Common Environment Research Articles

Monetary Policy, Markup Dispersion, and Aggregate TFP

Abstract We study the role of markup dispersion and aggregate TFP for monetary transmission. Empirically, we show that the response of markup dispersion to monetary policy shocks can account for a significant fraction of the aggregate TFP response in the first two years after the shock. Analytically, we show that heterogeneous price rigidity can explain the response of markup dispersion if firms have a precautionary price-setting motive, which is present in common New Keynesian environments. We provide empirical evidence in support of this explanation. Finally, we study the mechanism and its implications in a quantitative model.

Analyzing the Variances in Perspectives on BIM Implementation among Korea AEC Participants

The goals and benefits of implementing building information modeling (BIM) in different facilities are comparable, although there are variations in the employed technologies. Nevertheless, when considering the practical aspects of BIM, the specific variations in implementing BIM across different facilities lack clarity. This study investigated the variations in viewpoints among participants in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry regarding the adoption of BIM. The objective was to assess the necessity of developing diverse BIM application strategies based on the specific needs of AEC facilities. The following outlines the investigative process: (1) The survey questions were structured as items that necessitate prior investigation and consultation of BIM execution plans from prominent countries. (2) Appropriate statistical tests were chosen to analyze the correlation between respondents’ information and the questions. (3) The findings of the analysis conducted on the group of respondents were deliberated. The survey revealed that strategic variations are essential for the implementation of space for meetings in a technical setting, the formulation of data standards and BIM team for a cooperative environment, and the assessment of subjects based on the type of facility. Specifically, client-specified common data environments exhibited variations in the responsibilities of participants, while the assignment of BIM coordinators also displayed differences in participant roles, depending on the type of facilities involved. Nevertheless, all participants were in complete agreement regarding the collaborative environment, technical environment, organizational structure, implementation guide, and the necessity for evaluation. Surveys of the perceptions of these AEC participants help identify factors that may hinder collaboration in advance and assist in adjusting communication and collaboration strategies. The BIM implementation strategy, which considers variations depending on the type of facility and the role of participants, facilitates seamless collaboration throughout the project and helps establish forward-thinking guidelines for BIM operations from the standpoint of the client and governance.

Polarized representation for depolarization-dominant materials.

The light-matter interactions which occur in common indoor environments are strongly depolarizing, but the relatively small polarization attributes can be informative. This information is used in applications such as physics-based rendering and shape-from-polarization. Look-up table polarized bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (pBRDFs) for indoor materials are available, but closed-form representations are advantageous for their ease of use in both forward and inverse problems. First-surface Fresnel reflection, diffuse partial polarization, and ideal depolarization are popular terms used in closed-form pBRDF representations. The relative contributions of these terms are highly dependent on material, albedo/wavelength, and scattering geometry. Complicating matters further, current pBRDF representations incoherently combine Mueller matrices (MM) for Fresnel and polarized diffuse terms which couples into depolarization. In this work, a pBRDF representation is introduced where first-surface Fresnel reflection and diffuse polarization are coherently combined using Jones calculus to avoid affecting depolarization. The first-surface and diffuse reflection terms are combined using an analytic function which takes as input the scattering geometry as well as geometry-independent material parameters. Agreement with wide-field-of-view polarimetric measurements is demonstrated using the new pBRDF which has only six physically meaningful parameters: the scalar-valued depolarization parameter and average reflectance which are geometry-dependent and four geometry-independent material constants. In general, depolarization is described by nine parameters but a triply-degenerate (TD) model simplifies depolarization to a single parameter. To test this pBRDF representation, the material constants for a red 3D printed sphere are assumed and the geometry-dependent depolarization parameter is estimated from linear Stokes images. The geometry-averaged error of the depolarization parameter is 4.2% at 662 nm (high albedo) and 11.7% at 451 nm (low albedo). The error is inversely proportional to albedo and depolarization, so the TD-MM model is considered appropriate for depolarization-dominant materials. The robustness of the pBRDF representation is also demonstrated by comparing measured and extrapolated Mueller images of a Stanford bunny of the same red 3D printing material. The comparison is performed by using Mueller calculus to simulate polarimetric measurements based on the measured and extrapolated data.

The Psychological Impact of Leisure and Rehabilitation Activities in Children and Adolescents With Autism: A Delphi Approach

BACKGROUND. The leisure-rehabilitation programs offered to children and adolescents with autism convey feelings like emotional, social, cognitive, and physical engagement, fun, adventure, and sense of novelty. Each activity however has an intrinsic power to influence the emotional pattern in different ways. AIM. To define how each type of rehabilitation program can be expected to influence the psychological response di children and adolescent affected by autism. METHODS. We applied the Delphi procedure during a workshop with 18 expert therapists (12 females- 6 males), with the aim of achieving consensus regarding the appropriateness of 11 types of leisure-rehabilitation activities in inducing seven types of psychological responses. RESULTS. The activities with the highest potential for each psychological response were indoor climbing for physical engagement, for sense of adventure and for sense of novelty; team sports for social engagement and for fun, dramatherapy for emotional engagement, writing your life story for cognitive engagement. The top five activities with the highest overall impact (mean overall score > 7) were in decreasing order: indoor climbing, team sports, outdoor visits to common life environments, exercising in the swimming pool, and dramatherapy. CONCLUSIONS. We hope that this Delphi exercise will help the carers of individuals with autism to choose and adapt possible leisure activities according to the specific needs of the subject, maximizing the potential benefit of rehabilitation.

Microbially synthesized poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyhexanoate) with low to moderate hydroxyhexanoate content: Properties and applications

Plastic pollution is the biggest environmental concern of our time. Breakdown products like micro- and nano-plastics inevitably enter the food chain and pose unprecedented health risks. In this scenario, bio-based and biodegradable plastic alternatives have been given a momentum aiming to bridge a transition towards a more sustainable future. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are one of the few thermoplastic polymers synthesized 100 % via biotechnological routes which fully biodegrade in common natural environments. Poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyhexanoate) [P(HB-co-HHx)] is a PHA copolymer with great potential for the commodity polymers industry, as its mechanical properties can be tailored through fine-tuning of its molar HHx content. We have recently developed a strategy that enables for reliable tailoring of the monomer content of P(HB-co-HHx).Nevertheless, there is often a lack of comprehensive investigation of the material properties of PHAs to evaluate whether they actually mimic the functionalities of conventional plastics. We present a detailed study of P(HB-co-HHx) copolymers with low to moderate hydroxyhexanoate content to understand how the HHx monomer content influences the thermal and mechanical properties and to link those to their abiotic degradation. By increasing the HHx fractions in the range of 2 – 14 mol%, we impart an extension of the processing window and application range as the melting temperature (Tm) and glass temperature (Tg) of the copolymers decrease from Tm 165 °C to 126 °C, Tg 4 °C to −5.9 °C, accompanied by reduced crystallinity from 54 % to 20 %. Elongation at break was increased from 5.7 % up to 703 % at 14 mol% HHx content, confirming that the range examined was sufficiently large to obtain ductile and brittle copolymers, while tensile strength was maintained throughout the studied range. Finally, accelerated abiotic degradation was shown to be slowed down with an increasing HHx fraction decreasing from 70 % to 55 % in 12 h.

The Psychological Impact of Leisure and Rehabilitation Activities in Children and Adolescents With Autism: A Delphi Approach

BACKGROUND. The leisure-rehabilitation programs offered to children and adolescents with autism convey feelings like emotional, social, cognitive, and physical engagement, fun, adventure, and sense of novelty. Each activity however has an intrinsic power to influence the emotional pattern in different ways. AIM. To define how each type of rehabilitation program can be expected to influence the psychological response di children and adolescent affected by autism. METHODS. We applied the Delphi procedure during a workshop with 18 expert therapists (12 females- 6 males), with the aim of achieving consensus regarding the appropriateness of 11 types of leisure-rehabilitation activities in inducing seven types of psychological responses. RESULTS. The activities with the highest potential for each psychological response were: for emotional and cognitive engagement dramatherapy, for social engagement and for fun team sports, for physical engagement and for sense of adventure indoor climbing, for sense of novelty outdoor visits to museums. The top five activities with the highest overall impact (mean overall score > 7) were in decreasing order: indoor climbing, team sports, outdoor visits to common life environments, outdoor visits to parks and gardens, and dramatherapy. CONCLUSIONS. We hope that this Delphi exercise will help the carers of individuals with autism to choose and adapt possible leisure activities according to the specific needs of the subject, maximizing the potential benefit of rehabilitation.

Research on the dehazing effect of orthogonal polarization method based on atmospheric scattering model and considering extinction ratio parameter

ABSTRACT The hazy weather is currently one of the most common atmospheric environments. It is an urgent problem to realize clear imaging in hazy environment. Orthogonal polarization dehazing is one of the classical dehazing techniques attracting a widespread attention from research workers. However, while using this method, the extinction ratio (ER) parameter of the polarizer was neglected leading to poor dehazing. Therefore, we have introduced the ER of polarizers into the orthogonal polarization dehazing technique in this paper. In the process of sky region division, this study proposes to use HSV, RGB and Lab colour channels to create a comprehensive mask to select the sky region. And the morphological corrosion operation is utilized to increase the region connectivity for better sky region division. Based on subjective visualization, it can be found that the dehazing effect is significantly enhanced with the introduction of ER. The dehazing effect was evaluated based on four parameters of contrast (C 0), peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index measure (SSIM) and information entropy (E n ). It is further demonstrated the necessity of introducing ER. The experimental results show that the ER can make the dehazing effect of the orthogonal polarization dehazing technique improved, which is valuable for the engineering application of image processing in hazy environment. The experimental results proved to be encouraging.

Dynamics of bacterial recombination in the human gut microbiome.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a ubiquitous force in microbial evolution. Previous work has shown that the human gut is a hotspot for gene transfer between species, but the more subtle exchange of variation within species-also known as recombination-remains poorly characterized in this ecosystem. Here, we show that the genetic structure of the human gut microbiome provides an opportunity to measure recent recombination events from sequenced fecal samples, enabling quantitative comparisons across diverse commensal species that inhabit a common environment. By analyzing recent recombination events in the core genomes of 29 human gut bacteria, we observed widespread heterogeneities in the rates and lengths of transferred fragments, which are difficult to explain by existing models of ecological isolation or homology-dependent recombination rates. We also show that natural selection helps facilitate the spread of genetic variants across strain backgrounds, both within individual hosts and across the broader population. These results shed light on the dynamics of in situ recombination, which can strongly constrain the adaptability of gut microbial communities.

The Psychological Impact of Leisure and Rehabilitation Activities in Children and Adolescents With Autism: A Delphi Approach

BACKGROUND. The leisure-rehabilitation programs offered to children and adolescents with autism convey feelings like emotional, social, cognitive, and physical engagement, fun, adventure, and sense of novelty. Each activity however has an intrinsic power to influence the emotional pattern in different ways. AIM. To define how each type of rehabilitation program can be expected to influence the psychological response di children and adolescent affected by autism. METHODS. We applied the Delphi procedure during a workshop with 12 expert therapists (8 females- 4 males), with the aim of achieving consensus regarding the appropriateness of 11 types of leisure-rehabilitation activities in inducing seven types of psychological responses. RESULTS. The activities with the highest potential for each psychological response were: for emotional and cognitive engagement dramatherapy, for social engagement and for fun team sports, for physical engagement and for sense of adventure indoor climbing, for sense of novelty outdoor visits to museums. The top five activities with the highest overall impact (mean overall score > 7) were in decreasing order: indoor climbing, team sports, outdoor visits to common life environments, outdoor visits to parks and gardens, and dramatherapy. CONCLUSIONS. We hope that this Delphi exercise will help the carers of individuals with autism to choose and adapt possible leisure activities according to the specific needs of the subject, maximizing the potential benefit of rehabilitation.

A hybrid molecular dynamics/machine learning framework to calculate the viscosity and thermal conductivity of Ar, Kr, Xe, O, and Ν

AbstractIn this paper, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and machine learning (ML) methods are combined to obtain the transport properties, such as viscosity and thermal conductivity, of five basic elements, which are computationally hard to obtain at the nanoscale and extremely demanding to estimate accurately through an experimental procedure. Starting from an experimental database from literature sources, we extend the (P‐T) space on which the transport properties are calculated by employing MD simulations and ML predictions, in a synergistic mode. Results refer to all fluid states (gas, liquid, supercritical), under ambient and supercritical conditions, suggesting an alternative path that can be accurately followed to bypass expensive experiments and costly numerical simulations. Nine different ML algorithms are exploited and assessed on their prediction ability, with tree‐based architectures achieving increased accuracy on the implied data set. The proposed computational platform runs fast in a common python Jupyter environment, both for MD and ML, and can be adjusted and extended for the calculation of material properties both in interpolation and extrapolation applications.

Glyoxal in Foods: Formation, Metabolism, Health Hazards, and Its Control Strategies.

Glyoxal is a highly reactive aldehyde widely present in common diet and environment and inevitably generated through various metabolic pathways in vivo. Glyoxal is easily produced in diets high in carbohydrates and fats via the Maillard reaction, carbohydrate autoxidation, and lipid peroxidation, etc. This leads to dietary intake being a major source of exogenous exposure. Exposure to glyoxal has been positively associated with a number of metabolic diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease. It has been demonstrated that polyphenols, probiotics, hydrocolloids, and amino acids can reduce the content of glyoxal in foods via different mechanisms, thus reducing the risk of exogenous exposure to glyoxal and alleviating carbonyl stresses in the human body. This review discussed the formation and metabolism of glyoxal, its health hazards, and the strategies to reduce such health hazards. Future investigation of glyoxal from different perspectives is also discussed.

Common data environments in construction: state-of-the-art and challenges for practical implementation

Purpose Information management workflow in building information modelling (BIM)-based collaboration is based on using a common data environment (CDE). The basic premise of a CDE is exposing all relevant data as a single source of truth and facilitating continuous collaboration between stakeholders. A multitude of tools can be used as a CDE, however, it is not clear how the tools are used or if they fulfil the users’ needs. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate current practices of using CDEs for information management during the whole built asset’s life cycle, through a state-of-the-art literature review and an empirical study. Design/methodology/approach Literature data is collected according to the PRISMA 2020 guideline for reporting systematic reviews. This paper includes 46 documents in the review and conduct a bibliometric and thematic analysis to identify the main challenges of digital information management. To understand the current practice and the views of the stakeholders using CDEs in their work, this paper used an empirical approach including semi-structured interviews with 15 BIM experts. Findings The results indicate that one of the major challenges of CDE adoption is project complexity and using multiple CDEs simultaneously leading to data accountability, transparency and reliability issues. To tackle those challenges, the use of novel technologies in CDE development such as blockchain could be further investigated. Originality/value The research explores the major challenges in the practical implementation of CDEs for information management. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on this topic combining a systematic literature review and fieldwork.

Synaptic devices with sodium alginate ionic gel gating for global regulation

Information processing and memorizing in the brain take place in a neural network consisting of neurons connected with each other by synapses. Meanwhile, the neural network is immersed in a common electrochemical environment with global parameters regulating the overall functions, which is barely discussed in neuromorphic devices. In this study, organic/inorganic hybrid transistors with sodium alginate as the gate dielectric layer and indium tin oxide as the channel were successfully prepared. We have not only simulated the basic properties of synapses in a single device, but, on top of that, also simulated the global regulation of information processing in the brain due to the incorporation of global grids, achieving excitatory and inhibitory synaptic weight. Moreover, the construction of a 3 × 3 synaptic array enables image learning and memorizing functions. These results demonstrate the significant advantages of electrolyte-gated transistors in enabling complex neural network connectivity and offer a promising opportunity for future artificial synapses.

The role of initial system–environment correlations with a spin environment

Open quantum systems are a subject of immense interest as their understanding is crucial in the implementation of modern quantum technologies. In the study of their dynamics, the role of the initial system–environment correlations is commonly ignored. In this work, to gain insights into the role of these correlations, we solve an exactly solvable model of a single two-level system interacting with a spin environment, with the initial system state prepared by a suitable unitary operation. By solving the dynamics exactly for arbitrary system–environment coupling strength while taking into account the initial system–environment correlations, we show that the effect of the initial correlations is, in general, very significant and nontrivial. To further highlight the importance of the initial system–environment correlations, we also extend our study to investigate the dynamics of the entanglement between two two-level systems interacting with a common spin environment.

The Psychological Impact of Leisure and Rehabilitation Activities in Children With Autism: A Delphi Approach

The leisure-rehabilitation programs offered to children and adolescents with autism convey feelings like emotional, social, cognitive, and physical engagement, fun, adventure and sense of novelty. Each activity however has an intrinsic power to influence the emotional pattern in different ways. To define how each type of rehabilitation program can be expected to influence the psychological response di children and adolescent affected by autism; A Delphi study was carried out involving twelve Expert therapists. The aim is to have criteria to personalize the individual rehabilitation plan choosing a mix of activities with more appropriate emotional influence. We applied the Delphi procedure during a workshop with 12 expert therapists (8 females- 4 males), with the aim of assessing the opinion of participants regarding the appropriateness of 11 types of leisure-rehabilitation activities in enhancing 7 types of psychological responses. The activities with the highest potential for each psychological response were for dramatherapy emotional and cognitive engagement, team sports for social engagement and for fun, indoor climbing for physical engagement and for sense of adventure, for outdoor visits to museums sense of novelty. The top five activities with the highest overall impact (mean overall score > 7) were in decreasing order: indoor climbing, team sports, outdoor visits to common life environments, outdoor visits to parks and gardens, and dramatherapy. We hope that this Delphi exercise will help the carers of individuals with autism to choose and adapt possible leisure activities according to the specific needs of the subject, maximizing the potential benefit of rehabilitation.

Towards machine learned generative design

Machine learned generative design is an extension of the generative design process, addressing its inherent limitations, particularly those of interoperability. The proposed approach uses machine learning-based surrogate models, trained on computational model data, to replicate design evaluations and integrate them into a common environment. In this way, design alternatives can be generated and tested that satisfy all design requirements and considerations. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by the design and optimisation of the enclosure structure for the New Robotic Telescope. Its complexity is characterised by multiple operating states that the enclosure can assume, in particular the closed state and the opening/closing state, each of which has a different structural behaviour. Using our approach, the results from each state were replicated with machine learning models and combined into a single evaluation model. This resulted in finding multiple solutions that outperformed the benchmark design. The results demonstrate not only the success of our method over conventional strategies, but also highlight its potential to redefine future design optimisation processes.

Educating a Society of Perceivers: Practical Wisdom and Perception in Nicomachean Ethics and Deuteronomy*

ABSTRACT A renewed interest in reading the Hebrew Bible as a work of philosophy has reasserted the value of pursuing comparative studies of Greek and Hebrew literature within their common intellectual environment in the Eastern Mediterranean. This study will contribute to a retrieval of Hebraic philosophy in its ancient context through a comparison of Aristotelian practical wisdom and perception as seen in Nicomachean Ethics with commensurate conceptions of wisdom and perception in Deuteronomy. This comparison will advance an appreciation of Deuteronomy as a work of philosophy in its own right, which is distinct yet comparable to Nicomachean Ethics in educating what Martha Nussbaum calls a “society of perceivers” who are skilled at making wise and discerning decisions to attain the Deuteronomic vision of the good.

Gamete sex and elevation affect genetically based variation for unreduced gamete production in a mixed-ploidy plant.

Unreduced gametes are the primary mechanism of neopolyploid formation. Their production in diploid populations is arguably maladaptive, but the magnitude and patterns of genetically based variation maintained in natural populations are poorly understood. We examined variation in male and female unreduced gamete production among plants from different elevations in fireweed, Chamerion angustifolium, grown in a common environment. Using seeds from three high-elevation and three low-elevation diploid populations in one study, and a single diploid population in another, we estimated realized rates of unreduced male (sperm) and female (egg) gamete production by reciprocally pollinating diploid and tetraploid plants and estimating the incidence of tetraploid seeds using flow cytometry. Unreduced gamete frequencies per plant were similar in the two studies (0.12% vs. 0.08%). High-elevation populations had a greater percentage of fruit with seeds from unreduced gametes, but a lower percentage of seeds per fruit than low-elevation populations. Female unreduced gamete frequencies differed among elevations, but male frequencies did not, and the gamete sexes were not correlated at the plant level. We conclude that genetically based variation for unreduced gametes is maintained within and among natural populations, despite their fitness disadvantages, suggesting that local selection may be ineffective at purging them under some conditions.

Blockchain-Based Common Data Environments: Prototype and Validation Through User Study

Blockchain-Based Common Data Environments: Prototype and Validation Through User Study

Interleaved Periodic Event-Triggered Communications-Based Distributed Formation Control for Cooperative Unmanned Surface Vessels.

This article addresses the distributed formation control issue of cooperative unmanned surface vessels (USVs) under interleaved periodic event-triggered communications. First, an adaptive event-based control protocol is designed, where the event-based neural network (NN) scheme is developed to compensate for uncertain model dynamics. Upon the designed control protocol, an interleaved periodic event-triggered mechanism (IPETM) is subsequently proposed to achieve the communication objective. Unlike the common continuous event-triggered methods and periodic event-triggered methods, in which multiple nodes are allowed to trigger their events at the same time, the proposed IPETM ensures that USVs detect their events at different times to avoid the simultaneous event triggering of different nodes. By this virtue, traffic jamming in common wireless environments can be prevented, such that potential communication delays and faults are naturally avoided. In addition, the event detecting instants of the presented IPETM are also discrete and periodic, such that it can be performed under low-computational frequencies. Through Lyapunov-based analysis, it is verified that all closed-loop signals can converge to an arbitrary small compact set with exponential convergence rates. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control scheme.