a gradient descend method in an iterative algorithm. Experiments on two real world pattern classification problems show the significant improvements achieved by maximum mutual information regularization.

  6. The Analysis of Mutual Fund Performance: Evidence from U.S. Equity Mutual Funds

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    D.P. Budiono (Diana)

    2010-01-01

    textabstractWe study the mutual fund performance for about 45 years. There are several key points that we can withdraw from this dissertation. First, to study the persistence of mutual fund performance, it is important to consider time-varying exposures because when they are ignored, the persistence

  7. Apology and forgiveness evolve to resolve failures in cooperative agreements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martinez-Vaquero, Luis A; Han, The Anh; Pereira, Luís Moniz; Lenaerts, Tom

    2015-06-09

    Making agreements on how to behave has been shown to be an evolutionarily viable strategy in one-shot social dilemmas. However, in many situations agreements aim to establish long-term mutually beneficial interactions. Our analytical and numerical results reveal for the first time under which conditions revenge, apology and forgiveness can evolve and deal with mistakes within ongoing agreements in the context of the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma. We show that, when the agreement fails, participants prefer to take revenge by defecting in the subsisting encounters. Incorporating costly apology and forgiveness reveals that, even when mistakes are frequent, there exists a sincerity threshold for which mistakes will not lead to the destruction of the agreement, inducing even higher levels of cooperation. In short, even when to err is human, revenge, apology and forgiveness are evolutionarily viable strategies which play an important role in inducing cooperation in repeated dilemmas.

  8. Mutuality in the provision of Scottish healthcare.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howieson, Brian

    2015-11-01

    The backdrop to this article is provided by the Better Health, Better Care Action Plan (Scottish Government, 2007), Section 1 of which is entitled 'Towards a Mutual NHS'. According to Better Health, Better Care (Scottish Government, 2007: 5): 'Mutual organisations are designed to serve their members. They are designed to gather people around a common sense of purpose. They are designed to bring the organisation together in what people often call "co-production."' The aim of this article is to précis the current knowledge of mutuality in the provision of Scottish healthcare. In detail, it will: introduce the 'mutual' organisation; offer a historical perspective of mutuality; suggest why healthcare mutuality is important; and briefly, detail the differences in mutual health-care policy in England and Scotland. It is hoped that this analysis will help researchers and practitioners alike appreciate further the philosophy of mutuality in the provision of Scottish healthcare. © The Author(s) 2015.

  9. The evolution of plant-insect mutualisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bronstein, Judith L; Alarcón, Ruben; Geber, Monica

    2006-01-01

    Mutualisms (cooperative interactions between species) have had a central role in the generation and maintenance of life on earth. Insects and plants are involved in diverse forms of mutualism. Here we review evolutionary features of three prominent insect-plant mutualisms: pollination, protection and seed dispersal. We focus on addressing five central phenomena: evolutionary origins and maintenance of mutualism; the evolution of mutualistic traits; the evolution of specialization and generalization; coevolutionary processes; and the existence of cheating. Several features uniting very diverse insect-plant mutualisms are identified and their evolutionary implications are discussed: the involvement of one mobile and one sedentary partner; natural selection on plant rewards; the existence of a continuum from specialization to generalization; and the ubiquity of cheating, particularly on the part of insects. Plant-insect mutualisms have apparently both arisen and been lost repeatedly. Many adaptive hypotheses have been proposed to explain these transitions, and it is unlikely that any one of them dominates across interactions differing so widely in natural history. Evolutionary theory has a potentially important, but as yet largely unfilled, role to play in explaining the origins, maintenance, breakdown and evolution of insect-plant mutualisms.

  10. Implementation of mutual exclusion in VHDL

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Boersma, M.V.; Benders, L.P.M.; Stevens, M.P.J.; Wilsey, P.A.; Rhodes, D.

    1994-01-01

    In VHDL it is difficult to implement mutual exclusion at an abstract level since atomic actions are required. A local status model and an arbiter model are presented to achieve mutual exclusion in VHDL. Shared data, protected by a mutual exclusion mechanism, cannot be modelled as a simple, resolved

  11. Rating mutual funds

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bechmann, Ken L.; Rangvid, Jesper

    2007-01-01

    We develop a new rating of mutual funds: the atpRating. The atpRating assigns crowns to each individual mutual fund based upon the costs an investor pays when investing in the fund in relation to what it would cost to invest in the fund's peers. Within each investment category, the rating assigns...... the return of a fund in a certain year generally contains only little information about the future return that the fund will generate. Finally, we have information on the investments in different mutual funds made by a small subgroup of investors known to have been exposed to both the atp...... five crowns to funds with the lowest costs and one crown to funds with the highest costs. We investigate the ability of the atpRating to predict the future performance of a fund. We find that an investor who has invested in the funds with the lowest costs within an investment category would have...

  12. Rating Mutual Funds

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bechmann, Ken L.; Rangvid, Jesper

    We develop a new rating of mutual funds: the atpRating. The atpRating assigns crowns to each individual mutual fund based upon the costs an investor pays when investing in the fund in relation to what it would cost to invest in the fund’s peers. Within each investment category, the rating assigns......, whereas the return of a fund in a certain year generally contains only little information about the future return that the fund will generate. Finally, we have information on the investments in different mutual funds made by a small subgroup of investors known to have been exposed to both the atp...... five crowns to funds with the lowest costs and one crown to funds with the highest costs. We investigate the ability of the atpRating to predict the future performance of a fund. We find that an investor who has invested in the funds with the lowest costs within an investment category would have...

  13. Cryptanalysis and Enhancement of Anonymity Preserving Remote User Mutual Authentication and Session Key Agreement Scheme for E-Health Care Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amin, Ruhul; Islam, S K Hafizul; Biswas, G P; Khan, Muhammad Khurram; Li, Xiong

    2015-11-01

    The E-health care systems employ IT infrastructure for maximizing health care resources utilization as well as providing flexible opportunities to the remote patient. Therefore, transmission of medical data over any public networks is necessary in health care system. Note that patient authentication including secure data transmission in e-health care system is critical issue. Although several user authentication schemes for accessing remote services are available, their security analysis show that none of them are free from relevant security attacks. We reviewed Das et al.'s scheme and demonstrated their scheme lacks proper protection against several security attacks such as user anonymity, off-line password guessing attack, smart card theft attack, user impersonation attack, server impersonation attack, session key discloser attack. In order to overcome the mentioned security pitfalls, this paper proposes an anonymity preserving remote patient authentication scheme usable in E-health care systems. We then validated the security of the proposed scheme using BAN logic that ensures secure mutual authentication and session key agreement. We also presented the experimental results of the proposed scheme using AVISPA software and the results ensure that our scheme is secure under OFMC and CL-AtSe models. Moreover, resilience of relevant security attacks has been proved through both formal and informal security analysis. The performance analysis and comparison with other schemes are also made, and it has been found that the proposed scheme overcomes the security drawbacks of the Das et al.'s scheme and additionally achieves extra security requirements.

  14. [Maintaining solidarity: is mutuality the solution?].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gevers, J K M; Ploem, M C

    2013-01-01

    Solidarity is essentially the willingness to contribute to the community and its demands, which may even involve contributing more than one is expecting to receive. Another principle is mutuality: this refers to a balance between rights and obligations or between mutual obligations. In its advisory document 'The importance of mutuality......solidarity takes work!', The Dutch Council for Public Health and Health Care underlines the importance of ensuring solidarity within the Dutch health care system, e.g. by encouraging patients to take responsibility for their own health, possibly by introducing elements of mutuality. In our contribution, we comment on the Council's advice. Although we fully agree with the overall conclusion that solidarity should be maintained within the system, we do not see how the introduction of increased mutuality will contribute to this goal.

  15. Which approach should Europe adopt to reach an international agreement?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Michel, Laurent; Durande, Maxime

    2015-01-01

    The goal of international negotiations on the climate should be an agreement that, applying to everyone, both addresses the issues of attenuation and adaptation, and focuses on the means for implementing a worldwide transition toward low-carbon economies. The European Union's position during negotiations has been laid down in the conclusions adopted by all member states of the Council of Europe. During bargaining sessions, meetings will be organized to coordinate EU member states' actions so that Europe speaks with a single voice. In this respect, the EU approach does not differ from France's. In effect, coordination between ministerial departments in France is ensured by the Secretariat General des Affaires Europeennes (SGAE), the secretary-general being the councilor on Europe to the President of the Republic

  16. Entanglement in mutually unbiased bases

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wiesniak, M; Zeilinger, A [Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology (VCQ), Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Vienna (Austria); Paterek, T, E-mail: tomasz.paterek@nus.edu.sg [Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, 117543 Singapore (Singapore)

    2011-05-15

    One of the essential features of quantum mechanics is that most pairs of observables cannot be measured simultaneously. This phenomenon manifests itself most strongly when observables are related to mutually unbiased bases. In this paper, we shed some light on the connection between mutually unbiased bases and another essential feature of quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement. It is shown that a complete set of mutually unbiased bases of a bipartite system contains a fixed amount of entanglement, independent of the choice of the set. This has implications for entanglement distribution among the states of a complete set. In prime-squared dimensions we present an explicit experiment-friendly construction of a complete set with a particularly simple entanglement distribution. Finally, we describe the basic properties of mutually unbiased bases composed of product states only. The constructions are illustrated with explicit examples in low dimensions. We believe that the properties of entanglement in mutually unbiased bases may be one of the ingredients to be taken into account to settle the question of the existence of complete sets. We also expect that they will be relevant to applications of bases in the experimental realization of quantum protocols in higher-dimensional Hilbert spaces.

  17. Empirical study on mutual fund objective classification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jin, Xue-jun; Yang, Xiao-lan

    2004-05-01

    Mutual funds are usually classified on the basis of their objectives. If the activities of mutual funds are consistent with their stated objectives, investors may look at the latter as signals of their risks and incomes. This work analyzes mutual fund objective classification in China by statistical methods of distance analysis and discriminant analysis; and examines whether the stated investment objectives of mutual funds adequately represent their attributes to investors. That is, if mutual funds adhere to their stated objectives, attributes must be heterogeneous between investment objective groups and homogeneous within them. Our conclusion is to some degree, the group of optimized exponential funds is heterogeneous to other groups. As a whole, there exist no significant differences between different objective groups; and 50% of mutual funds are not consistent with their objective groups.

  18. Economic contract theory tests models of mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weyl, E Glen; Frederickson, Megan E; Yu, Douglas W; Pierce, Naomi E

    2010-09-07

    Although mutualisms are common in all ecological communities and have played key roles in the diversification of life, our current understanding of the evolution of cooperation applies mostly to social behavior within a species. A central question is whether mutualisms persist because hosts have evolved costly punishment of cheaters. Here, we use the economic theory of employment contracts to formulate and distinguish between two mechanisms that have been proposed to prevent cheating in host-symbiont mutualisms, partner fidelity feedback (PFF) and host sanctions (HS). Under PFF, positive feedback between host fitness and symbiont fitness is sufficient to prevent cheating; in contrast, HS posits the necessity of costly punishment to maintain mutualism. A coevolutionary model of mutualism finds that HS are unlikely to evolve de novo, and published data on legume-rhizobia and yucca-moth mutualisms are consistent with PFF and not with HS. Thus, in systems considered to be textbook cases of HS, we find poor support for the theory that hosts have evolved to punish cheating symbionts; instead, we show that even horizontally transmitted mutualisms can be stabilized via PFF. PFF theory may place previously underappreciated constraints on the evolution of mutualism and explain why punishment is far from ubiquitous in nature.

  19. Mutual funds: temporary problem or permanent morass?

    OpenAIRE

    Paula A. Tkac

    2004-01-01

    The improprieties in the mutual fund industry that surfaced in the fall of 2003 prompted the passage and drafting of legislation and regulations that cover nearly every facet of mutual fund pricing and operations. While this regulatory flurry is clearly intended to protect shareholders’ interests, the question remains: How will these scandals and regulatory changes ultimately affect mutual fund investors? ; When considering the problems inherent in mutual fund management and the best ways to ...

  20. Comparison of investment opportunities in mutual funds

    OpenAIRE

    NOVÁKOVÁ, Petra

    2012-01-01

    This thesis deals with the comparison of selected mutual funds in the Czech Republic. The main aim of this thesis is to evaluate the situation on the securities market of mutual funds and help to the investor with right choice of mutual fund. Work is initially devoted to the characteristics and history of collective investment. The following section describes mutual funds their characteristics, classification, creation and termination. Conclusion of the theoretical part is devoted to investme...

  1. Sino-U.S. Strategic Mutual Trust

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Yuan Peng; Zhang Yimeng

    2008-01-01

    Relations between China and the U.S. have been relatively stable for nearly seven years, for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Strategic mutual trust, however, is not enough and there is a long way to go before both countries can achieve a permanent strategic stability. Four problems have prevented stability in bilateral relations, namely structural, internal, accidental, and cognitive issues. The goal of building strategic mutual trust still remains distant, and developing a good understanding between each other is the thorniest problem for both countries. Better mutual understanding can lead to an expansion of bilateral relations. China and the U.S. need to increase mutual trust and work towards achieving strategic stability.

  2. Regional cooperation based on multilateral international agreements in nuclear field

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Valcic, I.

    1996-01-01

    Multilateral international agreements have defined the framework of behavior and cooperation in various fields and aspects of peaceful use of nuclear energy. Thus, obligations have been defined in the following areas: nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, physical protection of nuclear material, liability for nuclear damage, nuclear safety, early notification about a nuclear accident and assistance in case of nuclear accident. Obligations regarding radioactive waste management should be defined soon. This paper gives a review of obligations from particular agreements with a special emphasis on those which are being realized through mutual cooperation of concerned countries and are important for safe use of nuclear energy. (author)

  3. Performance Evaluation of Equity Mutual Funds in Indonesia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irene Rini Demi Pangestuti

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Mutual funds considered as an investment alternative for investors. One type of mutual fund that attracts many investors was the equity mutual funds. Equity mutual fund is a type of mutual funds that most part of the investment consists of stocks in the capital market so the risk rate was higher than the other types of mutual funds. For its different characteristic, the measurement for equity funds performance did not be same with other types of mutual funds. As a stock portfolio, equity mutual funds can be measured by portfolio measurement methods such as Sharpe Index, Treynor Ratio, Jensen Index, Adjusted Sharpe Index, Adjusted Jensen Index, and Sortino Ratio. This study was conducted by using all of those performance measurements as most research in Indonesia was conducted by using limited performance measurements (focusing on Sharpe Index, Treynor Ratio, and Jensen Index. This study aims to evaluated the performance of 42 equity mutual funds available in Indonesia by employing Sharpe Index, Treynor Ratio, Jensen Index, Adjusted Sharpe Index (ASI, Adjusted Jensen Index (AJI, and Sortino Ratio because most previous researches in Indonesian setting disregards ASI and AJI. In general, it was concluded that the SAM Indonesian Equity was the best performing equity fund during the study period. It was further found that most equity mutual fund studied have been well diversified.

  4. Explaining mutualism variation: a new evolutionary paradox?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heath, Katy D; Stinchcombe, John R

    2014-02-01

    The paradox of mutualism is typically framed as the persistence of interspecific cooperation, despite the potential advantages of cheating. Thus, mutualism research has tended to focus on stabilizing mechanisms that prevent the invasion of low-quality partners. These mechanisms alone cannot explain the persistence of variation for partner quality observed in nature, leaving a large gap in our understanding of how mutualisms evolve. Studying partner quality variation is necessary for applying genetically explicit models to predict evolution in natural populations, a necessary step for understanding the origins of mutualisms as well as their ongoing dynamics. An evolutionary genetic approach, which is focused on naturally occurring mutualist variation, can potentially synthesize the currently disconnected fields of mutualism evolution and coevolutionary genetics. We outline explanations for the maintenance of genetic variation for mutualism and suggest approaches necessary to address them. © 2013 The Author(s). Evolution © 2013 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

  5. Agreement Between Michigan State University and Lodge 141, Fraternal Order of Police, Michigan State University Division, July 1, 1974.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michigan State Univ., East Lansing.

    This agreement, entered into July 1, 1974, is between the Board of Trustees of Michigan State University and Lodge 141 of the Fraternal Order of Police, Michigan State University Division. It is the intent and purpose of this agreement to assure sound and mutually beneficial working and economic relationships between the parties, to provide an…

  6. 12 CFR 563.74 - Mutual capital certificates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... the funds for redemption are raised by the issuance of mutual capital certificates approved pursuant... 12 Banks and Banking 5 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Mutual capital certificates. 563.74 Section 563...-OPERATIONS Securities and Borrowings § 563.74 Mutual capital certificates. (a) General. No savings...

  7. Asset Allocation of Mutual Fund Investors

    OpenAIRE

    Dengpan Luo

    2003-01-01

    This paper studies mutual fund investors' asset allocation decisions using monthly flow data of U.S mutual fund industry from 1984 to 1998. We find that mutual fund investors change their asset allocations between stocks and bonds in reaction to business conditions tracked by changes in expected stock market returns. They tend to allocate less into stock funds during the trough of a business cycle when expected stock market returns are higher and to allocate more into stock funds during the p...

  8. An Anonymous Mutual Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme for Wearable Sensors in Wireless Body Area Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chien-Ming Chen

    2018-07-01

    Full Text Available The advancement of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN have led to significant progress in medical and health care systems. However, such networks still suffer from major security and privacy threats, especially for the data collected in medical or health care applications. Lack of security and existence of anonymous communication in WBAN brings about the operation failure of these networks. Recently, Li et al. proposed a lightweight protocol for wearable sensors in wireless body area networks. In their paper, the authors claimed that the protocol may provide anonymous mutual authentication and resist against various types of attacks. This study shows that such a protocol is still vulnerable to three types of attacks, i.e., the offline identity guessing attack, the sensor node impersonation attack and the hub node spoofing attack. We then present a secure scheme that addresses these problems, and retains similar efficiency in wireless sensors nodes and mobile phones.

  9. Mutual benefits in academic-service partnership: An integrative review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadeghnezhad, Maliheh; Heshmati Nabavi, Fatemeh; Najafi, Fereshteh; Kareshki, Hossein; Esmaily, Habibollah

    2018-05-30

    Academic and service institutions involve with many challenges. Partnership programs are a golden opportunity to achieve mutual benefits to overcome these challenges. Identifying mutual benefits is the cornerstone of forming a successful partnership and guarantee to its continuity. There are definitions and instances of mutual benefits in the literature related to partnership programs, but there is no coherent evidence and clear picture of these benefits. This study is conducted to identify mutual benefits in academic-service partnership by analyzing the definitions and instances of it in the literature. An integrative review of key papers regarding mutual benefits in academic-service partnership was undertaken. This review was guided by the framework described by Whittemore and Knafl. Search of the following databases was conducted: MEDLINE, ERIC, Google Scholar, Emerald Insight and Science Direct. The search terms were mutual benefits, mutual gains, mutual interest, mutual expectations, mutual goals, mutual demand, partnership, collaboration, academic-service partnership and academic service collaboration. Cooper's five-stage integrative review method was used. Quality evaluation of articles was conducted. Data were abstracted from included articles. The analysis was conducted based on the qualitative content analysis of the literature suggested by Zhang and Wildemuth. 28 articles were included in this review. Mutual benefits are described in four categories include: synergy in training and empowerment of human resources, education improvement, access to shared resources, facilitate production and application of beneficial knowledge into practice. Mutual benefits in the academic-service partnership include a range of goals, interests, expectations, and needs of partner organizations that is achievable and measurable through joint planning and collaboration. We suggest academic and service policymakers to consider these benefits in the planning and evaluating

  10. Danish mutual fund performance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, Michael

    2013-01-01

    This article provides the first independent performance analysis of Danish mutual funds. We analyse selectivity and market timing abilities for 71 mutual funds that have been in operation from 2001 to 2010. The results show great fund performance diversity. Half the funds have performed neutrally......, whereas 42% of the funds have shown significantly negative performance and only 7% of the funds have over-performed their benchmark. Furthermore, 14% of the funds analysed possess market timing abilities, but for 8 out of 10 funds, their market timing ability has been unsuccessful....

  11. Trading Cost Management of Mutual Funds

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    R. Xing (Rang)

    2016-01-01

    textabstractThis paper documents the trading behaviour of actively managed equity mutual funds from the perspective of their trading cost management. Consistent with the predictions in the literature of portfolio choice with trading costs, I present three main findings. Firstly, mutual funds trade

  12. THE PERFORMANCE OF MUTUAL FUNDS IN SLOVAKIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    F. Tudorache

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available A good indicator for the financial markets performance in different countries is the evolution of mutual funds in terms of their inflows and outflows. The goal of the present paper is to analyse the performance of the mutual funds in Slovakia. The research objectives are twofold: to study the flows of funds into and out of mutual funds from Slovakia during the period 2007-2014 and to analyse how investors in Slovakian mutual funds behave in terms of their investment choice. The analysis focuses on identifying patterns in investors' decision making process and on examining the similarity of their behavioural patterns with the ones identi¬fied at international level.

  13. Longitudinal analysis of mutual fund performance

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ter Horst, J.R.

    1998-01-01

    Many different motivations for investing in mutual funds have been provided in the literature, including the claim that managers of mutual funds have special abilities that can be used to outperform the market. Testing of the validity of these claims is complicated by two facts. First, the expected

  14. Mutual Fund Flight-to-Liquidity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rzeznik, Aleksandra

    This paper examines the liquidity choices of mutual funds during times of market uncertainty. I find that when markets are uncertain, mutual funds actively increase the liquidity of their portfolio – often referred to as a ‘flight-to-liquidity.’ In aggregate, mutual fund behaviour has implications...... for the market; the market driven flight-toliquidity places upward pressure on the liquidity premium. I examine the underlying mechanisms driving fund behaviour. I show that market volatility is associated with lower fund performance and withdrawals, which causes funds to adjust the composition...... of their portfolio towards more liquid assets in order to meet potential redemptions. This causal chain is consistent with Vayanos (2004), who argues that fund managers are investors with time-varying liquidity preferences due to threat of withdrawal. Aggregated over funds, the effect is substantial: a one standard...

  15. Mutual Fund Flight-to-Liquidity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rzeznik, Aleksandra

    This paper examines the liquidity choices of mutual funds during times of market uncertainty. I find that when markets are uncertain, mutual funds actively increase the liquidity of their portfolio { often referred to as a `flight-to-liquidity.' In aggregate, mutual fund behaviour has implications...... for the market; the market driven flight-toliquidity places upward pressure on the liquidity premium. I examine the underlying mechanisms driving fund behaviour. I show that market volatility is associated with lower fund performance and withdrawals, which causes funds to adjust the composition...... of their portfolio towards more liquid assets in order to meet potential redemptions. This causal chain is consistent with Vayanos (2004), who argues that fund managers are investors with time-varying liquidity preferences due to threat of withdrawal. Aggregated over funds, the effect is substantial: a one standard...

  16. Revisiting Mutual Fund Performance Evaluation

    OpenAIRE

    Angelidis, Timotheos; Giamouridis, Daniel; Tessaromatis, Nikolaos

    2012-01-01

    Mutual fund manager excess performance should be measured relative to their self-reported benchmark rather than the return of a passive portfolio with the same risk characteristics. Ignoring the self-reported benchmark introduces biases in the measurement of stock selection and timing components of excess performance. We revisit baseline empirical evidence in mutual fund performance evaluation utilizing stock selection and timing measures that address these biases. We introduce a new factor e...

  17. The Paris Agreement to Ignore Reality

    OpenAIRE

    Spash, Clive L.

    2016-01-01

    At the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Paris, France, 30 November to 11 December 2015, an Agreement was reached by the international community including 195 countries. The Agreement has been hailed, by participants and the media, as a major turning point for policy in the struggle to address human induced climate change. The following is a short critical commentary in which I briefly explain why ...

  18. Agreement between Portugal and Spain on cooperation with regard to the safety of nuclear installations in border areas

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1980-01-01

    This Agreement provides for exchange of information on nuclear safety and radiation protection in nuclear installations likely to affect mutually the territories of Portugal and Spain. The Agreement defines the type of nuclear installation concerned, the border areas and the respective competent authorities. The competent authorities of both Parties undertake to establish in their respective territories, the systems required to detect any radiation emergency and to inform each other in cases where such emergency may affect them. The Agreement was concluded for a period of the years as from its entry into force. (NEA) [fr

  19. MUTUAL CONCESSIONS - SPECIFIC ELEMENT OF THE COMPROMISE/TRANSACTION CONTRACT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Georgeta-Bianca Spîrchez

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Given the usefulness and practical importance of the compromise contract conclusion and of the amicably dispute resolution, within the business world, we aim to analyze, in what follows, the concrete means by which these kind of settlement are achieved. Two questions become legitimate in the context of concerns about mutual concessions which the parties make in a compromise contract. These questions are the following: “What are the mutual concessions? Do mutual concessions mean equivalent concessions?” and “How mutual concessions are required to complete a valid settlement? Is the requirement of mutual concessions grounded?”

  20. Mutual couling reduction using a lumped LC circuit

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thaysen, Jesper; Jakobsen, Kaj Bjarne

    2004-01-01

    A technique to reduce the mutual coupling between two Planar Inverted F Antennas (PIFA) is presented in this paper. By the use of a parallel LC circuit it is possible to reduce the mutual coupling between two antennas. This results in a 16 % improvement in the radiation efficiency.......A technique to reduce the mutual coupling between two Planar Inverted F Antennas (PIFA) is presented in this paper. By the use of a parallel LC circuit it is possible to reduce the mutual coupling between two antennas. This results in a 16 % improvement in the radiation efficiency....

  1. Elections to the Mutual Aid Fund

    CERN Document Server

    2016-01-01

    Every two years, according to Article 6 of the Regulations of the Mutual Aid Fund, the Committee of the Mutual Aid Fund must renew one third of its membership. This year three members are outgoing. Of these three, two will stand again and one will not.   Candidates should be ready to give approximately two hours a month during working time to the Fund whose aim is to assist colleagues in financial difficulties. We invite applications from CERN Staff who wish to stand for election as a member of the CERN Mutual Aid Fund to send in their application before 17 June 2016, by email to the Fund’s President, Connie Potter (connie.potter@cern.ch).

  2. Mutuality

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Arnould, E. J.; Rose, A. S.

    2016-01-01

    and epistemological grounds and reproduces an array of problematic modernist dichotomies (e.g., agency/structure, nurturing family/instrumental public, gift/market, and altruism/self-interest) that significantly constrain the analytical enterprise. This work redresses some of the conceptual problems in the current...... formulation. The critique highlights a focus on resource distribution based on a more holistic, socially grounded perspective on circulation. We offer the alternative concept of mutuality or generalized exchange and the metaphor of inclusion rather than exchange as central to this perspective. We argue...

  3. PERFORMANCE OF SELECT MUTUAL FUNDS IN INDIA

    OpenAIRE

    Manoj Kumar Dash*

    2018-01-01

    Mutual funds is one of the major instruments for wealth creation and wealth saving in the current years. It is a financial instrument which gives positive result and satisfactory return to its investors. The mutual industries in have undergone a most successful phase in the last 15 years. The AUM has shown tremendous growth since inception from Rs. 25 crore in 1965 to Rs. 22,36,717 crore in December 2017. But this tremendous growth in the mutual fund industries in India is still lacking for b...

  4. Implementation of state - federal agreements: observations and suggestions from New Mexico

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Canepa, J.F.

    1985-01-01

    State - federal agreements have been authorized by Congress under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (the Act). The process for reaching such agreements as well as their content have been modeled after the State of New Mexico's experience with its lawsuit and resulting Agreement for Consultation and Cooperation with the United States Department of Energy (DOE) over the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP). New Mexico has been through the entire process, beginning with litigation and ending with a formal, written agreement with the federal government which addresses all aspects of a major nuclear waste repository within its borders. The process for reaching and implementing such agreements is not unlike the process for negotiating a treaty between countries. States entering into negotiations for such agreements should be aware of several important considerations which New Mexico learned the hard way. Avoiding the pitfalls inherent in this process is the key to producing a meaningful, working and enforceable document that protects the state's interests and affords a state continuing control over a long-term nuclear waste project within the state

  5. Ombuds’ corner: Consider mediation - some rules

    CERN Multimedia

    Vincent Vuillemin

    2013-01-01

    Mediation is a structured process in which an external party, called a mediator, helps participants generate and evaluate options that would allow them to reach a mutual agreement. It is an informal and confidential process.   The mediator does not have the power to impose an agreement on the parties, who should find it by themselves. However, the mediator controls the process. He arranges the meetings in agreement with the parties, and coordinates the details (concerning the speaking times, for example) and ensures that the parties respect of the rules which have been agreed on. He also favours advancing of the process towards a solution. The mediation process is centred on the search for a solution and a mutual agreement. In such a process, the mediator takes a neutral and impartial position, and does not advocate for a single party. He favours good communication between the parties, and will ensure that mutual respect is maintained and that the correct language is used during the discussi...

  6. Mudaraba-Venture Capital Closed-end Mutual Funds and Mudaraba-Venture Capital Open-end Mutual Funds

    OpenAIRE

    Halil Ibrahim Bulut

    2008-01-01

    The important part of this study attempts to explain that both venture capital and interest-free financing are based on similar ground, if not the same. Two new models called Mudaraba-Venture Capital Closed-End Mutual Funds and Mudaraba-Venture Capital Open-End Mutual Funds, based on both the similarities and the needs of financial innovation in the interest-free financing system, are detailed. It is believed that the development of these two models could make some improvements not only in th...

  7. A multiscale approach to mutual information matching

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pluim, J.P.W.; Maintz, J.B.A.; Viergever, M.A.; Hanson, K.M.

    1998-01-01

    Methods based on mutual information have shown promising results for matching of multimodal brain images. This paper discusses a multiscale approach to mutual information matching, aiming for an acceleration of the matching process while considering the accuracy and robustness of the method. Scaling

  8. Reducing Deviance Through Youths' Mutual Aid Group Dynamics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheung, Chau-kiu; Ngai, Steven Sek-yum

    2016-01-01

    The mutual aid group, as supported by the social worker, emerges to play a vital role in helping group members reduce their deviance or behavioral problem. However, how the collaboration of the group and social worker accomplishes the reduction has remained uncharted. Based on social capital theory, mutual aid and cohesion within the group and social workers' specific aid for the group are likely responsible for the reduction. The test of such hypotheses relies on a two-wave panel survey of the members of 60 mutual aid groups who had deviant behavioral problems, located in Hong Kong, China. These groups had 241 youths completing both initial and 1-year follow-up surveys. Results manifested the direct or unconditional contributions of mutual aid, group cohesion, and social workers' specific aid to reducing deviance. Hence, social workers can enhance the effectiveness of the mutual aid group in reducing youths' deviance. © The Author(s) 2014.

  9. Benefit and cost curves for typical pollination mutualisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morris, William F; Vázquez, Diego P; Chacoff, Natacha P

    2010-05-01

    Mutualisms provide benefits to interacting species, but they also involve costs. If costs come to exceed benefits as population density or the frequency of encounters between species increases, the interaction will no longer be mutualistic. Thus curves that represent benefits and costs as functions of interaction frequency are important tools for predicting when a mutualism will tip over into antagonism. Currently, most of what we know about benefit and cost curves in pollination mutualisms comes from highly specialized pollinating seed-consumer mutualisms, such as the yucca moth-yucca interaction. There, benefits to female reproduction saturate as the number of visits to a flower increases (because the amount of pollen needed to fertilize all the flower's ovules is finite), but costs continue to increase (because pollinator offspring consume developing seeds), leading to a peak in seed production at an intermediate number of visits. But for most plant-pollinator mutualisms, costs to the plant are more subtle than consumption of seeds, and how such costs scale with interaction frequency remains largely unknown. Here, we present reasonable benefit and cost curves that are appropriate for typical pollinator-plant interactions, and we show how they can result in a wide diversity of relationships between net benefit (benefit minus cost) and interaction frequency. We then use maximum-likelihood methods to fit net-benefit curves to measures of female reproductive success for three typical pollination mutualisms from two continents, and for each system we chose the most parsimonious model using information-criterion statistics. We discuss the implications of the shape of the net-benefit curve for the ecology and evolution of plant-pollinator mutualisms, as well as the challenges that lie ahead for disentangling the underlying benefit and cost curves for typical pollination mutualisms.

  10. Mutual funds : Management styles, social responsibility, performance and efficiency

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Barkó, Tamás; Renneboog, Luc; Baker, H.; Filbeck, G.; Kiymaz, H.

    2015-01-01

    The mutual fund industry represents a substantial part of global financial markets with approximately 20 percent invested in mutual funds. Mutual funds offer a simple and easy-to-understand way to invest either into stocks or fixed income products, both for retail and institutional investors. This

  11. Danish Mutual Fund Performance - Selectivity, Market Timing and Persistence

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, Michael

    Funds under management by Danish mutual funds have increased by 25% annually during the last 10 years and measured per capita Denmark has the third largest mutual fund industry in Europe. This paper provides the first independent performance analysis of Danish mutual funds. We analyse selectivity...

  12. Mutually unbiased bases and semi-definite programming

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brierley, Stephen; Weigert, Stefan, E-mail: steve.brierley@ulb.ac.be, E-mail: stefan.weigert@york.ac.uk

    2010-11-01

    A complex Hilbert space of dimension six supports at least three but not more than seven mutually unbiased bases. Two computer-aided analytical methods to tighten these bounds are reviewed, based on a discretization of parameter space and on Groebner bases. A third algorithmic approach is presented: the non-existence of more than three mutually unbiased bases in composite dimensions can be decided by a global optimization method known as semidefinite programming. The method is used to confirm that the spectral matrix cannot be part of a complete set of seven mutually unbiased bases in dimension six.

  13. Mutually unbiased bases and semi-definite programming

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brierley, Stephen; Weigert, Stefan

    2010-01-01

    A complex Hilbert space of dimension six supports at least three but not more than seven mutually unbiased bases. Two computer-aided analytical methods to tighten these bounds are reviewed, based on a discretization of parameter space and on Groebner bases. A third algorithmic approach is presented: the non-existence of more than three mutually unbiased bases in composite dimensions can be decided by a global optimization method known as semidefinite programming. The method is used to confirm that the spectral matrix cannot be part of a complete set of seven mutually unbiased bases in dimension six.

  14. Nanshan Aluminum Reached Strategic Cooperation with CSR Corporation Limited

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2015-01-01

    As a key supplier of aluminum profiles and aluminum plate,sheet and trip products for CSR Corporation Limited,Nanshan Aluminum will join hands with CSR Corporation Limited to reach strategic cooperation.On January 5,Nanshan Aluminum signed strategic cooperation agreement with CSR Sifang Locomotive&Rolling; Stock Co.,Ltd,both

  15. New Danish Company Act on Shareholders' Agreements

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Werlauff, Erik

    2011-01-01

    ) organizational rights, (2) financial rights, and (3) rights of disposal, or in plainer words, the corporate (1) power, (2) money, and (3) exit. If a shareholders’ agreement is thoroughly kept and respected by all parties, both in the way they vote at general assemblies and in the way they act when wishing....... The substantial elements in many agreements are clauses on (1) voting for board candidates, (2) voting for dividends of certain proportions, and (3) first refusal rights, respectively, call options for shares in the company. Such clauses are at the very roots of corporate law, dealing with the shareholders’ (1......Section 82 of the Danish Company Act, in force from 1 March 2010, provides that ‘Shareholders’ agreements are neither binding on the company nor on decisions taken by the general assembly’. This has far-reaching consequences for shareholders’ agreements, also for already existing agreements...

  16. (Mutual Security Mutual Affluence) Negative Factors = Sustained Stability: A Framework for Establishing Stability Between Like States

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-03-31

    160-163. 2 The Concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) dates back to the post-WWFI em and the Cold War where the United States and Soviet Unions...United States. Following its defeat in W\\VH, Japan was in shambles. The bombing campaigns left nine million Japanese homeless and three million more...the United States, the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in 2015, and the bombings in Istanbul in 2016. Michael Bamier, “From Mutual Assistance to

  17. Dynamics of a macroscopic model characterizing mutualism of search engines and web sites

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yuanshi; Wu, Hong

    2006-05-01

    We present a model to describe the mutualism relationship between search engines and web sites. In the model, search engines and web sites benefit from each other while the search engines are derived products of the web sites and cannot survive independently. Our goal is to show strategies for the search engines to survive in the internet market. From mathematical analysis of the model, we show that mutualism does not always result in survival. We show various conditions under which the search engines would tend to extinction, persist or grow explosively. Then by the conditions, we deduce a series of strategies for the search engines to survive in the internet market. We present conditions under which the initial number of consumers of the search engines has little contribution to their persistence, which is in agreement with the results in previous works. Furthermore, we show novel conditions under which the initial value plays an important role in the persistence of the search engines and deduce new strategies. We also give suggestions for the web sites to cooperate with the search engines in order to form a win-win situation.

  18. Generalized Mutual Synchronization between Two Controlled Interdependent Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Quan Xu

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper mainly focuses on the generalized mutual synchronization between two controlled interdependent networks. First, we propose the general model of controlled interdependent networks A and B with time-varying internetwork delays coupling. Then, by constructing Lyapunov functions and utilizing adaptive control technique, some sufficient conditions are established to ensure that the mutual synchronization errors between the state variables of networks A and B can asymptotically converge to zero. Finally, two numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results and to explore potential application in future smart grid. The simulation results also show how interdependent topologies and internetwork coupling delays influence the mutual synchronizability, which help to design interdependent networks with optimal mutual synchronizability.

  19. Mutual proximity graphs for improved reachability in music recommendation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flexer, Arthur; Stevens, Jeff

    2018-01-01

    This paper is concerned with the impact of hubness, a general problem of machine learning in high-dimensional spaces, on a real-world music recommendation system based on visualisation of a k-nearest neighbour (knn) graph. Due to a problem of measuring distances in high dimensions, hub objects are recommended over and over again while anti-hubs are nonexistent in recommendation lists, resulting in poor reachability of the music catalogue. We present mutual proximity graphs, which are an alternative to knn and mutual knn graphs, and are able to avoid hub vertices having abnormally high connectivity. We show that mutual proximity graphs yield much better graph connectivity resulting in improved reachability compared to knn graphs, mutual knn graphs and mutual knn graphs enhanced with minimum spanning trees, while simultaneously reducing the negative effects of hubness.

  20. 48 CFR 2052.216-73 - Accelerated task order procedures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... terms of the definitive task order and agrees to submit a cost proposal with supporting cost or pricing data. If agreement on a definitized task order is not reached by the target date mutually agreed upon...

  1. Variability of bed mobility in natural, gravel-bed channels and adjustments to sediment load at local and reach scales

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas E. Lisle; Jonathan M. Nelson; John Pitlick; Mary Ann Madej; Brent L. Barkett

    2000-01-01

    Abstract - Local variations in boundary shear stress acting on bed-surface particles control patterns of bed load transport and channel evolution during varying stream discharges. At the reach scale a channel adjusts to imposed water and sediment supply through mutual interactions among channel form, local grain size, and local flow dynamics that govern bed mobility...

  2. Downside Risk Timing by Mutual Funds

    OpenAIRE

    Bodnaruk, Andriy; Chokaev, Bekhan; Simonov, Andrei

    2015-01-01

    We study whether mutual funds systematically manage downside risk of their portfolios in ways that improve their performance. We find that actively managed mutual funds on average possess positive downside risk timing ability. Funds investing in large-cap and value stocks have stronger downside risk timing skills. Managers adjust funds’ downside risk exposure in response to macroeconomic information. The economic value of downside risk timing is comparable to that of market timing.

  3. Performance of Mutual Funds In INDIA: 2000 - 2006.

    OpenAIRE

    Kabra, Krishna

    2006-01-01

    Numerous scholarly researches have been carried out to evaluate the performance of mutual funds. These researches may differ in time period but most studies conclude that mutual funds on average have failed to outperform the market and therefore the efficient market hypothesis holds good. This research is carried out to evaluate the performance of 20 surviving diversified equity growth mutual funds for the period of 6 years from July 2000 to June 2006. The data of the fund is collected on Mon...

  4. Seasonal asset allocation: Evidence from mutual fund flows

    OpenAIRE

    Kamstra, Mark J.; Kramer, Lisa A.; Levi, Maurice D.; Wermers, Russ

    2013-01-01

    Over the past 30 years, mutual funds have become the dominant vehicle through which individual investors prepare for retirement via defined contribution plans. Further, money market mutual funds, which hold $2.7 trillion as of September 2013, are now a major part of the cash economy in the U.S. Accordingly, the flow of money to and from different mutual fund categories (e.g., equities vs. money funds) increasingly reflects the sentiment or risk aversion of the general population. In this stud...

  5. International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) Agreement Between the United States of American and Other Governments and Operating Agreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Department of State, Washington, DC.

    The INTELSAT (International Telecommunications Satellite) agreement was reached because of the desirability of continuing the development of a telecommunications satellite system. INTELSAT's aim was to achieve a single global commercial system as part of an improved global telecommunications network which will provide expanded services to all…

  6. Bright Lights and Questions: Using Mutual Interrogation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adam, Aishikin; Alangui, Willy; Barton, Bill

    2010-01-01

    Mutual Interrogation is a research methodology for ethnomathematics proposed by Alangui in 2006 in an attempt to avoid the potential inequality set up when a restricted cultural practice is viewed through the lens of the near-universal and highly developed research domain of mathematics. Using three significant examples of mutual interrogation in…

  7. Mutual inactivation of Notch receptors and ligands facilitates developmental patterning.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Sprinzak

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Developmental patterning requires juxtacrine signaling in order to tightly coordinate the fates of neighboring cells. Recent work has shown that Notch and Delta, the canonical metazoan juxtacrine signaling receptor and ligand, mutually inactivate each other in the same cell. This cis-interaction generates mutually exclusive sending and receiving states in individual cells. It generally remains unclear, however, how this mutual inactivation and the resulting switching behavior can impact developmental patterning circuits. Here we address this question using mathematical modeling in the context of two canonical pattern formation processes: boundary formation and lateral inhibition. For boundary formation, in a model motivated by Drosophila wing vein patterning, we find that mutual inactivation allows sharp boundary formation across a broader range of parameters than models lacking mutual inactivation. This model with mutual inactivation also exhibits robustness to correlated gene expression perturbations. For lateral inhibition, we find that mutual inactivation speeds up patterning dynamics, relieves the need for cooperative regulatory interactions, and expands the range of parameter values that permit pattern formation, compared to canonical models. Furthermore, mutual inactivation enables a simple lateral inhibition circuit architecture which requires only a single downstream regulatory step. Both model systems show how mutual inactivation can facilitate robust fine-grained patterning processes that would be difficult to implement without it, by encoding a difference-promoting feedback within the signaling system itself. Together, these results provide a framework for analysis of more complex Notch-dependent developmental systems.

  8. mutual participation in the health worker-patient relationship

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Medunsa) ... Keywords: mutual participation, health worker-patient relationship, decision ... The importance of a mutual participatory model in medical care and decision ... workers become aware of differences in opinion or in the balance of power, ...

  9. Defined Contribution Pension Plans: Mutual Fund Asset Allocation Changes

    OpenAIRE

    Clemens Sialm; Laura Starks; Hanjiang Zhang

    2015-01-01

    In this paper we compare changes in asset allocations between mutual funds held in defined contribution pension plans and funds held by other investors. We investigate how flows into equity and fixed income mutual funds depend on macroeconomic conditions. We find that defined contribution plans react more sensitively to these conditions, suggesting effects on mutual fund managers and other investors.

  10. Performance of Mutual Funds in India: (2002-2006)

    OpenAIRE

    Saboo, Manish

    2006-01-01

    There has been many studies in the past on performance of Mutual Funds in comparison to the market. These studies might differ in time and the market under study but most of them concluded that on an average, Mutual Funds have failed to outperform the market and thus the Efficient Market Hypothesis holds good. This research was based on performance of 25 mutual funds for a period of almost 5 years on monthly basis. Funds were evaluated using measures like Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, Jense...

  11. Sarcocystosis of chital-dhole: conditions for evolutionary stability of a predator parasite mutualism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Watve Milind G

    2005-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background For parasites with a predator-prey life cycle, the completion of the life cycle often depends on consumption of parasitized prey by the predator. In the case of such parasite species the predator and the parasite have common interests and therefore a mutualistic relationship is possible. Some evidence of a predator-parasite mutualism was reported from spotted deer or chital (Axix axis as a prey species, dhole or Indian wild-dog (Cuon alpinus as the predator and a protozoan (Sarcocystis axicuonis as the parasite. We examine here, with the help of a model, the ecological conditions necessary for the evolution and stability of such a mutualistic relationship. A two – level game theory model was designed in which the payoff of a parasite is decided not only by alternative parasite strategies but also by alternative host strategies and vice versa. Conditions for ESS were examined. Results A tolerant predator strategy and a low or moderately virulent parasite strategy which together constitute mutualism are stable only at a high frequency of recycling of parasite and a substantial prey – capture benefit to the predator. Unlike the preliminary expectation, parasite will not evolve towards reduced virulence, but reach an optimum moderate level of virulence. Conclusion The available data on the behavioral ecology of dhole and chital suggest that they are likely to meet the stability criteria and therefore a predator-parasite mutualism can be stable in this system. The model also points out the gaps in the current data and could help directing further empirical work.

  12. Mutual information against correlations in binary communication channels.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pregowska, Agnieszka; Szczepanski, Janusz; Wajnryb, Eligiusz

    2015-05-19

    Explaining how the brain processing is so fast remains an open problem (van Hemmen JL, Sejnowski T., 2004). Thus, the analysis of neural transmission (Shannon CE, Weaver W., 1963) processes basically focuses on searching for effective encoding and decoding schemes. According to the Shannon fundamental theorem, mutual information plays a crucial role in characterizing the efficiency of communication channels. It is well known that this efficiency is determined by the channel capacity that is already the maximal mutual information between input and output signals. On the other hand, intuitively speaking, when input and output signals are more correlated, the transmission should be more efficient. A natural question arises about the relation between mutual information and correlation. We analyze the relation between these quantities using the binary representation of signals, which is the most common approach taken in studying neuronal processes of the brain. We present binary communication channels for which mutual information and correlation coefficients behave differently both quantitatively and qualitatively. Despite this difference in behavior, we show that the noncorrelation of binary signals implies their independence, in contrast to the case for general types of signals. Our research shows that the mutual information cannot be replaced by sheer correlations. Our results indicate that neuronal encoding has more complicated nature which cannot be captured by straightforward correlations between input and output signals once the mutual information takes into account the structure and patterns of the signals.

  13. Performance of Mutual Funds in India 2003-2008

    OpenAIRE

    Raizada, Shantanu

    2008-01-01

    Many studies have been conducted in the past on the performance of Mutual Funds in comparison to the market index. These studies may differ in their time period, but most of them concluded that on an average the Mutual Funds failed to outperform the market thus the Efficient Market Hypothesis holds good. This research was based on the performance of 20 open ended equity diversified growth Mutual Funds for a period of 5 years from April 2003 to March 2008 and was compared to the BSE 500. Funds...

  14. Controlled mutual quantum entity authentication using entanglement swapping

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kang, Min-Sung; Hong, Chang-Ho; Heo, Jino; Lim, Jong-In; Yang, Hyung-Jin

    2015-01-01

    In this paper, we suggest a controlled mutual quantum entity authentication protocol by which two users mutually certify each other on a quantum network using a sequence of Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ)-like states. Unlike existing unidirectional quantum entity authentication, our protocol enables mutual quantum entity authentication utilizing entanglement swapping; moreover, it allows the managing trusted center (TC) or trusted third party (TTP) to effectively control the certification of two users using the nature of the GHZ-like state. We will also analyze the security of the protocol and quantum channel. (paper)

  15. Freedom and imperative: mutual care between older spouses with physical disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Torgé, Cristina Joy

    2014-05-01

    This article explores mutual caregiving between older spouses aging with physical disabilities. Nine older couples, where both partners had lived long lives with physical disabilities, were interviewed as dyads about mutual caregiving. The couples not only had access to different kinds and degrees of formal support but also provided mutual care to each other in a variety of ways. Interview coding using grounded theory led to two overarching categories from which motivation for mutual caregiving could be understood. These categories were Mutual care as freedom and Mutual care as imperative. The results extend understanding about how older couples with disabilities attached meaning to their mutual caregiving, and why mutual care was sometimes preferable, despite the availability of other sources of help and despite practical difficulties of providing this help. These findings suggest that health care professionals need to be sensitive to the dynamics of the couple relationship and carefully explore the couple's preferences for how formal support can best be provided in ways that honor and sustain the integrity of the couple relationship.

  16. Mutually unbiased bases

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Mutually unbiased bases play an important role in quantum cryptography [2] and in the optimal determination of the density operator of an ensemble [3,4]. A density operator ρ in N-dimensions depends on N2 1 real quantities. With the help of MUB's, any such density operator can be encoded, in an optimal way, in terms of ...

  17. Market timing and selectivity performance of mutual funds in Ghana

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abubakar Musah

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available The growing interest in mutual funds in Ghana has been tremendous over the last decade as evidenced by the continuous increases in number and total funds under management. However, no empirical work has been done on the selectivity and timing ability of the mutual fund managers. Using monthly returns data hand-collected from the reports of the mutual fund managers for the period January 2007-December 2012, this paper examines the market timing and selectivity ability of mutual fund managers in Ghana using the classic Treynor-Mazuy (1966 model and Henriksson- Merton (1981 model. The results suggest that, in general mutual fund managers in Ghana are not able to effectively select stocks and also are not able to predict both the magnitude and direction of future market returns. More specifically, all of the sample mutual fund managers attain significant negative selectivity coefficients and also most of them attain insignificant negative timing coefficients.

  18. Collaborative Knowledge Building and Integral Theory: On Perspectives, Uncertainty, and Mutual Regard

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tom Murray

    2006-06-01

    Full Text Available Uncertainty in knowing and communicating affect all aspects of modern life. Ubiquitous and inevitable uncertainty, including ambiguity and paradox, is particularly salient and important in knowledge building communities. Because knowledge building communities represent and evolve knowledge explicitly, the causes, effects, and approaches to this “epistemological indeterminacy” can be directly addressed in knowledge building practices. Integral theory’s approach (including “methodological pluralism” involves accepting and integrating diverse perspectives in ways that transcend and include them. This approach accentuates the problems of epistemological indeterminacy and highlights the general need to deal creatively with it. This article begins with a cursory analysis of textual dialogs among integral theorists, showing that, while integral theory itself points to leading-edge ways of dealing with epistemological indeterminacy, the knowledge building practices of integral theorists, by and large, exhibit the same limitations as traditional intellectual discourses. Yet, due to its values and core methods, the integral theory community is in a unique position to develop novel and more adequate modes of inquiry and dialog. This text explores how epistemological indeterminacy impacts the activities and products of groups engaged in collaborative knowledge building. Approaching the issue from three perspectives–mutual understanding, mutual agreement, and mutual regard—I show the interdependence of those perspectives and ground them in relation to integral theory’s concerns. This article proposes three phases of developing constructive alternatives drawn from the knowledge building field: awareness of the phenomena, understanding the phenomena, and offering some tools (and some hope for dealing with it. Though here I focus on the integral theory community (or communities, the conclusions of the article are meant to be applicable to any

  19. Collaborative Knowledge Building and Integral Theory:On Perspectives,Uncertainty, and Mutual Regard

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tom Murray

    2006-06-01

    Full Text Available Uncertainty in knowing and communicating affect all aspects of modern life. Ubiquitous and inevitable uncertainty, including ambiguity and paradox, is particularly salient and important in knowledge building communities. Because knowledge building communities represent and evolve knowledge explicitly, the causes, effects, and approaches to this “epistemological indeterminacy” can be directly addressed in knowledge building practices. Integral theory's approach (including “methodological pluralism” involves accepting and integrating diverse perspectives in ways that transcend and include them. This approach accentuates the problems of epistemological indeterminacy and highlights the general need to deal creatively with it. This article begins with a cursory analysis of textual dialogs among integral theorists, showing that, while integral theory itself points to leading-edge ways of dealing with epistemological indeterminacy, the knowledge building practices of integral theorists, by and large, exhibit the same limitations as traditional intellectual discourses. Yet, due to its values and core methods, the integral theory community is in a unique position to develop novel and more adequate modes of inquiry and dialog. This text explores how epistemological indeterminacy impacts the activities and products of groups engaged in collaborative knowledge building. Approaching the issue from three perspectives—mutual understanding, mutual agreement, and mutual regard—I show the interdependence of those perspectives and ground them in relation to integral theory’s concerns. This article proposes three phases of developing constructive alternatives drawn from the knowledge building field: awareness of the phenomena, understanding the phenomena, and offering some tools (and some hope for dealing with it. Though here I focus on the integral theory community (or communities, the conclusions of the article are meant to be applicable to any

  20. Activist Infighting among Courts and Breakdown of Mutual Trust?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Neergaard, Ulla; Sørensen, Karsten Engsig

    2017-01-01

    had itself created it out of nowhere. In turn this appeared to be an implicit reference to the widely criticized interpretative approach of the CJEU, resulting in a far-reaching willingness to espouse judicial activism. But in acting as it did, it seems ironic that the Danish Supreme Court itself......, in this article the judgments are analysed in depth and placed into their wider context. Among other matters, we have considered how the courts should strike a sensitive balance, which has to exist in the relationship between the national courts and the CJEU, requiring mutual trust or, at the least, judicial......In its combative Ajos judgment recently rendered by the Danish Supreme Court, the court openly and controversially challenged the authority of the CJEU. By the same token, in the preliminary ruling by the CJEU preceding it, the CJEU had continued to develop the controversial general principle...

  1. 24 CFR 203.420 - Nature of Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 24 Housing and Urban Development 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Nature of Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. 203.420 Section 203.420 Housing and Urban Development Regulations Relating to Housing and Urban... and Distributive Shares § 203.420 Nature of Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. The Mutual Mortgage...

  2. Mutuality in Mother-Child Interactions in an Antillean Intervention Group

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boomstra, Nienke W.; van Dijk, Marijn W. G.; van Geert, Paul L. C.

    2016-01-01

    This article describes a study on mutuality in mother-child interaction during reading and playing sessions. Within mother-child interaction, mutuality is seen as important in language acquisition. The study was executed within a group of Netherlands Antillean mother-child dyads who participated in an intervention programme. Mutuality was…

  3. Measurement of particle velocity using a mutual inductance technique

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kerr, Stephen; Kirkpatrick, Douglas; Garden, Steven

    2004-01-01

    Preliminary work on the development of a novel method for the measurement of particle velocity is described. The technique relies on measurement of the mutual inductance between two coaxial coils, one stationary and the other perturbed by the shock wave. The moving coil is the gauge and is deposited on thin film. The method was developed to assist in the study of particle velocities in large samples of porous media surrounding an explosive charge. The technique does not require measurements to be taken in a region of uniform magnetic field and therefore dispenses with the need for Helmholtz coils, the size and cost of which can become prohibitive for large experiments. This has the added advantage of allowing measurements to be taken at points widely dispersed through a sample with relative ease. Measurements of particle velocity in porous media have been compared with those from co-located conventional electromagnetic particle velocity gauges with reasonable agreement

  4. Modelling nutritional mutualisms: challenges and opportunities for data integration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clark, Teresa J; Friel, Colleen A; Grman, Emily; Shachar-Hill, Yair; Friesen, Maren L

    2017-09-01

    Nutritional mutualisms are ancient, widespread, and profoundly influential in biological communities and ecosystems. Although much is known about these interactions, comprehensive answers to fundamental questions, such as how resource availability and structured interactions influence mutualism persistence, are still lacking. Mathematical modelling of nutritional mutualisms has great potential to facilitate the search for comprehensive answers to these and other fundamental questions by connecting the physiological and genomic underpinnings of mutualisms with ecological and evolutionary processes. In particular, when integrated with empirical data, models enable understanding of underlying mechanisms and generalisation of principles beyond the particulars of a given system. Here, we demonstrate how mathematical models can be integrated with data to address questions of mutualism persistence at four biological scales: cell, individual, population, and community. We highlight select studies where data has been or could be integrated with models to either inform model structure or test model predictions. We also point out opportunities to increase model rigour through tighter integration with data, and describe areas in which data is urgently needed. We focus on plant-microbe systems, for which a wealth of empirical data is available, but the principles and approaches can be generally applied to any nutritional mutualism. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.

  5. Indirect control and power in mutual control structures

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Karos, D.; Peters, H.J.M.

    2013-01-01

    In a mutual control structure agents exercise control over each other. Typical examples occur in the area of corporate governance: firms and investment companies exercise mutual control, in particular by owning each others’ stocks. In this paper we formulate a general model for such situations.

  6. Tax-Efficient Asset Management: Evidence from Equity Mutual Funds

    OpenAIRE

    Clemens Sialm; Hanjiang Zhang

    2015-01-01

    Investment taxes have a substantial impact on the performance of taxable mutual fund investors. Mutual funds can reduce the tax burdens of their shareholders by avoiding securities that are heavily taxed and by avoiding realizing capital gains that trigger higher tax burdens to the funds’ investors. Such tax avoidance strategies constrain the investment opportunities of the mutual funds and might reduce their before-tax performance. Our paper empirically investigates the costs and benefits of...

  7. The Profile of a Polish Mutual Fund Manager

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dariusz Filip

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Aim/purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics that are typical of mutual fund managers. Design/methodology/approach - The study concentrates on a set of socio-demographic data, such as: age, gender, education, experience, and professional qualifications of 336 portfolio managers. The applied research strategy relies on an analysis concerning a set of statistical metrics describing the population under examination. Findings - The average Polish fund manager is a 37-year-old man, a holder of a stock-broker or investment adviser license. He obtained the authorization from the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF a few years after graduating from the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH. He has 11 years' experience in financial markets and 7 years' experience in the mutual fund industry. Research implications/limitations - The identification of managerial characteristics for the purpose of creating a profile of a Polish mutual fund manager will provide an important basis for further surveys and analyses aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of mutual funds. Originality/value/contribution - There are no investigations within the discussed area in Polish studies. Therefore, the identification of the characteristics that are typical of mutual fund managers will make a contribution to the finance literature.(original abstract

  8. Estimation of skill of Russian mutual fund managers

    OpenAIRE

    Parshakov, Petr

    2015-01-01

    Our work is focused on Russian mutual funds managers’ skills versus luck estimating. Using bootstrap procedure we build Jensen’s alpha density for each fund. We find that only 5% of Russian equity mutual funds do have skills (in contrast to luck) to outperform the benchmark.

  9. Mutual intelligibility between closely related language in Europe.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gooskens, Charlotte; van Heuven, Vincent; Golubovic, Jelena; Schüppert, Anja; Swarte, Femke; Voigt, Stefanie

    2018-01-01

    By means of a large-scale web-based investigation, we established the degree of mutual intelligibility of 16 closely related spoken languages within the Germanic, Slavic and Romance language families in Europe. We first present the results of a selection of 1833 listeners representing the mutual

  10. Measuring the performance of mutual funds: A case study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jakšić Milena

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we evaluate the performance of eight open-end mutual funds in the Republic of Serbia for the period 2009-2012, with the aim of testing the justification of active portfolio management of mutual funds, and determining the selection capability of Serbian portfolio managers. Risk-weighted returns of mutual funds are compared with the risk-weighted return of the leading Belgrade Stock Exchange index, Belex15, whereas the following are used as performance measures: Sharpe ratio (Si, Treynor ratio (Ti, and Jensen's or Alpha index (αi. The results suggest that the portfolio of Serbian mutual funds has inferior performance compared to the market portfolio, which indicates the lack of selection capabilities of domestic portfolio managers.

  11. Ranking mutual funds using Sortino method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Khosro Faghani Makrani

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available One of the primary concerns on most business activities is to determine an efficient method for ranking mutual funds. This paper performs an empirical investigation to rank 42 mutual funds listed on Tehran Stock Exchange using Sortino method over the period 2011-2012. The results of survey have been compared with market return and the results have confirmed that there were some positive and meaningful relationships between Sortino return and market return. In addition, there were some positive and meaningful relationship between two Sortino methods.

  12. THE INTEGRATION MODEL ASEAN+1: THE MAIN NORMS OF AGREEMENTS AND EFFECT ON FOREIGN ECONOMIC TIES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Г М Костюнина

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this research is a comparative analysis of the provisions of free trade agreements signed by ASEAN with dialogue countries and the East Asia Summit partners - China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. The author's thesis is that, in our opinion, the final effect of participation in the free trade zone for the national economy depends on such factors as the volume of mutual trade, the degree of economic interde-pendence, the level of customs duties rates at the date of signing the agreement, the volume of the mutual market, geographical proximity. The higher the role of these factors, the greater the effect of trade creation is received by the participating states. The basis of the research methodology is the understanding of regional integration agreements as a multifactor instrument of trade policy in various countries of the world that facilitates the liberalization of international trade in general and the regional trade in particular, enhancing the participation of partner states in the international division of labor and stimulating the dynamics of their economic development. Such agreements are considered as a system that includes a set of elements that interact with elements of other systems. Such interaction is considered taking into account the specific purpose of each of the elements, and also taking into account the factors of the stability of the development of each system. In carry-ing out this study, the author has used such methods as the method of comparative analysis, which makes it possible to identify the specifics of the participation of ASEAN countries in free trade zones; methods of statistical analysis and political forecasting that provide an opportunity to identify legal norms of integra-tion agreements on the ASEAN + 1 model; as well as a logical conceptual analysis that allows to present a full picture of the ASEAN integration policy. The author analyses norms for regulating the

  13. Anomalous behaviour of mutual information in finite flocks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barnett, L.; Brown, J.; Bossomaier, T.

    2017-11-01

    The existing consensus is that flocks are poised at criticality, entailing long correlation lengths and a maximal value of Shannon mutual information in the large-system limit. We show, by contrast, that for finite flocks which do not truly break ergodicity in the long-observation-time limit, mutual information may not only fail to peak at criticality —as observed for other critical systems— but also diverge as noise tends to zero. This result carries implications for other finite-size, out-of-equilibrium systems, where observation times may vary widely compared to time scales of internal system dynamics; thus it may not be assumed that mutual information locates the phase transition.

  14. Generalized mutual information and Tsirelson's bound

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wakakuwa, Eyuri [Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033 (Japan); Murao, Mio [Institute for Nano Quantum Information Electronics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan and Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033 (Japan)

    2014-12-04

    We introduce a generalization of the quantum mutual information between a classical system and a quantum system into the mutual information between a classical system and a system described by general probabilistic theories. We apply this generalized mutual information (GMI) to a derivation of Tsirelson's bound from information causality, and prove that Tsirelson's bound can be derived from the chain rule of the GMI. By using the GMI, we formulate the 'no-supersignalling condition' (NSS), that the assistance of correlations does not enhance the capability of classical communication. We prove that NSS is never violated in any no-signalling theory.

  15. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in Europe

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gooskens, C.; Heuven, van V.J.J.P.; Golubović, J.; Schüppert, A.; Swarte, F.; Voigt, S.

    2017-01-01

    By means of a large-scale web-based investigation, we established the degree of mutual intelligibility of 16 closely related spoken languages within the Germanic, Slavic and Romance language families in Europe. We first present the results of a selection of 1833 listeners representing the mutual

  16. Financial Crisis and Corporate Social Responsible Mutual Fund Flows

    OpenAIRE

    Sitikantha Parida; Zhihong Wang

    2018-01-01

    In this paper, we investigate investment flows into mutual funds that hold more high corporate social responsible stocks (top CSR funds) vs. mutual funds that hold more low corporate social responsible stocks (bottom CSR funds). Using a large sample of equity mutual funds spanning 2003–2012, we find that top CSR funds on average receive about 5% less investment per annum compared to the other funds; whereas bottom CSR funds receive about 5.6% more investments. These relative negative and posi...

  17. Performance Evaluation of Investment (Mutual Funds

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Povilas Vyšniauskas

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The efficiency of an investment fund is one of the main components in evaluating the performance of the fund. This study seeks for introducing and comparing risk and performance evaluation ratios. The paper is aimed at testing the worked out ratios and at distinguishing between the best ones for the purpose of evaluating the performance of Lithuanian mutual funds. Scientific studies show that a standard deviation, alpha, beta, Sharpe and Treynor ratios are mostly employed for identifying the performance of mutual funds that are also compared with their benchmark index to establish if these funds are outperformed and if is it worth paying management fees to investment banks for managing mutual funds. Historical data were selected for the period from 2012-01-02 to 2013-10-15 analysing the prices of monthly funds. The paper points out the areas of a practical application of the proposed model for investment fund valuation, which may not only provide valuable outcomes for practitioners but also may inspire further research on this article.

  18. Public-channel cryptography based on mutual chaos pass filters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klein, Einat; Gross, Noam; Kopelowitz, Evi; Rosenbluh, Michael; Khaykovich, Lev; Kinzel, Wolfgang; Kanter, Ido

    2006-10-01

    We study the mutual coupling of chaotic lasers and observe both experimentally and in numeric simulations that there exists a regime of parameters for which two mutually coupled chaotic lasers establish isochronal synchronization, while a third laser coupled unidirectionally to one of the pair does not synchronize. We then propose a cryptographic scheme, based on the advantage of mutual coupling over unidirectional coupling, where all the parameters of the system are public knowledge. We numerically demonstrate that in such a scheme the two communicating lasers can add a message signal (compressed binary message) to the transmitted coupling signal and recover the message in both directions with high fidelity by using a mutual chaos pass filter procedure. An attacker, however, fails to recover an errorless message even if he amplifies the coupling signal.

  19. The New WTO Telecom Agreement: Opportunities and Challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sisson, Peter

    1997-01-01

    The telecommunication agreement reached by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1997 will accelerate the global trend toward increased market access, competition, and deregulation. Examines opportunities for marketing and operations, dispute resolution and enforcement, profitability, and the exclusion of Russia and China. Includes the WTO…

  20. Agreement between diagnoses reached by clinical examination and available reference standards: a prospective study of 216 patients with lumbopelvic pain

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tropp Hans

    2005-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The tissue origin of low back pain (LBP or referred lower extremity symptoms (LES may be identified in about 70% of cases using advanced imaging, discography and facet or sacroiliac joint blocks. These techniques are invasive and availability varies. A clinical examination is non-invasive and widely available but its validity is questioned. Diagnostic studies usually examine single tests in relation to single reference standards, yet in clinical practice, clinicians use multiple tests and select from a range of possible diagnoses. There is a need for studies that evaluate the diagnostic performance of clinical diagnoses against available reference standards. Methods We compared blinded clinical diagnoses with diagnoses based on available reference standards for known causes of LBP or LES such as discography, facet, sacroiliac or hip joint blocks, epidurals injections, advanced imaging studies or any combination of these tests. A prospective, blinded validity design was employed. Physiotherapists examined consecutive patients with chronic lumbopelvic pain and/or referred LES scheduled to receive the reference standard examinations. When diagnoses were in complete agreement regardless of complexity, "exact" agreement was recorded. When the clinical diagnosis was included within the reference standard diagnoses, "clinical agreement" was recorded. The proportional chance criterion (PCC statistic was used to estimate agreement on multiple diagnostic possibilities because it accounts for the prevalence of individual categories in the sample. The kappa statistic was used to estimate agreement on six pathoanatomic diagnoses. Results In a sample of chronic LBP patients (n = 216 with high levels of disability and distress, 67% received a patho-anatomic diagnosis based on available reference standards, and 10% had more than one tissue origin of pain identified. For 27 diagnostic categories and combinations, chance clinical agreement

  1. Holographic mutual information of two disjoint spheres

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Bin; Fan, Zhong-Ying; Li, Wen-Ming; Zhang, Cheng-Yong

    2018-04-01

    We study quantum corrections to holographic mutual information for two disjoint spheres at a large separation by using the operator product expansion of the twist field. In the large separation limit, the holographic mutual information is vanishing at the semiclassical order, but receive quantum corrections from the fluctuations. We show that the leading contributions from the quantum fluctuations take universal forms as suggested from the boundary CFT. We find the universal behavior for the scalar, the vector, the tensor and the fermionic fields by treating these fields as free fields propagating in the fixed background and by using the 1 /n prescription. In particular, for the fields with gauge symmetries, including the massless vector boson and massless graviton, we find that the gauge parts in the propagators play an indispensable role in reading the leading order corrections to the bulk mutual information.

  2. Mutual Fund Competition and Stock Market Liquidity

    OpenAIRE

    Massa, Massimo

    2004-01-01

    We study how competition in the mutual fund industry affects stock market liquidity. We argue that mutual fund families operate as multi-product firms, jointly choosing fees, performance and number of funds and sharing common research facilities. The family-based organization generates economies of scale in information that induce a trade off between performance and number of funds. The presence of more and relatively less-informed funds impacts the market, increasing stock liquidity. This in...

  3. Stability of mutualisms in a lattice gas system of two species

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuanshi Wang

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This article considers mutualisms in a lattice gas system of two species. The species are mutualistic since each one can provide resources to the other. They are also competitive since they compete for empty sites on the same lattice. The mutualisms are assumed to have a saturated response, and the intraspecific competition is considered because of self-limitation. The mutualism system is characterized by differential equations, which are derived from reactions on lattice and are extension of a previous model. Global stability analysis demonstrates that (i When neither species can survive alone, they can coexist if mutualisms between them are strong and population densities are large, which exhibits the Allee effect in obligate mutualism; (ii When one species can survive alone but the other cannot, the latter one will survive if the mutualistic effect from the former is strong. Even if the effect is intermediate, the latter species can survive by strengthening its mutualistic effect on the former and enhancing its population density; (iii When either species can survive alone, a weak mutualism will lead to extinction of one species. When in coexistence, intermediate strength of mutualism is shown to be beneficial under certain parameter range, while over- or under- mutualism is not good. Furthermore, extremely strong/weak mutualism is exhibited to result in extinction of one/both species. While seven typical dynamics are displayed by numerical simulation in a previous work, they are proved in this work and the eighth one is exhibited. Numerical simul ations validate and extend our conclusions.

  4. Performance Evaluation of Open-Ended ELSS Mutual Fund ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study examined the performance of the open-ended equity linked saving mutual fund schemes (ELSS) in India during the financial distress in 2008-2009. In this study, the month end net asset values of selected equity linked saving mutual fund schemes were considered and the data was obtained from the website of ...

  5. Learning curves for mutual information maximization

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Urbanczik, R.

    2003-01-01

    An unsupervised learning procedure based on maximizing the mutual information between the outputs of two networks receiving different but statistically dependent inputs is analyzed [S. Becker and G. Hinton, Nature (London) 355, 161 (1992)]. For a generic data model, I show that in the large sample limit the structure in the data is recognized by mutual information maximization. For a more restricted model, where the networks are similar to perceptrons, I calculate the learning curves for zero-temperature Gibbs learning. These show that convergence can be rather slow, and a way of regularizing the procedure is considered

  6. Evolutionary dynamics of fluctuating populations with strong mutualism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chotibut, Thiparat; Nelson, David

    2013-03-01

    Evolutionary game theory with finite interacting populations is receiving increased attention, including subtle phenomena associated with number fluctuations, i.e., ``genetic drift.'' Models of cooperation and competition often utilize a simplified Moran model, with a strictly fixed total population size. We explore a more general evolutionary model with independent fluctuations in the numbers of two distinct species, in a regime characterized by ``strong mutualism.'' The model has two absorbing states, each corresponding to fixation of one of the two species, and allows exploration of the interplay between growth, competition, and mutualism. When mutualism is favored, number fluctuations eventually drive the system away from a stable fixed point, characterized by cooperation, to one of the absorbing states. Well-mixed populations will thus be taken over by a single species in a finite time, despite the bias towards cooperation. We calculate both the fixation probability and the mean fixation time as a function of the initial conditions and carrying capacities in the strong mutualism regime, using the method of matched asymptotic expansions. Our results are compared to computer simulations.

  7. Doha agreement meeting on terminology and definitions in groin pain in athletes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Weir, Adam; Brukner, Peter; Delahunt, Eamonn

    2015-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Heterogeneous taxonomy of groin injuries in athletes adds confusion to this complicated area. AIM: The 'Doha agreement meeting on terminology and definitions in groin pain in athletes' was convened to attempt to resolve this problem. Our aim was to agree on a standard terminology, along....... All members participated in a Delphi questionnaire prior to the meeting. RESULTS: Unanimous agreement was reached on the following terminology. The classification system has three major subheadings of groin pain in athletes: 1. Defined clinical entities for groin pain: Adductor-related, iliopsoas......-related, inguinal-related and pubic-related groin pain. 2. Hip-related groin pain. 3. Other causes of groin pain in athletes. The definitions are included in this paper. CONCLUSIONS: The Doha agreement meeting on terminology and definitions in groin pain in athletes reached a consensus on a clinically based...

  8. Can Chinese Mutual Fund Time Market Liquidity?

    OpenAIRE

    LI, Xiaoqing

    2012-01-01

    Extant researches have focused on mutual fund managers’ ability to time market returns or volatility. In this paper, the author offers a new perspective on the traditional timing issue by examining Chinese fund managers’ liquidity timing ability. Using the Chinese mutual fund database, the author finds little evidence that over the period from 2004 to 2012, fund managers cannot demonstrate the ability to time market liquidity in China, i.e., increase (reduce) market exposure in anticipation o...

  9. Mutual phase-locking of several spin-torque nano-oscillators

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Prokopenko, O.V.; Sulimenko, O.R.

    2011-01-01

    Criterions for evaluating the effectiveness of mutual phase-locking of several spin-torque nano-oscillators (STNO) are proposed. An application of one of the criterions to describe the process of mutual phase-locking of the three almost identical STNO's is considered

  10. MUTUAL FUND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS PRE AND POST FINANCIAL CRISIS OF 2008

    OpenAIRE

    Asadov, Elvin; Dinger, Tim

    2017-01-01

    Using a sample of 955 mutual funds, free of survivorship bias, we analyse the performance of diversified equity mutual funds in the United States of America that invest solely in stocks listed on the U.S. stock exchanges before and after the financial crisis of 2008. We categorize all mutual funds into their respective strategy including value, growth, and blend in order to see any relationship with respect to their strategic focus.We find that mutual funds were not able to provide a positive...

  11. Cleaner Technologies and the Stability of International Environmental Agreements

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Benchekroun, H.; Ray Chaudhuri, A.

    2012-01-01

    Abstract: This paper shows that, if countries are farsighted when deciding whether to defect from a coalition, then the implementation of cleaner technologies may jeopardize the chances of reaching an international environmental agreement. The grand coalition may be destabilized by the

  12. Constraints on the perturbed mutual motion in Didymos due to impact-induced deformation of its primary after the DART impact

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirabayashi, Masatoshi; Schwartz, Stephen R.; Yu, Yang; Davis, Alex B.; Chesley, Steven R.; Fahnestock, Eugene G.; Michel, Patrick; Richardson, Derek C.; Naidu, Shantanu P.; Scheeres, Daniel J.; Cheng, Andrew F.; Rivkin, Andrew S.; Benner, Lance A. M.

    2017-12-01

    Binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos is the target of the proposed NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), part of the Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) mission concept. In this mission, the DART spacecraft is planned to impact the secondary body of Didymos, perturbing mutual dynamics of the system. The primary body is currently rotating at a spin period close to the spin barrier of asteroids, and materials ejected from the secondary due to the DART impact are likely to reach the primary. These conditions may cause the primary to reshape, due to landslides or internal deformation, changing the permanent gravity field. Here, we propose that if shape deformation of the primary occurs, the mutual orbit of the system would be perturbed due to a change in the gravity field. We use a numerical simulation technique based on the full two-body problem to investigate the shape effect on the mutual dynamics in Didymos after the DART impact. The results show that under constant volume, shape deformation induces strong perturbation in the mutual motion. We find that the deformation process always causes the orbital period of the system to become shorter. If surface layers with a thickness greater than ∼0.4 m on the poles of the primary move down to the equatorial region due to the DART impact, a change in the orbital period of the system and in the spin period of the primary will be detected by ground-based measurement.

  13. Indian mutual fund industry: Opportunities and challenges

    OpenAIRE

    Jayant R. Kale; Venkatesh Panchapagesan

    2012-01-01

    This article presents an overview of the mutual fund industry in India and the reasons for its poor penetration, which includes lack of objective research. It benchmarks the industry globally, and raises key issues regarding the ownership and performance of mutual funds, the sensitivity of fund flows to performance, and the importance of regulation to its growth, all of which have been largely under researched in India. It then captures the views of leading practitioners on these and other is...

  14. Mutual Visibility by Robots with Persistent Memory

    OpenAIRE

    Bhagat, Subhash; Mukhopadhyaya, Krishnendu

    2017-01-01

    This paper addresses the mutual visibility problem for a set of semi-synchronous, opaque robots occupying distinct positions in the Euclidean plane. Since robots are opaque, if three robots lie on a line, the middle robot obstructs the visions of the two other robots. The mutual visibility problem asks the robots to coordinate their movements to form a configuration, within finite time and without collision, in which no three robots are collinear. Robots are endowed with a constant bits of pe...

  15. Thermalization of mutual information in hyperscaling violating backgrounds

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tanhayi, M. Reza [Department of Physics, Faculty of Basic Science,Islamic Azad University Central Tehran Branch (IAUCTB),P.O. Box 14676-86831, Tehran (Iran, Islamic Republic of); School of Physics, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM),P.O. Box 19395-5531, Tehran (Iran, Islamic Republic of)

    2016-03-31

    We study certain features of scaling behaviors of the mutual information during a process of thermalization, more precisely we extend the time scaling behavior of mutual information which has been discussed in http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2015)165 to time-dependent hyperscaling violating geometries. We use the holographic description of entanglement entropy for two disjoint system consisting of two parallel strips whose widths are much larger than the separation between them. We show that during the thermalization process, the dynamical exponent plays a crucial rule in reading the general time scaling behavior of mutual information (e.g., at the pre-local-equilibration regime). It is shown that the scaling violating parameter can be employed to define an effective dimension.

  16. The Mutual Investments in Romania - Current Developments and Trends

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Florina Oana VIRLANUTA

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available Mutual fund industry in Romania has undergone significant growth in recent years in the number of investors and the net assets managed, but still very small compared to other European countries. Capital market development in Romania, the emergence of new investment instruments provides a greater variety of mutual funds investments. Managers decide on the structure of the portfolio by selecting categories of assets in accordance with the rules set out in the Prospectus and according to the degree of risk. In this paper we propose to realize an analysis of mutual investments system in Romania, the progress and their efficiency.

  17. Information asymmetry, mutual funds and earnings management: Evidence from China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yunhao Dai

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available This paper investigates how information asymmetry and mutual fund ownership affect listed companies’ earnings management. We show that (1 reducing information asymmetry improves firms’ earnings management behavior; (2 relative to short-term mutual funds, long-term mutual funds promote earnings quality by adopting a monitoring role; and (3 by dividing firms into high/low information asymmetry groups, we find that the information environment significantly increases the effect of long-term mutual funds on firms’ earnings management. In this paper, we provide new evidence for the role that institutional investors play in a typical emerging capital market. Our results have clear policy implications: to increase earnings quality, it is essential to improve information transparency and develop long-term institutional investors.

  18. Performance Measurement without Benchmarks: An Examination of Mutual Fund Returns.

    OpenAIRE

    Grinblatt, Mark; Titman, Sheridan

    1993-01-01

    This article introduces a new measure of portfolio performance and applies it to study the performance of a large sample of mutual funds. In contrast to previous studies of mutual fund performance, the measure used in this study employs portfolio holdings and does not require the use of a benchmark portfolio. It finds that the portfolio choices of mutual fund managers, particularly those that managed aggressive growth funds, earned significantly positive risk-adjusted returns in the 1976-85 p...

  19. Performance of mutual funds in european countries

    OpenAIRE

    Γκογκάκη, Ελεωνόρα

    2012-01-01

    In this thesis, the performance of 220 open-end domestic equity mutual funds of european countries (from 'weak' and 'strong' economies) is analyzed for an eight- year period from 1st January 2004 until 31st December 2011, which is then split in two four-year sub periods in order to examine their performance prior to the global financial crisis and after its burst in 2008. In order to compare the mutual funds' performance to that of each country's market, it used as benchmarks the countries' m...

  20. Generalized Mutual Synchronization between Two Controlled Interdependent Networks

    OpenAIRE

    Xu, Quan; Zhuang, Shengxian; Hu, Dan; Zeng, Yingfeng; Xiao, Jian

    2014-01-01

    This paper mainly focuses on the generalized mutual synchronization between two controlled interdependent networks. First, we propose the general model of controlled interdependent networks $A$ and $B$ with time-varying internetwork delays coupling. Then, by constructing Lyapunov functions and utilizing adaptive control technique, some sufficient conditions are established to ensure that the mutual synchronization errors between the state variables of networks $A$ and $B$ can asymptotically c...

  1. Existence of positive periodic solution of mutualism system with several delays

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wu Haihui; Xia Yonghui; Lin Muren

    2008-01-01

    In this paper, by using Mawhin coincidence degree, some sufficient conditions are obtained for the global existence of positive periodic solutions of a mutualism systems with bounded and unbounded delays. Our results generalize significantly improve those of Gopalsamy and He [Gopalsamy K, He XZ. Persistence, attractivity, and delay in facultative mutualism. J Math Anal Appl 1997;215:154-73], Yang et al. [Yang F, Jiang D, Ying A. Existence of positive solution of multidelays facultative mutualism system. J Eng Math 2002;3:64-8], Chen et al. [Chen FD, Shi JL, Chen XX. Periodicity in Lotka-Volterra facultative mutualism system with several delays. J Eng Math 2004;21(3)] and Xia and Lin [Xia YH, Lin M, Existence of positive periodic solution of mutualism system with infinite delays. Ann Diff Eqs 2005;21(3):448-53

  2. Mutuality, Self-Silencing, and Disordered Eating in College Women

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wechsler, Lisa S.; Riggs, Shelley A.; Stabb, Sally D.; Marshall, David M.

    2006-01-01

    The current study examined patterns of association among mutuality, self-silencing, and disordered eating in an ethnically diverse sample of college women (N = 149). Partner mutuality and overall self-silencing were negatively correlated and together were associated with six disordered eating indices. All four self-silencing subscales were…

  3. The mutuality metaphor: understanding healthcare provision in NHS Scotland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howieson, Brian

    2016-06-20

    Purpose - Better Health, Better Care Action Plan (Scottish Government, 2007) sets out how the Scottish Government intends to strengthen public ownership of the National Health Service in Scotland. The purpose of this paper is to advance extant knowledge by understanding how a state-led mutual health policy may be interpreted, and importantly, communicated. Design/methodology/approach - The definitional problem of mutuality will be discussed and analysed in terms of how it is (or perhaps should be) communicated? will be offered. Findings - It actually may be more instructive to think of, and communicate, mutuality as a metaphor to aid understanding of the openness and fluidity found in NHS Scotland. Research limitations/implications - The existence of paradox and ambiguity does not, however, negate the usefulness of the term "mutuality". Quite the opposite in fact: it is precisely by examining healthcare and its delivery through the lens of mutuality (rather than rejecting its complexity as a failure) that this amorphousness can be better appreciated. Practical implications - There is a need for more public, professional, and academic debate to explore and clarify its implementation, and how it is to be led. This must be provided whilst recognising the daily imperatives that NHS leaders must face. This would suggest, therefore, that a dual development path may help. Originality/value - Although Better Health, Better Care Action Plan was published in 2007, some eight years on there is still confusion and misunderstanding as to what mutuality in healthcare is, not only in policy and theory, but also in practice. It is hoped that this analysis will help address, in part, some of this confusion and misunderstanding.

  4. DYNAMICS OF MUTUAL FUNDS IN RELATION TO STOCK MARKET: A VECTOR AUTOREGRESSIVE CAUSALITY ANALYSIS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Md. Shahadath Hossain

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available In Bangladesh, primary and secondary mutual fund markets behave in a completely different way, where initial public offering (IPO investors of mutual funds earn more than 250 percent rerun, whereas secondary market investors cannot even manage to cover the opportunity cost of their investment. There are few other abnormalities present in this market – unlike everywhere in the world, most of the mutual funds are closed-end (92 percent and closed-end mutual funds are barred to issue bonus or right shares. A total of 714 day’s observations, from January 2008 to December 2010, of four variables– DSE (Dhaka Stock Exchange general index return, DSE general index turnover, mutual funds’ return and mutual funds’ turnover– are utilized. Stationarity of the variables are tested with Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF unit root test and found that variables are in different order of integration. Long-term equilibrium relationships among the variables are tested with Johansen cointegration and it is found that DSE general index return and mutual funds’ return are cointegrated. Toda-Yamamoto (TY version of granger non-causality test is employed and bidirectional causality is found moving from DSE (Dhaka Stock Exchange general index turnover to DSE general index return, whereas unidirectional causality is found moving from mutual fund’s return to DSE general index return, mutual funds’ return to mutual funds turnover, and DSE general index turnover to mutual funds turnover. This finding helps to conclude that equity shares’ demand drives the mutual funds demand but even higher demand of mutual funds fails to raise its own price unless underlying value of the mutual funds changes.

  5. Risk and Return Analysis of Mutual Fund Industry in India

    OpenAIRE

    Bilal Ahmad Pandow; Khurshid Ahmad Butt

    2017-01-01

    The mutual funds is one of the important classes of financial intermediaries which enables millions of small and large savers spread across India as well as internationally to participate in and derive the benefits of the capital market growth. Thus the involvement of mutual funds in the transformation of Indian economy has made it urgent to view their services as they are playing role in mobilizing and allocation of investable funds through markets. The fact is that mutual funds have a lot o...

  6. Investors’ perception on mutual funds with reference to Chidambaram town

    OpenAIRE

    N. Geetha; M. Ramesh

    2011-01-01

    Mutual funds in India play a vital role in mobilizing funds for capital and financial markets. The role of mutual funds in India felt significant as it generates funds from small investors at large across the country. The main objective of the study is to elucidate the perceptions and behaviours of the small investors located in the town of Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, South India towards the mutual funds and also suggest some measures to increase the quantum of investors and investments as well.

  7. Kyoto protocol: at last the agreement has been reached; Protocole de Kyoto: un accord enfin conclu

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2001-07-01

    After more than 3 years of negotiations, 180 countries agreed at Bonn on the application of the Kyoto protocol to fight the climatic warming. The main aspects of this agreement are discussed: the carbon wells, the tools of the pollution control for the developed countries and the financial help to the developing countries. (A.L.B.)

  8. Do firm characteristics influence mutual fund performance? An empirical study for European mutual funds

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Jong, F.C.J.M.; Wingens, L.

    2013-01-01

    This study investigates the influence of fund management firm characteristics on mutual fund performance. Using a sample of European domiciled open-end equity funds for the period 1998-2008, this study finds that the funds of private companies have performed better than the funds of public

  9. Associated Roles of Perioperative Medical Directors and Anesthesia: Hospital Agreements for Operating Room Management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dexter, Franklin; Epstein, Richard H

    2015-12-01

    As reviewed previously, decision making can be made systematically shortly before the day of surgery based on reducing the hours of overutilized operating room (OR) time and tardiness of case starts (i.e., patient waiting). We subsequently considered in 2008 that such decision making depends on rational anesthesia-hospital agreements specifying anesthesia staffing. Since that prior study, there has been a substantial increase in understanding of the timing of decision making to reduce overutilized OR time. Most decisions substantively influencing overutilized OR time are those made within 1 workday before the day of surgery and on the day of surgery, because only then are ORs sufficiently full that case scheduling and staff assignment decisions affect overutilized OR time. Consequently, anesthesiologists can easily be engaged in such decisions, because generally they must be involved to ensure that the corresponding anesthesia staff assignments are appropriate. Despite this, at hospitals with >8 hours of OR time used daily in each OR, computerized recommendations are superior to intuition because of cognitive biases. Decisions need to be made by a Perioperative Medical Director who has knowledge of the principles of perioperative managerial decision making published in the scientific literature rather than by a committee lacking this competency. Education in the scientific literature, and when different analytical methods should be used, is important. The addition that we make in this article is to show that an agreement between an anesthesia group and a hospital can both reduce overutilized OR time and patient waiting: The anesthesia group and hospital will ensure, hourly, that, when there are case(s) waiting to start, the number of ORs in use for each service will be at least the number that maximizes the efficiency of use of OR time. Neither the anesthesia group nor the hospital will be expected to run more than that number of ORs without mutual agreement

  10. Mutually unbiased coarse-grained measurements of two or more phase-space variables

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paul, E. C.; Walborn, S. P.; Tasca, D. S.; Rudnicki, Łukasz

    2018-05-01

    Mutual unbiasedness of the eigenstates of phase-space operators—such as position and momentum, or their standard coarse-grained versions—exists only in the limiting case of infinite squeezing. In Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 040403 (2018), 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.040403, it was shown that mutual unbiasedness can be recovered for periodic coarse graining of these two operators. Here we investigate mutual unbiasedness of coarse-grained measurements for more than two phase-space variables. We show that mutual unbiasedness can be recovered between periodic coarse graining of any two nonparallel phase-space operators. We illustrate these results through optics experiments, using the fractional Fourier transform to prepare and measure mutually unbiased phase-space variables. The differences between two and three mutually unbiased measurements is discussed. Our results contribute to bridging the gap between continuous and discrete quantum mechanics, and they could be useful in quantum-information protocols.

  11. A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE ON MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE AND EXTRADITION IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Murdoch Watney

    2012-08-01

    demands of sophisticated international criminal conduct. Mutual legal assistance and extradition provisions may show that the world is becoming smaller for fugitives and criminals, but the processes are far from expeditious and seamless. An overview of the South African law pertaining to mutual legal assistance and extradition indicates that the South African legislative framework and policies as well as international treaties make sufficient provision to render international assistance in respect of mutual legal assistance and extradition. The role of the courts in upholding the rule of law and protecting the constitutionally enshrined bill of rights, is indicative of the important function that the judiciary fulfills in this regard. It is important that extradition is not only seen as the function of the executive as it also involves the judiciary. It appears that South Africa has displayed the necessary commitment to normalize its international position since 1994 and to fulfill its obligations in a globalized world by reaching across borders in an attempt to address international criminal conduct.

  12. Two high-frequency mutual inductance bridges with high resolution

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Flokstra, Jakob; Gerritsma, G.J.; Kreuwel, H.J.M.; van der Marel, L.C.

    1980-01-01

    Two mutual inductance bridges are described for operation up to about 100 kHz. Special attention is paid to the sensitivity and resolution of the bridges. Both bridges can be used to measure variations of about 10 pH in the mutual inductance. The first bridge consists of passive elements only

  13. Hardware device binding and mutual authentication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamlet, Jason R; Pierson, Lyndon G

    2014-03-04

    Detection and deterrence of device tampering and subversion by substitution may be achieved by including a cryptographic unit within a computing device for binding multiple hardware devices and mutually authenticating the devices. The cryptographic unit includes a physically unclonable function ("PUF") circuit disposed in or on the hardware device, which generates a binding PUF value. The cryptographic unit uses the binding PUF value during an enrollment phase and subsequent authentication phases. During a subsequent authentication phase, the cryptographic unit uses the binding PUF values of the multiple hardware devices to generate a challenge to send to the other device, and to verify a challenge received from the other device to mutually authenticate the hardware devices.

  14. Persistence of pollination mutualisms in the presence of ants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yuanshi; Wang, Shikun

    2015-01-01

    This paper considers plant-pollinator-ant systems in which the plant-pollinator interaction is mutualistic but ants have both positive and negative effects on plants. The ants also interfere with pollinators by preventing them from accessing plants. While a Beddington-DeAngelis (BD) formula can describe the plant-pollinator interaction, the formula is extended in this paper to characterize the pollination mutualism under the ant interference. Then, a plant-pollinator-ant system with the extended BD functional response is discussed, and global dynamics of the model demonstrate the mechanisms by which pollination mutualism can persist in the presence of ants. When the ant interference is strong, it can result in extinction of pollinators. Moreover, if the ants depend on pollination mutualism for survival, the strong interference could drive pollinators into extinction, which consequently lead to extinction of the ants themselves. When the ant interference is weak, a cooperation between plant-ant and plant-pollinator mutualisms could occur, which promotes survival of both ants and pollinators, especially in the case that ants (respectively, pollinators) cannot survive in the absence of pollinators (respectively, ants). Even when the level of ant interference remains invariant, varying ants' negative effect on plants can result in survival/extinction of both ants and pollinators. Therefore, our results provide an explanation for the persistence of pollination mutualism when there exist ants.

  15. Mutualism Disruption Threatens Global Plant Biodiversity: A Systematic Review.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Clare E Aslan

    Full Text Available As global environmental change accelerates, biodiversity losses can disrupt interspecific interactions. Extinctions of mutualist partners can create "widow" species, which may face reduced ecological fitness. Hypothetically, such mutualism disruptions could have cascading effects on biodiversity by causing additional species coextinctions. However, the scope of this problem - the magnitude of biodiversity that may lose mutualist partners and the consequences of these losses - remains unknown.We conducted a systematic review and synthesis of data from a broad range of sources to estimate the threat posed by vertebrate extinctions to the global biodiversity of vertebrate-dispersed and -pollinated plants. Though enormous research gaps persist, our analysis identified Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and global oceanic islands as geographic regions at particular risk of disruption of these mutualisms; within these regions, percentages of plant species likely affected range from 2.1-4.5%. Widowed plants are likely to experience reproductive declines of 40-58%, potentially threatening their persistence in the context of other global change stresses.Our systematic approach demonstrates that thousands of species may be impacted by disruption in one class of mutualisms, but extinctions will likely disrupt other mutualisms, as well. Although uncertainty is high, there is evidence that mutualism disruption directly threatens significant biodiversity in some geographic regions. Conservation measures with explicit focus on mutualistic functions could be necessary to bolster populations of widowed species and maintain ecosystem functions.

  16. The practical outfall of DOE compliance agreements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Smith, Leanne; Henrie, Gregory O.

    1992-01-01

    Perhaps the significant regulatory issue facing the Department of Energy (DOE or the Department) is the compliant treatment, storage, and disposal of mixed (radioactive and hazardous) waste. Since DOE'S By-Product Rulemaking in 1987, when the Department acknowledged that the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) applied to the hazardous component of mixed waste, DOE has repeatedly communicated to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and host States that, for mixed waste, DOE is not always able to strictly comply with RCRA standards and that bringing treatment on-line in an expeditious manner is proving very difficult. One of the most effective methods used between DOE and its regulators to address mixed waste management issues is the negotiation of compliance agreements. These agreements establish formal mile stones for bringing DOE sites into compliance. The milestones are not completed without overcoming technical roadblocks and a struggle for funding. However, agreements can establish technically attainable compliance methods that take into account the special problems radiation introduces into RCRA waste management. Compliance agreements help promote a cooperative relationship within the Department and between DOE and its regulators in that all parties have reached agreement and have a stake in attaining the same goal. Where agreements exist, mixed waste compliance efforts can proceed in a situation where all parties have a full understanding of each other's needs and expectations. (author)

  17. The evolution of mutual ornamentation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kraaijeveld, Ken; Kraaijeveld-Smit, Femmie J. L.; Komdeur, Jan

    2007-01-01

    Many conspicuous ornamental traits in animals are expressed in both males and females. Despite this, most research has focused on sexually dimorphic ornamentation. Mutual ornamentation has often been viewed as a result of either a nonadaptive genetic correlation between the sexes or similar

  18. Mutual transformation of light waves by reflection holograms in photorefractive crystals of the 4-bar 3m symmetry

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Naunyka, V. N.; Shepelevich, V. V., E-mail: vasshep@inbox.ru [Mozyr State Pedagogical University (Belarus)

    2011-05-15

    The mutual transformation of light waves in the case of their simultaneous diffraction from a bulk reflection phase hologram, which was formed in a cubic photorefractive crystal of the 4-bar 3m symmetry class, has been studied. The indicator surfaces of the polarization-optimized values of the relative intensity of the object wave, which make it possible to determine the amplification of this wave for any crystal cut, are constructed. The linear polarization azimuths at which the energy exchange between the light waves reaches a maximum are found numerically for crystals of different cuts.

  19. Impact of Competition on Mutual Fund Marketing Expenses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sitikantha Parida

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, I study the impact of market competition on mutual fund marketing expenses. In a sample of US domestic equity mutual funds, I find that marketing expenses decrease with the competition. This effect is stronger for top-performing funds. These results are counterintuitive, as one would ordinarily expect funds to incur more marketing expenses in response to pressure from competing funds. However, these results support the narrative that mutual funds employ marketing to draw attention to their performance in a tournament-like market, where the top-performing funds (the winners are rewarded with disproportionately high new investments. Higher competition decreases the chances of each fund to outperform the others and adversely affect their ability to attract new investments, and the funds respond by decreasing marketing expenses. Thus, competition appears to have implications for investor search cost.

  20. Rényi generalizations of the conditional quantum mutual information

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Berta, Mario; Seshadreesan, Kaushik P.; Wilde, Mark M.

    2015-01-01

    The conditional quantum mutual information I(A; B|C) of a tripartite state ρ ABC is an information quantity which lies at the center of many problems in quantum information theory. Three of its main properties are that it is non-negative for any tripartite state, that it decreases under local operations applied to systems A and B, and that it obeys the duality relation I(A; B|C) = I(A; B|D) for a four-party pure state on systems ABCD. The conditional mutual information also underlies the squashed entanglement, an entanglement measure that satisfies all of the axioms desired for an entanglement measure. As such, it has been an open question to find Rényi generalizations of the conditional mutual information, that would allow for a deeper understanding of the original quantity and find applications beyond the traditional memoryless setting of quantum information theory. The present paper addresses this question, by defining different α-Rényi generalizations I α (A; B|C) of the conditional mutual information, some of which we can prove converge to the conditional mutual information in the limit α → 1. Furthermore, we prove that many of these generalizations satisfy non-negativity, duality, and monotonicity with respect to local operations on one of the systems A or B (with it being left as an open question to prove that monotonicity holds with respect to local operations on both systems). The quantities defined here should find applications in quantum information theory and perhaps even in other areas of physics, but we leave this for future work. We also state a conjecture regarding the monotonicity of the Rényi conditional mutual informations defined here with respect to the Rényi parameter α. We prove that this conjecture is true in some special cases and when α is in a neighborhood of one

  1. Team Reasoning and Intentional Cooperation for Mutual Benefit

    OpenAIRE

    Sugden Robert

    2015-01-01

    This paper proposes a concept of intentional cooperation for mutual benefit. This concept uses a form of team reasoning in which team members aim to achieve common interests, rather than maximising a common utility function, and in which team reasoners can coordinate their behaviour by following pre-existing practices. I argue that a market transaction can express intentions for mutually beneficial cooperation even if, extensionally, participation in the transaction promotes each party’s self...

  2. AWARENESS OF MUTUAL FUND INVESTMENT AMONG THE INVESTORS – AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

    OpenAIRE

    Dr. B. Ravi Kumar; R. Padma Malini

    2017-01-01

    Capital market has been strengthened due to because of increase in investment in mutual funds by small and medium investors. Most of the investors are having awareness about mutual funds and its benefits like tax benefits, less risk, cost etc. The mutual fund industry in India has undergone a most successful phase in the last 15 years. The growth in number of schemes offered by Indian mutual funds from 403 schemes in 2002-03 to 1294 schemes in 2011-12 has shown the inclination of investors to...

  3. Measurement reduction for mutual coupling calibration in DOA estimation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aksoy, Taylan; Tuncer, T. Engin

    2012-01-01

    Mutual coupling is an important source of error in antenna arrays that should be compensated for super resolution direction-of-arrival (DOA) algorithms, such as Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) algorithm. A crucial step in array calibration is the determination of the mutual coupling coefficients for the antenna array. In this paper, a system theoretic approach is presented for the mutual coupling characterization of antenna arrays. The comprehension and implementation of this approach is simple leading to further advantages in calibration measurement reduction. In this context, a measurement reduction method for antenna arrays with omni-directional and identical elements is proposed which is based on the symmetry planes in the array geometry. The proposed method significantly decreases the number of measurements during the calibration process. This method is evaluated using different array types whose responses and the mutual coupling characteristics are obtained through numerical electromagnetic simulations. It is shown that a single calibration measurement is sufficient for uniform circular arrays. Certain important and interesting characteristics observed during the experiments are outlined.

  4. Reducing Interpolation Artifacts for Mutual Information Based Image Registration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soleimani, H.; Khosravifard, M.A.

    2011-01-01

    Medical image registration methods which use mutual information as similarity measure have been improved in recent decades. Mutual Information is a basic concept of Information theory which indicates the dependency of two random variables (or two images). In order to evaluate the mutual information of two images their joint probability distribution is required. Several interpolation methods, such as Partial Volume (PV) and bilinear, are used to estimate joint probability distribution. Both of these two methods yield some artifacts on mutual information function. Partial Volume-Hanning window (PVH) and Generalized Partial Volume (GPV) methods are introduced to remove such artifacts. In this paper we show that the acceptable performance of these methods is not due to their kernel function. It's because of the number of pixels which incorporate in interpolation. Since using more pixels requires more complex and time consuming interpolation process, we propose a new interpolation method which uses only four pixels (the same as PV and bilinear interpolations) and removes most of the artifacts. Experimental results of the registration of Computed Tomography (CT) images show superiority of the proposed scheme. PMID:22606673

  5. Mutual Coupling Effects on Pattern Diversity Antennas for MIMO Femtocells

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yue Gao

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Diversity antennas play an important role in wireless communications. However, mutual coupling between multiple ports of a diversity antenna has significant effects on wireless radio links and channel capacity. In this paper, dual-port pattern diversity antennas for femtocell applications are proposed to cover GSM1800, UMTS, and WLAN frequency bands. The channel capacities of the proposed antennas and two ideal dipoles with different mutual coupling levels are investigated in an indoor environment. The relation between mutual coupling and channel capacity is observed through investigations of these antennas.

  6. Mutual Recogniton of Professional Qualifications

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Enemark, Stig; Plimmer, Francis

    The publication aims to review the concept of mutual recognition of qualifications within the world wide surveying community, and to develop a framework for the introduction of standards of global professional competence in this area. The publication also includes a number of case studies from...

  7. An implementation of mutual inclusion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoogerwoord, R.R.

    1986-01-01

    We consider the parallel composition of two cyclic programs. The interaction of these programs consists of a form of synchronisation sometimes referred to as ‘mutual inclusion’. For a given implementation of this synchronisation by means of semaphore operations, we prove the correctness of the

  8. Mutual repression enhances the steepness and precision of gene expression boundaries.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas R Sokolowski

    Full Text Available Embryonic development is driven by spatial patterns of gene expression that determine the fate of each cell in the embryo. While gene expression is often highly erratic, embryonic development is usually exceedingly precise. In particular, gene expression boundaries are robust not only against intra-embryonic fluctuations such as noise in gene expression and protein diffusion, but also against embryo-to-embryo variations in the morphogen gradients, which provide positional information to the differentiating cells. How development is robust against intra- and inter-embryonic variations is not understood. A common motif in the gene regulation networks that control embryonic development is mutual repression between pairs of genes. To assess the role of mutual repression in the robust formation of gene expression patterns, we have performed large-scale stochastic simulations of a minimal model of two mutually repressing gap genes in Drosophila, hunchback (hb and knirps (kni. Our model includes not only mutual repression between hb and kni, but also the stochastic and cooperative activation of hb by the anterior morphogen Bicoid (Bcd and of kni by the posterior morphogen Caudal (Cad, as well as the diffusion of Hb and Kni between neighboring nuclei. Our analysis reveals that mutual repression can markedly increase the steepness and precision of the gap gene expression boundaries. In contrast to other mechanisms such as spatial averaging and cooperative gene activation, mutual repression thus allows for gene-expression boundaries that are both steep and precise. Moreover, mutual repression dramatically enhances their robustness against embryo-to-embryo variations in the morphogen levels. Finally, our simulations reveal that diffusion of the gap proteins plays a critical role not only in reducing the width of the gap gene expression boundaries via the mechanism of spatial averaging, but also in repairing patterning errors that could arise because of the

  9. Why mutual helping in most natural systems is neither conflict-free nor based on maximal conflict.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bshary, Redouan; Zuberbühler, Klaus; van Schaik, Carel P

    2016-02-05

    Mutual helping for direct benefits can be explained by various game theoretical models, which differ mainly in terms of the underlying conflict of interest between two partners. Conflict is minimal if helping is self-serving and the partner benefits as a by-product. In contrast, conflict is maximal if partners are in a prisoner's dilemma with both having the pay-off-dominant option of not returning the other's investment. Here, we provide evolutionary and ecological arguments for why these two extremes are often unstable under natural conditions and propose that interactions with intermediate levels of conflict are frequent evolutionary endpoints. We argue that by-product helping is prone to becoming an asymmetric investment game since even small variation in by-product benefits will lead to the evolution of partner choice, leading to investments by the chosen class. Second, iterated prisoner's dilemmas tend to take place in stable social groups where the fitness of partners is interdependent, with the effect that a certain level of helping is self-serving. In sum, intermediate levels of mutual helping are expected in nature, while efficient partner monitoring may allow reaching higher levels. © 2016 The Author(s).

  10. Indian mutual fund industry: Opportunities and challenges

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jayant R. Kale

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available This article presents an overview of the mutual fund industry in India and the reasons for its poor penetration, which includes lack of objective research. It benchmarks the industry globally, and raises key issues regarding the ownership and performance of mutual funds, the sensitivity of fund flows to performance, and the importance of regulation to its growth, all of which have been largely under researched in India. It then captures the views of leading practitioners on these and other issues, including the challenges posed by poor financial literacy, the equity culture in the country, and the weakly supportive regulatory environment.

  11. Quantum process reconstruction based on mutually unbiased basis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fernandez-Perez, A.; Saavedra, C.; Klimov, A. B.

    2011-01-01

    We study a quantum process reconstruction based on the use of mutually unbiased projectors (MUB projectors) as input states for a D-dimensional quantum system, with D being a power of a prime number. This approach connects the results of quantum-state tomography using mutually unbiased bases with the coefficients of a quantum process, expanded in terms of MUB projectors. We also study the performance of the reconstruction scheme against random errors when measuring probabilities at the MUB projectors.

  12. Application of data envelopment analysis in measuring the efficiency of mutual fund

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nik, Marzieh Geramian; Mihanzadeh, Hooman; Izadifar, Mozhgan; Nik, Babak Geramian

    2015-05-01

    The growth of mutual fund industry during the past decades emphasizes the importance of this investment vehicle particularly in prosperity of financial markets and in turn, financial growth of each country. Therefore, evaluating the relative efficiency of mutual funds as investment tool is of importance. In this study, a combined model of DEA (data envelopment analysis), and goal programming (GoDEA) approaches contributes widely to analyze the return efficiency of Mutual Funds in an attempt to separate efficient and inefficient Funds as well as identifying the inefficiency resources. Mixed asset local funds, which are managed jointly by CIMB and Public Mutual Berhad, have been selected for the purpose of this paper. As a result, Public Small Cap Fund (P Small Cap) is regarded as the most efficient mutual fund during the period of study. The integrated model aims to first guide investors to choose the best performing fund among other mutual funds, secondly provides the realistic and appropriate benchmark in compare to other classic method, and finally confirms the utility of data envelopment analysis (DEA) as decision-making tool.

  13. 31 CFR 103.131 - Customer identification programs for mutual funds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... Finance FINANCIAL RECORDKEEPING AND REPORTING OF CURRENCY AND FOREIGN TRANSACTIONS Anti-Money Laundering Programs Anti-Money Laundering Programs § 103.131 Customer identification programs for mutual funds. (a... mutual fund's anti-money laundering program required under the regulations implementing 31 U.S.C. 5318(h...

  14. Occurrence and characteristics of mutual interference between LIDAR scanners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Gunzung; Eom, Jeongsook; Park, Seonghyeon; Park, Yongwan

    2015-05-01

    The LIDAR scanner is at the heart of object detection of the self-driving car. Mutual interference between LIDAR scanners has not been regarded as a problem because the percentage of vehicles equipped with LIDAR scanners was very rare. With the growing number of autonomous vehicle equipped with LIDAR scanner operated close to each other at the same time, the LIDAR scanner may receive laser pulses from other LIDAR scanners. In this paper, three types of experiments and their results are shown, according to the arrangement of two LIDAR scanners. We will show the probability that any LIDAR scanner will interfere mutually by considering spatial and temporal overlaps. It will present some typical mutual interference scenario and report an analysis of the interference mechanism.

  15. Nectar bacteria, but not yeast, weaken a plant-pollinator mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vannette, Rachel L; Gauthier, Marie-Pierre L; Fukami, Tadashi

    2013-02-07

    Mutualistic interactions are often subject to exploitation by species that are not directly involved in the mutualism. Understanding which organisms act as such 'third-party' species and how they do so is a major challenge in the current study of mutualistic interactions. Here, we show that even species that appear ecologically similar can have contrasting effects as third-party species. We experimentally compared the effects of nectar-inhabiting bacteria and yeasts on the strength of a mutualism between a hummingbird-pollinated shrub, Mimulus aurantiacus, and its pollinators. We found that the common bacterium Gluconobacter sp., but not the common yeast Metschnikowia reukaufii, reduced pollination success, seed set and nectar consumption by pollinators, thereby weakening the plant-pollinator mutualism. We also found that the bacteria reduced nectar pH and total sugar concentration more greatly than the yeasts did and that the bacteria decreased glucose concentration and increased fructose concentration whereas the yeasts affected neither. These distinct changes to nectar chemistry may underlie the microbes' contrasting effects on the mutualism. Our results suggest that it is necessary to understand the determinants of microbial species composition in nectar and their differential modification of floral rewards to explain the mutual benefits that plants and pollinators gain from each other.

  16. Nectar bacteria, but not yeast, weaken a plant–pollinator mutualism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vannette, Rachel L.; Gauthier, Marie-Pierre L.; Fukami, Tadashi

    2013-01-01

    Mutualistic interactions are often subject to exploitation by species that are not directly involved in the mutualism. Understanding which organisms act as such ‘third-party’ species and how they do so is a major challenge in the current study of mutualistic interactions. Here, we show that even species that appear ecologically similar can have contrasting effects as third-party species. We experimentally compared the effects of nectar-inhabiting bacteria and yeasts on the strength of a mutualism between a hummingbird-pollinated shrub, Mimulus aurantiacus, and its pollinators. We found that the common bacterium Gluconobacter sp., but not the common yeast Metschnikowia reukaufii, reduced pollination success, seed set and nectar consumption by pollinators, thereby weakening the plant–pollinator mutualism. We also found that the bacteria reduced nectar pH and total sugar concentration more greatly than the yeasts did and that the bacteria decreased glucose concentration and increased fructose concentration whereas the yeasts affected neither. These distinct changes to nectar chemistry may underlie the microbes' contrasting effects on the mutualism. Our results suggest that it is necessary to understand the determinants of microbial species composition in nectar and their differential modification of floral rewards to explain the mutual benefits that plants and pollinators gain from each other. PMID:23222453

  17. Mutually orthogonal Latin squares from the inner products of vectors in mutually unbiased bases

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hall, Joanne L; Rao, Asha

    2010-01-01

    Mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) are important in quantum information theory. While constructions of complete sets of d + 1 MUBs in C d are known when d is a prime power, it is unknown if such complete sets exist in non-prime power dimensions. It has been conjectured that complete sets of MUBs only exist in C d if a maximal set of mutually orthogonal Latin squares (MOLS) of side length d also exists. There are several constructions (Roy and Scott 2007 J. Math. Phys. 48 072110; Paterek, Dakic and Brukner 2009 Phys. Rev. A 79 012109) of complete sets of MUBs from specific types of MOLS, which use Galois fields to construct the vectors of the MUBs. In this paper, two known constructions of MUBs (Alltop 1980 IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 26 350-354; Wootters and Fields 1989 Ann. Phys. 191 363-381), both of which use polynomials over a Galois field, are used to construct complete sets of MOLS in the odd prime case. The MOLS come from the inner products of pairs of vectors in the MUBs.

  18. Comparison of the performance of Islamic, Sri and green mutual funds

    OpenAIRE

    Paradinovic, Ivana

    2017-01-01

    This paper measures and compares performance of Islamic, SRI and Green mutual equity funds worldwide in the period from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2015. The sample consists of 611 mutual equity funds and their performance was assessed by using traditional risk-adjusted measures, namely Sharpe ratio, Modified Sharpe Ratio, Adjusted Sharpe Ratio, Treynor measure, Information ratio and Jensen’s alpha. The main findings show that Green mutual equity funds, on average, outperform both SRI and I...

  19. UK equity mutual fund alphas make a comeback

    OpenAIRE

    Mateus, Irina B.; Mateus, Cesario; Todorovic, Natasa

    2016-01-01

    In this study, we re-visit the performance of 887 active UK equity mutual funds using a new approach proposed by Angelidis, Giamouridis, and Tessaromatis. The authors argue that mutual funds stock selection is driven by the benchmark index, so if the benchmark generates alpha, there will be a bias in interpretation of manager's stock-picking ability. In their model, the alpha of a fund is adjusted by the benchmark's alpha. By applying this method, we eliminate bias inflicted by the persistent...

  20. Agreement between the government of Australia and the government of the Republic of Korea concerning cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the transfer of nuclear material

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1979-01-01

    The agreement contains fourteen articles under which the parties will cooperate in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, including transfer of nuclear materials, research and development, exchange of unclassified information, technical training, visits by scientists and projects of mutual interest

  1. Validity of an Interactive Functional Reach Test.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galen, Sujay S; Pardo, Vicky; Wyatt, Douglas; Diamond, Andrew; Brodith, Victor; Pavlov, Alex

    2015-08-01

    Videogaming platforms such as the Microsoft (Redmond, WA) Kinect(®) are increasingly being used in rehabilitation to improve balance performance and mobility. These gaming platforms do not have built-in clinical measures that offer clinically meaningful data. We have now developed software that will enable the Kinect sensor to assess a patient's balance using an interactive functional reach test (I-FRT). The aim of the study was to test the concurrent validity of the I-FRT and to establish the feasibility of implementing the I-FRT in a clinical setting. The concurrent validity of the I-FRT was tested among 20 healthy adults (mean age, 25.8±3.4 years; 14 women). The Functional Reach Test (FRT) was measured simultaneously by both the Kinect sensor using the I-FRT software and the Optotrak Certus(®) 3D motion-capture system (Northern Digital Inc., Waterloo, ON, Canada). The feasibility of implementing the I-FRT in a clinical setting was assessed by performing the I-FRT in 10 participants with mild balance impairments recruited from the outpatient physical therapy clinic (mean age, 55.8±13.5 years; four women) and obtaining their feedback using a NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) questionnaire. There was moderate to good agreement between FRT measures made by the two measurement systems. The greatest agreement between the two measurement system was found with the Kinect sensor placed at a distance of 2.5 m [intraclass correlation coefficient (2,k)=0.786; PNASA/TLX questionnaire. FRT measures made using the Kinect sensor I-FRT software provides a valid clinical measure that can be used with the gaming platforms.

  2. 77 FR 25349 - Mutual Insurance Holding Company Treated as Insurance Company

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-04-30

    ..., the first mutual fire insurer was established. The first American mutual insurance company, the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, was founded in 1752.\\3\\ \\3\\ The...

  3. The nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran: real progress?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sitt, Bernard

    2013-11-01

    The joint plan of action signed on the 24 November 2013 by the P5+1 and Iran is good news, and all the States parties to this document have expressed their satisfaction. This 'mutually agreed long-term comprehensive solution' - as it is repeatedly referred to in the preamble - constitutes a concrete materialisation of the softening of Iran's position since the election of Hassan Rouhani as the country's president (with the approval of the Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei). This plan of action was adopted after nearly eleven years of a crisis that was interrupted on one occasion only by the Paris Agreement signed on the 15 November 2004 between the EU3 and Iran (whose chief negotiator at the time was Hassan Rouhani), and which took a more radical turn following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's accession to power. But this text, written in the conditional tense, is not strictly speaking an agreement. It is rather an agreement on the substance of a future agreement, albeit a precise and detailed one. Negotiations will be carried out over an initial six-month period, and a second phase will finalise a full agreement at most one year on from the adoption of the joint action plan. It is also underlined that this agreement will be an indivisible whole: nothing will be agreed unless everything is agreed. The limitations that Iran is prepared to accept on its nuclear programme would appear to be substantial: the retention of half of its stock of 20%-enriched uranium to produce fuel for the Teheran Research Reactor and the dilution of the other half to no more than 5%; no increase in its existing enrichment capabilities, but it will continue its research and development practices in this field; the suspension of the construction of the Arak heavy-water reactor; no reprocessing; and enhanced monitoring of nuclear activities by the IAEA. In exchange, no new sanctions or crude oil embargoes will be imposed; existing sanctions on petrochemical products and services will be suspended; and

  4. Evaluation of Performance of Mutual Funds in India from 2004-2009

    OpenAIRE

    Badani, Ankit

    2009-01-01

    Mutual funds play an important role in the globalization of the financial markets. Various past studies have been carried out by academics and researchers to analyse the performance of mutual funds. One of the important facts revealed by most of these studies is that a mutual fund cannot perform better than the market. Performance measures like Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, Jensen measure etc are applied to evaluate the performance 30 open-ended equity diversified growth funds in India for the...

  5. Exploring Proxy Measures of Mutuality for Strategic Partnership Development: A Case Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mayo-Gamble, Tilicia L; Barnes, Priscilla A; Sherwood-Laughlin, Catherine M; Reece, Michael; DeWeese, Sandy; Kennedy, Carol Weiss; Valenta, Mary Ann

    2017-07-01

    Partnerships between academic and clinical-based health organizations are becoming increasingly important in improving health outcomes. Mutuality is recognized as a vital component of these partnerships. If partnerships are to achieve mutuality, there is a need to define what it means to partnering organizations. Few studies have described the elements contributing to mutuality, particularly in new relationships between academic and clinical partners. This study seeks to identify how mutuality is expressed and to explore potential proxy measures of mutuality for an alliance consisting of a hospital system and a School of Public Health. Key informant interviews were conducted with faculty and hospital representatives serving on the partnership steering committee. Key informants were asked about perceived events that led to the development of the Alliance; perceived goals, expectations, and outcomes; and current/future roles with the Alliance. Four proxy measures of mutuality for an academic-clinical partnership were identified: policy directives, community beneficence, procurement of human capital, and partnership longevity. Findings can inform the development of tools for assisting in strengthening relationships and ensuring stakeholders' interests align with the mission and goal of the partnership by operationalizing elements necessary to evaluate the progress of the partnership.

  6. Vector-virus mutualism accelerates population increase of an invasive whitefly.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Min Jiu

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available The relationships between plant viruses, their herbivore vectors and host plants can be beneficial, neutral, or antagonistic, depending on the species involved. This variation in relationships may affect the process of biological invasion and the displacement of indigenous species by invaders when the invasive and indigenous organisms occur with niche overlap but differ in the interactions. The notorious invasive B biotype of the whitefly complex Bemisia tabaci entered China in the late 1990s and is now the predominant or only biotype in many regions of the country. Tobacco curly shoot virus (TbCSV and Tomato yellow leaf curl China virus (TYLCCNV are two whitefly-transmitted begomoviruses that have become widespread recently in south China. We compared the performance of the invasive B and indigenous ZHJ1 whitefly biotypes on healthy, TbCSV-infected and TYLCCNV-infected tobacco plants. Compared to its performance on healthy plants, the invasive B biotype increased its fecundity and longevity by 12 and 6 fold when feeding on TbCSV-infected plants, and by 18 and 7 fold when feeding on TYLCCNV-infected plants. Population density of the B biotype on TbCSV- and TYLCCNV-infected plants reached 2 and 13 times that on healthy plants respectively in 56 days. In contrast, the indigenous ZHJ1 performed similarly on healthy and virus-infected plants. Virus-infection status of the whiteflies per se of both biotypes showed limited effects on performance of vectors on cotton, a nonhost plant of the viruses. The indirect mutualism between the B biotype whitefly and these viruses via their host plants, and the apparent lack of such mutualism for the indigenous whitefly, may contribute to the ability of the B whitefly biotype to invade, the displacement of indigenous whiteflies, and the disease pandemics of the viruses associated with this vector.

  7. Landauer current and mutual information in a bosonic quantum dot

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shashikant Sable, Hrushikesh; Singh Bhakuni, Devendra; Sharma, Auditya

    2018-02-01

    We study the quantum transport of bosons through a quantum dot coupled to two macroscopic heat baths L and R, held at fixed temperatures TL and TR respectively. We manage to cast the particle as well as the heat current into the Landauer form. Following the correlation matrix approach, we compute the time-dependent mutual information of the dot with the baths. We find that mutual information goes logarithmically as the number of bosons, and at low temperatures, it is possible to set up the parameters in such a way that in steady-state, the mutual information goes quadratically as a function of current.

  8. The Mutual Storytelling Writing Game.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scorzelli, James F.; Gold, Julie

    1999-01-01

    Because of differences in cultural backgrounds and learning styles, some children have a difficult time verbalizing their emotions or appear resistant to talking about themselves. Describes a technique, referred to as the mutual storytelling writing game, that has been found to be useful for children who have difficulty in engaging in traditional…

  9. Enhanced mutual capture of colored solitons by matched modulator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feigenbaum, Eyal; Orenstein, Meir

    2004-08-01

    The mutual capture of two colored solitons is enhanced by a modulator, to a level which enables its practical exploitation, e.g., for a read- write mechanism in a soliton buffer. The enhanced capture was analyzed using closed form particle-like soliton perturbation, and verified by numerical simulations. Optimal modulator frequency and modulation depth are obtained. This mutual capture can be utilized for all-optical soliton logic and memory.

  10. A consumer-resource approach to the density-dependent population dynamics of mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holland, J Nathaniel; DeAngelis, Donald L

    2010-05-01

    Like predation and competition, mutualism is now recognized as a consumer-resource (C-R) interaction, including, in particular, bi-directional (e.g., coral, plant-mycorrhizae) and uni-directional (e.g., ant-plant defense, plant-pollinator) C-R mutualisms. Here, we develop general theory for the density-dependent population dynamics of mutualism based on the C-R mechanism of interspecific interaction. To test the influence of C-R interactions on the dynamics and stability of bi- and uni-directional C-R mutualisms, we developed simple models that link consumer functional response of one mutualistic species with the resources supplied by another. Phase-plane analyses show that the ecological dynamics of C-R mutualisms are stable in general. Most transient behavior leads to an equilibrium of mutualistic coexistence, at which both species densities are greater than in the absence of interactions. However, due to the basic nature of C-R interactions, certain density-dependent conditions can lead to C-R dynamics characteristic of predator-prey interactions, in which one species overexploits and causes the other to go extinct. Consistent with empirical phenomena, these results suggest that the C-R interaction can provide a broad mechanism for understanding density-dependent population dynamics of mutualism. By unifying predation, competition, and mutualism under the common ecological framework of consumer-resource theory, we may also gain a better understanding of the universal features of interspecific interactions in general.

  11. A consumer-resource approach to the density-dependent population dynamics of mutualism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holland, J. Nathaniel; DeAngelis, Donald L.

    2010-01-01

    Like predation and competition, mutualism is now recognized as a consumer resource (C-R) interaction, including, in particular, bi-directional (e.g., coral, plant- mycorrhizae) and uni-directional (e.g., ant-plant defense, plant-pollinator) C-R mutualisms. Here, we develop general theory for the density-dependent population dynamics of mutualism based on the C-R mechanism of interspecific interaction. To test the influence of C-R interactions on the dynamics and stability of bi- and uni-directional C-R mutualisms, we developed simple models that link consumer functional response of one mutualistic species with the resources supplied by another. Phase-plane analyses show that the ecological dynamics of C-R mutualisms are stable in general. Most transient behavior leads to an equilibrium of mutualistic coexistence, at which both species densities are greater than in the absence of interactions. However, due to the basic nature of C-R interactions, certain density-dependent conditions can lead to C-R dynamics characteristic of predator-prey interactions, in which one species overexploits and causes the other to go extinct. Consistent with empirical phenomena, these results suggest that the C-R interaction can provide a broad mechanism for understanding density-dependent population dynamics of mutualism. By unifying predation, competition, and mutualism under the common ecological framework of consumer-resource theory, we may also gain a better understanding of the universal features of interspecific interactions in general.

  12. 26 CFR 1.822-5 - Mutual insurance company taxable income.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... Companies and Other Than Fire Or Flood Insurance Companies Which Operate on Basis of Perpetual Policies Or... by the following examples: Example 1. The X Company, a mutual fire insurance company subject to the... 26 Internal Revenue 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Mutual insurance company taxable income. 1.822-5...

  13. Improvement of "Novel Multiparty Quantum Key Agreement Protocol with GHZ States"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gu, Jun; Hwang, Tzonelih

    2017-10-01

    Quantum key agreement (QKA) protocol is a method for negotiating a fair and secure key among mutually untrusted participants. Recently, Xu et al. (Quantum Inf. Process. 13:2587-2594, 2014) proposed a multi-party QKA protocol based on Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states. However, this study points out that Xu et al.'s protocol cannot provide the fairness property. That is, the last involved participant in the protocol can manipulate the final shared secret key without being detected by the other participants. Moreover, according to Yu et al.'s research (2015), Xu et al.'s protocol cannot avoid the public discussion attack too. To avoid these weaknesses, an improved QKA protocol is proposed.

  14. Mutual diffusion coefficients of isopropanol + n-heptane and isobutanol + n-heptane

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    He, Maogang; Peng, Sanguo; Zhang, Ying; Zhang, Shi; Liu, Xiangyang

    2016-01-01

    Graphical abstract: Mutual diffusion coefficients of isopropanol + n-heptane as a function of mass fraction of isopropanol. - Highlights: • D_1_2 of isopropanol + n-heptane and isobutanol + n-heptane were measured. • Effect of T, w and M of the solute on D_1_2 were analyzed. • A new correlation is proposed for the experimental data. - Abstract: The mutual diffusion coefficients of isopropanol + n-heptane and isobutanol + n-heptane were measured at different concentrations and in the temperature range from (283.15 to 323.15) K. The measurements were carried out using a digital holographic interferometry system. For all the mixtures investigated, the mutual diffusion coefficient increases as the temperature increases. At the same concentration and temperature, the mutual diffusion coefficients of isobutanol + n-heptane were lower than those of isopropanol + n-heptane due to the fact that the molecular weight of isobutanol is larger than that of isopropanol. A new correlation is proposed for the mutual diffusion coefficients of isopropanol + n-heptane and isobutanol + n-heptane. The absolute average relative deviation between the correlation and experiment is less than 1.90%.

  15. Estimation of time-delayed mutual information and bias for irregularly and sparsely sampled time-series

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Albers, D.J.; Hripcsak, George

    2012-01-01

    Highlights: ► Time-delayed mutual information for irregularly sampled time-series. ► Estimation bias for the time-delayed mutual information calculation. ► Fast, simple, PDF estimator independent, time-delayed mutual information bias estimate. ► Quantification of data-set-size limits of the time-delayed mutual calculation. - Abstract: A method to estimate the time-dependent correlation via an empirical bias estimate of the time-delayed mutual information for a time-series is proposed. In particular, the bias of the time-delayed mutual information is shown to often be equivalent to the mutual information between two distributions of points from the same system separated by infinite time. Thus intuitively, estimation of the bias is reduced to estimation of the mutual information between distributions of data points separated by large time intervals. The proposed bias estimation techniques are shown to work for Lorenz equations data and glucose time series data of three patients from the Columbia University Medical Center database.

  16. Mutual attraction of magnetic knots

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Parker, E.N.

    1978-01-01

    It is observed that the magnetic knots associated with active regions on the Sun have an attraction for each other during the formative period of the active regions, when new magnetic flux is coming to the surface. The attraction disappears when new flux ceases to rise through the surface. Then the magnetic spots and knots tend to come apart, leading to disintegration of the sunspots previously formed. The dissolution of the fields is to be expected, as a consequence of the magnetic repulsion of knots of like polarity and as a consequence of the hydromagnetic exchange instability.The purpose of this paper is to show that the mutual attraction of knots during the formative stages of a sunspot region may be understood as the mutual hydrodynamic attraction of the rising flux tubes. Two rising tubes attract each other, as a consequence of the wake of the leading tube when one is moving behind the other, and as a consequence of the Bernoulli effect when rising side by side

  17. Herbivory eliminates fitness costs of mutualism exploiters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simonsen, Anna K; Stinchcombe, John R

    2014-04-01

    A common empirical observation in mutualistic interactions is the persistence of variation in partner quality and, in particular, the persistence of exploitative phenotypes. For mutualisms between hosts and symbionts, most mutualism theory assumes that exploiters always impose fitness costs on their host. We exposed legume hosts to mutualistic (nitrogen-fixing) and exploitative (non-nitrogen-fixing) symbiotic rhizobia in field conditions, and manipulated the presence or absence of insect herbivory to determine if the costly fitness effects of exploitative rhizobia are context-dependent. Exploitative rhizobia predictably reduced host fitness when herbivores were excluded. However, insects caused greater damage on hosts associating with mutualistic rhizobia, as a consequence of feeding preferences related to leaf nitrogen content, resulting in the elimination of fitness costs imposed on hosts by exploitative rhizobia. Our experiment shows that herbivory is potentially an important factor in influencing the evolutionary dynamic between legumes and rhizobia. Partner choice and host sanctioning are theoretically predicted to stabilize mutualisms by reducing the frequency of exploitative symbionts. We argue that herbivore pressure may actually weaken selection on choice and sanction mechanisms, thus providing one explanation of why host-based discrimination mechanisms may not be completely effective in eliminating nonbeneficial partners. © 2014 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2014 New Phytologist Trust.

  18. Reduction of Conflicts in Mining Development Using "Good Neighbor Agreements"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Masaitis, A.

    2013-05-01

    New environmental and social challenges for the mining industry in both developed and developing countries show the obvious need to implement "responsible" mining practices that include improved community involvement. Good Neighbor Agreements (GNA's) are a relatively new mechanism for improving communication and trust between a mining company and the community. The focus of a GNA will be to provide a written and enforceable agreement, negotiated between the concerned public and the respective mining company to respond to concerns from the public, and also provide a mechanism for conflict resolution, when there is mutual benefit to maintain a working relationship. Development of GNA's, a recently evolving process that promotes environmentally sound relationships between mines and the surrounding communities. Modify and apply the resulting GNA formulas to the developing countries and countries with transitional economies. This is particularly important for countries that have poorly functioning regulatory systems that cannot guarantee a healthy and safe environment for the communities. The fundamental questions addressed by this research. 1. This is a three-year research project started in August 2012 at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) to develop a Good Neighbor Agreements standards as well as to investigate the details of mine development. 2. Identify spheres of possible cooperation between mining companies, government organizations, and the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's). Use this cooperation to develop international standards for the GNA, to promote exchange of environmental information, and exchange of successful environmental, health, and safety practices between mining operations from different countries. Discussion: The Good Neighbor Agreement currently evolving will address the following: 1. Provide an economically viable mechanism for developing a partnership between mining operations and the local communities that will increase mining industry

  19. Fuzzy Mutual Information Based min-Redundancy and Max-Relevance Heterogeneous Feature Selection

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daren Yu

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Feature selection is an important preprocessing step in pattern classification and machine learning, and mutual information is widely used to measure relevance between features and decision. However, it is difficult to directly calculate relevance between continuous or fuzzy features using mutual information. In this paper we introduce the fuzzy information entropy and fuzzy mutual information for computing relevance between numerical or fuzzy features and decision. The relationship between fuzzy information entropy and differential entropy is also discussed. Moreover, we combine fuzzy mutual information with qmin-Redundancy-Max-Relevanceq, qMax-Dependencyq and min-Redundancy-Max-Dependencyq algorithms. The performance and stability of the proposed algorithms are tested on benchmark data sets. Experimental results show the proposed algorithms are effective and stable.

  20. On the behavior of mutual fund investors and managers

    OpenAIRE

    Goriaev, A.P.

    2002-01-01

    This thesis investigates empirically and theoretically the behavior of mutual fund investors and managers. These two aspects are closely related to each other. Investors try to select funds that follow an optimal investment policy from their point of view, while fund managers are typically interested in maximizing net fund inflows. In the first part of the thesis, we analyze the determinants of mutual fund flows, concentrating on the impact of past performance on fund flows. In particular, we...

  1. Importance of mutual benefits in online knowledge sharing communities

    OpenAIRE

    Tian, Y.; Lau, L.M.S.; Dew, P.M.

    2004-01-01

    The sustainability of knowledge sharing e-communities is a major issue at present. A hypothesis was\\ud proposed at the outset in the paper that the provision of mutual benefits among participants will lead to positive\\ud participation. Drawing from the economic and social theories, a framework for analysis was developed and tested in\\ud an empirical study. The preliminary results demonstrated a direct relationship between mutual benefits and the level\\ud of participation, and hence supported ...

  2. 76 FR 77442 - Mutual Insurance Holding Company Treated as Insurance Company

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-12-13

    ... insurance industry traces its roots back to England, where, in 1696, the first mutual fire insurer was... FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION 12 CFR Part 380 RIN 3064-AD89 Mutual Insurance Holding Company Treated as Insurance Company AGENCY: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). ACTION: Notice...

  3. PERFORMANCE PERSISTENCE OF TURKISH A AND B TYPE MUTUAL FUNDS: THE PARAMETRIC AND NONPARAMETRIC APPROACH

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    VELİ AKEL

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available In this study, single index models are applied to a free survivorship bias database of 51 A and 51 B Types Turkish mutual funds using monthly returns over 5 years from 2000 to 2004. Then, it has been investigated whether mutual fund managers have market timing ability. Turkish Institutional Investment Managers’ Association A and B Type Fund Indexes are firstly used as benchmark portfolios. The challenging question is whether Turkish mutual funds have performance persistency over the short and long term or not. This study uses both parametric and non-parametric techniques to examine performance persistence. The overall conclusion is that Type A mutual funds managers do not have stock selection and market timing ability. However, Type B mutual funds managers do have stock selection ability. Type A mutual funds show evidence of relative and absolute persistence in the short term while Type B mutual funds show significant results of relative and absolute persistence in both of the terms. Although there are various results in performance persistence of mutual funds, the repeat winner phenomenon is stronger over shorter periods of evaluation. Consequently, it seems that Turkish mutual funds have performance persistency at least for the short term.

  4. Agreements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    These columns summarize the different bilateral and multilateral agreements concluded recently between the different OECD countries and concerning the nuclear energy domain: Argentina - Australia: Agreement concerning Co-operation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (2001). Argentina - Brazil: Joint Declaration regarding the Creation of the Argentinean-Brazilian Agency for Nuclear Energy Applications (2001). Australia - Czech Republic / Australia - Hungary: Agreements on Co-operation in Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy and the Transfer of Nuclear Material (2001). Australia - Indonesia: Arrangement Concerning Co-operation on Nuclear Safeguards and Related Matters (2001). Austria - Switzerland: Agreement on the Early Exchange of Information in the Field of Nuclear Safety and Radiation. Brazil - United States: Extension of the Agreement concerning Research and Development in Nuclear Material Control, Accountancy, Verification, Physical Protection, and Advanced Containment and Surveillance Technologies for International Safeguards Applications (2001). Czech Republic - Republic of Korea: Agreement for Co-operation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (2001). European Union- Russian Federation: Agreements on Nuclear Safety and Controlled Nuclear Fusion (2001). France - United States: Agreement for Co-operation in Advanced Nuclear Reactor Science and Technology (2001). Japan - United Kingdom: Co-operation Agreement on Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Fast Breeder Reactor and Other Related Technologies (2001). Republic OF Korea - United States: Annex IV Joint Project on Cintichem Technology (2000). Morocco - United States: Protocol amending the Co-operation Agreement on the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (2001). Multilateral Agreements: Agreement for Information Exchange on Radiological Surveillance in Northern Europe (2001). Status of Conventions in the Field of Nuclear Energy. (author)

  5. External Monitoring and Dynamic Behavior in Mutual Funds

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jian Wang

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper studies the impact of external monitoring on the behavior in mutual funds. Specifically, we investigate how and why external monitoring can alleviate contracting inefficiency caused by information asymmetry between investors and the manager. It is shown that efficiency loss emerges when investors contract with the manager just relying on her investment return history. The establishment of external monitoring that provides investors more information about the manager’s ability can improve contracting efficiency, which converges to first-best as external monitoring strengthens. These results provide strong support for tightening supervision in mutual fund industry.

  6. An Intricate Multiple-Factor Approach To Evaluate Performance Of Indian Mutual Fund

    OpenAIRE

    Suyash Bhatt

    2013-01-01

    This research paper examines performance of top twelve Indian mutual funds by Asset Under Management (AUM).  We use seven portfolio performance measurement parameters like Alpha, Beta, Standard Deviation, R Squared, Sharpe Ratio, Treynor Ratio and Jensen’s Alpha. The study reveals which amongst these mutual fund is the best performer based on all these parameters and the benchmark taken for this is NIFTY Index. The mutual funds selected are HDFC Top 200 Fund, Franklin India Bluechip Fund, ICI...

  7. EFFICIENCY OF INDONESIA’S MUTUAL FUNDS DURING 2007-2011 BY USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS (DEA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Riko Hendrawan

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this research was to assess the efficiency of mutual funds in Indonesia during the period 2007to 2011. To measure their efficiencies, the output-input data consisting of a panel of 105 mutual funds thatconsisted of 29 equity mutual funds, 38 balanced mutual funds and 39 fixed mutual funds were empiricallyexamined based on the most commonly used non-parametric approach, namely, Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA. The study found that based on the average score in during 2007 – 2011 performance of equity mutualfund Commonwealth Life Investra Equity had the highest index score, meanwhile Trimegah - trim capital wasthe lowest, performance of balanced mutual fund Reksa Dana CIMB-principal Dollar had the highest indexscore, meanwhile first State Indonesian Multistrategy was the lowest. Performance of equity mutual fund BrentDana Tetap had the highest index score, meanwhile stable debenture fund had the lowest one.

  8. Reaching the hard-to-reach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valdes, C

    1992-01-01

    Guatemala's family planning (FP) programs are innovative but contraceptive use is only 23%. Total fertility is 5.3 children/woman, and the 9.5 million population will double in 23 years. The problem is poverty and illiteracy among rural residents removed from health services. 80% live in poverty and 80% are illiterate. Government effort is devoted to combating diseases such as diarrhea so there are few funds for implementing a comprehensive population policy. There is support within the national government but FP lacks priority status. APROFAM's goals are to use innovative marketing methods to inform the rural population who lack access to and knowledge about FP. Service delivery is constrained by the difficulty in reaching remote areas where 4 out of 10 indigenous Guatemalans live. Infant mortality can reach as high as 200/1000 live births. Population growth has slowed, and APROFAM plans to reach 16,000 more in the future. Promotions are conducted in several languages and aired on radio, television, and in the print media. It has been found that market research is the most effective strategy in reaching indigenous families. APROFAM has also been effective in upgrading service facilities through training, client surveys, and setting improved clinic standards. Breastfeeding, training, and voluntary sterilization programs contribute to the primary care effort. The example is given of Paulina Lebron from a very poor area who has learned how to space her children and thus improve the standard of living for her family. Eventually, she convinced herself and her family that sterilization was necessary, and now the couple enjoy the bliss of newlyweds without fear of pregnancy.

  9. Canonical analysis based on mutual information

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Vestergaard, Jacob Schack

    2015-01-01

    combinations with the information theoretical measure mutual information (MI). We term this type of analysis canonical information analysis (CIA). MI allows for the actual joint distribution of the variables involved and not just second order statistics. While CCA is ideal for Gaussian data, CIA facilitates...

  10. Starvation-free mutual exclusion with semaphores

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hesselink, Wim H.; IJbema, Mark

    The standard implementation of mutual exclusion by means of a semaphore allows starvation of processes. Between 1979 and 1986, three algorithms were proposed that preclude starvation. These algorithms use a special kind of semaphore. We model this so-called buffered semaphore rigorously and provide

  11. Partner selection in the mycorrhizal mutualism

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Werner, G.D.A.; Kiers, E.T.

    2015-01-01

    Partner selection in the mycorrhizal symbiosis is thought to be a key factor stabilising the mutualism. Both plant hosts and mycorrhizal fungi have been shown to preferentially allocate resources to higher quality partners. This can help maintain underground cooperation, although it is likely that

  12. Sensitivity Analysis for Urban Drainage Modeling Using Mutual Information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chuanqi Li

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The intention of this paper is to evaluate the sensitivity of the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM output to its input parameters. A global parameter sensitivity analysis is conducted in order to determine which parameters mostly affect the model simulation results. Two different methods of sensitivity analysis are applied in this study. The first one is the partial rank correlation coefficient (PRCC which measures nonlinear but monotonic relationships between model inputs and outputs. The second one is based on the mutual information which provides a general measure of the strength of the non-monotonic association between two variables. Both methods are based on the Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS of the parameter space, and thus the same datasets can be used to obtain both measures of sensitivity. The utility of the PRCC and the mutual information analysis methods are illustrated by analyzing a complex SWMM model. The sensitivity analysis revealed that only a few key input variables are contributing significantly to the model outputs; PRCCs and mutual information are calculated and used to determine and rank the importance of these key parameters. This study shows that the partial rank correlation coefficient and mutual information analysis can be considered effective methods for assessing the sensitivity of the SWMM model to the uncertainty in its input parameters.

  13. A Feature Subset Selection Method Based On High-Dimensional Mutual Information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chee Keong Kwoh

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Feature selection is an important step in building accurate classifiers and provides better understanding of the data sets. In this paper, we propose a feature subset selection method based on high-dimensional mutual information. We also propose to use the entropy of the class attribute as a criterion to determine the appropriate subset of features when building classifiers. We prove that if the mutual information between a feature set X and the class attribute Y equals to the entropy of Y , then X is a Markov Blanket of Y . We show that in some cases, it is infeasible to approximate the high-dimensional mutual information with algebraic combinations of pairwise mutual information in any forms. In addition, the exhaustive searches of all combinations of features are prerequisite for finding the optimal feature subsets for classifying these kinds of data sets. We show that our approach outperforms existing filter feature subset selection methods for most of the 24 selected benchmark data sets.

  14. Liquidity risk and the performance of UK mutual funds

    OpenAIRE

    Foran, Jason; O'Sullivan, Niall

    2014-01-01

    We examine the role of liquidity risk, both as a stock characteristic as well as systematic liquidity risk, in UK mutual fund performance for the first time. Using four alternative measures of stock liquidity we extract principal components across stocks in order to construct systematic or market liquidity factors. We find that on average UK mutual funds are tilted towards liquid stocks (except for small stock funds as might be expected) but that, counter-intuitively, liquidity as a stock cha...

  15. A STUDY ON THE RISK-ADJUSTED PERFORMANCE OF MUTUAL FUNDS INDUSTRY IN INDIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shivangi Agarwal

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Investing through mutual funds has gained interest in recent years as it offers optimal risk adjusted returns to investors. The Indian market is no exception and has witnessed a multifold growth in mutual funds over the years. As of 2016, the Indian market is crowded with over two thousand mutual fund schemes, each promising higher returns compared to their peers. This comes as a challenge for an ordinary investor to select the best portfolio to invest making it critical to analyse the performance of these funds. While understanding and analysing the historical performance of mutual funds do not guarantee future performance, however, this may give an idea of how the fund is likely to perform in different market conditions. In this research we address multiple research issues. These include measuring the performance of selected mutual schemes on the basis of risk and return and compare the performance of these selected schemes with benchmark index to see whether the scheme is outperforming or underperforming the benchmark. We also rank funds on the basis of performance and suggest strategies to invest in a mutual fund and therefore, our findings have significant relevance for investing public.

  16. Why power matters: creating a foundation of mutual support in couple relationships.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knudson-Martin, Carmen

    2013-03-01

    Research shows that equal power helps couples create intimacy and relationship success. However, though couples increasingly desire equal relationships, cultural models of mutual support are not well developed. Clinicians often approach heterosexual couple therapy as though partners are inherently equal, thus reinforcing unacknowledged gender inequities. This article examines research that shows why power imbalances are destructive to intimate relationships and focuses on four gender-related aspects of mutual support: (a) shared relational responsibility, (b) mutual vulnerability, (c) mutual attunement, and (d) shared influence. Case examples illustrate how socio-emotional attunement, interrupting the flow of power, and introducing alternative relational experience help couple therapists identify and address power disparities in these important relational processes. Encouraging the powerful person to take relational initiative and introducing alternative gender discourse are especially important. © FPI, Inc.

  17. Study on mutual diffusion and phase diagram in the Ni-Ta system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pimenov, V.N.; Ugaste, Yu.Eh.; Akkushkarova, K.A.

    1977-01-01

    The mutual diffusion in the Ni-Ta system has been investigated with a view of refining the constitutional diagram. The mutual diffusion factors and their effective values in the various phases and the diffusion activation energies are calculated. Given are the dependences of the phase growth constants and the mutual diffusion factors upon the temperature. The existence of five new phases Ta 2 Ni, TaNi, TaNi 2 , TaNi 3 , TaNi 8 has been discovered in the range of temperatures between 1150 and 1300 deg C. It is established that all the phases have a small concentration range of existence. It is noted that the diffusion characteristics in the phases (mutual diffusion factor and activation energy) differ widely, but fail to correlate with their melting points

  18. Creative tensions : mutual responsiveness adapted to private sector research and development

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sonck, M.M.; Asveld, L.; Landeweerd, L.; Osseweijer, P.

    2017-01-01

    The concept of mutual responsiveness is currently based on little empirical data in the literature of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). This paper explores RRI’s idea of mutual responsiveness in the light of recent RRI case studies on private sector research and development (R&D). In

  19. Fast mutual-information-based contrast enhancement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cao, Gang; Yu, Lifang; Tian, Huawei; Huang, Xianglin; Wang, Yongbin

    2017-07-01

    Recently, T. Celik proposed an effective image contrast enhancement (CE) method based on spatial mutual information and PageRank (SMIRANK). According to the state-of-the-art evaluation criteria, it achieves the best visual enhancement quality among existing global CE methods. However, SMIRANK runs much slower than the other counterparts, such as histogram equalization (HE) and adaptive gamma correction. Low computational complexity is also required for good CE algorithms. In this paper, we novelly propose a fast SMIRANK algorithm, called FastSMIRANK. It integrates both spatial and gray-level downsampling into the generation of pixel value mapping function. Moreover, the computation of rank vectors is speeded up by replacing PageRank with a simple yet efficient row-based operation of mutual information matrix. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed FastSMIRANK could accelerate the processing speed of SMIRANK by about 20 times, and is even faster than HE. Comparable enhancement quality is preserved simultaneously.

  20. Sparse Bayesian Learning for DOA Estimation with Mutual Coupling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jisheng Dai

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Sparse Bayesian learning (SBL has given renewed interest to the problem of direction-of-arrival (DOA estimation. It is generally assumed that the measurement matrix in SBL is precisely known. Unfortunately, this assumption may be invalid in practice due to the imperfect manifold caused by unknown or misspecified mutual coupling. This paper describes a modified SBL method for joint estimation of DOAs and mutual coupling coefficients with uniform linear arrays (ULAs. Unlike the existing method that only uses stationary priors, our new approach utilizes a hierarchical form of the Student t prior to enforce the sparsity of the unknown signal more heavily. We also provide a distinct Bayesian inference for the expectation-maximization (EM algorithm, which can update the mutual coupling coefficients more efficiently. Another difference is that our method uses an additional singular value decomposition (SVD to reduce the computational complexity of the signal reconstruction process and the sensitivity to the measurement noise.

  1. Voluntary agreements - a measure for energy-efficiency in industry? Lessons from a Swedish programme

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Linden, Anna- Lisa [Department of Sociology, Lund University P.O. Box 114, SE-221 00, Lund, (Sweden); Carlsson-Kanyama, Annika [Environmental Strategies Research Group, P.O. Box 2142, SE-103 14, Stockholm, (Sweden)

    2002-08-01

    Voluntary agreements represent a policy instrument for applying new knowledge, routines or technology to specified issues. The traditional role of an authority when using information, and taking economic, or administrative measures is that of an initiator and controller. Voluntary agreements, on the other hand, represent a communication process between an authority and a partner where relations of dependency and mutuality are more important in advancing the programme. This article analyses and discusses the motivational aspects of voluntary agreements, the role of the contract, advising, information, education, time planning and the importance of reporting and evaluation in energy-efficiency programmes. Besides sociological and communication theories, the discussion is based on the outcome of an evaluation of a Swedish energy-efficiency programme. Among the conclusions are that communication processes have to be planned and implemented in time sequences and steps of measures, which was partially neglected in the Swedish programme. Also, agreements between partners have to be defined in ways valid for all partners. In the Swedish programme, quantitative goals, at least measured in kWh, were impossible to achieve for some industries. On the other hand, most industries reported progress in side effects of energy efficiency as for example transportation policy for products, recirculation of waste material, lighting policy and behaviour, qualifications for ISO labelling. Information in combination with voluntary agreements can be efficient for industrial energy conservation. The education and auditing that was part of the Swedish programme were highly appreciated and added to the achievements. (Author)

  2. Mutual understanding: a communication model for general practice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hantho, Arne; Jensen, Lena; Malterud, Kirsti

    2002-12-01

    To present our pursuits towards development of a simple model for clinical communication intended for application by the practitioner as a tool for enhancing mutual understanding. Inspired by theories about patient-centredness and interactive modes of understanding, and supported by the perspectives of the Danish philosopher Niels Thomassen, we reviewed audiotapes from our own consultations. Recognising four dimensions assumed to be essential for mutual understanding in the transcripts, we explored these dimensions further. We present a communication model consisting of the following dimensions: The Framework, within which the communication takes place; The Subject, about which the communication takes place; The Persons, between whom the communication takes place; and The Action, verbally and non-verbally, through which communication takes place. We describe these dimensions in detail. The nature of the dimensions indicates that there is an interrelationship between them, implying that the character of the communication may change if one of the factors is changed. Analysis of an ongoing or recent consultation completed in accordance with these four dimensions allows the doctor to refocus the communication, thus leading to a more extensive mutual understanding and perhaps enhanced freedom of action.

  3. Evaluation of Performance of Mutual Funds in India from 2000 to 2007

    OpenAIRE

    Saboo, Manish

    2008-01-01

    There have been many studies in the past on performance of Mutual Funds in comparison to the market. These studies might differ in time and the market under study but most of them concluded that on an average, Mutual Funds have failed to outperform the market and thus the Efficient Market Hypothesis holds good. This research was based on performance of 22 mutual funds for a period of almost 8 years on monthly basis. Funds were evaluated using measures like Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, Jensen'...

  4. 31 CFR 103.15 - Reports by mutual funds of suspicious transactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... suspected terrorist financing or ongoing money laundering schemes, a mutual fund shall immediately notify by... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Reports by mutual funds of suspicious transactions. 103.15 Section 103.15 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating to Money and Finance...

  5. Mutuality in Cambodian International University Partnerships: Looking beyond the Global Discourse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leng, Phirom

    2016-01-01

    This study examines the mutuality issue in international partnership programs between Cambodian universities and universities in France, the USA, Japan and South Korea. It adopts Galtung's and Held's four aspects of mutuality as its conceptual framework and follows a qualitative case study research design. The study finds that most partnership…

  6. The Tradeoff Between Mutual Fund and Direct Stock Investments

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Marekwica, Marcel; Steininger, Bertram I.

    2014-01-01

    We study the tradeoff between direct and indirect stock investments through equity mutual funds for a utility-maximizing investor. Whereas direct investments impose higher transaction costs on the formation of a well-diversified portfolio, mutual funds charge fees for their services. Our results...... show that the fee levels that make private investors indifferent between direct and indirect stock investments vary heavily according to risk aversion, the amounts invested, correlations between assets, transaction costs, and the length of investment horizon. In particular, our results suggest...

  7. The upcoming mutual event season for the Patroclus-Menoetius Trojan binary

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grundy, W. M.; Noll, K. S.; Buie, M. W.; Levison, H. F.

    2018-05-01

    We present new Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based Keck observations and new Keplerian orbit solutions for the mutual orbit of binary Jupiter Trojan asteroid (617) Patroclus and Menoetius, targets of NASA's Lucy mission. We predict event times for the upcoming mutual event season, which is anticipated to run from late 2017 through mid 2019.

  8. Mutual Impact of Diabetes Mellitus and Tuberculosis in China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheng, Jun; Zhang, Hui; Zhao, Yan Lin; Wang, Li Xia; Chen, Ming Ting

    2017-05-01

    China has a double burden of diabetes mellitus and tuberculosis, and many studies have been carried out on the mutual impact of these two diseases. This paper systematically reviewed studies conducted in China covering the mutual impact of epidemics of diabetes and tuberculosis, the impact of diabetes on multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and on the tuberculosis clinical manifestation and treatment outcome, the yields of bi-directional screening, and economic evaluation for tuberculosis screening among diabetes patients. Copyright © 2017 The Editorial Board of Biomedical and Environmental Sciences. Published by China CDC. All rights reserved.

  9. Cross Correlation versus Normalized Mutual Information on Image Registration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tan, Bin; Tilton, James C.; Lin, Guoqing

    2016-01-01

    This is the first study to quantitatively assess and compare cross correlation and normalized mutual information methods used to register images in subpixel scale. The study shows that the normalized mutual information method is less sensitive to unaligned edges due to the spectral response differences than is cross correlation. This characteristic makes the normalized image resolution a better candidate for band to band registration. Improved band-to-band registration in the data from satellite-borne instruments will result in improved retrievals of key science measurements such as cloud properties, vegetation, snow and fire.

  10. Cooperative measures to support the Indo-Pak Agreement Reducing Risk from Accidents Relating to Nuclear Weapons.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mishra, Sitakanta [Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi (India); Ahmed, Mansoor [Quaid-i-Azam Univ., Islamabad (Pakistan)

    2014-04-01

    In 2012, India and Pakistan reaffirmed the Agreement on Reducing the Risk from Accidents Relating to Nuclear Weapons. Despite a history of mutual animosity and persistent conflict between the two countries, this agreement derives strength from a few successful nuclear confidence building measures that have stood the test of time. It also rests on the hope that the region would be spared a nuclear holocaust from an accidental nuclear weapon detonation that might be misconstrued as a deliberate use of a weapon by the other side. This study brings together two emerging strategic analysts from South Asia to explore measures to support the Agreement and further develop cooperation around this critical issue. This study briefly dwells upon the strategic landscape of nuclear South Asia with the respective nuclear force management structures, doctrines, and postures of India and Pakistan. It outlines the measures in place for the physical protection and safety of nuclear warheads, nuclear materials, and command and control mechanisms in the two countries, and it goes on to identify the prominent, emerging challenges posed by the introduction of new weapon technologies and modernization of the respective strategic forces. This is followed by an analysis of the agreement itself leading up to a proposed framework for cooperative measures that might enhance the spirit and implementation of the agreement.

  11. Some Strategic Thoughts on New Type China-U.S. Ties

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Yuan Peng

    2012-01-01

    At the January 2011 Hu-Obama Washington summit, an important -agreement was reached on building a cooperative partnership based onmutual respect and mutual benefit. During Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping' s February 2012 America visit, the proposed new type partnership was further defined as one unparalleled in history, yet acting as an inspiration for the other big powers.' Expanding on such a partnership, in his address at the opening session of the May 3, 2012 Fourth Round of the China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogues (S&ED) held in Beijing,2 President Hu Jintao went a step further by suggesting five points: creative thinking, mutual trust, a spirit of equality, mutual understanding, and active work and friendship-nurturing. In his speech written for the same occasion,

  12. 77 FR 71633 - Notice of Proposed Settlement Agreement Under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-12-03

    ... of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has reached a Settlement Agreement with..., U.S. DOJ--ENRD, P.O. Box 7611, Washington, DC 20044- 7611. Please enclose a check or money order for...

  13. Ambiguity Towards Multiple Historical Performance Information Signals: Evidence From Indonesian Open-Ended Mutual Fund Investors

    OpenAIRE

    Haris Pratama Loeis; Ruslan Prijadi

    2015-01-01

    This study focuses on the behavior of open-ended mutual fund investors when encountered with multiple information signals of mutual fund’s historical performance. The behavior of investors can be reflected on their decision to subscribe or redeem their funds from mutual funds. Moreover, we observe the presence of ambiguity within investors due to multiple information signals, and also their reaction towards it. Our finding shows that open-ended mutual fund investors do not only have sen...

  14. Mutual Learning in the European Employment Strategy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nedergaard, Peter

    in the European employment strategy have been either determined by the sender's interests or have underestimated how mutual learning between countries takes place. In stead the article develops a constructivist approach to learning and uses it to generate some concrete hypothesis about when learning in committees...... is most likely to take place. Afterwards, this constructivist approach is used to analyse the institutional framework surrounding the European employment strategy in order to evaluate whether the potential for learning is optimal. Finally, the article concludes that even though some basic premises......Mutual learning among the Member States is the primary purpose of the employment policy of the European Union. The two most important questions in this regard are how learning occurs and how much learning takes place. In this article I argue that the existing analyses of the effects of learning...

  15. On 18 November 2010, CERN signed an agreement with the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) GmbH, the company that is co-ordinating the construction of the accelerator and experiment facilities for the FAIR project in Germany.

    CERN Multimedia

    Maximilien Brice

    2010-01-01

    The agreement, which was signed by CERN's director-general, Rolf Heuer (left) and FAIR's scientific director Boris Sharkov, concerns collaboration in accelerator sciences and technologies and other scientific domains of mutual interest.

  16. Improved inference in the evaluation of mutual fund performance using panel bootstrap methods

    OpenAIRE

    Blake, David; Caulfield, Tristan; Ioannidis, Christos; Tonks, I P

    2014-01-01

    Two new methodologies are introduced to improve inference in the evaluation of mutual fund performance against benchmarks. First, the benchmark models are estimated using panel methods with both fund and time effects. Second, the non-normality of individual mutual fund returns is accounted for by using panel bootstrap methods. We also augment the standard benchmark factors with fund-specific characteristics, such as fund size. Using a dataset of UK equity mutual fund returns, we find that fun...

  17. Competition as a mechanism structuring mutualisms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robert J. Warren; Itamar Giladi; Mark A. Bradford

    2014-01-01

    Summary 1. Hutchinsonian niche theory posits that organisms have fundamental abiotic resource requirements from which they are limited by competition. Organisms also have fundamental biotic requirements, such as mutualists, for which they also might compete. 2. We test this idea with a widespread ant–plant mutualism. Ant-mediated seed dispersal (myrmecochory) in...

  18. Mutual fund performance: dividends do matter

    OpenAIRE

    De Mingo López, Diego Víctor; Matallín Sáez, Juan Carlos

    2015-01-01

    This article studies the bias in mutual fund performance when a nondividend-reinvesting benchmark is used. Our empirical findings show how performance worsens when using a benchmark that includes reinvestment dividends. We also find that inferences about managers’ ability related to economic states are biased by the effect of omitting dividends when selecting a benchmark.

  19. On international fisheries agreements, entry deterrence, and ecological uncertainty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ellefsen, Hans; Grønbæk, Lone; Ravn-Jonsen, Lars

    2017-05-15

    A prerequisite for an international fisheries agreement (IFA) to be stable is that parties expect the benefits from joining the agreement to exceed the benefits from free riding on the agreement, and parties only comply with the agreement as long as this is true. The agreement, therefore, implicitly builds on an expectation of the ecological condition of the natural resource. Game theoretical models often assume that all parties have the same (often perfect) information about the resource and that the exploitation is an equilibrium use of the stock. As stated by experts in natural science, the fish ecology still has many open questions, for example how to predict population dynamics, migration patterns, food availability, etc. In some cases, parties disagree about the state, abundance, and migration of a stock, which can reduce the possibilities of reaching an agreement for exploitation of the stock. This paper develops a model and applies it to the North-East Atlantic mackerel fishery, in order to analyze an IFA under different ecological scenarios, and also combines the model with the economic theory of entry deterrence. The model is used empirically to determine whether the parties with original access to the resource have an advantage when forming an agreement with a new party in having the ability to fish the stock down to a smaller size and thereby prevent another party from entering into the fishery. With a basis in entry deterrence, combined with lack of information, the paper illustrates the obstacles that have made an agreement for the North-East Atlantic mackerel so difficult to achieve. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Operating a production facility without a CO and O agreement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Smith, M. R.

    2000-01-01

    Issues that arise when an oil or natural gas facility is operated without a specific construction, ownership and operating (CO and O) agreement was explored. The lack of such an agreement may be due to the parties' inability to reach agreement, reliance on the land operating agreement, or the lack of diligent follow-up on the drafting, revision and execution of operating agreements. The paper examines the nature of ownership interests that obtain in the absence of a CO and O, the common situation in respect to CO and O agreements where the document has been circulated but has not been signed by the owners. A number of actual cases were cited to illustrate the effects of such an omission. It was concluded that ideally, a fully executed CO and O for each facility which deals specifically with the owners involved with the particular facility is the best of all worlds. However given the nature of some facilities, the expense, time and effort required to prepare and execute a separate CO and O, it is frequently omitted; in such situations it is convenient to fall back on the 1990 Operating Procedure of CAPL, which while general in nature and cannot adequately deal with every situation, deals with many common problems associated with the operation of facilities. It is recommended that even if a complete CO and O agreement cannot be executed, interim binding agreements should be used to avoid uncertainty until such time as a complete agreement can be finalized. A clause-by-clause comparison of the 1990 CAPL Operating Procedure and a 1996 model CO and O agreement, prepared by the Petroleum Joint Venture Association (PJVA), is appended

  1. On the Importance of Mutual Fund Families in Emerging Markets

    OpenAIRE

    Ekholm, Anders; Pasternack, Daniel; Sandvall, Thomas

    2000-01-01

    This study contributes to the mutual fund literature by looking at performance persistence on a fund family level, allowing for individual equity, bond and balanced funds to be included under single family umbrellas. The study is conducted on the emerging Finnish mutual fund market, an environment in which the importance of superior fund family teams is likely to be accentuated. Using both non–parametric and parametric tests we find robust evidence of performance persistence for the fund fami...

  2. A Study of Shared-Memory Mutual Exclusion Protocols Using CADP

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mateescu, Radu; Serwe, Wendelin

    Mutual exclusion protocols are an essential building block of concurrent systems: indeed, such a protocol is required whenever a shared resource has to be protected against concurrent non-atomic accesses. Hence, many variants of mutual exclusion protocols exist in the shared-memory setting, such as Peterson's or Dekker's well-known protocols. Although the functional correctness of these protocols has been studied extensively, relatively little attention has been paid to their non-functional aspects, such as their performance in the long run. In this paper, we report on experiments with the performance evaluation of mutual exclusion protocols using Interactive Markov Chains. Steady-state analysis provides an additional criterion for comparing protocols, which complements the verification of their functional properties. We also carefully re-examined the functional properties, whose accurate formulation as temporal logic formulas in the action-based setting turns out to be quite involved.

  3. An Empirical Study of Mutual Fund Performance and Its Relation with Fund Size

    OpenAIRE

    Lu, Daofen

    2007-01-01

    The increasing popularity of mutual fund investment is a remarkable phenomenon of recent decades. Mutual funds have been among the largest investors and played an important role in the financial market worldwide. The evaluation of mutual fund performance has been achieving a great deal of academic interest since the 1960s. This study employed a time-series data to examine the performance of sixty actively-managed equity growth funds of the United States during the period of July, 2002 to June...

  4. Butterfly effect and holographic mutual information under external field and spatial noncommutativity

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Huang, Wung-Hong; Du, Yi-Hsien [Department of Physics, National Cheng Kung University,No. 1, University Road, Tainan City 701, Taiwan (China)

    2017-02-07

    We apply the transformation of mixing azimuthal and internal coordinate or mixing time and internal coordinate to a stack of N black M-branes to find the Melvin spacetime of a stack of N black D-branes with magnetic or electric flux in string theory, after the Kaluza-Klein reduction. We slightly extend previous formulas to investigate the external magnetic and electric effects on the butterfly effect and holographic mutual information. It shows that the Melvin fields do not modify the scrambling time and will enhance the mutual information. In addition, we also T-dualize and twist a stack of N black D-branes to find a Melvin Universe supported by the flux of the NSNS b-field, which describes a non-comutative spacetime. It also shows that the spatial noncommutativity does not modify the scrambling time and will enhance the mutual information. We also study the corrected mutual information in the backreaction geometry due to the shock wave in our three model spacetimes.

  5. Mutualism and impacts of global change: response of an important and neglected component of the biodiversity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hossaert-Mckey, M.

    2007-01-01

    We are studying the impact of global change on two obligate species-specific insect-plant mutualisms. Our approach combines correlative methods (examining spatial patterns of genetic diversity in populations of pairs of mutualists, to examine their responses to past climate change) and experiments (studying responses of plant partners to CO 2 fertilization). Mutualisms function because the partners have contrasting and complementary biological traits, so that a service implying only a low cost to one partner may confer a great benefit to the other. Because they can lead mutualist partners to respond differently to rapid ecological change, the biological differences that are fundamental to mutualisms may also make them vulnerable. Imbalances thereby introduced can disrupt the functioning of the mutualism. By comparing two strongly contrasting systems-fig/wasp pollination mutualisms and ant-plant protection mutualisms-we aim to characterize the diversity of responses of mutualisms to global change. By identifying points in common, we also aim to propose robust generalizations about the response to global change of obligate, specific mutualisms, an important and neglected component of tropical biodiversity. Our results show that the two mutualisms studied differ greatly in their response to Pleistocene and Holocene climatic fluctuations. Fig/wasp systems show little spatial genetic differentiation, indicating that the great dispersal capacities of both figs and their pollinating wasps resulted in maintenance of high effective population sizes throughout cycles of climatic and vegetation change. In contrast, limited dispersal capacity of both ant and plant partners has resulted in greater impact of climatic fluctuations on ant/plant protection mutualisms: species-distribution patterns suggest restriction of the system to refugia, and strong spatial genetic structure indicates widespread bottlenecks during fragmentation and expansion. Alternate contraction and expansion

  6. Cointegration and causality analysis of dynamic linkage between stock market and equity mutual funds in Australia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sasipa Pojanavatee

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The existing literature finds conflicting results on the magnitude of price linkages between equity mutual funds and the stock market. The study contends that in an optimal lagged model, the expectations of future prices using knowledge of past price behaviour in a particular equity mutual fund category will improve forecasts of prices of other equity mutual fund categories and the stock market index. The evidence shows that the long-run pricing of equity mutual funds is cointegrated with the stock market index. In the short run, the results indicate that some equity mutual fund categories possess both long-run and short-run exogeneity with the stock market. Therefore, the short-run dynamic indicates short-run Granger causal links running between different equity mutual fund categories.

  7. Security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards and biometrics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, Younsung; Nam, Junghyun; Lee, Donghoon; Kim, Jiye; Jung, Jaewook; Won, Dongho

    2014-01-01

    An anonymous user authentication scheme allows a user, who wants to access a remote application server, to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the server in an anonymous manner. To enhance the security of such authentication schemes, recent researches combined user's biometrics with a password. However, these authentication schemes are designed for single server environment. So when a user wants to access different application servers, the user has to register many times. To solve this problem, Chuang and Chen proposed an anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards together with passwords and biometrics. Chuang and Chen claimed that their scheme not only supports multiple servers but also achieves various security requirements. However, we show that this scheme is vulnerable to a masquerade attack, a smart card attack, a user impersonation attack, and a DoS attack and does not achieve perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme which addresses all the weaknesses identified in Chuang and Chen's scheme.

  8. Security Enhanced Anonymous Multiserver Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme Using Smart Cards and Biometrics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Younsung Choi

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available An anonymous user authentication scheme allows a user, who wants to access a remote application server, to achieve mutual authentication and session key establishment with the server in an anonymous manner. To enhance the security of such authentication schemes, recent researches combined user’s biometrics with a password. However, these authentication schemes are designed for single server environment. So when a user wants to access different application servers, the user has to register many times. To solve this problem, Chuang and Chen proposed an anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme using smart cards together with passwords and biometrics. Chuang and Chen claimed that their scheme not only supports multiple servers but also achieves various security requirements. However, we show that this scheme is vulnerable to a masquerade attack, a smart card attack, a user impersonation attack, and a DoS attack and does not achieve perfect forward secrecy. We also propose a security enhanced anonymous multiserver authenticated key agreement scheme which addresses all the weaknesses identified in Chuang and Chen’s scheme.

  9. Mutual Events in the Uranian satellite system in 2007

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arlot, J. E.

    2008-09-01

    observed "pole-on" and the relative inclinations of the orbits of the satellites are very difficult to know. More, this knowledge should allow us to determine the precession of Uranus which is not yet known. Another reason to improve the dynamics of the Uranian satellites is to quantify the dissipation of energy inside the satellites because of the tides: only very accurate astrometric observations may allow to reach such a result. We used two models for our purpose: the one from Laskar and Jacobson (GUST86) based upon observations made using observations made from 1911 to 1986 [1] and the one from Arlot, Lainey and Thuillot (LA06) [2] based upon a different sets of observations made from 1950 to 2006. Astrometric observations Since the mutual events are observable only every 42 years (in fact, 2007 was the first time where mutual events were observed on the Uranian system), many other astrometric observations were performed, mainly with photographic plates, CCD targets or using a meridian transit circle. These observations and their accuracy will be compared with mutual events. Note that these observations introduce some biases in the data (date of the opposition, absolute position of the planet), different than those of mutual events (equinox time). Observations of mutual events in 2007 Due to the difficulty of the observations, very few observations were made: about 15 events were observed using telescopes with apertures from 40 cm to 8 meters... The observing sites which reported observations were Marseille and Pic du Midi (France), Canarian Islands (Spain), La Silla and Paranal (Chile), Itajuba (Brazil), Tubitak (Turkey), Hanle (India) and Siding Spring (Australia). A preliminary analysis Some light curves were reduced and a comparison has been made with the theoretical calculations of the events. A preliminary analysis shows that LA06 has smaller residuals in the longitudes of the satellites than GUST86 but the residuals are equivalent in latitude. This confirms the

  10. Strangers and Orphans: Knowledge and Mutuality in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gomez, Claudia Rozas

    2013-01-01

    Paulo Freire consistently upheld humanization and mutuality as educational ideals. This article argues that conceptualizations of knowledge and how knowledge is sought and produced play a role in fostering humanization and mutuality in educational contexts. Drawing on Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein," this article focuses on the…

  11. Mutual aid in oil spill response: The Alaskan north slope model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McKenzie, B.; Ingram, N.

    1993-01-01

    The Alaskan Arctic Region provides one of the world's most remote and challenging environments in which to mount an oil spill response. To facilitate the timeliness and appropriateness of the response, Alaska Clean Seas (ACS) and the operators of the North Slope oil fields have implemented a mutual aid concept for spill response. The concept is based upon each operator on the North Slope maintaining its own inventory of personnel [a spill response team (SRT)] and equipment that is available on short notice to respond to a spill. If the spill exceeds the responsible operator's resources, additional resources can be obtained from other operators and/or ACS through mutual aid. Individuals from diverse organizations are brought together in a mutual aid event. To allow different organizations to function effectively in a multi-organizational environment, a common management structure was required. The structure chosen for the North Slope was the incident command system (ICS). A key concern when discussing mutual aid is the provision of indemnification from liability for responders. For the North Slope, ACS and its member companies are indemnified when responding to a spill through provisions in the ACS charter and the ACS response action contract

  12. 26 CFR 1.581-2 - Mutual savings banks, building and loan associations, and cooperative banks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 26 Internal Revenue 7 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 true Mutual savings banks, building and loan... § 1.581-2 Mutual savings banks, building and loan associations, and cooperative banks. (a) While the... deduction provided in section 172, any taxable year for which a mutual savings bank, building and loan...

  13. Information Content of Mutual Fund Portfolio Disclosure

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Y. Wang (Yu)

    2011-01-01

    textabstractAcademic financial economists have been keenly interested in the value of active portfolio management since the seminal paper of Jensen (1968). This book examines the information advantages that active mutual fund managers attain in financial markets through an analysis of disclosed fund

  14. Voluntary agreement for the new energy and environmental policies goals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pesaro, G.

    1998-01-01

    In the field of public policies innovative instruments based on market mechanisms and voluntary action by economical subjects meet a growing favour. This emerges also from the proceedings of the recent National Conference on Energy and the Environment, held in Rome in November 1998. From a planning policy, directly implemented by public bodies and often characterised by a strong rigidity, we are now passing to a new policy style, based on main trends and principles and implemented, at least in a priority way, through a mechanism of pacts and agreements among a variety of actors. This article, starting from an introduction on the nature and the functioning limits of voluntary agreements and, on these bases, presents some hypothesis on the ways and the necessary conditions to develop a concrete system of voluntary agreements in the country, in order to reach the new energy and environmental policies goals [it

  15. Mutually shared team competence of professionals in early childhood intervention

    OpenAIRE

    Ališauskienė, Stefanija; Kairienė, Daiva

    2011-01-01

    The article is based on theoretical study as well as on written survey. The aim of theoretical analysis to present a theoretical model of the concept of the mutually shared team competence in an interprofessional team meeting early special needs of child and family and to find out presumptions of its development. The aim of survey is to reveal ECI professionals' reflections about competences necessary for teamwork. The mutually shared team competence is analysed on the basis of the teamwork p...

  16. Mutual diffusion of sodium hyaluranate in aqueous solutions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Veríssimo, Luís M.P.; Valada, Teresa I.C.; Sobral, Abilio J.F.N.; Azevedo, Eduarda E.F.G.; Azevedo, Maria L.G.; Ribeiro, Ana C.F.

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Binary diffusion coefficients for the systems containing sodium hyaluronate. • Influence of the aggregation on diffusion of the sodium hyaluronate in the aqueous media. • Estimation of the thermodynamic and mobility factors from mutual diffusion. -- Abstract: The Taylor dispersion technique has been used for measuring mutual diffusion coefficients of sodium hyaluronate in aqueous solutions at T = 298.15 K, and concentrations ranging from (0.00 to 0.50) g · dm −3 . The results are interpreted on the basis of Nernst, and Onsager and Fuoss theoretical equations. From the diffusion coefficient at infinitesimal concentration, the limiting ionic conductivity and the tracer diffusion coefficient of hyaluronate ion were estimated. These studies have been complemented by molecular mechanics calculations

  17. Basic legal instruments of mutual assistance in tax matters in European Union

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cvjetković Cvjetana

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the basic legal instruments of mutual assistance in tax matters in the field of direct and indirect taxation in European union, forms of mutual assistance and its importance in fight against international tax evasion and international double taxation. Namely, processes of globalization and liberalization, in terms of taxation in accordance with the principle of worldwide income, have meant that information that is available to a tax administration is not enough to correctly determine tax liability. In such situations states can rely on mutual assistance which may be manifested as exchange of tax information, collaboration by officials and simultaneous controls.

  18. 2D-DOA and Mutual Coupling Estimation in Vehicle Communication System via Conformal Array

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yan Zou

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Many direction-of-arrival (DOA estimation algorithms have been proposed recently. However, the effect of mutual coupling among antenna elements has not been taken into consideration. In this paper, a novel DOA and mutual coupling coefficient estimation algorithm is proposed in intelligent transportation systems (ITS via conformal array. By constructing the spectial mutual coupling matrix (MCM, the effect of mutual coupling can be eliminated via instrumental element method. Then the DOA of incident signals can be estimated based on parallel factor (PARAFAC theory. The PARAFAC model is constructed in cumulant domain using covariance matrices. The mutual coupling coefficients are estimated based on the former DOA estimation and the matrix transformation between MCM and the steering vector. Finally, due to the drawback of the parameter pairing method in Wan et al., 2014, a novel method is given to improve the performance of parameter pairing. The computer simulation verifies the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

  19. Mutually Unbiased Maximally Entangled Bases for the Bipartite System Cd⊗ C^{dk}

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nan, Hua; Tao, Yuan-Hong; Wang, Tian-Jiao; Zhang, Jun

    2016-10-01

    The construction of maximally entangled bases for the bipartite system Cd⊗ Cd is discussed firstly, and some mutually unbiased bases with maximally entangled bases are given, where 2≤ d≤5. Moreover, we study a systematic way of constructing mutually unbiased maximally entangled bases for the bipartite system Cd⊗ C^{dk}.

  20. Study of three-dimensional PET and MR image registration based on higher-order mutual information

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ren Haiping; Chen Shengzu; Wu Wenkai; Yang Hu

    2002-01-01

    Mutual information has currently been one of the most intensively researched measures. It has been proven to be accurate and effective registration measure. Despite the general promising results, mutual information sometimes might lead to misregistration because of neglecting spatial information and treating intensity variations with undue sensitivity. An extension of mutual information framework was proposed in which higher-order spatial information regarding image structures was incorporated into the registration processing of PET and MR. The second-order estimate of mutual information algorithm was applied to the registration of seven patients. Evaluation from Vanderbilt University and authors' visual inspection showed that sub-voxel accuracy and robust results were achieved in all cases with second-order mutual information as the similarity measure and with Powell's multidimensional direction set method as optimization strategy

  1. Higher-dimensional orbital-angular-momentum-based quantum key distribution with mutually unbiased bases

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Mafu, M

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available We present an experimental study of higher-dimensional quantum key distribution protocols based on mutually unbiased bases, implemented by means of photons carrying orbital angular momentum. We perform (d + 1) mutually unbiased measurements in a...

  2. Reaching an agreement to build a new coal-fired power plant near a national park by mitigating potential environmental impacts

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Miller, R.L.; Ruppel, T.C.; Evans, E.W.; Heintz, S.J.

    1994-01-01

    This paper presents an interesting example of compromise through comprehensive environmental analysis and intensive negotiation to build a coal-fired power plant near an environmentally sensitive area. In December 1993, the US Department of Energy (DOE) completed the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Healy clean Coal Project (HCCP), a proposed demonstration project that would be cost- shared by DOE and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA). The HCCP would be built adjacent to the existing coal-fired Golden Valley Electric Association, Inc. (GVEA) Unit No. 1 in Healy, Alaska, about 4 miles north of Denali National Park and Preserve (DNPP). In response to US Department of the Interior (DOI) concerns about potential air quality related impacts on DNPP, DOE facilitated negotiations among DOE, AIDEA, and GVEA which overcame a ''stalemate'' situation. A Memorandum of Agreement was signed by all four parties, enabling DOI to withdraw its objections. The cornerstone of the Agreement is the planned retrofit of Unit No. 1 to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen. If the demonstration technologies operate as expected, combined emissions from the Healy site would increase by only about 8% but electrical generation would triple. The Agreement is a ''win/win'' outcome: DOE can demonstrate the new technologies, AIDEA can build a new power plant for GVEA to operate, and DOE can safeguard the pristine environment DNPP

  3. High-Contention Mutual Exclusion by Elevator Algorithms

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Buhr, Peter A.; Dice, Dave; Hesselink, Wim H.

    2018-01-01

    This paper presents new starvation-free hardware-assisted and software-only algorithms for the N-thread mutual-exclusion problem. The hardware-assisted versions use a single atomic-CAS instruction and no fences. The software-only algorithms simulate the CAS instruction using a variation of

  4. Russian Societies of the Mutual Credit in the years of Economic Recovery (1909–1913

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatiana A. Kattsina

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Тhe article is dedicated to one of the poorly studied branches of the bank loan system in the Russian Empire, i.e. the mutual loan societies. While making investments in industry and sales turnover, mutual loan societies contributed to their widening scope by means of remote areas of the country. The most important factor to determine the peculiarities of mutual loan societies development was their bankruptcy during the economic recovery before World War I. That is why main focus is made on internal causes (that developed on the activity of the organization itself of financial insolvency (bankruptcy occurrence of mutual loan societies. They allowed show basic problems of mutual loan societies on the example of particular organizations, due to which the factors of crisis and financial insolvency (bankruptcy risks appeared. The article reveals such inefficient strategies of mutual loan society’s development and management as lack of real-life experience (qualifications of the staff, use of investors' finances for the administration personal needs (malpractice, inefficient management of the floating capital, poor loan policy connected with illegal profit withdrawal.

  5. 76 FR 28226 - Southwest Health Alliances, Inc., Doing Business as BSA Provider Network; Analysis of Agreement...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-05-16

    ... I.B, because it is intended to reach agreements between and among independent competitors... Commission to facilitate monitoring its compliance with the Consent Order. Pursuant to Paragraph X, the...

  6. Multi-objective portfolio optimization of mutual funds under downside risk measure using fuzzy theory

    OpenAIRE

    M. Amiri; M. Zandieh; A. Alimi

    2012-01-01

    Mutual fund is one of the most popular techniques for many people to invest their funds where a professional fund manager invests people's funds based on some special predefined objectives; therefore, performance evaluation of mutual funds is an important problem. This paper proposes a multi-objective portfolio optimization to offer asset allocation. The proposed model clusters mutual funds with two methods based on six characteristics including rate of return, variance, semivariance, turnove...

  7. Financial Literacy and Mutual Fund Investments : Who Buys Actively Managed Funds?

    OpenAIRE

    Müller, Sebastian; Weber, Martin

    2008-01-01

    Previous research indicates that lacking financial sophistication among private investors might be important in explaining the strong growth in active management over the past. Based on questionnaire data with more than 3,000 mutual fund customers, we therefore construct an objective financial literacy score and analyze the relationship between financial literacy and mutual fund investment behavior. While sophisticated investors are indeed more aware of passive, low cost fund alternatives lik...

  8. Defense mutualisms enhance plant diversification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weber, Marjorie G; Agrawal, Anurag A

    2014-11-18

    The ability of plants to form mutualistic relationships with animal defenders has long been suspected to influence their evolutionary success, both by decreasing extinction risk and by increasing opportunity for speciation through an expanded realized niche. Nonetheless, the hypothesis that defense mutualisms consistently enhance plant diversification across lineages has not been well tested due to a lack of phenotypic and phylogenetic information. Using a global analysis, we show that the >100 vascular plant families in which species have evolved extrafloral nectaries (EFNs), sugar-secreting organs that recruit arthropod mutualists, have twofold higher diversification rates than families that lack species with EFNs. Zooming in on six distantly related plant clades, trait-dependent diversification models confirmed the tendency for lineages with EFNs to display increased rates of diversification. These results were consistent across methodological approaches. Inference using reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to model the placement and number of rate shifts revealed that high net diversification rates in EFN clades were driven by an increased number of positive rate shifts following EFN evolution compared with sister clades, suggesting that EFNs may be indirect facilitators of diversification. Our replicated analysis indicates that defense mutualisms put lineages on a path toward increased diversification rates within and between clades, and is concordant with the hypothesis that mutualistic interactions with animals can have an impact on deep macroevolutionary patterns and enhance plant diversity.

  9. Evaluating Selection and Timing Ability of a Mutual Fund

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Duguleană L.

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents the methodology and a case study to evaluate the performance of a mutual fund by taking a look at the timing and selection abilities of a portfolio manager. Separating the timing and selection abilities of the fund manager is taken into consideration by two major models. The data about the mutual fund chosen for study is the German blue chip fund “DWS Deutsche Aktien Typ O”, which includes most of the DAX 30 companies. The data consists of 117 monthly observations of the fund returns from January 1999 to September 2008. We used EViews to analyse the data.

  10. Management of mutual health organizations in Ghana.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Baltussen, R.M.P.M.; Bruce, E.; Rhodes, G.; Narh-Bana, S.A.; Agyepong, I.

    2006-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Mutual Health Organizations (MHO) emerged in Ghana in the mid-1990s. The organizational structure and financial management of private and public MHO hold important lessons for the development of national health insurance in Ghana, but there is little evidence to date on their features.

  11. Effects of Reentry Plasma Sheath on Mutual-Coupling Property of Array Antenna

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    B. W. Bai

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A plasma sheath enveloping a reentry vehicle would cause the failure of on-board antennas, which is an important effect that contributes to the “blackout” problem. The method of replacing the on-board single antenna with the array antennas and using beamforming technology has been proposed to mitigate “blackout” problem by many other researchers. Because the plasma sheath is a reflective medium, plasma will alter the mutual coupling between array elements and degrade the beamforming performance of array antenna. In this paper, the effects of the plasma sheath on the mutual coupling properties between adjacent array elements are studied utilizing the algorithm of finite integration technique. Results show that mutual coupling coefficients of array elements are deteriorating more seriously with the decrease of collision frequency. Moreover, when electron density and collision frequency are both large, plasma sheath improves the mutual coupling property of array elements; this conclusion suggests that replacing the on-board single antenna with the array antennas and using beamforming technology can be adopted to mitigate the blackout problem in this condition.

  12. Mutual best friendship involvement, best friends' rejection sensitivity, and psychological maladaptation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bowker, Julie C; Thomas, Katelyn K; Norman, Kelly E; Spencer, Sarah V

    2011-05-01

    Rejection sensitivity (RS) refers to the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and overreact to experiences of possible rejection. RS is a clear risk factor for psychological maladaptation during early adolescence. However, there is growing evidence of significant heterogeneity in the psychological correlates of RS. To investigate when RS poses the greatest psychological risk during early adolescence, this study examines mutual best friendship involvement (or lack thereof) and the best friends' RS as potential moderators of the associations between RS and psychological difficulties. Participants were 150 7th grade students (58 boys; M age = 13.05 years) who nominated their best friends, and reported on their RS, social anxiety, and self-esteem. Results from a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that mutual best friendship involvement and best friends' RS were both significant moderators when fear of negative evaluation (a type of social anxiety) served as the dependent variable. The association between RS and fear of negative evaluation was stronger for adolescents without mutual best friends than adolescents with mutual best friends. In addition, the association between RS and fear of negative evaluation was the strongest for adolescents whose best friends were highly rejection sensitive (relative to adolescents whose best friends were moderately or low in RS). Findings highlight the importance of considering best friendships in studies of RS and strongly suggest that, although having mutual best friendships may be protective for rejection sensitive adolescents, having a rejection sensitive best friend may exacerbate difficulties. The significance of friends in the lives of rejection sensitive adolescents is discussed as well as possible applied implications of the findings and study limitations.

  13. Research on electricity consumption forecast based on mutual information and random forests algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Jing; Shi, Yunli; Tan, Jian; Zhu, Lei; Li, Hu

    2018-02-01

    Traditional power forecasting models cannot efficiently take various factors into account, neither to identify the relation factors. In this paper, the mutual information in information theory and the artificial intelligence random forests algorithm are introduced into the medium and long-term electricity demand prediction. Mutual information can identify the high relation factors based on the value of average mutual information between a variety of variables and electricity demand, different industries may be highly associated with different variables. The random forests algorithm was used for building the different industries forecasting models according to the different correlation factors. The data of electricity consumption in Jiangsu Province is taken as a practical example, and the above methods are compared with the methods without regard to mutual information and the industries. The simulation results show that the above method is scientific, effective, and can provide higher prediction accuracy.

  14. Creative tensions: mutual responsiveness adapted to private sector research and development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sonck, Matti; Asveld, Lotte; Landeweerd, Laurens; Osseweijer, Patricia

    2017-09-07

    The concept of mutual responsiveness is currently based on little empirical data in the literature of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). This paper explores RRI's idea of mutual responsiveness in the light of recent RRI case studies on private sector research and development (R&D). In RRI, responsible innovation is understood as a joint endeavour of innovators and societal stakeholders, who become mutually responsive to each other in defining the 'right impacts' of the innovation in society, and in steering the innovation towards realising those impacts. Yet, the case studies identified several reasons for why the idea of mutual responsiveness does not always appear feasible or desirable in actual R&D situations. Inspired by the discrepancies between theory and practice, we suggest three further elaborations for the concept of responsiveness in RRI. Process-responsiveness is suggested for identifying situations that require stakeholder involvement specifically during R&D. Product-responsiveness is suggested for mobilising the potential of innovation products to be adaptable according to diverse stakeholder needs. Presponsiveness is suggested as responsiveness towards stakeholders that are not (yet) reachable at a given time of R&D. Our aim is to contribute to a more tangible understanding of responsiveness in RRI, and suggest directions for further analysis in upcoming RRI case studies.

  15. The Behavioral Aspects of Mutual Funds and the Lessons Learned from the Financial Crisis

    OpenAIRE

    Åhlén, Tommy

    2011-01-01

    The fund industry has grown tremendously over the last decades and the function for mutual funds and their managers have gained importance. Sweden is today the greatest fund saving country in the world however the function of the mutual funds and their managers is still rather unexplored. Mutual fund managers were blamed for the recent financial crisis and their irrational behavior was highlighted. This indicated how weak the classic financial theories are when trying to explain the function ...

  16. Mutual Mentoring for Early-Career and Underrepresented Faculty: Model, Research, and Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yun, Jung H.; Baldi, Brian; Sorcinelli, Mary Deane

    2016-01-01

    In the beginning, "Mutual Mentoring" was little more than an idea, a hopeful vision of the future in which a new model of mentoring could serve as a medium to better support early-career and underrepresented faculty. Over time, Mutual Mentoring evolved from an innovative idea to an ambitious pilot program to a fully operational,…

  17. Secure anonymous mutual authentication for star two-tier wireless body area networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibrahim, Maged Hamada; Kumari, Saru; Das, Ashok Kumar; Wazid, Mohammad; Odelu, Vanga

    2016-10-01

    Mutual authentication is a very important service that must be established between sensor nodes in wireless body area network (WBAN) to ensure the originality and integrity of the patient's data sent by sensors distributed on different parts of the body. However, mutual authentication service is not enough. An adversary can benefit from monitoring the traffic and knowing which sensor is in transmission of patient's data. Observing the traffic (even without disclosing the context) and knowing its origin, it can reveal to the adversary information about the patient's medical conditions. Therefore, anonymity of the communicating sensors is an important service as well. Few works have been conducted in the area of mutual authentication among sensor nodes in WBAN. However, none of them has considered anonymity among body sensor nodes. Up to our knowledge, our protocol is the first attempt to consider this service in a two-tier WBAN. We propose a new secure protocol to realize anonymous mutual authentication and confidential transmission for star two-tier WBAN topology. The proposed protocol uses simple cryptographic primitives. We prove the security of the proposed protocol using the widely-accepted Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) logic, and also through rigorous informal security analysis. In addition, to demonstrate the practicality of our protocol, we evaluate it using NS-2 simulator. BAN logic and informal security analysis prove that our proposed protocol achieves the necessary security requirements and goals of an authentication service. The simulation results show the impact on the various network parameters, such as end-to-end delay and throughput. The nodes in the network require to store few hundred bits. Nodes require to perform very few hash invocations, which are computationally very efficient. The communication cost of the proposed protocol is few hundred bits in one round of communication. Due to the low computation cost, the energy consumed by the nodes is

  18. By-product mutualism with evolving common enemies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    De Jaegher, K.J.M.

    2017-01-01

    The common-enemy hypothesis of by-product mutualism states that organisms cooperate when it is in their individual interests to do so, with benefits for other organisms arising as a by-product; in particular, such cooperation is hypothesized to arise when organisms face the common enemy of a

  19. Deadlocks and dihomotopy in mutual exclusion models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Raussen, Martin

    2005-01-01

    spaces, the directed ($d$-spaces) of M.Grandis and the flows of P. Gaucher. All models invite to use or modify ideas from algebraic topology, notably homotopy. In specific semaphore models for mutual exclusion, we have developed methods and algorithms that can detect deadlocks and unsafe regions and give...

  20. 29 CFR 553.23 - Agreement or understanding prior to performance of work.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 29 Labor 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Agreement or understanding prior to performance of work... understanding prior to performance of work. (a) General. (1) As a condition for use of compensatory time in lieu... reached prior to the performance of work. This can be accomplished pursuant to a collective bargaining...

  1. Information trimming: Sufficient statistics, mutual information, and predictability from effective channel states

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, Ryan G.; Mahoney, John R.; Crutchfield, James P.

    2017-06-01

    One of the most basic characterizations of the relationship between two random variables, X and Y , is the value of their mutual information. Unfortunately, calculating it analytically and estimating it empirically are often stymied by the extremely large dimension of the variables. One might hope to replace such a high-dimensional variable by a smaller one that preserves its relationship with the other. It is well known that either X (or Y ) can be replaced by its minimal sufficient statistic about Y (or X ) while preserving the mutual information. While intuitively reasonable, it is not obvious or straightforward that both variables can be replaced simultaneously. We demonstrate that this is in fact possible: the information X 's minimal sufficient statistic preserves about Y is exactly the information that Y 's minimal sufficient statistic preserves about X . We call this procedure information trimming. As an important corollary, we consider the case where one variable is a stochastic process' past and the other its future. In this case, the mutual information is the channel transmission rate between the channel's effective states. That is, the past-future mutual information (the excess entropy) is the amount of information about the future that can be predicted using the past. Translating our result about minimal sufficient statistics, this is equivalent to the mutual information between the forward- and reverse-time causal states of computational mechanics. We close by discussing multivariate extensions to this use of minimal sufficient statistics.

  2. Effect of acculturation and mutuality on family loyalty among Mexican American caregivers of elders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kao, Hsueh-Fen S; An, Kyungeh

    2012-06-01

    Informal family care for elders is conventional in Mexican American communities despite increasing intergenerational gaps in filial values. In our study, we explored whether acculturation and dyadic mutuality, as perceived by Mexican American family caregivers, explain the caregivers' expectations of family loyalty toward elderly relatives. A nonexperimental, correlational design with convenience sampling was used in El Paso, Texas, from October 2007 to January 2008. Three bilingual promotoras collected data from 193 Mexican American adult caregivers of community-dwelling elders using three scales designed for Mexican Americans: the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans II-Short Form, the Mutuality Scale, and the Expectations of Family Loyalty of Children Toward Elderly Relatives Scale. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to analyze the data. Acculturation had a marginal effect (r = .21, p loyalty toward elderly relatives. There was no significant correlation between acculturation and mutuality (r = .05). Although Mexican American caregivers with strong Mexican orientation may have high expectations of family loyalty toward elderly relatives, mutuality exhibits more significant effects on expectations. Among Mexican Americans, mutuality between the caregiving dyad, as perceived by caregivers, may be a better predictor of filial values than caregivers' acculturation alone. It may be useful to incorporate the dual paradigm of acculturation and mutuality into immigrant family care for elderly relatives. © 2012 Sigma Theta Tau International.

  3. The Persistence of Mutual Fund Performance.

    OpenAIRE

    Grinblatt, Mark; Titman, Sheridan

    1992-01-01

    This paper analyzes how mutual fund performance relates to past performance. These tests are based on a multiple portfolio benchmark that was formed on the basis of securities characteristics. The authors find evidence that differences in performance between funds persist over time and that this persistence is consistent with the ability of fund managers to earn abnormal returns. Copyright 1992 by American Finance Association.

  4. Exploring rater agreement: configurations of agreement and disagreement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    ALEXANDER VON EYE

    2006-03-01

    Full Text Available At the level of manifest categorical variables, a large number of coefficients and models for the examination of rater agreement has been proposed and used for descriptive and explanatory purposes. This article focuses on exploring rater agreement. Configural Frequency Analysis (CFA is proposed as a method of exploration of cross-classifications of raters’ judgements. CFA allows researchers to (1 examine individual cells and sets of cells in agreement tables; (2 examine cells that indicate disagreement; and (3 explore agreement and disagreement among three or more raters. Four CFA base models are discussed. The first is the model of rater agreement that is also used for Cohen’s (1960  (kappa. This model proposes independence of raters’ judgements. Deviations from this model suggest agreement or disagreement beyond chance. The second CFA model is based on a log-linear null model. This model is also used for Brennan and Prediger’s (1981 n. It proposes a uniform distribution of ratings. The third model is that of Tanner and Young (1985. This model proposes equal weights for agreement cases and independence otherwise. The fourth model is the quasi-independence model. This model allows one to blank out agreement cells and thus to focus solely on patterns of disagreement. Examples use data from applicant selection.

  5. The Effect of Mutual Coupling on a High Altitude Platform Diversity System Using Compact Antenna Arrays

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tommy Hult

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available We analyze the destructive effects of mutual coupling and spatial correlation between the separate antenna elements on a combined diversity system consisting of multiple HAPs (High-Altitude Platforms employing various compact MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output antenna array configurations, in order to enhance the mutual information in HAP communication links. In addition, we assess the influence of the separation angle between HAPs on system performance, and determine the optimal separation angles that maximize the total mutual information of the system for various compact MIMO antennas. Simulation results show that although the mutual information is degraded by mutual coupling and spatial correlation, the proposed HAP diversity system still provides better performance compared to a nondiversity system for all tested scenarios.

  6. For the acknowledgement of a social value of carbon in the Climate agreement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Finon, Dominique

    2015-01-01

    After having outlined that it might be difficult to define a unique price for carbon emissions, the author states that acknowledging a reference price in the Climate agreement would help to guide investment decisions and new financing modes. He proposes that the agreement could include the following article: 'The social and economic value of mitigation actions and their co-benefits to adaptation, health and sustainable development should be recognized and formalized as such. It will help to orient the investment of firms towards low carbon options, to mobilize public funding and to develop financial vehicles to allow scaling up of private investments to support development of low carbon projects and countries' transitions to low-carbon economies. This reference of carbon value will be established by consensus between parties: it should be referred to abatement action costs to reach a global emissions cap as well as the co-benefits of the actions. It will be regularly revised.' The author then discusses how to fill the gap between private and social value of low carbon investments, and how to determine this reference value. He outlines the benefit of a reference value of carbon with respect to a constraining price to reach a credible agreement

  7. Exometabolomics Assisted Design and Validation of Synthetic Obligate Mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kosina, Suzanne M; Danielewicz, Megan A; Mohammed, Mujahid; Ray, Jayashree; Suh, Yumi; Yilmaz, Suzan; Singh, Anup K; Arkin, Adam P; Deutschbauer, Adam M; Northen, Trent R

    2016-07-15

    Synthetic microbial ecology has the potential to enhance the productivity and resiliency of biotechnology processes compared to approaches using single isolates. Engineering microbial consortia is challenging; however, one approach that has attracted significant attention is the creation of synthetic obligate mutualism using auxotrophic mutants that depend on each other for exchange or cross-feeding of metabolites. Here, we describe the integration of mutant library fitness profiling with mass spectrometry based exometabolomics as a method for constructing synthetic mutualism based on cross-feeding. Two industrially important species lacking known ecological interactions, Zymomonas mobilis and Escherichia coli, were selected as the test species. Amino acid exometabolites identified in the spent medium of Z. mobilis were used to select three corresponding E. coli auxotrophs (proA, pheA and IlvA), as potential E. coli counterparts for the coculture. A pooled mutant fitness assay with a Z. mobilis transposon mutant library was used to identify mutants with improved growth in the presence of E. coli. An auxotroph mutant in a gene (ZMO0748) with sequence similarity to cysteine synthase A (cysK), was selected as the Z. mobilis counterpart for the coculture. Exometabolomic analysis of spent E. coli medium identified glutathione related metabolites as potentially available for rescue of the Z. mobilis cysteine synthase mutant. Three sets of cocultures between the Z. mobilis auxotroph and each of the three E. coli auxotrophs were monitored by optical density for growth and analyzed by flow cytometry to confirm high cell counts for each species. Taken together, our methods provide a technological framework for creating synthetic mutualisms combining existing screening based methods and exometabolomics for both the selection of obligate mutualism partners and elucidation of metabolites involved in auxotroph rescue.

  8. Measuring the influence of a mutual support educational intervention within a nursing team

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renée Bridges

    2014-03-01

    Conclusion: The study demonstrates that education can have an impact on perceptions and awareness of mutual support among nursing team members. The survey instrument can be used effectively to inform leadership areas for improvement and staff development in the effort to improve team coordination and mutual support.

  9. Exposure to socially responsible investing of mutual funds in the Euronext stock markets

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Plantinga, Auke; Scholtens, Bert; Brunia, Nanne

    2002-01-01

    This paper analyses fund management and exposure on the Euronext stock exchanges. Especially, we investigate to what extent mutual funds are engaged in socially responsible investing (SRI). In order to accomplish this goal, we use regression analysis to measure the exposure of mutual funds to stock

  10. Front-running of Mutual Fund Fire-sales

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dyakov, T.C.; Verbeek, M.

    2013-01-01

    We show that a real-time trading strategy which front-runs the anticipated forced sales by mutual funds experiencing extreme capital outflows generates an alpha of 0.5% per month during the 1990-2010 period. The abnormal return stems from selling pressure among stocks that are below the NYSE mean

  11. Mutual fund performance: A synthesis of taxonomic and methodological issues

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S.G. Badrinath

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper provides a comprehensive taxonomy of mutual funds and discusses the relative importance of these fund types. While most academic research focuses on US equity funds, we provide results for many more asset classes with this taxonomy—fixed income, balanced, global, International, sector, market-neutral and long-short funds. For each, we start by reporting statistics on the number of funds and their total net asset values at different intervals over the last four decades. We then identify short and long-term patterns in annual returns to mutual funds. We study the cross-sectional and time-series properties of the distribution of investor flows into different types of mutual funds, describe the relationship between flows and performance and discuss its implications for the strategic behaviour of managers and investors. We estimate and interpret fund performance alphas using both the single-factor and four-factor Fama-French models for each taxonomy type. Finally we describe the state of academic research on portfolio performance evaluation tilted towards an applied audience.

  12. Integrated semiconductor twin-microdisk laser under mutually optical injection

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zou, Ling-Xiu; Liu, Bo-Wen; Lv, Xiao-Meng; Yang, Yue-De; Xiao, Jin-Long; Huang, Yong-Zhen, E-mail: yzhuang@semi.ac.cn [State Key Laboratory on Integrated Optoelectronics, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083 (China)

    2015-05-11

    We experimentally study the characteristics of an integrated semiconductor twin-microdisk laser under mutually optical injection through a connected optical waveguide. Based on the lasing spectra, four-wave mixing, injection locking, and period-two oscillation states are observed due to the mutually optical injection by adjusting the injected currents applied to the two microdisks. The enhanced 3 dB bandwidth is realized for the microdisk laser at the injection locking state, and photonic microwave is obtained from the electrode of the microdisk laser under the period-two oscillation state. The plentifully dynamical states similar as semiconductor lasers subject to external optical injection are realized due to strong optical interaction between the two microdisks.

  13. A History of the International Agreement on Iran's Nuclear Program

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fabius, Laurent

    2016-01-01

    In May 2012, in the aftermath of the French presidential election, Iranian nuclear program posed a major challenge concerning both regional security questions and global efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation. The situation was characterized by a diplomatic stalemate, sanctions and the concerning development of Iran's nuclear program. Many fear that Iran's current program development will warrant military intervention in an effort to prevent further success. France therefore decided to implement a policy of 'constructive firmness' in the hope of reaching a robust and verifiable agreement that shows real progress in the international effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The following text is an accurate account of the process leading up to this major agreement by one of its main actors

  14. Bilateral agreements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1998-01-01

    Ten bilateral agreements are presented. These are: 1) Co-operation agreement relating to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy between Argentina and EURATOM (1996); 2) Agreement on co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy between Argentina and Greece (1997); 3) Implementing arrangement for technical exchange and co-operation in the area of peaceful uses of nuclear energy between Argentina and the United States (1997); 4) Agreement concerning co-operation in nuclear science and technology between Australia and Indonesia (1997); 5) Implementation of the 1985 Agreement for co-operation concerning the peaceful uses of nuclear energy between the People's Republic of China and the United States (1998); 6) Protocol of co-operation between France and Lithuania (1997); 7) Agreement on co-operation in energy research, science and technology, and development between Germany and the United States (1998); 8) Agreement on early notification of a nuclear accident and exchange of information on nuclear facilities between Greece and Romania (1997); 9) Agreement on early notification of nuclear accidents and co-operation in the field of nuclear safety between Hungary and the Ukraine (1997); 10) Agreement in the field of radioactive waste management between Switzerland and the United States (1997). (K.A.)

  15. Mutual Vulnerability: A Key Principle in a Humanising Pedagogy in Post-Conflict Societies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zinn, Denise; Proteus, Kimberley; Keet, Andre

    2009-01-01

    In this article we argue that education in post-conflict and traumatised societies should be partly underpinned by the principle of "mutual vulnerability" as central to a humanising pedagogy. We explain the conceptual links between "reconciliation pedagogies", "mutual vulnerability" and "humanising pedagogies" and associate them with the broader…

  16. Embedding the logic of the Paris Agreement into the new Regulation on Governance of the Energy Union

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Voss-Stemping, Judith; Sartor, Oliver; Colombier, Michel

    2017-10-01

    To safeguard the climate and to keep the temperatures targets of the Paris Agreement within reach, determined climate action of global players, such as the European Union (EU) and its Member States, is needed more than ever. The Paris Agreement sets out a clear process to review and raise ambition embarking on a long-term transformation of the global economy. To ensure that this process and the logic of the Paris Agreement is adequately embedded in the into the new Regulation on Governance of the Energy Union, IDDRI identifies the long-term strategies, iterative process and inherent time-line of the Paris Agreement as points of vigilance

  17. Development of stock correlation networks using mutual information and financial big data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Xue; Zhang, Hu; Tian, Tianhai

    2018-01-01

    Stock correlation networks use stock price data to explore the relationship between different stocks listed in the stock market. Currently this relationship is dominantly measured by the Pearson correlation coefficient. However, financial data suggest that nonlinear relationships may exist in the stock prices of different shares. To address this issue, this work uses mutual information to characterize the nonlinear relationship between stocks. Using 280 stocks traded at the Shanghai Stocks Exchange in China during the period of 2014-2016, we first compare the effectiveness of the correlation coefficient and mutual information for measuring stock relationships. Based on these two measures, we then develop two stock networks using the Minimum Spanning Tree method and study the topological properties of these networks, including degree, path length and the power-law distribution. The relationship network based on mutual information has a better distribution of the degree and larger value of the power-law distribution than those using the correlation coefficient. Numerical results show that mutual information is a more effective approach than the correlation coefficient to measure the stock relationship in a stock market that may undergo large fluctuations of stock prices.

  18. Human Security and Mutual Vulnerability: The Global Political ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    -Cold War era: the search for an analytical framework that will help us understand this turbulent and chaotic period in human history. His lucid and visionary analysis rests on the concept of mutual vulnerability: that in an increasingly ...

  19. 75 FR 47063 - Mutual Fund Distribution Fees; Confirmations

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-08-04

    ... section 12(b) is to prevent mutual funds from incurring ``excessive sales, promotion expenses, and so... plans and used the revenue to pay for advertising and sales materials.\\55\\ In time, however, funds began... to revenue sharing. [[Page 47069

  20. A Lightweight RFID Mutual Authentication Protocol Based on Physical Unclonable Function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, He; Ding, Jie; Li, Peng; Zhu, Feng; Wang, Ruchuan

    2018-03-02

    With the fast development of the Internet of Things, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been widely applied into many areas. Nevertheless, security problems of the RFID technology are also gradually exposed, when it provides life convenience. In particular, the appearance of a large number of fake and counterfeit goods has caused massive loss for both producers and customers, for which the clone tag is a serious security threat. If attackers acquire the complete information of a tag, they can then obtain the unique identifier of the tag by some technological means. In general, because there is no extra identifier of a tag, it is difficult to distinguish an original tag and its clone one. Once the legal tag data is obtained, attackers can be able to clone this tag. Therefore, this paper shows an efficient RFID mutual verification protocol. This protocol is based on the Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) and the lightweight cryptography to achieve efficient verification of a single tag. The protocol includes three process: tag recognition, mutual verification and update. The tag recognition is that the reader recognizes the tag; mutual verification is that the reader and tag mutually verify the authenticity of each other; update is supposed to maintain the latest secret key for the following verification. Analysis results show that this protocol has a good balance between performance and security.

  1. Use of the mutual exclusivity assumption by young word learners

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Markman, Ellen M.; Wasow, Judith L.; Hansen, Mikkel

    2003-01-01

    A critical question about early word learning is whether word learning constraints such as mutual exclusivity exist and foster early language acquisition. It is well established that children will map a novel label to a novel rather than a familiar object. Evidence for the role of mutual...... these concerns by having only a familiar object visible. Fifteen to seventeen and 18-20-month-olds were selected to straddle the vocabulary spurt. In Study 1, babies saw a familiar object and an opaque bucket as a location to search. Study 2 handed babies the familiar object to play with. Study 3 eliminated...

  2. Organic Learning: Mutual Enterprise and the Learning and Skills Agenda. Policy Discussion Paper.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeo, Stephen

    The term "cooperative and mutual enterprises" (CMEs) was developed in 1999 by a mutuality task force in Oxfordshire, England, as a modern way of reasserting the notion of the adult education movement as a cooperative movement for social (democratic) inclusion. CMEs recall the tradition of learning through clubs, unions, mechanics'…

  3. 26 CFR 1.501(c)(14)-1 - Credit unions and mutual insurance funds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 501(c)(1)) without capital stock, organized and operated for mutual purposes and without profit, are... September 1, 1951 and operated for mutual purposes and without profit for the purpose of providing reserve... September 1, 1957, are exempt from tax under section 501(a) for taxable years beginning after December 31...

  4. Bet hedging based cooperation can limit kin selection and form a basis for mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uitdehaag, Joost C M

    2011-07-07

    Mutualism is a mechanism of cooperation in which partners that differ help each other. As such, mutualism opposes mechanisms of kin selection and tag-based selection (for example the green beard mechanism), which are based on giving exclusive help to partners that are related or carry the same tag. In contrast to kin selection, which is a basis for parochialism and intergroup warfare, mutualism can therefore be regarded as a mechanism that drives peaceful coexistence between different groups and individuals. Here the competition between mutualism and kin (tag) selection is studied. In a model where kin selection and tag-based selection are dominant, mutualism is promoted by introducing environmental fluctuations. These fluctuations cause reduction in reproductive success by the mechanism of variance discount. The best strategy to counter variance discount is to share with agents who experience the most anticorrelated fluctuations, a strategy called bet hedging. In this way, bet hedging stimulates cooperation with the most unrelated partners, which is a basis for mutualism. Analytic results and simulations reveal that, if this effect is large enough, mutualistic strategies can dominate kin selective strategies. In addition, mutants of these mutualistic strategies that experience fluctuations that are more anticorrelated to their partner, can outcompete wild type, which can lead to the evolution of specialization. In this way, the evolutionary success of mutualistic strategies can be explained by bet hedging-based cooperation. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Mutual partners' support in the process of the bereavement after the death of the child

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Polona Ozbič

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The death of a close person is one of the hardest situations which individuals face several times in their lifetimes. The death of a child is especially stressful. The partnership can be either mutually supportive or stressful; this is significantly related to coping with the loss. The purpose of the research was to study the mutual support of partners while grieving their child's loss. We conducted in-depth guided interviews with fourteen bereaved parents. We used a grounded theory to determine three main topics: the expectations of the bereaved from their partner; the characteristics of the mutual partners' support; and the relationship between partners in the process of bereavement. On the basis of these data the following categories prevailed: collective bereavement, individual bereavement with occasional collective bereavement, and isolated bereavement. Regardless of gender, the individuals with the first two patterns typically experience mutual understanding and the feeling of support in the process of bereavement. Those with the pattern of isolated bereavement have characteristically dysfunctional partnerships, which make mutual support difficult even when desired. Research showed a new finding in Slovenia: bereaved parents in functional partnerships often grieve individually and occasionally collectively, which they identify as adequate mutual support.

  6. Spillover Effects of Marketing in Mutual Fund Families

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    M.J.C.M. Verbeek (Marno); J.J. Huij (Joop)

    2007-01-01

    textabstractThis paper investigates the presence of spillover effects of marketing in mutual fund families. We find that funds with high marketing expenses generate spillovers, and enhance cash inflows to family members with low marketing expenses. In particular, low-marketing funds that are

  7. Information content when mutual funds deviate from benchmarks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    H. Jiang (Hao); M.J.C.M. Verbeek (Marno); Y. Wang (Yu)

    2014-01-01

    markdownabstract__Abstract__ The consensus wisdom of active mutual fund managers, as reflected in their average over-and underweighting decisions, contains valuable information about future stock returns. Analyzing a comprehensive sample of active U.S. equity funds from 1984 to 2008, we find that

  8. Mutual Group Hypnosis: A Social Interaction Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanders, Shirley

    Mutual Group Hypnosis is discussed in terms of its similarity to group dynamics in general and in terms of its similarity to a social interaction program (Role Modeling) designed to foster the expression of warmth and acceptance among group members. Hypnosis also fosters a regression to prelogical thought processes in the service of the ego. Group…

  9. The role of between-parent values agreement in parent-to-child transmission of academic values.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gniewosz, Burkhard; Noack, Peter

    2012-08-01

    The present study investigates the intergenerational transmission of academic task values within family in early adolescence. Social learning processes are assumed to operate through the students' perceptions of their parents' values. The major goal of this study is to show that this values transmission is facilitated by between-parent value agreement. Based on a longitudinal data set including 1019 German students, their mothers (N = 847), and fathers (N = 733), structural equation models showed significant effects of the parents' task values regarding math and German language as academic subjects on the respective task values reported by the students, mediated through the student-perceived parental values. This transmission chain was only found if the between-parent agreement was high. The results are discussed in terms of parent-specific mechanisms fostering transmission if both parents agree on academic values, such as an improved perceptive accuracy as well as the increased salience and mutual reinforcement of parental messages. Copyright © 2011 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Mutually opposing forces during locomotion can eliminate the tradeoff between maneuverability and stability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cowan, Noah; Sefati, Shahin; Neveln, Izaak; Roth, Eatai; Mitchell, Terence; Snyder, James; Maciver, Malcolm; Fortune, Eric

    A surprising feature of animal locomotion is that organisms typically produce substantial forces in directions other than what is necessary to move the animal through its environment, such as perpendicular to, or counter to, the direction of travel. The effect of these forces has been difficult to observe because they are often mutually opposing and therefore cancel out. Using a combination of robotic physical modeling, computational modeling, and biological experiments, we discovered that these forces serve an important role: to simplify and enhance the control of locomotion. Specifically, we examined a well-suited model system, the glass knifefish Eigenmannia virescens, which produces mutually opposing forces during a hovering behavior. By systematically varying the locomotor parameters of our biomimetic robot, and measuring the resulting forces and kinematics, we demonstrated that the production and differential control of mutually opposing forces is a strategy that generates passive stabilization while simultaneously enhancing maneuverability. Mutually opposing forces during locomotion are widespread across animal taxa, and these results indicate that such forces can eliminate the tradeoff between stability and maneuverability, thereby simplifying robotic and neural control.

  11. Investors Perception And Attitude Towards Mutual Fund As An Investment Option

    OpenAIRE

    Sharma, Priyanka; Agrawal, Payal

    2015-01-01

    Mutual funds have opened new vistas to millions of investors by virtually taking investment to their doorstep. In India, a investor generally goes for such kind of information, which do not provide hedge against inflation and often have negative real returns. He finds himself to be an odd man out in the investment game. Mutual funds have come, as a much needed help to these investors. Thus the success of MFs is essentially the result of the combined efforts of competent fund managers and aler...

  12. The Formation of Optimal Portfolio of Mutual Shares Funds using Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yandra Arkeman

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Investments in financial assets have become a trend in the globalization era, especially the investment in mutual fund shares. Investors who want to invest in stock mutual funds can set up an investment portfolio in order to generate a minimal risk and maximum return. In this study the authors used the Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm Non-dominated Sorting II (MOGA NSGA-II technique with the Markowitz portfolio principle to find the best portfolio from several mutual funds. The data used are 10 company stock mutual funds with a period of 12 months, 24 months and 36 months. The genetic algorithm parameters used are crossover probability of 0.65, mutation probability of 0.05, Generation 400 and a population numbering 20 individuals. The study produced a combination of the best portfolios for the period of 24 months with a computing time of 63,289 seconds.

  13. Environmental variation shifts the relationship between trees and scatterhoarders along the continuum from mutualism to antagonism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sawaya, Gina M; Goldberg, Adam S; Steele, Michael A; Dalgleish, Harmony J

    2018-05-01

    The conditional mutualism between scatterhoarders and trees varies on a continuum from mutualism to antagonism and can change across time and space, and among species. We examined 4 tree species (red oak [Quercus rubra], white oak [Quercus alba], American chestnut [Castanea dentata] and hybrid chestnut [C. dentata × Castanea mollissima) across 5 sites and 3 years to quantify the variability in this conditional mutualism. We used a published model to compare the rates of seed emergence with and without burial to the probability that seeds will be cached and left uneaten by scatterhoarders to quantify variation in the conditional mutualism that can be explained by environmental variation among sites, years, species, and seed provenance within species. All species tested had increased emergence when buried. However, comparing benefits of burial to the probability of caching by scatterhoarders indicated a mutualism in red oak, while white oak was nearly always antagonistic. Chestnut was variable around the boundary between mutualism and antagonism, indicating a high degree of context dependence in the relationship with scatterhoarders. We found that different seed provenances did not vary in their potential for mutualism. Temperature did not explain microsite differences in seed emergence in any of the species tested. In hybrid chestnut only, emergence on the surface declined with soil moisture in the fall. By quantifying the variation in the conditional mutualism that was not caused by changes in scatterhoarder behavior, we show that environmental conditions and seed traits are an important and underappreciated component of the variation in the relationship between trees and scatterhoarders. © 2018 International Society of Zoological Sciences, Institute of Zoology/Chinese Academy of Sciences and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

  14. Conversion from mutual helicity to self-helicity observed with IRIS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, L. P.; Peter, H.; Chen, F.; Zhang, J.

    2014-10-01

    Context. In the upper atmosphere of the Sun observations show convincing evidence for crossing and twisted structures, which are interpreted as mutual helicity and self-helicity. Aims: We use observations with the new Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) to show the conversion of mutual helicity into self-helicity in coronal structures on the Sun. Methods: Using far UV spectra and slit-jaw images from IRIS and coronal images and magnetograms from SDO, we investigated the evolution of two crossing loops in an active region, in particular, the properties of the Si IV line profile in cool loops. Results: In the early stage two cool loops cross each other and accordingly have mutual helicity. The Doppler shifts in the loops indicate that they wind around each other. As a consequence, near the crossing point of the loops (interchange) reconnection sets in, which heats the plasma. This is consistent with the observed increase of the line width and of the appearance of the loops at higher temperatures. After this interaction, the two new loops run in parallel, and in one of them shows a clear spectral tilt of the Si IV line profile. This is indicative of a helical (twisting) motion, which is the same as to say that the loop has self-helicity. Conclusions: The high spatial and spectral resolution of IRIS allowed us to see the conversion of mutual helicity to self-helicity in the (interchange) reconnection of two loops. This is observational evidence for earlier theoretical speculations. Movie associated with Fig. 1 and Appendix A are available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org

  15. Investor Attrition and Fund Flows in Mutual Funds

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christoffersen, Susan E. K.; Xu, Haoyu

    2017-01-01

    We explore the properties of equity mutual funds that experience a loss of assets after poor performance. We document that both inflows and outflows are less sensitive to performance, because performance-sensitive investors leave or decide not to invest after bad performance. Consistent with the ...

  16. Link overlap, viability, and mutual percolation in multiplex networks

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Min, Byungjoon; Lee, Sangchul; Lee, Kyu-Min; Goh, K.-I.

    2015-01-01

    Many real-world complex systems are best modeled by multiplex networks. The multiplexity has proved to have broad impact on the system’s structure and function. Most theoretical studies on multiplex networks to date, however, have largely ignored the effect of the link overlap across layers despite strong empirical evidences for its significance. In this article, we investigate the effect of the link overlap in the viability of multiplex networks, both analytically and numerically. After a short recap of the original multiplex viability study, the distinctive role of overlapping links in viability and mutual connectivity is emphasized and exploited for setting up a proper analytic framework. A rich phase diagram for viability is obtained and greatly diversified patterns of hysteretic behavior in viability are observed in the presence of link overlap. Mutual percolation with link overlap is revisited as a limit of multiplex viability problem, and the controversy between existing results is clarified. The distinctive role of overlapping links is further demonstrated by the different responses of networks under random removals of overlapping and non-overlapping links, respectively, as well as under several link-removal strategies. Our results show that the link overlap facilitates the viability and mutual percolation; at the same time, the presence of link overlap poses a challenge in analytical approaches to the problem

  17. Basolateral amygdala lesions abolish mutual reward preferences in rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hernandez-Lallement, Julen; van Wingerden, Marijn; Schäble, Sandra; Kalenscher, Tobias

    2016-01-01

    In a recent study, we demonstrated that rats prefer mutual rewards in a Prosocial Choice Task. Here, employing the same task, we show that the integrity of basolateral amygdala was necessary for the expression of mutual reward preferences. Actor rats received bilateral excitotoxic (n=12) or sham lesions (n=10) targeting the basolateral amygdala and were subsequently tested in a Prosocial Choice Task where they could decide between rewarding ("Both Reward") or not rewarding a partner rat ("Own Reward"), either choice yielding identical reward to the actors themselves. To manipulate the social context and control for secondary reinforcement sources, actor rats were paired with either a partner rat (partner condition) or with an inanimate rat toy (toy condition). Sham-operated animals revealed a significant preference for the Both-Reward-option in the partner condition, but not in the toy condition. Amygdala-lesioned animals exhibited significantly lower Both-Reward preferences than the sham group in the partner but not in the toy condition, suggesting that basolateral amygdala was required for the expression of mutual reward preferences. Critically, in a reward magnitude discrimination task in the same experimental setup, both sham-operated and amygdala-lesioned animals preferred large over small rewards, suggesting that amygdala lesion effects were restricted to decision making in social contexts, leaving self-oriented behavior unaffected. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Main Determinants of the Mutual Funds Dynamics in Romania before and after the Financial Crisis

    OpenAIRE

    Radu Ioana; Nistor Ioan Alin; Ciupac-Ulici Maria Lenuþa

    2012-01-01

    In an attempt to identify the main determinants of attraction or inhibitive factors for investments, the current paper evaluates the Romanian mutual fund market development. Using a regression analysis on quarterly data during 2004Q3 – 2012Q2, the study explores the impact of current financial crisis on mutual funds. The paper is organized as it follows. Part 2 presents a brief literature review and extracts the studies that appreciate best the determinants of the mutual funds dynamics. Next ...

  19. NEVER BOUGHT, ALWAYS SOLD: Salesmanship, the Small Investor, and the Early Postwar Surge in Mutual Fund Participation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Janice M. Traflet

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Though today millions of investors flock to them, in 1945, mutual funds exuded no widespread appeal. This essay examines how, why, and when mutual funds first began to regain — and, indeed, exceed — the popularity they had only briefly enjoyed in the 1920s. A key focus is on the role of marketers in stimulating popular interest in mutual funds, particularly among small investors. As will be argued, the surge in mutual fund participation, which began in earnest after the Second World War, should be considered neither accidental nor inevitable.

  20. Do Higher Fees Imply Better Performance? An Insight to Fee-performance Relationship in the US Mutual Fund Industry.

    OpenAIRE

    FAN, YI

    2008-01-01

    Recent studies propose that equity mutual fund managers generally do not have ability to generate abnormal returns to outperform the market, and their performance bear negative relationship with the expenses charged when investors invest in mutual funds. This study employs a data set including monthly returns from sixty equity mutual funds existing throughout the examined period from January 1998 to December 2007. These data are used to examine performance of actively managed mutual funds and...

  1. Ambiguity towards Multiple Historical Performance Information Signals: Evidence from Indonesian Open-Ended Mutual Fund Investors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haris Pratama Loeis

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available This study focuses on the behavior of open-ended mutual fund investors when encountered with multiple information signals of mutual fund’s historical performance. The behavior of investors can be reflected on their decision to subscribe or redeem their funds from mutual funds. Moreover, we observe the presence of ambiguity within investors due to multiple information signals, and also their reaction towards it. Our finding shows that open-ended mutual fund investors do not only have sensitivity towards past performance information signals, but also have additional sensitivity towards the ambiguity of multiple information signals. Because of the presence of ambiguity, investors give more consideration to negative information signals and the worst information signal in their investment decisions. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE

  2. Zero Cross-Talk Regimes in Dually Modulated Mutually-Coupled Nano-lasers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Han, H; Zhang, M J; Wang, Y C; Shore, K A

    2017-01-01

    The modulation properties of dually modulated mutually-coupled nano-lasers have been analyzed using rate equations which include the Purcell cavity-enhanced spontaneous emission factor F and the spontaneous emission coupling factor β . Analysis of the dynamical response of modulated mutually-coupled nano-lasers reveals the existence of regimes of zero cross-talk wherein the response of one nano-laser is not impacted by the dynamics of the other nano-laser. The availability of zero-cross talk regimes is seen to offer opportunities for exploitation in photonic integrated circuits. (paper)

  3. Improvement of mutual understanding in risk communication by application of a debate support system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shimoda, Hiroshi; Matsuda, Koji; Ishii, Hirotake; Yoshikawa, Hidekazu

    2010-01-01

    Given the recent problem of climate change, nuclear power has become perhaps the world's most important energy source. In Japan, however, it is difficult to build new nuclear facilities. One of the reasons for such difficulty lies in problems in risk communication. In this study, a support method has been proposed to improve mutual understanding in risk communication. The authors paid especial attention at the learning effect of debating and the benefits of employing a debate support system. A laboratory experiment including 30 university students was conducted in order to evaluate the proposed method. Results showed that the use of the system could improve mutual understanding especially with respect to the factors of risk 'reduction measures' and 'accident management'. In addition, it was found that using the system and debating from 'opposite positions' could improve subjective mutual understanding; however, this practice showed no effectiveness in terms of improving objective mutual understanding. (author)

  4. Computationally Efficient 2D DOA Estimation for L-Shaped Array with Unknown Mutual Coupling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yang-Yang Dong

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Although L-shaped array can provide good angle estimation performance and is easy to implement, its two-dimensional (2D direction-of-arrival (DOA performance degrades greatly in the presence of mutual coupling. To deal with the mutual coupling effect, a novel 2D DOA estimation method for L-shaped array with low computational complexity is developed in this paper. First, we generalize the conventional mutual coupling model for L-shaped array and compensate the mutual coupling blindly via sacrificing a few sensors as auxiliary elements. Then we apply the propagator method twice to mitigate the effect of strong source signal correlation effect. Finally, the estimations of azimuth and elevation angles are achieved simultaneously without pair matching via the complex eigenvalue technique. Compared with the existing methods, the proposed method is computationally efficient without spectrum search or polynomial rooting and also has fine angle estimation performance for highly correlated source signals. Theoretical analysis and simulation results have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.

  5. Quantum mutual information and the one-time pad

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schumacher, Benjamin; Westmoreland, Michael D.

    2006-01-01

    Alice and Bob share a correlated composite quantum system AB. If AB is used as the key for a one-time pad cryptographic system, we show that the maximum amount of information that Alice can send securely to Bob is the quantum mutual information of AB

  6. Mutual aid fund commission

    CERN Multimedia

    Staff Association

    2011-01-01

    The composition of the Board of the Mutual Aid Fund for 2011 is as follows: President: Pascal Droux Vice-president: Connie Potter Treasurer: Louis Pereira Deputy treasurer: Barbara Brugger Secretary: Sonia Casenove Deputy secretary: Isabelle Mardirossian Members: Christopher David Thomas   Jean-Claude Vialis (GAC member)   Marie-Luce Falipou   Gunilla Santiard (Jean-Claude Vialis’s alternate) The role of the Fund is to provide financial help to members of personnel and beneficiaries of the Pension Fund who are in need of exceptional financial assistance. All requests are treated in the strictest confidence. Should you wish to apply for aid from the Fund, kindly contact any member of the Board as given above or Social Services, tel.74479 – 73867.

  7. Economy of scale: third partner strengthens a keystone ant-plant mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prior, Kirsten M; Palmer, Todd M

    2018-02-01

    While foundation species can stabilize ecosystems at landscape scales, their ability to persist is often underlain by keystone interactions occurring at smaller scales. Acacia drepanolobium is a foundation tree, comprising >95% of woody cover in East African black-cotton savanna ecosystems. Its dominance is underlain by a keystone mutualistic interaction with several symbiotic ant species in which it provides housing (swollen thorns) and carbohydrate-rich nectar from extra-floral nectaries (EFN). In return, it gains protection from catastrophic damage from mega-herbivores. Crematogaster mimosae is the ecologically dominant symbiotic ant in this system, also providing the highest protection services. In addition to tending EFN, C. mimosae tend scale insects for carbohydrate-rich honeydew. We investigated the role of scale insects in this specialized ant-plant interaction. Specifically, does this putatively redundant third partner strengthen the ant-plant mutualism by making the ant a better protector of the tree? Or does it weaken the mutualism by being costly to the tree while providing no additional benefit to the ant-plant mutualism? We coupled observational surveys with two scale-manipulation experiments and found evidence that this third partner strengthens the ant-plant mutualism. Trees with scale insects experimentally removed experienced a 2.5X increase in elephant damage compared to trees with scale insects present over 10 months. Reduced protection was driven by scale removal causing a decrease in ant colony size and per capita baseline activity and defensive behavior. We also found that ants increased scale-tending and the density of scale insects on trees when EFN were experimentally reduced. Thus, in this system, scale insects and EFN are likely complementary, rather than redundant, resources with scale insects benefitting ants when EFN production is low (such as during annual dry periods in this semi-arid ecosystem). This study reveals that a third

  8. MISTIC: mutual information server to infer coevolution

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Simonetti, Franco L.; Teppa, Elin; Chernomoretz, Ariel

    2013-01-01

    of several information-related quantities using a circos representation. This provides an integrated view of the MSA in terms of (i) the mutual information (MI) between residue pairs, (ii) sequence conservation and (iii) the residue cumulative and proximity MI scores. Further, an interactive interface...... of circos representation of MI networks and the visualization of the cumulative MI and proximity MI concepts is novel....

  9. Mutual information as an order parameter for quantum synchronization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ameri, V.; Eghbali-Arani, M.; Mari, A.; Farace, A.; Kheirandish, F.; Giovannetti, V.; Fazio, R.

    2015-01-01

    Spontaneous synchronization is a fundamental phenomenon, important in many theoretical studies and applications. Recently, this effect has been analyzed and observed in a number of physical systems close to the quantum-mechanical regime. In this work we propose mutual information as a useful order parameter which can capture the emergence of synchronization in very different contexts, ranging from semiclassical to intrinsically quantum-mechanical systems. Specifically, we first study the synchronization of two coupled Van der Pol oscillators in both classical and quantum regimes and later we consider the synchronization of two qubits inside two coupled optical cavities. In all these contexts, we find that mutual information can be used as an appropriate figure of merit for determining the synchronization phases independently of the specific details of the system.

  10. Role of mutual punishment in the snowdrift game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Han-Xin; Wang, Zhen

    2015-09-01

    The effects of punishment on cooperation have drawn increasing attention. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism of punishment, in which an individual will punish each neighbor if their strategies are different, and vice versa. We incorporate the mutual punishment into the snowdrift game. Results for well-mixed and structured populations have shown that, for no punishment or small values of punishment fine, the fraction of cooperators continuously decreases with the temptation to defect. However, for large values of punishment fine, there exists an abrupt transition point, at which the fraction of cooperators suddenly drops from 1 to 0. Compared to no punishment, mutual punishment promotes cooperation when the temptation to defect is small but inhibits cooperation when the temptation to defect is large. For weak (strong) temptation to defect, the cooperation level increases (decreases) with the punishment fine. For moderate temptation to defect, there exists an optimal value of the punishment fine that leads to the highest cooperation level.

  11. The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement: Economic and Political Implications

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-05-01

    a Colombia, Anuncia el Presidente de Colombia en Entrevista a Caracol Radio,” May 3, 2007. 48 Colombia’s Observatorio del Programa Presidencial de ...forward standard to encourage production and economic integration. A “ de minimis” provision would allow limited amounts of specified third-country...negotiation, Congress and the Administration reached an agreement on May 10, 2007 on a new bipartisan trade framework that calls for the inclusion of

  12. The decision making on mutual investment of thai investors ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The decision making on mutual investment of thai investors. ... Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences. Journal Home ... The study was a research survey that used questionnaires to collect data from 400 samples of Thai investors.

  13. Mutual incomprehension: U.S.- German value gaps beyond Iraq

    OpenAIRE

    Larres, Klaus

    2003-01-01

    Differences over Iraq policy have revealed deep U.S.- German value gaps over multilateralism, nationalism, and the role of force in international relations. Cooperation in four areas of mutual importance can help compensate for them.

  14. Mutual emergency assistance for radiation accidents

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1980-11-01

    In 1963 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a document, WP.35, dated 23 November 1963, based on information provided by a number of its Member States on the type of radiological assistance that they might be able to make available in the event of a radiation emergency in another country at the request of that country. The document was subsequently revised in 1968 and 1971 with the participation of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). In 1979, an expanded questionnaire to ascertain what could be required by the State in the event of a major radiation accident, was sent jointly by these organizations with the participation of the Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Co-ordinator (UNDRO), to all their Member States. The text of the expanded questionnaire is reproduced. The present document lists all the information, received up to mid 1980, that contains offers of assistance made by a State. It also lists information on the assistance that might be required by the State. In general, the replies have been reproduced in the form in which they were received, although a few changes in presentation have been introduced in the interest of brevity and clarity. Some countries have pointed out that their replies are necessarily of a general character and that the full extent of the assistance they would be capable of providing could be determined only after a specific request had been received. The information given in this document should therefore be regarded only as a guide to the type of radiological assistance that might be available and/or needed. Other available international assistance includes that provided by the Agency through the IAEA Radiation (Emergency) Assistance Procedures, by WHO through its system of Collaborating Centres on human radiation pathology, and by various States via regional or inter-countries' agreements on

  15. On the International Transmission of Shocks: Micro-Evidence from Mutual Fund Portfolios

    OpenAIRE

    Claudio Raddatz; Sergio L. Schmukler

    2011-01-01

    Using micro-level data on mutual funds from different financial centers investing in equity and bonds, this paper analyzes how investors and managers behave and transmit shocks across countries. The paper shows that the volatility of mutual fund investments is quantitatively driven by investors through injections of capital into, or redemptions out of, each fund, and by managers changing the country weights and cash in their portfolios. Both investors and managers respond to returns and crise...

  16. Human Security and Mutual Vulnerability: The Global Political ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Human Security and Mutual Vulnerability: The Global Political Economy of Development and ... that will help us understand this turbulent and chaotic period in human history. ... The Rapid Research Fund (RRF) for Ebola Virus Disease Outbreaks will fund ... Copyright · Open access policy · Privacy policy · Research ethics ...

  17. Optimization of Training Signal Transmission for Estimating MIMO Channel under Antenna Mutual Coupling Conditions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xia Liu

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper reports investigations on the effect of antenna mutual coupling on performance of training-based Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO channel estimation. The influence of mutual coupling is assessed for two training-based channel estimation methods, Scaled Least Square (SLS and Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE. It is shown that the accuracy of MIMO channel estimation is governed by the sum of eigenvalues of channel correlation matrix which in turn is influenced by the mutual coupling in transmitting and receiving array antennas. A water-filling-based procedure is proposed to optimize the training signal transmission to minimize the MIMO channel estimation errors.

  18. TELEsarPHONE: Mutual Telexistence Master-Slave Communication System Based on Retroreflective Projection Technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tachi, Susumu; Kawakami, Naoki; Nii, Hideaki; Watanabe, Kouichi; Minamizawa, Kouta

    TELEsarPHONE is a conceptual prototype of a mutual telexistence system, designed for face-to-face telecommunication via robots. Because of the development of telexistence technology, we can acquire a feeling that we are present in several actual remote places using remote robots as our surrogates and can work and act freely there. However, people in the place where someone telexists using a robot see only the robot, and they cannot feel the existence of the telexisting person. Mutual telexistence aims to solve this problem so that the existence of a telexisting person (visitor) is apparent to the people in the remote environment by providing mutual sensations of presence. On the basis of the concept of mutual telexistence, we have designed and developed a prototype of a telexistence master-slave system for remote communication by applying retroreflective projection technology. In the TELEsarPHONE system, the face and chest of the slave robot TELESAR II are covered by retroreflective material. To provide the feeling of existence, the real-time image of the visitor is projected onto the robot so that people can see the visitor in real time.

  19. Mutual learning and reverse innovation–where next?

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-01-01

    There is a clear and evident need for mutual learning in global health systems. It is increasingly recognized that innovation needs to be sourced globally and that we need to think in terms of co-development as ideas are developed and spread from richer to poorer countries and vice versa. The Globalization and Health journal’s ongoing thematic series, “Reverse innovation in global health systems: learning from low-income countries” illustrates how mutual learning and ideas about so-called "reverse innovation" or "frugal innovation" are being developed and utilized by researchers and practitioners around the world. The knowledge emerging from the series is already catalyzing change and challenging the status quo in global health. The path to truly “global innovation flow”, although not fully established, is now well under way. Mobilization of knowledge and resources through continuous communication and awareness raising can help sustain this movement. Global health learning laboratories, where partners can support each other in generating and sharing lessons, have the potential to construct solutions for the world. At the heart of this dialogue is a focus on creating practical local solutions and, simultaneously, drawing out the lessons for the whole world. PMID:24673828

  20. Mutual learning and reverse innovation--where next?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crisp, Nigel

    2014-03-28

    There is a clear and evident need for mutual learning in global health systems. It is increasingly recognized that innovation needs to be sourced globally and that we need to think in terms of co-development as ideas are developed and spread from richer to poorer countries and vice versa. The Globalization and Health journal's ongoing thematic series, "Reverse innovation in global health systems: learning from low-income countries" illustrates how mutual learning and ideas about so-called "reverse innovation" or "frugal innovation" are being developed and utilized by researchers and practitioners around the world. The knowledge emerging from the series is already catalyzing change and challenging the status quo in global health. The path to truly "global innovation flow", although not fully established, is now well under way. Mobilization of knowledge and resources through continuous communication and awareness raising can help sustain this movement. Global health learning laboratories, where partners can support each other in generating and sharing lessons, have the potential to construct solutions for the world. At the heart of this dialogue is a focus on creating practical local solutions and, simultaneously, drawing out the lessons for the whole world.

  1. Inter-observer and intra-observer agreement on interpretation of uroflowmetry curves of kindergarten children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Shang-Jen; Yang, Stephen S D

    2008-12-01

    To evaluate the inter-observer and intra-observer agreement on the interpretation of uroflowmetry curves of children. Healthy kindergarten children were enrolled for evaluation of uroflowmetry. Uroflowmetry curves were classified as bell-shaped, tower, plateau, staccato and interrupted. Only the bell-shaped curves were regarded as normal. Two urodynamists evaluated the curves independently after reviewing the definitions of the different types of uroflowmetry curve. The senior urodynamist evaluated the curves twice 3 months apart. The final conclusion was made when consensus was reached. Agreement among observers was analyzed using kappa statistics. Of 190 uroflowmetry curves eligible for analysis, the intra-observer agreement in interpreting each type of curve and interpreting normalcy vs abnormality was good (kappa=0.71 and 0.68, respectively). Very good inter-observer agreement (kappa=0.81) on normalcy and good inter-observer agreement (kappa=0.73) on types of uroflowmetry were observed. Poor inter-observer agreement existed on the classification of specific types of abnormal uroflowmetry curves (kappa=0.07). Uroflowmetry is a good screening tool for normalcy of kindergarten children, while not a good tool to define the specific types of abnormal uroflowmetry.

  2. Mutual punishment promotes cooperation in the spatial public goods game

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang, Han-Xin; Rong, Zhihai

    2015-01-01

    Punishment has been proved to be an effective mechanism to sustain cooperation among selfish individuals. In previous studies, punishment is unidirectional: an individual i can punish j but j cannot punish i. In this paper, we propose a mechanism of mutual punishment, in which the two individuals will punish each other if their strategies are different. Because of the symmetry in imposing the punishment, one might expect intuitively the strategy to have little effect on cooperation. Surprisingly, we find that the mutual punishment can promote cooperation in the spatial public goods game. Other pertinent quantities such as the time evolution of cooperator density and the spatial distribution of cooperators and defectors are also investigated

  3. Spatially resolved detection of mutually locked Josephson junctions in arrays

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Keck, M.; Doderer, T.; Huebener, R.P.; Traeuble, T.; Dolata, R.; Weimann, T.; Niemeyer, J.

    1997-01-01

    Mutual locking due to the internal coupling in two-dimensional arrays of Josephson junctions was investigated. The appearance of Shapiro steps in the current versus voltage curve of a coupled on-chip detector junction is used to indicate coherent oscillations in the array. A highly coherent state is observed for some range of the array bias current. By scanning the array with a low-power electron beam, mutually locked junctions remain locked while the unlocked junctions generate a beam-induced additional voltage drop at the array. This imaging technique allows the detection of the nonlocked or weakly locked Josephson junctions in a (partially) locked array state. copyright 1997 American Institute of Physics

  4. Cash Holdings and Mutual Fund Performance

    OpenAIRE

    Mikhail Simutin

    2014-01-01

    Cash holdings of equity mutual funds impose a drag on fund performance but also allow managers to make quick investments in attractive stocks and satisfy outflows without costly fire sales. This article shows that actively managed equity funds with high abnormal cash—that is, with cash holdings in excess of the level predicted by fund attributes—outperform their low abnormal cash peers by over 2% per year. Managers carrying high abnormal cash compensate for the low return on cash by making su...

  5. Comparative Analysis of Risk, Return and Diversification of Mutual Fund

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rais Ahmad

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Mutual Funds have become a widely popular and effective way for investors to participate in financial markets in an easy, low-cost fashion, while muting risk characteristics by spreading the investment across different types of securities, also known as diversification. It can play a central role in an individual's investment strategy. With the plethora of schemes available in the Indian markets, an investors needs to evaluate and consider various factors before making an investment decision. The present investigation is aimed to examine the performance of safest investment instrument in the security market in the eyes of investors. Five mutual fund large cap scheme have been selected for this purpose. The examination is achieved by assessing various financial tests like Sharpe Ratio, Standard Deviation, Alpha, and Beta. Furthermore, in-depth analysis also has been done by considering return over the period of last five years on various basis, expenses ratio, corpus-size etc. The data has been taken from various websites of mutual fund schemes and from www.valueresearch.com. The study will be helpful for the researchers and financial analysts to analyze various securities or funds while selecting the best investment alternative out of the galaxy of investment alternatives.

  6. Synchronization in human musical rhythms and mutually interacting complex systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hennig, Holger

    2014-09-09

    Though the music produced by an ensemble is influenced by multiple factors, including musical genre, musician skill, and individual interpretation, rhythmic synchronization is at the foundation of musical interaction. Here, we study the statistical nature of the mutual interaction between two humans synchronizing rhythms. We find that the interbeat intervals of both laypeople and professional musicians exhibit scale-free (power law) cross-correlations. Surprisingly, the next beat to be played by one person is dependent on the entire history of the other person's interbeat intervals on timescales up to several minutes. To understand this finding, we propose a general stochastic model for mutually interacting complex systems, which suggests a physiologically motivated explanation for the occurrence of scale-free cross-correlations. We show that the observed long-term memory phenomenon in rhythmic synchronization can be imitated by fractal coupling of separately recorded or synthesized audio tracks and thus applied in electronic music. Though this study provides an understanding of fundamental characteristics of timing and synchronization at the interbrain level, the mutually interacting complex systems model may also be applied to study the dynamics of other complex systems where scale-free cross-correlations have been observed, including econophysics, physiological time series, and collective behavior of animal flocks.

  7. Market Timing : A Decomposition of Mutual Fund Returns

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Swinkels, L.A.P.; van der Sluis, P.J.; Verbeek, M.J.C.M.

    2003-01-01

    We decompose the conditional expected mutual fund return in ve parts.Two parts, selectivity and expert market timing, can be attributed to manager skill, and three to variation in market exposure that can be achieved by private investors as well.The dynamic model that we use to estimate the relative

  8. Institutionalized Mutuality in Canada-China Management Education Collaboration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Shuguang; Liu, Xianjun

    2015-01-01

    This paper examines the Canada-China Management Education Program (CCMEP, 1983-1996) between the University of Toronto (UT) and Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST). In this paper, we create a "Three Levels/Four Parameters" analytical framework, based on the concept of mutuality from Johan Galtung (1980) and the concept…

  9. Feature Selection for Chemical Sensor Arrays Using Mutual Information

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, X. Rosalind; Lizier, Joseph T.; Nowotny, Thomas; Berna, Amalia Z.; Prokopenko, Mikhail; Trowell, Stephen C.

    2014-01-01

    We address the problem of feature selection for classifying a diverse set of chemicals using an array of metal oxide sensors. Our aim is to evaluate a filter approach to feature selection with reference to previous work, which used a wrapper approach on the same data set, and established best features and upper bounds on classification performance. We selected feature sets that exhibit the maximal mutual information with the identity of the chemicals. The selected features closely match those found to perform well in the previous study using a wrapper approach to conduct an exhaustive search of all permitted feature combinations. By comparing the classification performance of support vector machines (using features selected by mutual information) with the performance observed in the previous study, we found that while our approach does not always give the maximum possible classification performance, it always selects features that achieve classification performance approaching the optimum obtained by exhaustive search. We performed further classification using the selected feature set with some common classifiers and found that, for the selected features, Bayesian Networks gave the best performance. Finally, we compared the observed classification performances with the performance of classifiers using randomly selected features. We found that the selected features consistently outperformed randomly selected features for all tested classifiers. The mutual information filter approach is therefore a computationally efficient method for selecting near optimal features for chemical sensor arrays. PMID:24595058

  10. Financial Crisis and Corporate Social Responsible Mutual Fund Flows

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sitikantha Parida

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we investigate investment flows into mutual funds that hold more high corporate social responsible stocks (top CSR funds vs. mutual funds that hold more low corporate social responsible stocks (bottom CSR funds. Using a large sample of equity mutual funds spanning 2003–2012, we find that top CSR funds on average receive about 5% less investment per annum compared to the other funds; whereas bottom CSR funds receive about 5.6% more investments. These relative negative and positive flows into the top and bottom CSR funds respectively were larger during the pre-financial crisis period (2003–2007. This trend, however, reversed during the financial crisis (2008–2009. Top CSR funds attracted about 8.7% more investments during the financial crisis compared to the pre-crisis period; whereas bottom CSR funds received about 9.8% less investment. This higher investment into the top CSR funds during the crisis seems to have disappeared during the post-crisis period (2009–2012. Additional analysis shows that the corporate social ratings of top CSR funds improved through the crisis, whereas it deteriorated for the bottom CSR funds. Our findings are consistent with the “flight to quality” phenomenon observed in financial markets during market crises, indicating that investors perceive top CSR fund investments as relatively safe or of higher quality and hence, invest more in them during financial crises.

  11. Conditional selectivity performance of Indian mutual fund schemes: An empirical study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Subrata Roy

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available The present study seeks to examine the stock-selection performance of the sample open-ended equity mutual fund schemes of Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund Company based on traditional and conditional performance measures. It is generally expected that inclusion of some relevant predetermined public information variables in the conditional CAPM provides better performance estimates as compared to the traditional measures. The study reports that after inclusion of conditioning public information variables, the selectivity performances of the schemes have dramatically improved relative to the traditional measure and also found that conditional measure is superior to traditional measure in statistical test.

  12. The Evaluation of Mutual Fund Performance in Lithuania Considering Risk and Timing Ability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Irma Gavrilova

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available Over the last decade, Lithuania has witnessed a growing interest in investment promoted by the need to successfully manage available funds. Direct investments (e. g. buying and selling stocks require a specific knowledge of investment instruments. Therefore, an ordinary investor finds investment in mutual funds easier and cheaper. Usually the most important questions to the investor include measuring the results of a fund and the quality of the actions performed by the fund managers. The article evaluates the rates of mutual fund performance and identifies their shortages. The methods for evaluating investment return according to the level of risk and timing ability of the fund managers are presented using the Sharpe ratio and Treynor-Mazuy model on the basis of which mutual funds in Lithuania are analyzed.Article in Lithuanian

  13. The Mutual Impact of Global Strategy and Organizational Learning

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hotho, Jasper J.; Lyles, Marjorie A.; Easterby-Smith, Mark

    2015-01-01

    Despite the interest in issues of knowing and learning in the global strategy field, there has been limited mutual engagement and interaction between the fields of global strategy and organizational learning. The purpose of our article is to reflect on and articulate how the mutual exchange...... of ideas between these fields can be encouraged. To this end, we first conduct a review of the intersection of the fields of global strategy and organizational learning. We then present two recommendations regarding how the interaction between the two fields can be enhanced. Our first recommendation...... is for global strategy research to adopt a broader notion of organizational learning. Our second recommendation is for global strategy research to capitalize on its attention to context in order to inform and enhance organizational learning theory. We discuss the use of context in a number of common research...

  14. Root-MUSIC Based Angle Estimation for MIMO Radar with Unknown Mutual Coupling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jianfeng Li

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Direction of arrival (DOA estimation problem for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO radar with unknown mutual coupling is studied, and an algorithm for the DOA estimation based on root multiple signal classification (MUSIC is proposed. Firstly, according to the Toeplitz structure of the mutual coupling matrix, output data of some specified sensors are selected to eliminate the influence of the mutual coupling. Then the reduced-dimension transformation is applied to make the computation burden lower as well as obtain a Vandermonde structure of the direction matrix. Finally, Root-MUSIC can be adopted for the angle estimation. The angle estimation performance of the proposed algorithm is better than that of estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT-like algorithm and MUSIC-like algorithm. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm has lower complexity than them. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the algorithm, and the theoretical estimation error of the algorithm is also derived.

  15. Warming, CO2, and nitrogen deposition interactively affect a plant-pollinator mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoover, Shelley E R; Ladley, Jenny J; Shchepetkina, Anastasia A; Tisch, Maggie; Gieseg, Steven P; Tylianakis, Jason M

    2012-03-01

    Environmental changes threaten plant-pollinator mutualisms and their critical ecosystem service. Drivers such as land use, invasions and climate change can affect pollinator diversity or species encounter rates. However, nitrogen deposition, climate warming and CO(2) enrichment could interact to disrupt this crucial mutualism by altering plant chemistry in ways that alter floral attractiveness or even nutritional rewards for pollinators. Using a pumpkin model system, we show that these drivers non-additively affect flower morphology, phenology, flower sex ratios and nectar chemistry (sugar and amino acids), thereby altering the attractiveness of nectar to bumble bee pollinators and reducing worker longevity. Alarmingly, bees were attracted to, and consumed more, nectar from a treatment that reduced their survival by 22%. Thus, three of the five major drivers of global environmental change have previously unknown interactive effects on plant-pollinator mutualisms that could not be predicted from studies of individual drivers in isolation. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/CNRS.

  16. Cleaner mites: sanitary mutualism in the miniature ecosystem of neotropical bee nests.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biani, Natalia B; Mueller, Ulrich G; Wcislo, William T

    2009-06-01

    Cleaning symbioses represent classic models of mutualism, and some bee mites are thought to perform cleaning services for their hosts in exchange for suitable environments for reproduction and dispersal. These mutual benefits, however, have not been rigorously demonstrated. We tested the sanitary role of bee mites by correlating mite loads with fungal contamination in natural nests of Megalopta genalis and Megalopta ecuadoria and by experimentally manipulating mite loads in artificial cells with developing brood. Field observations revealed significant correlations between the presence of mites and the absence of fungi inside the brood cells, as well as between the absence of mites and increased bee mortality. Likewise, experimental brood cells with mites have fewer fungal colonies than do cells without mites. Field observations and experimental manipulations, therefore, provide clear evidence of the sanitary effect of mites in nests of Megalopta bees. This bee-mite association constitutes one of the few examples of terrestrial cleaning mutualisms.

  17. IEA hydrogen agreement, task 15: photobiological hydrogen production - an international collaboration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lindblad, P.; Asada, Y.; Benemann, J.; Hallenbeck, P.; Melis, A.; Miyake, J.; Seibert, M.; Skulberg, O.

    2000-01-01

    Biological hydrogen production, the production of H 2 by microorganisms, has been an active field of basic and applied research for many years. Realization of practical processes for photobiological hydrogen production from water using solar energy would result in a major, novel source of sustainable and renewable energy, without greenhouse gas emissions or environmental pollution. However, development of such processes requires significant scientific and technological advances, and long-term basic and applied R and D. This International Energy Agency (lEA) Task covers research areas and needs at the interface of basic and applied R and D which are of mutual interest to the countries and researchers participating in the lEA Hydrogen Agreement. The overall objective is to sufficiently advance the basic and early-stage applied science in this area of research over the next five years to allow an evaluation of the potential of such a technology to be developed as a practical renewable energy source for the 21st Century. (author)

  18. Synchronization scenario of two distant mutually coupled semiconductor lasers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mulet, Josep; Mirasso, Claudio; Heil, Tilmann

    2004-01-01

    We present numerical and experimental investigations of the synchronization of the coupling-induced instabilities in two distant mutually coupled semiconductor lasers. In our experiments, two similar Fabry-Perot lasers are coupled via their coherent optical fields. Our theoretical framework is ba...

  19. Healthcare system intervention for prevention of birth injuries – process evaluation of self-assessment, peer review, feedback and agreement for change

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-01

    Background Patient safety is fundamental in high quality healthcare systems but despite an excellent record of perinatal care in Sweden some children still suffer from substandard care and unnecessary birth injuries. Sustainable patient safety improvements assume changes in key actors’ mental models, norms and culture as well as in the tools, design and organisation of work. Interventions positively affecting team mental models on safety issues are a first step to enhancing change. Our purpose was to study a national intervention programme for the prevention of birth injuries with the aim to elucidate how the main interventions of self-assessment, peer review, feedback and written agreement for change affected the teams and their mental model of patient safety, and thereby their readiness for change. Knowledge of relevant considerations before implementing this type of patient safety intervention series could thereby be increased. Methods Eighty participants in twenty-seven maternity units were interviewed after the first intervention sequence of the programme. A content analysis using a priori coding was performed in order to relate results to the anticipated outcomes of three basic interventions: self-assessment, peer review and written feedback, and agreement for change. Results The self-assessment procedure was valuable and served as a useful tool for elucidating strengths and weaknesses and identifying areas for improvement for a safer delivery in maternity units. The peer-review intervention was appreciated, despite it being of less value when considering the contribution to explicit outcome effects (i.e. new input to team mental models and new suggestions for actions). The feedback report and the mutual agreement on measures for improvements reached when signing the contract seemed exert positive pressures for change. Conclusions Our findings are in line with several studies stressing the importance of self-evaluation by encouraging a thorough review of

  20. Healthcare system intervention for prevention of birth injuries – process evaluation of self-assessment, peer review, feedback and agreement for change

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nyström Monica E

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Patient safety is fundamental in high quality healthcare systems but despite an excellent record of perinatal care in Sweden some children still suffer from substandard care and unnecessary birth injuries. Sustainable patient safety improvements assume changes in key actors’ mental models, norms and culture as well as in the tools, design and organisation of work. Interventions positively affecting team mental models on safety issues are a first step to enhancing change. Our purpose was to study a national intervention programme for the prevention of birth injuries with the aim to elucidate how the main interventions of self-assessment, peer review, feedback and written agreement for change affected the teams and their mental model of patient safety, and thereby their readiness for change. Knowledge of relevant considerations before implementing this type of patient safety intervention series could thereby be increased. Methods Eighty participants in twenty-seven maternity units were interviewed after the first intervention sequence of the programme. A content analysis using a priori coding was performed in order to relate results to the anticipated outcomes of three basic interventions: self-assessment, peer review and written feedback, and agreement for change. Results The self-assessment procedure was valuable and served as a useful tool for elucidating strengths and weaknesses and identifying areas for improvement for a safer delivery in maternity units. The peer-review intervention was appreciated, despite it being of less value when considering the contribution to explicit outcome effects (i.e. new input to team mental models and new suggestions for actions. The feedback report and the mutual agreement on measures for improvements reached when signing the contract seemed exert positive pressures for change. Conclusions Our findings are in line with several studies stressing the importance of self-evaluation by

  1. 26 CFR 1.592-1 - Repayment of certain loans by mutual savings banks, building and loan associations, and...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 26 Internal Revenue 7 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 true Repayment of certain loans by mutual savings banks, building and loan associations, and cooperative banks. 1.592-1 Section 1.592-1 Internal Revenue... (CONTINUED) Mutual Savings Banks, Etc. § 1.592-1 Repayment of certain loans by mutual savings banks, building...

  2. REACHING SWAZI NATION LAND FARMERS: CHALLENGES TO ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    ... community meetings have not been successfully utilised for extension; women who constitute the majority as cultivators of the land are not directly recognised as extension clientele; and rural people tend to portray mutual distrust in interpersonal relations. The agricultural extension service is generally weak in addressing ...

  3. Managerial multitasking in the mutual fund industry

    OpenAIRE

    Agarwal, Vikas; Ma, Linlin; Mullally, Kevin

    2015-01-01

    We examine the determinants and consequences of mutual fund managers simultaneously managing multiple funds. Well-performing managers multitask by taking over poorly performing funds or launching new funds. Subsequent to multitasking, funds run by managers prior to multitasking (i.e., incumbent funds) experience performance deterioration while the performance of the acquired funds improves. Multitasking increases the assets of fund companies but results in a wealth transfer from shareholders ...

  4. Mutual perceptions between nuclear plant employees and general public on nuclear policy communication applying the Co-orientation analysis model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Bong Chul; Kim, Ji Hyun; Chung, Woon Kwan

    2015-01-01

    This study examines mutual perceptions between general public and nuclear plant employees on understanding nuclear policy communication applying the co-orientation model. The total of 414 responses were analyzed including 211 of the general public and 203 of plant employees. Results indicate that agreement between general public and plant employees is relatively high, in that general public tends to have negative evaluation to nuclear policy communication, but plant employees tends to have positive one. In terms of congruence, general public perceive that plant employees might have more positive evaluation than themselves, and nuclear plant employees perceive that general public might have more negative evaluation than themselves. Finally, in terms of accuracy, general public accurately estimate how nuclear plant employees perceive on policy communication, whereas nuclear plant employees unaccurately estimate how general public perceive on policy communication

  5. Mutual perceptions between nuclear plant employees and general public on nuclear policy communication applying the Co-orientation analysis model

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Bong Chul; Kim, Ji Hyun; Chung, Woon Kwan [Chosun University, Gwangju (Korea, Republic of)

    2015-02-15

    This study examines mutual perceptions between general public and nuclear plant employees on understanding nuclear policy communication applying the co-orientation model. The total of 414 responses were analyzed including 211 of the general public and 203 of plant employees. Results indicate that agreement between general public and plant employees is relatively high, in that general public tends to have negative evaluation to nuclear policy communication, but plant employees tends to have positive one. In terms of congruence, general public perceive that plant employees might have more positive evaluation than themselves, and nuclear plant employees perceive that general public might have more negative evaluation than themselves. Finally, in terms of accuracy, general public accurately estimate how nuclear plant employees perceive on policy communication, whereas nuclear plant employees unaccurately estimate how general public perceive on policy communication.

  6. Inactivation of Parietal Reach Region Affects Reaching But Not Saccade Choices in Internally Guided Decisions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christopoulos, Vassilios N; Bonaiuto, James; Kagan, Igor; Andersen, Richard A

    2015-08-19

    The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has traditionally been considered important for awareness, spatial perception, and attention. However, recent findings provide evidence that the PPC also encodes information important for making decisions. These findings have initiated a running argument of whether the PPC is critically involved in decision making. To examine this issue, we reversibly inactivated the parietal reach region (PRR), the area of the PPC that is specialized for reaching movements, while two monkeys performed a memory-guided reaching or saccade task. The task included choices between two equally rewarded targets presented simultaneously in opposite visual fields. Free-choice trials were interleaved with instructed trials, in which a single cue presented in the peripheral visual field defined the reach and saccade target unequivocally. We found that PRR inactivation led to a strong reduction of contralesional choices, but only for reaches. On the other hand, saccade choices were not affected by PRR inactivation. Importantly, reaching and saccade movements to single instructed targets remained largely intact. These results cannot be explained as an effector-nonspecific deficit in spatial attention or awareness, since the temporary "lesion" had an impact only on reach choices. Hence, the PPR is a part of a network for reach decisions and not just reach planning. There has been an ongoing debate on whether the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) represents only spatial awareness, perception, and attention or whether it is also involved in decision making for actions. In this study we explore whether the parietal reach region (PRR), the region of the PPC that is specialized for reaches, is involved in the decision process. We inactivated the PRR while two monkeys performed reach and saccade choices between two targets presented simultaneously in both hemifields. We found that inactivation affected only the reach choices, while leaving saccade choices intact

  7. Precise Analysis on Mutual Inductance Variation in Dynamic Wireless Charging of Electric Vehicle

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ainur Rakhymbay

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Wireless power transfer provides an opportunity to charge electric vehicles (EVs without electrical cables. Two categories of this technique are distinguished: Stationary Wireless Charging (SWC and Dynamic Wireless Charging (DWC systems. Implementation of DWC is more desirable than SWC as it can potentially eliminate challenges associated with heavy weight batteries and time-consuming charging processes. However, power transfer efficiency and range, lateral misalignment of coils as well as implementation cost are issues affecting DWC. These issues need to be addressed through developing coil architectures and topologies as well as operating novel semiconductor switches at higher frequencies. This study presents a small-scale dynamic wireless power transfer system for EV. It specifically concentrates on analyzing the dynamic mutual inductance between the coils due to the misalignment as it has significant influence on the EV charging process, particularly, over the output power and overall efficiency. A simulation study is carried out to explore dynamic mutual inductance profile between the transmitter and receiver coils. Mutual inductance simulation results are then verified through practical measurements on fabricated coils. Integrating the practical results into the model, an EV DWC power transfer simulation is conducted and the relation between dynamic mutual inductance and output power are discussed technically.

  8. A Swedish Mutual Support Society of Problem Gamblers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Binde, Per

    2012-01-01

    Mutual support societies for problem gamblers have existed in Sweden for 20 years. They have helped more people with gambling problems than any other institution inside or outside the Swedish health care system. This paper outlines the background of these societies and describes the meetings of one of them. Data come from interviews with members…

  9. An Empirical Study on Mutual Funds in the U.S. Market: Performance Evaluation and Its Relation with Fund Size

    OpenAIRE

    Du, Lin

    2008-01-01

    Mutual funds industry has grown rapidly since 1970s. As one popular type of financial intermediary, mutual fund investment becomes an important player in the financial market globally. The evaluation of mutual fund performance has been achieving a great deal of academic interest since 1960s. There has been a great deal of research which examined whether mutual funds can outperform well-diversified portfolios such as a market index. However, the findings are usually suggestive rather than conc...

  10. 78 FR 20137 - Probable Economic Effect of Certain Modifications to the North American Free Trade Agreement...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-04-03

    ... INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION [Investigation No. TA-103-027] Probable Economic Effect of Certain... investigation No. TA-103-027, Probable Economic Effect of Certain Modifications to the North American Free Trade... reached agreement in principle with representatives of the governments of Canada and Mexico on proposed...

  11. Mutualized service for the management of the astronomical observations at the TBL and the OHP

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cottalorda, E.

    2014-12-01

    This article proposes the creation of a mutualized service for the management of the astronomical observations at the TBL and the OHP, which objective would be to optimize the scientific management of the observations, by mutualizing manpower and financial means for the two national telescopes in France.

  12. About mutually unbiased bases in even and odd prime power dimensions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Durt, Thomas

    2005-06-01

    Mutually unbiased bases generalize the X, Y and Z qubit bases. They possess numerous applications in quantum information science. It is well known that in prime power dimensions N = pm (with p prime and m a positive integer), there exists a maximal set of N + 1 mutually unbiased bases. In the present paper, we derive an explicit expression for those bases, in terms of the (operations of the) associated finite field (Galois division ring) of N elements. This expression is shown to be equivalent to the expressions previously obtained by Ivanovic (1981 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 14 3241) in odd prime dimensions, and Wootters and Fields (1989 Ann. Phys. 191 363) in odd prime power dimensions. In even prime power dimensions, we derive a new explicit expression for the mutually unbiased bases. The new ingredients of our approach are, basically, the following: we provide a simple expression of the generalized Pauli group in terms of the additive characters of the field, and we derive an exact groupal composition law between the elements of the commuting subsets of the generalized Pauli group, renormalized by a well-chosen phase-factor.

  13. About mutually unbiased bases in even and odd prime power dimensions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Durt, Thomas

    2005-01-01

    Mutually unbiased bases generalize the X, Y and Z qubit bases. They possess numerous applications in quantum information science. It is well known that in prime power dimensions N = p m (with p prime and m a positive integer), there exists a maximal set of N + 1 mutually unbiased bases. In the present paper, we derive an explicit expression for those bases, in terms of the (operations of the) associated finite field (Galois division ring) of N elements. This expression is shown to be equivalent to the expressions previously obtained by Ivanovic (1981 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 14 3241) in odd prime dimensions, and Wootters and Fields (1989 Ann. Phys. 191 363) in odd prime power dimensions. In even prime power dimensions, we derive a new explicit expression for the mutually unbiased bases. The new ingredients of our approach are, basically, the following: we provide a simple expression of the generalized Pauli group in terms of the additive characters of the field, and we derive an exact groupal composition law between the elements of the commuting subsets of the generalized Pauli group, renormalized by a well-chosen phase-factor

  14. Agreement and Anti-Agreement in Berber: A Multiple-Feature Inheritance Account

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saleem Abdelhady

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available This study proposes understanding Agreement and Anti-Agreement in Berber from Multi-Feature Inheritance (MFI account following Branigan’s (2016 recent approach. The study aims to bridge a misunderstanding in the literature where it has been assumed that Feature Inheritance (FI can only account for Agreement relations while Anti-agreement relations can only be established by a direct Agree between C as a probe and its goal. Under MFI, it can be argued that FI can account for all aspects of Agreement/Anti-agreement. The study, therefore, presents a unification of the three mechanisms proposed by Ouali (2008. The new approach is tested on data from Berber.

  15. Group-ID based RFID Mutual Authentication

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    LEE, Y.

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available For passive type RFID tags, EPCglobal Class 1 Generation-2 Revision is used widely as a de facto standard. As it was designed for low cost, it is quite vulnerable to security issues, such as privacy concerns. This paper presents a new RFID mutual authentication protocol, which is designed to be configured on EPC Gen2 platform and to meet various security requirements while providing efficiency using PRNG (Pseudo Random Number Generator. Group-ID is used to minimize the authentication time. Security analysis of the proposed protocol is discussed.

  16. Feature Selection Based on Mutual Correlation

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Haindl, Michal; Somol, Petr; Ververidis, D.; Kotropoulos, C.

    2006-01-01

    Roč. 19, č. 4225 (2006), s. 569-577 ISSN 0302-9743. [Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition. CIARP 2006 /11./. Cancun, 14.11.2006-17.11.2006] R&D Projects: GA AV ČR 1ET400750407; GA MŠk 1M0572; GA AV ČR IAA2075302 EU Projects: European Commission(XE) 507752 - MUSCLE Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10750506 Keywords : feature selection Subject RIV: BD - Theory of Information Impact factor: 0.402, year: 2005 http://library.utia.cas.cz/separaty/historie/haindl-feature selection based on mutual correlation.pdf

  17. A Round-Efficient Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme Based on Extended Chaotic Maps for Group Cloud Meeting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Tsung-Hung; Tsung, Chen-Kun; Lee, Tian-Fu; Wang, Zeng-Bo

    2017-12-03

    The security is a critical issue for business purposes. For example, the cloud meeting must consider strong security to maintain the communication privacy. Considering the scenario with cloud meeting, we apply extended chaotic map to present passwordless group authentication key agreement, termed as Passwordless Group Authentication Key Agreement (PL-GAKA). PL-GAKA improves the computation efficiency for the simple group password-based authenticated key agreement (SGPAKE) proposed by Lee et al. in terms of computing the session key. Since the extended chaotic map has equivalent security level to the Diffie-Hellman key exchange scheme applied by SGPAKE, the security of PL-GAKA is not sacrificed when improving the computation efficiency. Moreover, PL-GAKA is a passwordless scheme, so the password maintenance is not necessary. Short-term authentication is considered, hence the communication security is stronger than other protocols by dynamically generating session key in each cloud meeting. In our analysis, we first prove that each meeting member can get the correct information during the meeting. We analyze common security issues for the proposed PL-GAKA in terms of session key security, mutual authentication, perfect forward security, and data integrity. Moreover, we also demonstrate that communicating in PL-GAKA is secure when suffering replay attacks, impersonation attacks, privileged insider attacks, and stolen-verifier attacks. Eventually, an overall comparison is given to show the performance between PL-GAKA, SGPAKE and related solutions.

  18. Muscle synergy extraction during arm reaching movements at different speeds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sabzevari, Vahid Reza; Jafari, Amir Homayoun; Boostani, Reza

    2017-01-01

    Muscle synergy is the activation of a group of muscles that contribute to a particular movement. The goal of the present study is to examine the hypothesis that human reaching movements at different speeds share similar muscle synergies and to investigate the kinesiology basis and innervation of muscles. Electromyographic activity from six muscles of the upper limb and shoulder girdle were recorded during three movements at different speeds, i.e. slow, moderate and fast. The effect of window length on the RMS signal of the EMG was analyzed and then EMG envelope signals were decomposed using non-negative matrix factorization. For each of the ten subjects, three synergies were extracted which accounted for at least 99% of the VAF. For each movement, the muscle synergies and muscle activation coefficients of all participants were clustered in to three partitions. Investigation showed a high similarity and dependency of cluster members due to the cosine similarity and mutual information in muscle synergy clustering. For further verification, the EMG envelope signals for all subjects were reconstructed. The results indicated a lower reconstruction error using the center of the muscle synergy clusters in comparison with the average of the activation coefficients, which confirms the current research's hypothesis.

  19. When are enhanced relationship tax compliance programs mutually beneficial?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    De Simone, L.; Sansing, R.; Seidman, J.K.

    2013-01-01

    This study investigates the circumstances under which “enhanced relationship” tax-compliance programs are mutually beneficial to taxpayers and tax authorities, as well as how these benefits are shared. We develop a model of taxpayer and tax authority behavior inside and outside of an enhanced

  20. On the behavior of mutual fund investors and managers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Goriaev, A.P.

    2002-01-01

    This thesis investigates empirically and theoretically the behavior of mutual fund investors and managers. These two aspects are closely related to each other. Investors try to select funds that follow an optimal investment policy from their point of view, while fund managers are typically

  1. Multi-objective portfolio optimization of mutual funds under downside risk measure using fuzzy theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Amiri

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Mutual fund is one of the most popular techniques for many people to invest their funds where a professional fund manager invests people's funds based on some special predefined objectives; therefore, performance evaluation of mutual funds is an important problem. This paper proposes a multi-objective portfolio optimization to offer asset allocation. The proposed model clusters mutual funds with two methods based on six characteristics including rate of return, variance, semivariance, turnover rate, Treynor index and Sharpe index. Semivariance is used as a downside risk measure. The proposed model of this paper uses fuzzy variables for return rate and semivariance. A multi-objective fuzzy mean-semivariance portfolio optimization model is implemented and fuzzy programming technique is adopted to solve the resulted problem. The proposed model of this paper has gathered the information of mutual fund traded on Nasdaq from 2007 to 2009 and Pareto optimal solutions are obtained considering different weights for objective functions. The results of asset allocation, rate of return and risk of each cluster are also determined and they are compared with the results of two clustering methods.

  2. Oklahoma Retailers' Perspectives on Mutual Benefit Exchange to Limit Point-of-Sale Tobacco Advertisements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, Andie; Douglas, Malinda Reddish; Ling, Pamela M

    2015-09-01

    Businesses changing their practices in ways that support tobacco control efforts recently have gained interest, as demonstrated by CVS Health's voluntary policy to end tobacco sales. Point-of-sale (POS) advertisements are associated with youth smoking initiation, increased tobacco consumption, and reduced quit attempts among smokers. There is interest in encouraging retailers to limit tobacco POS advertisements voluntarily. This qualitative exploratory study describes Oklahoma tobacco retailers' perspectives on a mutual benefit exchange approach, and preferred message and messenger qualities that would entice them to take voluntary action to limit tobacco POS advertisements. This study found that mutual benefit exchange could be a viable option along with education and law as strategies to create behavior change among tobacco retailers. Many retailers stated that they would be willing to remove noncontractual POS advertisements for a 6-month commitment period when presented with mutual exchange benefit, tailored message, and appropriate messenger. Mutual benefit exchange, as a behavior change strategy to encourage voluntary removal of POS tobacco advertisements, was acceptable to retailers, could enhance local tobacco control in states with preemption, and may contribute to setting the foundation for broader legislative efforts. © 2015 Society for Public Health Education.

  3. [Non-rigid medical image registration based on mutual information and thin-plate spline].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cao, Guo-gang; Luo, Li-min

    2009-01-01

    To get precise and complete details, the contrast in different images is needed in medical diagnosis and computer assisted treatment. The image registration is the basis of contrast, but the regular rigid registration does not satisfy the clinic requirements. A non-rigid medical image registration method based on mutual information and thin-plate spline was present. Firstly, registering two images globally based on mutual information; secondly, dividing reference image and global-registered image into blocks and registering them; then getting the thin-plate spline transformation according to the shift of blocks' center; finally, applying the transformation to the global-registered image. The results show that the method is more precise than the global rigid registration based on mutual information and it reduces the complexity of getting control points and satisfy the clinic requirements better by getting control points of the thin-plate transformation automatically.

  4. The mutual diffusion coefficient for (meth)acrylate monomers as determined with a nuclear microprobe

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Leewis, Christian M.; Mutsaers, Peter H.A.; Jong, Arthur M. de; Ijzendoorn, Leo J. van; Voigt, Martien J.A. de; Ren, Min Q.; Watt, Frank; Broer, Dirk J.

    2004-01-01

    The value of the mutual diffusion coefficient D V of two acrylic monomers is determined with nuclear microprobe measurements on a set of polymer films. These films have been prepared by allowing the monomers to diffuse into each other for a certain time and subsequently applying fast ultraviolet photo-polymerization, which freezes the concentration profile. The monomer diffusion profiles are studied with a scanning 2.1 MeV proton microprobe. Each monomer contains a marker element, e.g., Cl and Si, which are easily detected with proton induced x-ray emission. From the diffusion profiles, it is possible to determine the mutual diffusion coefficient. The mutual diffusion coefficient is dependent of concentration, which is concluded from the asymmetry in the Cl- and Si-profiles. A linear dependence of the mutual diffusion coefficient on the composition is used as a first order approximation. The best fits are obtained for a value of b=(0.38±0.15), which is the ratio of the diffusion coefficient of 1,3-bis(3-methacryloxypropyl)-1, 1,3,3-tetramethyldisiloxane in pure 2-chloroethyl acrylate and the diffusion coefficient of 2-chloroethyl acrylate in pure 1,3-bis(3-methacryloxypropyl)-1,1,3,3-tetramethyldisiloxane. Under the assumption of a linear dependence of the mutual diffusion coefficient D V on monomer composition, it follows that D V =(2.9±0.6)·10 -10 m 2 /s at a 1:1 monomer ratio. With Flory-Huggins expressions for the monomer chemical potentials, one can derive approximate values for the individual monomer diffusion coefficients

  5. 12 CFR 544.5 - Federal mutual savings association bylaws.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... by the association. (3) Corporate governance procedures. A Federal mutual association may elect to follow the corporate governance procedures of the laws of the state where the main office of the... corporate governance procedures, and shall file a copy of such bylaws, which are effective upon adoption...

  6. 12 CFR 533.5 - Related agreements considered a single agreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... DISCLOSURE AND REPORTING OF CRA-RELATED AGREEMENTS § 533.5 Related agreements considered a single agreement... entered into within the same 12-month period; and (3) Are each in fulfillment of the CRA. (b... in fulfillment of the CRA, if the contracts were negotiated in a coordinated fashion and a NGEP is a...

  7. 12 CFR 35.5 - Related agreements considered a single agreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... DISCLOSURE AND REPORTING OF CRA-RELATED AGREEMENTS § 35.5 Related agreements considered a single agreement... into within the same 12-month period; and (3) Are each in fulfillment of the CRA. (b) Substantively... the CRA, if the contracts were negotiated in a coordinated fashion and a NGEP is a party to each...

  8. Mutual information identifies spurious Hurst phenomena in resting state EEG and fMRI data

    Science.gov (United States)

    von Wegner, Frederic; Laufs, Helmut; Tagliazucchi, Enzo

    2018-02-01

    Long-range memory in time series is often quantified by the Hurst exponent H , a measure of the signal's variance across several time scales. We analyze neurophysiological time series from electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) resting state experiments with two standard Hurst exponent estimators and with the time-lagged mutual information function applied to discretized versions of the signals. A confidence interval for the mutual information function is obtained from surrogate Markov processes with equilibrium distribution and transition matrix identical to the underlying signal. For EEG signals, we construct an additional mutual information confidence interval from a short-range correlated, tenth-order autoregressive model. We reproduce the previously described Hurst phenomenon (H >0.5 ) in the analytical amplitude of alpha frequency band oscillations, in EEG microstate sequences, and in fMRI signals, but we show that the Hurst phenomenon occurs without long-range memory in the information-theoretical sense. We find that the mutual information function of neurophysiological data behaves differently from fractional Gaussian noise (fGn), for which the Hurst phenomenon is a sufficient condition to prove long-range memory. Two other well-characterized, short-range correlated stochastic processes (Ornstein-Uhlenbeck, Cox-Ingersoll-Ross) also yield H >0.5 , whereas their mutual information functions lie within the Markovian confidence intervals, similar to neural signals. In these processes, which do not have long-range memory by construction, a spurious Hurst phenomenon occurs due to slow relaxation times and heteroscedasticity (time-varying conditional variance). In summary, we find that mutual information correctly distinguishes long-range from short-range dependence in the theoretical and experimental cases discussed. Our results also suggest that the stationary fGn process is not sufficient to describe neural data, which

  9. Reach Address Database (RAD)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — The Reach Address Database (RAD) stores the reach address of each Water Program feature that has been linked to the underlying surface water features (streams,...

  10. 77 FR 5585 - Northwestern Mutual Series Fund, Inc. and Mason Street Advisors, LLC; Notice of Application

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-02-03

    ... SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION [Investment Company Act Release No. 29939; File No. 812-13982] Northwestern Mutual Series Fund, Inc. and Mason Street Advisors, LLC; Notice of Application January 30, 2012... instruments. Applicants: Northwestern Mutual Series Fund, Inc. (``Company'') and Mason Street Advisors, LLC...

  11. 26 CFR 1.832-6 - Policyholders of mutual fire or flood insurance companies operating on the basis of premium...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 26 Internal Revenue 8 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Policyholders of mutual fire or flood insurance... Insurance Companies § 1.832-6 Policyholders of mutual fire or flood insurance companies operating on the... taxpayer insured by a mutual fire or flood insurance company under a policy for which the premium deposit...

  12. Blind Direction-of-Arrival Estimation with Uniform Circular Array in Presence of Mutual Coupling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Song Liu

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available A blind direction-of-arrival (DOA estimation algorithm based on the estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT is proposed for a uniform circular array (UCA when strong electromagnetic mutual coupling is present. First, an updated UCA model with mutual coupling in a discrete Fourier transform (DFT beam space is deduced, and the new manifold matrix is equal to the product of a centrosymmetric diagonal matrix and a Vandermonde-structure matrix. Then we carry out blind DOA estimation through a modified ESPRIT method, thus avoiding the need for spatial angular searching. In addition, two mutual coupling parameter estimation methods are presented after the DOAs have been estimated. Simulation results show that the new algorithm is reliable and effective especially for closely spaced signals.

  13. Analytical Calculation of Mutual Information between Weakly Coupled Poisson-Spiking Neurons in Models of Dynamically Gated Communication.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cannon, Jonathan

    2017-01-01

    Mutual information is a commonly used measure of communication between neurons, but little theory exists describing the relationship between mutual information and the parameters of the underlying neuronal interaction. Such a theory could help us understand how specific physiological changes affect the capacity of neurons to synaptically communicate, and, in particular, they could help us characterize the mechanisms by which neuronal dynamics gate the flow of information in the brain. Here we study a pair of linear-nonlinear-Poisson neurons coupled by a weak synapse. We derive an analytical expression describing the mutual information between their spike trains in terms of synapse strength, neuronal activation function, the time course of postsynaptic currents, and the time course of the background input received by the two neurons. This expression allows mutual information calculations that would otherwise be computationally intractable. We use this expression to analytically explore the interaction of excitation, information transmission, and the convexity of the activation function. Then, using this expression to quantify mutual information in simulations, we illustrate the information-gating effects of neural oscillations and oscillatory coherence, which may either increase or decrease the mutual information across the synapse depending on parameters. Finally, we show analytically that our results can quantitatively describe the selection of one information pathway over another when multiple sending neurons project weakly to a single receiving neuron.

  14. Frontal alpha oscillations distinguish leaders from followers: Multivariate decoding of mutually interacting brains

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Konvalinka, Ivana; Bauer, Markus; Stahlhut, Carsten

    2014-01-01

    -person paradigms to quantify the neuronal dynamics underlying social interaction. While several studies have shown the relevance of understanding complementary and mutually adaptive processes, the neural mechanisms underlying such coordinative behavioral patterns during joint action remain largely unknown. Here......, we employed a synchronized finger-tapping task while measuring dual-EEG from pairs of human participants who either mutually adjusted to each other in an interactive task or followed a computer metronome. Neurophysiologically, the interactive condition was characterized by a stronger suppression...

  15. Mutualism and Adaptive Divergence: Co-Invasion of a Heterogeneous Grassland by an Exotic Legume-Rhizobium Symbiosis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Porter, Stephanie S.; Stanton, Maureen L.; Rice, Kevin J.

    2011-01-01

    Species interactions play a critical role in biological invasions. For example, exotic plant and microbe mutualists can facilitate each other's spread as they co-invade novel ranges. Environmental context may influence the effect of mutualisms on invasions in heterogeneous environments, however these effects are poorly understood. We examined the mutualism between the legume, Medicago polymorpha, and the rhizobium, Ensifer medicae, which have both invaded California grasslands. Many of these invaded grasslands are composed of a patchwork of harsh serpentine and relatively benign non-serpentine soils. We grew legume genotypes collected from serpentine or non-serpentine soil in both types of soil in combination with rhizobium genotypes from serpentine or non-serpentine soils and in the absence of rhizobia. Legumes invested more strongly in the mutualism in the home soil type and trends in fitness suggested that this ecotypic divergence was adaptive. Serpentine legumes had greater allocation to symbiotic root nodules in serpentine soil than did non-serpentine legumes and non-serpentine legumes had greater allocation to nodules in non-serpentine soil than did serpentine legumes. Therefore, this invasive legume has undergone the rapid evolution of divergence for soil-specific investment in the mutualism. Contrary to theoretical expectations, the mutualism was less beneficial for legumes grown on the stressful serpentine soil than on the non-serpentine soil, possibly due to the inhibitory effects of serpentine on the benefits derived from the interaction. The soil-specific ability to allocate to a robust microbial mutualism may be a critical, and previously overlooked, adaptation for plants adapting to heterogeneous environments during invasion. PMID:22174755

  16. Mutualism and adaptive divergence: co-invasion of a heterogeneous grassland by an exotic legume-rhizobium symbiosis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stephanie S Porter

    Full Text Available Species interactions play a critical role in biological invasions. For example, exotic plant and microbe mutualists can facilitate each other's spread as they co-invade novel ranges. Environmental context may influence the effect of mutualisms on invasions in heterogeneous environments, however these effects are poorly understood. We examined the mutualism between the legume, Medicago polymorpha, and the rhizobium, Ensifer medicae, which have both invaded California grasslands. Many of these invaded grasslands are composed of a patchwork of harsh serpentine and relatively benign non-serpentine soils. We grew legume genotypes collected from serpentine or non-serpentine soil in both types of soil in combination with rhizobium genotypes from serpentine or non-serpentine soils and in the absence of rhizobia. Legumes invested more strongly in the mutualism in the home soil type and trends in fitness suggested that this ecotypic divergence was adaptive. Serpentine legumes had greater allocation to symbiotic root nodules in serpentine soil than did non-serpentine legumes and non-serpentine legumes had greater allocation to nodules in non-serpentine soil than did serpentine legumes. Therefore, this invasive legume has undergone the rapid evolution of divergence for soil-specific investment in the mutualism. Contrary to theoretical expectations, the mutualism was less beneficial for legumes grown on the stressful serpentine soil than on the non-serpentine soil, possibly due to the inhibitory effects of serpentine on the benefits derived from the interaction. The soil-specific ability to allocate to a robust microbial mutualism may be a critical, and previously overlooked, adaptation for plants adapting to heterogeneous environments during invasion.

  17. Characterization of actinobacteria associated with three ant-plant mutualisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hanshew, Alissa S; McDonald, Bradon R; Díaz Díaz, Carol; Djiéto-Lordon, Champlain; Blatrix, Rumsaïs; Currie, Cameron R

    2015-01-01

    Ant-plant mutualisms are conspicuous and ecologically important components of tropical ecosystems that remain largely unexplored in terms of insect-associated microbial communities. Recent work has revealed that ants in some ant-plant systems cultivate fungi (Chaetothyriales) within their domatia, which are fed to larvae. Using Pseudomyrmex penetrator/Tachigali sp. from French Guiana and Petalomyrmex phylax/Leonardoxa africana and Crematogaster margaritae/Keetia hispida, both from Cameroon, as models, we tested the hypothesis that ant-plant-fungus mutualisms co-occur with culturable Actinobacteria. Using selective media, we isolated 861 putative Actinobacteria from the three systems. All C. margaritae/K. hispida samples had culturable Actinobacteria with a mean of 10.0 colony forming units (CFUs) per sample, while 26 % of P. penetrator/Tachigali samples (mean CFUs 1.3) and 67 % of P. phylax/L. africana samples (mean CFUs 3.6) yielded Actinobacteria. The largest number of CFUs was obtained from P. penetrator workers, P. phylax alates, and C. margaritae pupae. 16S rRNA gene sequencing and phylogenetic analysis revealed the presence of four main clades of Streptomyces and one clade of Nocardioides within these three ant-plant mutualisms. Streptomyces with antifungal properties were isolated from all three systems, suggesting that they could serve as protective symbionts, as found in other insects. In addition, a number of isolates from a clade of Streptomyces associated with P. phylax/L. africana and C. margaritae/K. hispida were capable of degrading cellulose, suggesting that Streptomyces in these systems may serve a nutritional role. Repeated isolation of particular clades of Actinobacteria from two geographically distant locations supports these isolates as residents in ant-plant-fungi niches.

  18. A quantitative approach to choose among multiple mutually exclusive decisions: comparative expected utility theory

    OpenAIRE

    Zhu, Pengyu

    2018-01-01

    Mutually exclusive decisions have been studied for decades. Many well-known decision theories have been defined to help people either to make rational decisions or to interpret people's behaviors, such as expected utility theory, regret theory, prospect theory, and so on. The paper argues that none of these decision theories are designed to provide practical, normative and quantitative approaches for multiple mutually exclusive decisions. Different decision-makers should naturally make differ...

  19. THE COOPERATIVE CREDIT MUTUAL IN BRAZIL.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laércio Baptista da Silva

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available This study presents an analysis of the reality of credit unions in Brazil, in view of the singular importance of credit unions for the whole society as an alternative to private resources in favor of members of the community where they are located. It confirms that, in Brazil, the mutual credit unions, besides being presented as one of the viable options within the financial system, are also seen as an alternative by which some sectors of society promote the humanization of the financial system by offering credit and return on capital with fairer interest rates.

  20. Yucca aloifolia (Asparagaceae) opts out of an obligate pollination mutualism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rentsch, Jeremy D; Leebens-Mack, Jim

    2014-12-01

    • According to Cope's 'law of the unspecialized' highly dependent species interactions are 'evolutionary dead ends,' prone to extinction because reversion to more generalist interactions is thought to be unlikely. Cases of extreme specialization, such as those seen between obligate mutualists, are cast as evolutionarily inescapable, inevitably leading to extinction rather than diversification of participating species. The pollination mutualism between Yucca plants and yucca moths (Tegeticula and Parategeticula) would seem to be locked into such an obligate mutualism. Yucca aloifolia populations, however, can produce large numbers of fruit lacking moth oviposition scars. Here, we investigate the pollination ecology of Y. aloifolia, in search of the non-moth pollination of a Yucca species.• We perform pollinator exclusion studies on Yucca aloifolia and a sympatric yucca species, Y. filamentosa. We then perform postvisit exclusion treatments, an analysis of dissected fruits, and a fluorescent dye transfer experiment.• As expected, Yucca filamentosa plants set fruit only when inflorescences were exposed to crepuscular and nocturnal pollinating yucca moths. In contrast, good fruit set was observed when pollinators were excluded from Y. aloifolia inflorescences from dusk to dawn, and no fruit set was observed when pollinators were excluded during the day. Follow up experiments indicated that European honeybees (Apis mellifera) were passively yet effectively pollinating Y. aloifolia flowers.• These results indicate that even highly specialized mutualisms may not be entirely obligate interactions or evolutionary dead ends. © 2014 Botanical Society of America, Inc.

  1. Interaction of Mutually Perpendicular Magnetic Fields in HTSC

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vasilyev Aleksandr Fedorovich

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available In this article a problem of interaction of the crossed magnetic fields in superconductors is considered. Superconducting materials have nonlinear magnetic properties. It allows using a non-linear magnetic susceptibility for measurement of feeble magnetic fields. We place a wire of superconducting material in a constant parallel uniform magnetic field. Then we let through a wire the alternating current leak. Interaction of mutual and perpendicular variation magnetic fields, with adequate accuracy is described by Ginzburg-Landau's equations. Approximate solution of the written equations is received. The component of a magnetic field parallel to a wire contains a variable component. Frequency of a variable component of the magnetic field is equal to the doubled current frequency. Amplitude of the variable component of the magnetic field is proportional to strength of the constant magnetic field. The experimental installation for research of interaction of mutually perpendicular magnetic fields is created. The cylinder from HTSC of ceramics of the YBa2Cu3O7-x was used as a sensor. Dependence of amplitude of the second harmonica of a variation magnetic field on strength of a constant magnetic field is received.

  2. On the determination of the mutual exclusion statistics parameter

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    On the determination of the mutual exclusion statistics parameter. SAPTARSHI MANDAL. Department of Theoretical Physics, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science,. 2A&2B Raja S.C. Mullick Road, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700 032, India. E-mail: mandal.saptarshi1@gmail.com. MS received 7 September 2012; revised ...

  3. The Bali Agreement: Implications for Development and the WTO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christophe Bellmann

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available At the most recent World Trade Organisation (WTO ministerial conference, in December 2013, in Bali, Indonesia, ministers from 160 countries concluded the first multilateral agreement ever negotiated under the auspices of the WTO. After five years of impasse in the moribund Doha Round of trade negotiations, the so-called “Bali package” was enthusiastically welcomed by the world’s governments and international press alike as a critical step towards restoring the credibility of the WTO as a negotiating forum. The centrepiece of the package is without doubt a new agreement on trade facilitation aimed at reducing red tape, and facilitating customs procedures in an effort to cut down the cost of doing business. Other — less far reaching — aspects of the deal focused on food security and a set of issues of particular interest to least developed countries including trade preferences or cotton subsidies. As the dust from the heated Bali negotiations settles, the main challenge for the WTO will now consist in building on this success to re-energise multilateral negotiations and ultimately close the Doha Round. In a world increasingly dominated by regional and bilateral free-trade agreements, members will have to confront the core issues that have divided them for nearly 15 years and find creative solutions to rehabilitate the WTO’s centrality in global trade governance.

  4. Pre-operative Duplex Ultrasonography in Arteriovenous Fistula Creation: Intra- and Inter-observer Agreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zonnebeld, Niek; Maas, Tommy M G; Huberts, Wouter; van Loon, Magda M; Delhaas, Tammo; Tordoir, Jan H M

    2017-11-01

    Although clinical guidelines on arteriovenous fistula (AVF) creation advocate minimum luminal arterial and venous diameters, assessed by duplex ultrasonography (DUS), the clinical value of routine DUS examination is under debate. DUS might be an insufficiently repeatable and/or reproducible imaging modality because of its operator dependency. The present study aimed to assess intra- and inter-observer agreement of DUS examination in support of AVF surgery planning. Ten end stage renal disease patients were included, to assess intra- and inter-observer agreement of pre-operative DUS measurements. All measurements were performed by two trained and experienced vascular technicians, blinded to measurement readings. From the routine DUS protocol, representative measurements (venous diameters, and arterial diameters and volume flow in the upper arm and forearm) were selected. For intra-observer agreement the measurements were performed in triplicate, with the probe released from the skin between each. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated for intra- and inter-observer agreement, and Bland-Altman plots used to graphically display mean measurement differences and limits of agreement. Ten patients (6 male, 59.4±19.7 years) consented to participate, and all predefined measurements were obtained. Intraclass correlation coefficients for intra-observer agreement of diameter measurements were at least 0.90 (95% CI 0.74-0.97; radial artery). Inter-observer agreement was at least 0.83 (0.46-0.96; lateral diameter upper arm cephalic vein). The Bland-Altman plots showed acceptable mean measurement differences and limits of agreement. In experienced hands, excellent intra- and inter-observer agreement can be reached for the discrete pre-operative DUS measurements advocated in clinical guidelines. DUS is therefore a reliable imaging modality to support AVF surgery planning. The content of DUS protocols, however, needs further standardisation. Copyright © 2017 European

  5. Mutual information and phase dependencies: measures of reduced nonlinear cardiorespiratory interactions after myocardial infarction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoyer, Dirk; Leder, Uwe; Hoyer, Heike; Pompe, Bernd; Sommer, Michael; Zwiener, Ulrich

    2002-01-01

    The heart rate variability (HRV) is related to several mechanisms of the complex autonomic functioning such as respiratory heart rate modulation and phase dependencies between heart beat cycles and breathing cycles. The underlying processes are basically nonlinear. In order to understand and quantitatively assess those physiological interactions an adequate coupling analysis is necessary. We hypothesized that nonlinear measures of HRV and cardiorespiratory interdependencies are superior to the standard HRV measures in classifying patients after acute myocardial infarction. We introduced mutual information measures which provide access to nonlinear interdependencies as counterpart to the classically linear correlation analysis. The nonlinear statistical autodependencies of HRV were quantified by auto mutual information, the respiratory heart rate modulation by cardiorespiratory cross mutual information, respectively. The phase interdependencies between heart beat cycles and breathing cycles were assessed basing on the histograms of the frequency ratios of the instantaneous heart beat and respiratory cycles. Furthermore, the relative duration of phase synchronized intervals was acquired. We investigated 39 patients after acute myocardial infarction versus 24 controls. The discrimination of these groups was improved by cardiorespiratory cross mutual information measures and phase interdependencies measures in comparison to the linear standard HRV measures. This result was statistically confirmed by means of logistic regression models of particular variable subsets and their receiver operating characteristics.

  6. Value Effect in Indonesian Stock Returns: The Implications for the Equity Mutual Fund Industry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samuel Kristianto Utomo

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available We extend the persistence and pervasiveness of the presence of value effect to Indonesian stock returns in the last two decades by utilizing data set that is relatively free of survivor bias and selection bias. Our finding shows that value portfolios have been able to outperform growth portfolios. Furthermore, the presence of the effect as an asset pricing factor, along with the size effect, can significantly explain the returns of the aggregate equity mutual funds in Indonesia and unveil that the equity mutual fund industry does not provide sufficient risk-adjusted return to cover trading costs and fund expenses. Our proposition is that the equity mutual fund valuation will be better off to apply simpler model shown in this paper to capture the value premium as opposed to the general application of traditional valuation method.

  7. Does the third mutual friction coefficient B'' exist

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mathieu, P.; Placais, B.; Simon, Y.

    1985-01-01

    Precise measurements of the attenuation of a second-sound wave propagation axially in rotating He II at first sight suggest that the third mutual-friction coefficient B'' has a non-zero value (B'' = 0.021 at 1.9 K). But the observation of metastable states associated with various levels of attenuation is not reconcilable with the semi-classical model of the vortex line [fr

  8. 46 CFR 298.38 - Partnership agreements and limited liability company agreements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 46 Shipping 8 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Partnership agreements and limited liability company... liability company agreements. Partnership and limited liability company agreements must be in form and...) Duration of the entity; (b) Adequate partnership or limited liability company funding requirements and...

  9. Returns on Sustainable Mutual Funds in India

    OpenAIRE

    Jain, Anant

    2011-01-01

    The world has seen a huge growth in investment through the sustainable sector. But the study on the cost in construction and measuring the performance of such investments is confined to the limited countries. Thus to compare the performance of the sustainable investment with that of traditional investments it is necessary to increase the sample size of the study. Considering this in mind the paper aims to study the performance and risk of the sustainable mutual fund investments with that of t...

  10. Skimming the Profit Pool: The American Mutual Fund Scandals and the Risk for Japan

    OpenAIRE

    Peterson, Andrew

    2010-01-01

    This paper examines conditions and structures that led to abuses in the American mutual fund industry. The scandals unfolded in 2003 when a whistleblower alerted authorities to illegal and unethical trading practices between institutional investors and mutual fund companies. The abuses included late trading, market timing, illegal sales practices, and excessive fees, with damages estimated at well over US $4 billion per year. While this scandal involved American companies, there are indicatio...

  11. PRINCIPLE OF EFFECTIVE MAKING OF MUTUALLY ACCEPTABLE MULTI-PROJECTION DECISION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olga Nikolaevna Lapaeva

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The principle of effective making of mutually acceptable multi-projection decision in economics is set forth in the article. The principle envisages finding of effective variants by each stakeholder and result making by crossing of individual sets.

  12. CC-MUSIC: An Optimization Estimator for Mutual Coupling Correction of L-Shaped Nonuniform Array with Single Snapshot

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuguan Hou

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available For the case of the single snapshot, the integrated SNR gain could not be obtained without the multiple snapshots, which degrades the mutual coupling correction performance under the lower SNR case. In this paper, a Convex Chain MUSIC (CC-MUSIC algorithm is proposed for the mutual coupling correction of the L-shaped nonuniform array with single snapshot. It is an online self-calibration algorithm and does not require the prior knowledge of the correction matrix initialization and the calibration source with the known position. An optimization for the approximation between the no mutual coupling covariance matrix without the interpolated transformation and the covariance matrix with the mutual coupling and the interpolated transformation is derived. A global optimization problem is formed for the mutual coupling correction and the spatial spectrum estimation. Furthermore, the nonconvex optimization problem of this global optimization is transformed as a chain of the convex optimization, which is basically an alternating optimization routine. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, which improve the resolution ability and the estimation accuracy of the multisources with the single snapshot.

  13. Mutual information spectrum for selection of event-related spatial components. Application to eloquent motor cortex mapping.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexei eOssadtchi

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Spatial component analysis is often used to explore multidimensional time series data whose sources cannot be measured directly. Several methods may be used to decompose the data into a set of spatial components with temporal loadings. Component selection is of crucial importance, and should be supported by objective criteria. In some applications, the use of a well defined component selection criterion may provide for automation of the analysis.In this paper we describe a novel approach for ranking of spatial components calculated from the EEG or MEG data recorded within evoked response paradigm. Our method is called Mutual Information Spectrum and is based on gauging the amount of mutual information of spatial component temporal loadings with a synthetically created reference signal. We also describe the appropriate randomization based statistical assessment scheme that can be used for selection of components with statistically significant amount of mutual information. Using simulated data with realistic trial to trial variations and SNR corresponding to the real recordings we demonstrate the superior performance characteristics of the described mutual information based measure as compared to a more conventionally used power driven gauge. We also demonstrate the application of the Mutual Information Spectrum for the selection of task-related independent components from real MEG data. We show that the Mutual Information spectrum allows to identify task-related components reliably in a consistent fashion, yielding stable results even from a small number of trials. We conclude that the proposed method fits naturally the information driven nature of ICA and can be used for routine and automatic ranking of independent components calculated from the functional neuroimaging data collected within event-related paradigms.

  14. Dynamics of chaotic oscillations in mutually coupled microchip lasers

    CERN Document Server

    Uchida, A; Kinugawa, S; Yoshimori, S

    2003-01-01

    We have numerically and experimentally investigated the dynamics of mutually coupled microchip lasers. Chaotic oscillations are observed in the vicinity of the boundary of the injection-locking range when the coupling strength and the difference of the optical frequencies are varied. Synchronization of chaos is always achieved under the condition to generate chaos.

  15. Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines concerning co-operation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the transfer of nuclear material

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1983-01-01

    Australia and the Philippines, both parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, have agreed to cooperate in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, including research and training, exchange of unclassified information, and projects of mutual interest. The agreement applies to all nuclear material transferred for peaceful purposes between the two countries and to material derived from that transferred material. The treaty entered into force on the 11th May 1982

  16. The Cybathlon BCI race: Successful longitudinal mutual learning with two tetraplegic users.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perdikis, Serafeim; Tonin, Luca; Saeedi, Sareh; Schneider, Christoph; Millán, José Del R

    2018-05-01

    This work aims at corroborating the importance and efficacy of mutual learning in motor imagery (MI) brain-computer interface (BCI) by leveraging the insights obtained through our participation in the BCI race of the Cybathlon event. We hypothesized that, contrary to the popular trend of focusing mostly on the machine learning aspects of MI BCI training, a comprehensive mutual learning methodology that reinstates the three learning pillars (at the machine, subject, and application level) as equally significant could lead to a BCI-user symbiotic system able to succeed in real-world scenarios such as the Cybathlon event. Two severely impaired participants with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI), were trained following our mutual learning approach to control their avatar in a virtual BCI race game. The competition outcomes substantiate the effectiveness of this type of training. Most importantly, the present study is one among very few to provide multifaceted evidence on the efficacy of subject learning during BCI training. Learning correlates could be derived at all levels of the interface-application, BCI output, and electroencephalography (EEG) neuroimaging-with two end-users, sufficiently longitudinal evaluation, and, importantly, under real-world and even adverse conditions.

  17. The Cybathlon BCI race: Successful longitudinal mutual learning with two tetraplegic users.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Serafeim Perdikis

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available This work aims at corroborating the importance and efficacy of mutual learning in motor imagery (MI brain-computer interface (BCI by leveraging the insights obtained through our participation in the BCI race of the Cybathlon event. We hypothesized that, contrary to the popular trend of focusing mostly on the machine learning aspects of MI BCI training, a comprehensive mutual learning methodology that reinstates the three learning pillars (at the machine, subject, and application level as equally significant could lead to a BCI-user symbiotic system able to succeed in real-world scenarios such as the Cybathlon event. Two severely impaired participants with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI, were trained following our mutual learning approach to control their avatar in a virtual BCI race game. The competition outcomes substantiate the effectiveness of this type of training. Most importantly, the present study is one among very few to provide multifaceted evidence on the efficacy of subject learning during BCI training. Learning correlates could be derived at all levels of the interface-application, BCI output, and electroencephalography (EEG neuroimaging-with two end-users, sufficiently longitudinal evaluation, and, importantly, under real-world and even adverse conditions.

  18. Technology Partnership Agreements | NREL

    Science.gov (United States)

    Partnership Agreements Technology Partnership Agreements Looking for Funding? We do not fund any projects under a technology partnership agreement. The partner provides the necessary resources and, in using technology partnership agreements. See a summary of our Fiscal Year 2017 technology partnership

  19. Protecting the autonomy of states to enact tobacco control measures under trade and investment agreements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mitchell, Andrew; Sheargold, Elizabeth

    2015-06-01

    Since the adoption of the WHO's WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, governments have been pursuing progressively stronger and more wide-reaching tobacco control measures. In response, tobacco companies are frequently using international trade and investment agreements as tools to challenge domestic tobacco control measures. Several significant new trade and investment agreements that some fear may provide new legal avenues to the tobacco industry to challenge health measures are currently under negotiation, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (a 12 party agreement of Asia-Pacific regional countries) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (an agreement between the USA and the European Union). This commentary examines different options for treaty provisions that the parties could employ in these agreements to minimise legal risks relating to tobacco control measures. It recommends that parties take a comprehensive approach, combining provisions that minimise the potential costs of litigation with provisions that increase the likelihood of a state successfully defending tobacco control measures in such litigation. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

  20. Self-other agreement of personality judgments in job interviews: exploring the effects of trait, gender, age and social desirability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nederström, Mikael; Salmela-Aro, Katariina

    2014-10-01

    The article investigated agreement between self-reports and stranger ratings of personality. A sample of 139 real-life job applicants was interviewed by expert psychologists upon entrance to the assessment center. The applicants provided self-descriptions on 15 personality factors, and the psychologists rated the same traits of each target based on their impressions in the interview. The results demonstrated that professional judges can reach a substantial self-other agreement (SOA) on several traits even when the targets are strangers, and that the trait being judged, the target's gender, age and social desirability have an effect on the level of agreement. © 2014 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  1. Nuclear exports and international cooperation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McCardle, J.J.

    1981-06-01

    Canada's nuclear export policy together with its non-proliferation and safeguards policy embrace both the country's desire to promote international cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and its effort to minimize the risk of further proliferation of nuclear weapons. This policy reflects the belief that only if Canadian parliamentary and public opinion can be convinced that Canada's nuclear exports will not contribute to nuclear proliferation will the long-term health of the country's nuclear industry be assured. Canada requires a political commitment to non-proliferation from its nuclear partners, and looks to the IAEA to administer safeguards on nuclear material of Canadian origin to guarantee that commitment. Agreements reached with its nuclear partners are in accordance with provisions of the non-proliferation treaty and include a contingency provision for fall-back safeguards if the other state should withdraw from the NPT. Provision is made for mutual agreement on reprocessing and enrichment of nuclear material. Agreements have been reached with some twenty nuclear partners, and efforts are continuing to come to new international understanding on reprocessing, enrichment, and plutonium storage

  2. Empirical Studies on Actively Managed Mutual Funds: New Insights into the Costs and Benefits of Portfolio Disclosure

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    T.C. Dyakov (Teodor)

    2014-01-01

    markdownabstract__Abstract__ Dyakov’s dissertation bundles three empirical studies on actively managed mutual funds. His studies provide new knowledge of the costs and benefits of portfolio disclosure and shed more light into the question whether mutual fund investors have an information

  3. The legal character and operational relevance of the Paris Agreement's temperature goal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rajamani, Lavanya; Werksman, Jacob

    2018-05-01

    This article assesses the legal character and operational relevance of the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C temperature goal. This article begins with a textual analysis of the 1.5°C goal. It considers whether the goal creates individual or collective obligations for Parties, and whether it is sufficiently specific to enable the tracking of individual or collective performance. Next, it assesses the operational relevance of the 1.5°C temperature goal, by considering the role it will play in the Paris Agreement's institutions and procedures. To the extent that the goal plays a role, and implies global limits on greenhouse gas emissions, this article observes that it could have implications for the sharing of the effort between Parties. Thus, this article considers the relevance of equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances, to understanding how the 1.5°C goal could be reached. In this context, this article explores whether the 1.5°C goal could play a role in the Paris Agreement's `ambition cycle'. Finally, this article asks whether there are any legal or political implications, individually or collectively under the Paris Agreement, should the Parties fail to achieve the 1.5°C goal. This article is part of the theme issue `The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels'.

  4. Freshwater ecosystems could become the biggest losers of the Paris Agreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hermoso, Virgilio

    2017-09-01

    Securing access to energy for a growing population under the international commitment of reduction of greenhouse emissions requires increasing the contribution of renewable sources to the global share. Hydropower energy, which accounts for >80% of green energy, is experiencing a boom fostered by international investment mainly in developing countries. This boom could be further accelerated by the recent climate agreement reached in Paris. Despite its flexibility, hydropower production entails social, economic and ecological risks that need to be carefully considered before investing in the development of potentially thousands of planned hydropower projects worldwide. This is especially relevant given the weak or nonexistent legislation that regulates hydropower project approval and construction in many countries. I highlight the need for adequate policy to provide the Paris Agreement with new financial and planning mechanisms to avoid further and irreversible damage to freshwater ecosystem services and biodiversity. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  5. A Round-Efficient Authenticated Key Agreement Scheme Based on Extended Chaotic Maps for Group Cloud Meeting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tsung-Hung Lin

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The security is a critical issue for business purposes. For example, the cloud meeting must consider strong security to maintain the communication privacy. Considering the scenario with cloud meeting, we apply extended chaotic map to present passwordless group authentication key agreement, termed as Passwordless Group Authentication Key Agreement (PL-GAKA. PL-GAKA improves the computation efficiency for the simple group password-based authenticated key agreement (SGPAKE proposed by Lee et al. in terms of computing the session key. Since the extended chaotic map has equivalent security level to the Diffie–Hellman key exchange scheme applied by SGPAKE, the security of PL-GAKA is not sacrificed when improving the computation efficiency. Moreover, PL-GAKA is a passwordless scheme, so the password maintenance is not necessary. Short-term authentication is considered, hence the communication security is stronger than other protocols by dynamically generating session key in each cloud meeting. In our analysis, we first prove that each meeting member can get the correct information during the meeting. We analyze common security issues for the proposed PL-GAKA in terms of session key security, mutual authentication, perfect forward security, and data integrity. Moreover, we also demonstrate that communicating in PL-GAKA is secure when suffering replay attacks, impersonation attacks, privileged insider attacks, and stolen-verifier attacks. Eventually, an overall comparison is given to show the performance between PL-GAKA, SGPAKE and related solutions.

  6. Tax Planning by Mutual Funds: Evidence From Changes in the Capital Gains Tax Rate

    OpenAIRE

    Chen, Feng; Kraft, Arthur; Weiss, Ira

    2011-01-01

    We investigate whether mutual funds engage in tax planning by testing how they respond to changes in the capital gains tax rates. While previous evidence suggests that individual investors time capital gains realizations, mutual fund managers may not tax plan like individuals because fund managers have incentives to consider the tax liability of both current and potential investors. Our analysis spans over 44 years and six major tax changes, allowing us to examine the effects of both tax rate...

  7. The Impact of Mutual Recognition: Inbuilt Limits and Domestic Responses to the Single Market

    OpenAIRE

    Schmidt, S.

    2002-01-01

    What have been the consequences of integrating the single market via mutual recognition? Did competitive deregulation result? Or were its implications less significant than expected? In this paper I analyse two previously highly regulated service sectors, insurance and road haulage, and study the impact of European policies in Germany and France. I find that the Council instituted mutual recognition in a restrictive way. This limits its impact on member states, which is moreover mediated by n...

  8. Norwegian mutual fund performance based on Fama and French´s five-factor model

    OpenAIRE

    Mustafa, Daniel Amir; Ali, Mohammad Yousaf

    2016-01-01

    Masteroppgave(MSc) in Master of Science in Finance - Handelshøyskolen BI, 2016 The following paper uses a dataset free of survivorship bias for the period 2002-2011. We investigate whether Norwegian mutual funds possess enough skills to outperform a passive benchmark based on Fama and French’s five-factor model. Our results suggest that the mutual fund industry exhibits significant excess returns on a 10% level in the recent financial crisis. Further, we examine whether the results obtaine...

  9. 48 CFR 225.403 - World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement and Free Trade Agreements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... Government Procurement Agreement and Free Trade Agreements. 225.403 Section 225.403 Federal Acquisition... FOREIGN ACQUISITION Trade Agreements 225.403 World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement and... Government Procurement Agreement, acquire only U.S.-made, qualifying country, or designated country end...

  10. Mutual emergency assistance for radiation accidents

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1983-03-01

    A revised document on ''Mutual Emergency Assistance for Radiation Accidents'' jointly prepared by the Agency with the participation of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Co-ordinator (UNDRO) was issued in 1980 as TECDOC-237. The present document lists the additional information received after publication of the 1980 edition and is issued as a Supplement to TECDOC-237 (1980 Edition). Some useful information contained in TECDOC-237 such as the IAEA arrangement and the WHO Collaborating Centres for Radiation Emergency Assistance are reprinted for ready reference

  11. Creating a culture of mutual respect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaplan, Kathryn; Mestel, Pamela; Feldman, David L

    2010-04-01

    The Joint Commission mandates that hospitals seeking accreditation have a process to define and address disruptive behavior. Leaders at Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, took the initiative to create a code of mutual respect that not only requires respectful behavior, but also encourages sensitivity and awareness to the causes of frustration that often lead to inappropriate behavior. Steps to implementing the code included selecting code advocates, setting up a system for mediating disputes, tracking and addressing operational system issues, providing training for personnel, developing a formal accountability process, and measuring the results. Copyright 2010 AORN, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Role and convergent evolution of competing RNA secondary structures in mutually exclusive splicing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yue, Yuan; Hou, Shouqing; Wang, Xiu; Zhan, Leilei; Cao, Guozheng; Li, Guoli; Shi, Yang; Zhang, Peng; Hong, Weiling; Lin, Hao; Liu, Baoping; Shi, Feng; Yang, Yun; Jin, Yongfeng

    2017-10-03

    Exon or cassette duplication is an important means of expanding protein and functional diversity through mutually exclusive splicing. However, the mechanistic basis of this process in non-arthropod species remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that MRP1 genes underwent tandem exon duplication in Nematoda, Platyhelminthes, Annelida, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, and early-diverging Chordata but not in late-diverging vertebrates. Interestingly, these events were of independent origin in different phyla, suggesting convergent evolution of alternative splicing. Furthermore, we showed that multiple sets of clade-conserved RNA pairings evolved to guide species-specific mutually exclusive splicing in Arthropoda. Importantly, we also identified a similar structural code in MRP exon clusters of the annelid, Capitella teleta, and chordate, Branchiostoma belcheri, suggesting an evolutionarily conserved competing pairing-guided mechanism in bilaterians. Taken together, these data reveal the molecular determinants and RNA pairing-guided evolution of species-specific mutually exclusive splicing spanning more than 600 million years of bilaterian evolution. These findings have a significant impact on our understanding of the evolution of and mechanism underpinning isoform diversity and complex gene structure.

  13. An ant-plant mutualism through the lens of cGMP-dependent kinase genes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malé, Pierre-Jean G; Turner, Kyle M; Doha, Manjima; Anreiter, Ina; Allen, Aaron M; Sokolowski, Marla B; Frederickson, Megan E

    2017-09-13

    In plant-animal mutualisms, how an animal forages often determines how much benefit its plant partner receives. In many animals, foraging behaviour changes in response to foraging gene expression or activation of the cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) that foraging encodes. Here, we show that this highly conserved molecular mechanism affects the outcome of a plant-animal mutualism. We studied the two PKG genes of Allomerus octoarticulatus, an Amazonian ant that defends the ant-plant Cordia nodosa against herbivores. Some ant colonies are better 'bodyguards' than others. Working in the field in Peru, we found that colonies fed with a PKG activator recruited more workers to attack herbivores than control colonies. This resulted in less herbivore damage. PKG gene expression in ant workers correlated with whether an ant colony discovered an herbivore and how much damage herbivores inflicted on leaves in a complex way; natural variation in expression levels of the two genes had significant interaction effects on ant behaviour and herbivory. Our results suggest a molecular basis for ant protection of plants in this mutualism. © 2017 The Author(s).

  14. Application of Joint Error Maximal Mutual Compensation to hexapod robots

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Veryha, Yauheni; Petersen, Henrik Gordon

    2008-01-01

    A good practice to ensure high-positioning accuracy in industrial robots is to use joint error maximum mutual compensation (JEMMC). This paper presents an application of JEMMC for positioning of hexapod robots to improve end-effector positioning accuracy. We developed an algorithm and simulation ...

  15. Collision detection and prediction using a mutual configuration state approach

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Schoute, Albert L.; Weiss, N.; Jesse, N.; Reusch, B.

    A configuration state approach is presented that simplifies the mutual collision analysis of objects with known shapes that move along known paths. Accurate and fast prediction of contact situations in games such as robot soccer enables improved anticipatory and corrective actions of the state

  16. On the Empirical Evidence of Mutual Fund Strategic Risk Taking

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Goriaev, A.P.; Nijman, T.E.; Werker, B.J.M.

    2001-01-01

    We reexamine empirical evidence on strategic risk-taking behavior by mutual fund managers.Several studies suggest that fund performance in the first semester of a year influences risk-taking in the second semester.However, we show that previous empirical studies implicitly assume that idiosyncratic

  17. 77 FR 48566 - The Hartford Mutual Funds, Inc., et al.;

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-08-14

    ... SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION [Investment Company Act Release No. 30164; File No. 812-14024] The Hartford Mutual Funds, Inc., et al.; Notice of Application August 8, 2012. AGENCY: Securities and Exchange Commission (``Commission''). ACTION: Notice of an application under section 6(c) of the Investment...

  18. Mutual cooperation with Brazil

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Orstein, Roberto M.

    1998-01-01

    The history of the nuclear cooperation between Brazil and Argentina is outlined in the framework of the changing political circumstances. Reference is made to the agreements between both countries and to its implementation

  19. Mutual Coupling Reduction of E-Shaped MIMO Antenna with Matrix of C-Shaped Resonators

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raghad Ghalib Saadallah Alsultan

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available E-shaped multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO microstrip antenna systems operating in WLAN and WiMAX bands (between 5 and 7.5 GHz are proposed with enhanced isolation features. The systems are comprised of two antennas that are placed parallel and orthogonal to each other, respectively. According to the simulation results, the operating frequency of the MIMO antenna system is 6.3 GHz, and mutual coupling is below −18 dB in a parallel arrangement, whereas they are 6.4 GHz and −25 dB, respectively, in the orthogonal arrangement. The 2 × 3 matrix of C-shaped resonator (CSR is proposed and placed between the antenna elements over the substrate, to reduce the mutual coupling and enhance the isolation between the antennas. More than 30 dB isolation between the array elements is achieved at the resonant frequency for both of the configurations. The essential parameters of the MIMO array such as mutual coupling, surface current distribution, envelop correlation coefficient (ECC, diversity gain (DG, and the total efficiency have been simulated to verify the reliability and the validity of the MIMO system in both parallel and orthogonal configurations. The experimental results are also provided and compared for the mutual coupling with simulated results. An adequate match between the measured and simulated results is achieved.

  20. Negotiation and argumentation in multi-agent systems

    CERN Document Server

    Lopes, Fernando

    2014-01-01

    Multi-agent systems (MAS) composed of autonomous agents representing individuals or organizations and capable of reaching mutually beneficial agreements through negotiation and argumentation are becoming increasingly important and pervasive.Research on both automated negotiation and argumentation in MAS has a vigorous, exciting tradition. However, efforts to integrate both areas have received only selective attention in the academia and the practitioner literature. A symbiotic relationship could significantly strengthen each area's progress and trigger new R&D challenges and prospects toward t

  1. Enhancing non-local correlations in the bipartite partitions of two qubit-system with non-mutual interaction

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mohamed, A.-B.A., E-mail: abdelbastm@yahoo.com [College of Sciences and Humanities, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Aflaj (Saudi Arabia); Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut (Egypt); Joshi, A., E-mail: mcbamji@gmail.com [Physics Department, Adelphi University Garden City, NY 11530 (United States); Department of Physics and Optical Engineering, RHIT, Terra Haute IN 47803 (United States); Hassan, S.S., E-mail: shoukryhassan@hotmail.com [Department of Mathematics, College of Science, University of Bahrain, P.O. Box 32038 (Bahrain)

    2016-03-15

    Several quantum-mechanical correlations, notably, quantum entanglement, measurement-induced nonlocality and Bell nonlocality are studied for a two qubit-system having no mutual interaction. Analytical expressions for the measures of these quantum-mechanical correlations of different bipartite partitions of the system are obtained, for initially two entangled qubits and the two photons are in their vacuum states. It is found that the qubits-fields interaction leads to the loss and gain of the initial quantum correlations. The lost initial quantum correlations transfer from the qubits to the cavity fields. It is found that the maximal violation of Bell’s inequality is occurring when the quantum correlations of both the logarithmic negativity and measurement-induced nonlocality reach particular values. The maximal violation of Bell’s inequality occurs only for certain bipartite partitions of the system. The frequency detuning leads to quick oscillations of the quantum correlations and inhibits their transfer from the qubits to the cavity modes. It is also found that the dynamical behavior of the quantum correlation clearly depends on the qubit distribution angle.

  2. Spatially weighted mutual information image registration for image guided radiation therapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Park, Samuel B.; Rhee, Frank C.; Monroe, James I.; Sohn, Jason W.

    2010-01-01

    Purpose: To develop a new metric for image registration that incorporates the (sub)pixelwise differential importance along spatial location and to demonstrate its application for image guided radiation therapy (IGRT). Methods: It is well known that rigid-body image registration with mutual information is dependent on the size and location of the image subset on which the alignment analysis is based [the designated region of interest (ROI)]. Therefore, careful review and manual adjustments of the resulting registration are frequently necessary. Although there were some investigations of weighted mutual information (WMI), these efforts could not apply the differential importance to a particular spatial location since WMI only applies the weight to the joint histogram space. The authors developed the spatially weighted mutual information (SWMI) metric by incorporating an adaptable weight function with spatial localization into mutual information. SWMI enables the user to apply the selected transform to medically ''important'' areas such as tumors and critical structures, so SWMI is neither dominated by, nor neglects the neighboring structures. Since SWMI can be utilized with any weight function form, the authors presented two examples of weight functions for IGRT application: A Gaussian-shaped weight function (GW) applied to a user-defined location and a structures-of-interest (SOI) based weight function. An image registration example using a synthesized 2D image is presented to illustrate the efficacy of SWMI. The convergence and feasibility of the registration method as applied to clinical imaging is illustrated by fusing a prostate treatment planning CT with a clinical cone beam CT (CBCT) image set acquired for patient alignment. Forty-one trials are run to test the speed of convergence. The authors also applied SWMI registration using two types of weight functions to two head and neck cases and a prostate case with clinically acquired CBCT/MVCT image sets. The

  3. Spatially weighted mutual information image registration for image guided radiation therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Samuel B; Rhee, Frank C; Monroe, James I; Sohn, Jason W

    2010-09-01

    To develop a new metric for image registration that incorporates the (sub)pixelwise differential importance along spatial location and to demonstrate its application for image guided radiation therapy (IGRT). It is well known that rigid-body image registration with mutual information is dependent on the size and location of the image subset on which the alignment analysis is based [the designated region of interest (ROI)]. Therefore, careful review and manual adjustments of the resulting registration are frequently necessary. Although there were some investigations of weighted mutual information (WMI), these efforts could not apply the differential importance to a particular spatial location since WMI only applies the weight to the joint histogram space. The authors developed the spatially weighted mutual information (SWMI) metric by incorporating an adaptable weight function with spatial localization into mutual information. SWMI enables the user to apply the selected transform to medically "important" areas such as tumors and critical structures, so SWMI is neither dominated by, nor neglects the neighboring structures. Since SWMI can be utilized with any weight function form, the authors presented two examples of weight functions for IGRT application: A Gaussian-shaped weight function (GW) applied to a user-defined location and a structures-of-interest (SOI) based weight function. An image registration example using a synthesized 2D image is presented to illustrate the efficacy of SWMI. The convergence and feasibility of the registration method as applied to clinical imaging is illustrated by fusing a prostate treatment planning CT with a clinical cone beam CT (CBCT) image set acquired for patient alignment. Forty-one trials are run to test the speed of convergence. The authors also applied SWMI registration using two types of weight functions to two head and neck cases and a prostate case with clinically acquired CBCT/ MVCT image sets. The SWMI registration with

  4. Comparison of co-expression measures: mutual information, correlation, and model based indices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Lin; Langfelder, Peter; Horvath, Steve

    2012-12-09

    Co-expression measures are often used to define networks among genes. Mutual information (MI) is often used as a generalized correlation measure. It is not clear how much MI adds beyond standard (robust) correlation measures or regression model based association measures. Further, it is important to assess what transformations of these and other co-expression measures lead to biologically meaningful modules (clusters of genes). We provide a comprehensive comparison between mutual information and several correlation measures in 8 empirical data sets and in simulations. We also study different approaches for transforming an adjacency matrix, e.g. using the topological overlap measure. Overall, we confirm close relationships between MI and correlation in all data sets which reflects the fact that most gene pairs satisfy linear or monotonic relationships. We discuss rare situations when the two measures disagree. We also compare correlation and MI based approaches when it comes to defining co-expression network modules. We show that a robust measure of correlation (the biweight midcorrelation transformed via the topological overlap transformation) leads to modules that are superior to MI based modules and maximal information coefficient (MIC) based modules in terms of gene ontology enrichment. We present a function that relates correlation to mutual information which can be used to approximate the mutual information from the corresponding correlation coefficient. We propose the use of polynomial or spline regression models as an alternative to MI for capturing non-linear relationships between quantitative variables. The biweight midcorrelation outperforms MI in terms of elucidating gene pairwise relationships. Coupled with the topological overlap matrix transformation, it often leads to more significantly enriched co-expression modules. Spline and polynomial networks form attractive alternatives to MI in case of non-linear relationships. Our results indicate that MI

  5. Influence Manager's Investment Attitude on Organization Environment and Portfolio Performance Reksadana Shares (Study on Mutual Fund Management Company Reksadana Shares in Indonesia)

    OpenAIRE

    Oswari, Teddy; Kowanda, Dionysia

    2007-01-01

    The purpose of this research is to measures the effect of investment manager attitude through operational employees to mutual funds work attitude portfolio, to analyse how big the organizational environment effect together with investment manager attitude, through operational employees to mutual funds work attitude portfolio and analyse the effect of organizational envirobment to investment manage attitude in mutual funds company. The observation conducted in 72 mutual funds company, the data...

  6. Ex ante and ex post control of the public interest in public-private partnership agreements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ćirić Aleksandar

    2016-01-01

    implementing the agreement as well as an effective control of such implementation (ex post methodological aspect. PPP agreements should provide a mechanism for adjusting their contents to changed circumstances, i.e. the social, legal and economic context which pervades the preparation, implementation and realization of the specific PPP project. Among other factors, this flexibility rests on mutual trust and cooperation of the contracting parties. Ultimately, in the context of control over exercising the public interest, the methodological approach of the PPP agreement essentially lies in preventing the public partner to succumb to the temptation of adopting the simplest available solution. Instead, it is necessary to clearly define the expectations which the public body as a title-holder of public interest has in regard of specific PPP projects, and to limit the responsibility of the public actor. The success of a PPP agreement in each particular case depends on the extent to which the agreement provides for adequate treatment of these presumptions.

  7. Societies of the Mutual Credit of Siberia at the Beginning of the XX Century: Number, Structure of Management and Composition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatiana A. Kattsina

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The article based on the Siberian materials explores the number, the system of organization, number and social composition of mutual loan societies. These societies were usually small banks that served the small and middle bourgeoisie, urban and rural entrepreneurs; different from other credit institutions by two main features: 1 the owners of the enterprise are not lenders and borrowers themselves, and 2 the members of societies were linked by mutual responsibility. The article was written with the assistance of new archival materials that allow conclusions on the later of the beginning of mutual credit societies in the Siberian province, a relatively democratic system of governance based on personal acquaintance and mutual trust among participants; the predominance in their composition representatives of trade and industrial estates, and slight differences from the social structure of mutual credit societies in European Russia.

  8. 5 CFR 2640.201 - Exemptions for interests in mutual funds, unit investment trusts, and employee benefit plans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS GOVERNMENT ETHICS INTERPRETATION, EXEMPTIONS AND WAIVER GUIDANCE CONCERNING... in several mutual funds whose portfolios contain stock in a small computer company. Each mutual fund prospectus describes the fund as a “management company,” but does not characterize the fund as having a...

  9. Light-weight Mutual Authentication with Non-repudiation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. Clupek

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we focused on a problem of authentication on low-cost devices. We have proposed a new light-weight protocol for mutual authentication of communication entities with non-repudiation of realized events. The protocol is simple and suitable for implementation on low-cost devices. Non-repudiation of realized events is achieved by involving a Trusted Third Party (TTP to the communication. The proposed protocol uses only an appropriate lightweight hash function and pre-shared secret data. Security of the proposed protocol was verified by the BAN (Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic.

  10. Physicians Mutual Aid Group: A Response to AIDS-Related Burnout.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garside, Bruce

    1993-01-01

    Describes origins and functioning of physician's mutual aid group for physicians providing primary care to people with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Offers suggestions related to overcoming resistance physicians might have to participating in such a group and reviews modalities that were helpful in facilitating participants' ability…

  11. Standard guide for mutual inductance bridge applications for wall thickness determinations in boiler tubing

    CERN Document Server

    American Society for Testing and Materials. Philadelphia

    2010-01-01

    1.1 This guide describes a procedure for obtaining relative wall thickness indications in ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic steels using the mutual inductance bridge method. The procedure is intended for use with instruments capable of inducing two substantially identical magnetic fields and noting the change in inductance resulting from differing amounts of steel. It is used to distinguish acceptable wall thickness conditions from those which could place tubular vessels or piping at risk of bursting under high temperature and pressure conditions. 1.2 This guide is intended to satisfy two general needs for users of industrial Mutual Inductance Bridge (MIB) equipment: (1) the need for a tutorial guide addressing the general principles of Mutual Inductance Bridges as they apply to industrial piping; and (2) the need for a consistent set of MIB performance parameter definitions, including how these performance parameters relate to MIB system specifications. Potential users and buyers, as well as experienced M...

  12. The performance of mutual funds : evidence from Turkey

    OpenAIRE

    Parlak, Deniz

    2014-01-01

    In academic world much controversy exists regarding the performance of pension and mutual funds. Some studies have concluded that actively managed funds on average, underperform their passively managed counterparts whereas other studies have shown just the reverse. Another important debate centers on the persistence of under- and over-performance of portfolios. Still evidence from emerging markets which are characterized by high volatility in terms of terms of stock returns is scarce. Hence t...

  13. Geometric Performance Analysis of Mutual Exclusion: The Model

    OpenAIRE

    Abrams, Marc

    1990-01-01

    This paper is motivated by the need to better understand parallel program run-time behavior. The paper first formally describes a general model of program execution based on Djkstra's progress graphs. The paper then defines a special case of the model representing two cyclic processes sharing mutually exclusive, reusable resources. Processes synchronize through semaphore operations that are not embedded in conditionally executed code segments. Model parameters are the times at which each ...

  14. Shareholders' agreements in Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Werlauff, Erik

    2010-01-01

    ’ agreements”) cannot bind the company within the sense of company law under the new state of law, and voting rights agreements, agreements on right of pre-emption etc. will therefore only apply at the level of contract law between the parties to the agreement. This article for European Business Law Review......The article warns that with effect from 1 March 2010, the new Danish Companies Act (on public and private limited companies) has seriously weakened the effect of shareholders’ agreements which have been entered into on Danish companies. These agreements (in the act’s new terminology: “owners...... analyses the consequences of this. Rights and duties in the owners’ agreements must now be reiterated to the greatest possible extent in the company’s articles of association so that the precepts become binding on the company and its management. Whether the parties to the owners’ agreement can be required...

  15. A novel filtering mutualism between a sponge host and its endosymbiotic bivalves.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsubaki, Remi; Kato, Makoto

    2014-01-01

    Sponges, porous filter-feeding organisms consisting of vast canal systems, provide unique substrates for diverse symbiotic organisms. The Spongia (Spongia) sp. massive sponge is obligately inhabited by the host-specific endosymbiotic bivalve Vulsella vulsella, which benefits from this symbiosis by receiving protection from predators. However, whether the host sponge gains any benefit from this association is unclear. Considering that the bivalves exhale filtered water into the sponge body rather than the ambient environment, the sponge is hypothesized to utilize water exhaled by the bivalves to circulate water around its body more efficiently. We tested this hypothesis by observing the sponge aquiferous structure and comparing the pumping rates of sponges and bivalves. Observations of water currents and the sponge aquiferous structure revealed that the sponge had a unique canal system enabling it to inhale water exhaled from bivalves, indicating that the host sponge adapted morphologically to receive water from the bivalves. In addition, the volume of water circulating in the sponge body was dramatically increased by the water exhaled from bivalves. Therefore, this sponge-bivalve association can be regarded as a novel mutualism in which two filter-feeding symbionts promote mutual filtering rates. This symbiotic association should be called a "filtering mutualism".

  16. Confronting water in an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brooks, David; Trottier, Julie

    2010-03-01

    SummaryTrans-boundary water agreements are usually conceived as allocation agreements. In other words, water is treated as if it were a pie to be divided among the riparian states. The treatment of water as if it were as immobile as land may be useful in the short term, but it is fundamentally flawed as a means to avoid conflict as well as to ensure efficient, equitable, and sustainable management of water over the long term. This article proposes to avoid quantitative allocations within international water agreements, whether they be presented as percentage or fixed allocations or whether or not accompanied by a periodic revision clause. It proposes instead an ongoing joint management structure that allows for continuous conflict resolution concerning water demands and uses in a manner that effectively de-nationalises water uses. As well, it builds on existing, functioning institutions that are already active over a variety of scalar levels. It disaggregates what is usually perceived as a national water demand into its component institutions and re-aggregates them within an international institutional context. Though this approach for building trans-boundary water agreements can prove useful in any geographical situation, this article uses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a model. It proposes to respect the existing differences in the institutional management of water between the two entities and to reach four general objectives: economic efficiency, social and political equity, ecological sustainability, and the ability to implement the agreement in practice. The institutional design and proposed mechanisms follow five key principles for shared management: water allocations that are not fixed but variable over time; equality in rights and responsibilities; priority for demand management over supply management; continuous monitoring of water quality and quantity; and mediation among competing uses of fresh water. This institutional structure balances water

  17. Mutual trust method for forwarding information in wireless sensor networks using random secret pre-distribution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chih-Hsueh Lin

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available In wireless sensor networks, sensing information must be transmitted from sensor nodes to the base station by multiple hopping. Every sensor node is a sender and a relay node that forwards the sensing information that is sent by other nodes. Under an attack, the sensing information may be intercepted, modified, interrupted, or fabricated during transmission. Accordingly, the development of mutual trust to enable a secure path to be established for forwarding information is an important issue. Random key pre-distribution has been proposed to establish mutual trust among sensor nodes. This article modifies the random key pre-distribution to a random secret pre-distribution and incorporates identity-based cryptography to establish an effective method of establishing mutual trust for a wireless sensor network. In the proposed method, base station assigns an identity and embeds n secrets into the private secret keys for every sensor node. Based on the identity and private secret keys, the mutual trust method is utilized to explore the types of trust among neighboring sensor nodes. The novel method can resist malicious attacks and satisfy the requirements of wireless sensor network, which are resistance to compromising attacks, masquerading attacks, forger attacks, replying attacks, authentication of forwarding messages, and security of sensing information.

  18. Prior Knowledge Facilitates Mutual Gaze Convergence and Head Nodding Synchrony in Face-to-face Communication.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thepsoonthorn, C; Yokozuka, T; Miura, S; Ogawa, K; Miyake, Y

    2016-12-02

    As prior knowledge is claimed to be an essential key to achieve effective education, we are interested in exploring whether prior knowledge enhances communication effectiveness. To demonstrate the effects of prior knowledge, mutual gaze convergence and head nodding synchrony are observed as indicators of communication effectiveness. We conducted an experiment on lecture task between lecturer and student under 2 conditions: prior knowledge and non-prior knowledge. The students in prior knowledge condition were provided the basic information about the lecture content and were assessed their understanding by the experimenter before starting the lecture while the students in non-prior knowledge had none. The result shows that the interaction in prior knowledge condition establishes significantly higher mutual gaze convergence (t(15.03) = 6.72, p < 0.0001; α = 0.05, n = 20) and head nodding synchrony (t(16.67) = 1.83, p = 0.04; α = 0.05, n = 19) compared to non-prior knowledge condition. This study reveals that prior knowledge facilitates mutual gaze convergence and head nodding synchrony. Furthermore, the interaction with and without prior knowledge can be evaluated by measuring or observing mutual gaze convergence and head nodding synchrony.

  19. Invasive pathogen threatens bird-pine mutualism: implications for sustaining a high-elevation ecosystem.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKinney, Shawn T; Fiedler, Carl E; Tomback, Diana F

    2009-04-01

    Human-caused disruptions to seed-dispersal mutualisms increase the extinction risk for both plant and animal species. Large-seeded plants can be particularly vulnerable due to highly specialized dispersal systems and no compensatory regeneration mechanisms. Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), a keystone subalpine species, obligately depends upon the Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) for dispersal of its large, wingless seeds. Clark's Nutcracker, a facultative mutualist with whitebark pine, is sensitive to rates of energy gain, and emigrates from subalpine forests during periods of cone shortages. The invasive fungal pathogen Cronartium ribicola, which causes white pine blister rust, reduces whitebark pine cone production by killing cone-bearing branches and trees. Mortality from blister rust reaches 90% or higher in some whitebark pine forests in the Northern Rocky Mountains, USA, and the rust now occurs nearly rangewide in whitebark pine. Our objectives were to identify the minimum level of cone production necessary to elicit seed dispersal by nutcrackers and to determine how cone production is influenced by forest structure and health. We quantified forest conditions and ecological interactions between nutcrackers and whitebark pine in three Rocky Mountain ecosystems that differ in levels of rust infection and mortality. Both the frequency of nutcracker occurrence and probability of seed dispersal were strongly related to annual whitebark pine cone production, which had a positive linear association with live whitebark pine basal area, and negative linear association with whitebark pine tree mortality and rust infection. From our data, we estimated that a threshold level of approximately 1000 cones/ha is needed for a high likelihood of seed dispersal by nutcrackers (probability > or = 0.7), and that this level of cone production can be met by forests with live whitebark pine basal area > 5.0 m2/ha. The risk of mutualism disruption is greatest in northern

  20. A measure of mutual divergence among a number of probability distributions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. N. Kapur

    1987-01-01

    major inequalities due to Shannon, Renyi and Holder. The inequalities are then used to obtain some useful results in information theory. In particular measures are obtained to measure the mutual divergence among two or more probability distributions.