Mutual Configuration Research Articles

Configuring social assistance: conceptualizations and implications of the adoption of robotic process automation in the Swedish personal social services

ABSTRACT Many European countries’ public organisations have turned to digital automation as a strategy to enhance the efficiency of their service delivery. One example of this is the use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the provision of Social Assistance (SA) in Sweden. Swedish SA is a means-tested subsidy intended as a last resort for the economically most vulnerable persons, and caseworkers exercise a high degree of discretion when deciding on clients’ eligibility for the benefit. Based on semi-structured interviews with stakeholders at the national and local levels, this study explores how these actors conceptualise and rationalise the adoption of RPA in the SA context and discusses how this relates to the mutual configuration of RPA and SA. The results show that RPA is framed as a simple technology to alleviate caseworkers’ administrative workload so that they can instead focus on supporting clients towards self-sufficiency. However, local actors describe RPA adoption as a challenging process with modest outcomes. As such, the study suggests that stakeholders’ simplified conceptualisation of RPA allows them to shift responsibility for its practical adoption to local PSS organisations, which ultimately pushes the PSS organisations towards configuring their SA casework processes around the limited capabilities of the technology.

The Influence of the Variable Wettability Characteristics of Layers on the Transport of Nanoparticles in the Context of Drug Delivery in Skin Structures.

The rapid development of nanotechnology has offered the possibility of creating nanosystems that can be used as drug carriers. The use of such carriers offers real opportunities for the development of non-invasive drug delivery through skin structures. However, in addition to the ability to create suitable nanocarriers, it is also necessary to know how they move through dermal layers. The human skin consists of layers with different wettability characteristics, which greatly complicates how introduced substances move through it. In this work, an experimental study of the diffusion process of nanoparticles through partitions with different wettability properties was carried out. Conventional diffusion tests using Franz chambers were used for this purpose. We quantified how the wettability of the barrier, the number of layers, and their mutual configuration affect the transport of nanoparticles. Based on the results, an analysis of the phenomena taking place, depending on the wettability of the partition, was carried out. A model relationship was also proposed to determine the effective diffusion coefficient, taking into account the influence of the wettability and porosity of the barrier.

Design of an S/X-Band Single-Layer Shared-Aperture Array Antenna Using a Mutual Complementary Configuration

This paper proposes an S/X-band single-layer shared-aperture array antenna for the multifunction radars of military ships. A unit cell of the proposed antenna consists of one S-band element and four X-band elements. The S- and X-band elements are printed on the same layer to prevent a blockage effect by upper elements in the stacked shared-aperture antenna. Herein, the S-band element has a mutual complementary configuration for the X-band elements. In addition, the unit cell of the proposed antenna is designed in a symmetrical structure, which can be flexibly extended to a full array configuration. To verify the antenna feasibility, antenna performances are measured in a full anechoic chamber. The fractional bandwidths of the S- and X-band elements are 13.6% and 13.4%, respectively. Moreover, in the 2 × 2 array configuration, the S-band array gain in the bore-sight direction varies from 5.4 dBi to 3.5 dBi when the main beam is steered from 0° to 45°. Under the same conditions, the measured X-band array gain in the bore-sight direction decreases from 13.4 dBi to 11.6 dBi.

The mutual configuration of affordances and technological frames: Content creators in the Chilean influencer industry

Examining the case of the Chilean influencer industry, this paper argues for situating affordances within a wider context in which the features of platforms acquire meanings. Our analysis focuses on two dynamics. On the one hand, we examine how the Chilean influencer industry is shaped by a ‘technological frame’ that structures the valence of affordances. We show that affordances are neither ‘naturally’ nor ‘neutrally’ imagined by actors but rather culturally located within technological frames that shape the discourses, values, and practices from which they obtain cultural meaning. On the other hand, we analyze how affordances provide a material support for the temporal and spatial expansion of these technological frames. Thus, cultural contexts and platforms’ features mutually configure each other in ways that have not always been recognized in the scholarly literature about affordances. We situate negotiations about what it means to be an influencer in Chile, the role of intermediaries (eg branding agencies), communication with followers, and the global influencer industry as part of this mutually constitutive relationship.

Recognizing distant faces

As an ‘early alerting’ sense, one of the primary tasks for the human visual system is to recognize distant objects. In the specific context of facial identification, this ecologically important task has received surprisingly little attention. Most studies have investigated facial recognition at short, fixed distances. Under these conditions, the photometric and configural information related to the eyes, nose and mouth are typically found to be primary determinants of facial identity. Here we characterize face recognition performance as a function of viewing distance and investigate whether the primacy of the internal features continues to hold across increasing viewing distances. We find that exploring the distance dimension reveals a qualitatively different salience distribution across a face. Observers’ recognition performance significantly exceeds that obtained with the internal facial physiognomy, and also exceeds the computed union of performances with internal and external features alone, suggesting that in addition to the mutual configuration of the eyes, nose and mouth, it is the relationships between these features and external head contours that are crucial for recognition. We have also conducted computational studies with convolutional neural networks trained on the task of face recognition to examine whether this representational bias could emerge spontaneously through exposure to faces. The results provide partial support for this possibility while also highlighting important differences between the human and artificial system. These findings have implications for the nature of facial representations useful for a visual system, whether human or machine, for recognition over large and varying distances.

Experimental Investigation of an Optical Resonator Gyroscope with a Mach–Zehnder Modulator and Its Sensitive Elements

Today, the task of developing microoptical gyroscopes is topical. Usually, tunable lasers with a built-in frequency stabilization system are used in such gyroscopes. They are comparatively bulky, which hinders the real miniaturization of optical gyroscopes. We propose a new approach implemented by using a Mach–Zehnder modulator with a passive ring resonator connected to one of its arms. This makes it possible to obtain a mutual configuration and makes the use of a tunable laser optional. Two ring resonators made of the polarization-maintaining fiber, suitable for use as sensitive elements of a gyroscope, were realized and investigated. Their Q-factor is equal to 14.5 × 106 and 28.9 × 106. The maximum sensitivity of the proposed method when using the described resonators is 3.2 and 1.8 °/h, respectively. The first experimental setup of a resonator gyroscope implementing this approach has been manufactured and analyzed. When measuring the rotation speed by the quasi-harmonic signal span and its phase, the measurement accuracy was approximately 11 and 0.4 °/s, respectively.

Polarization insensitive efficient ultra-narrow diode laser strictly locked by a Faraday filter.

A Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF) could lock high-power diode lasers to atomic resonance lines with ultra-narrow bandwidth. However, the polarization sensitivity of the Faraday filter limits its applications since the standard diode module often employs polarization combination to increase pumping brightness. We proposed a polarization-insensitive mutual injection configuration to solve this problem and locked a standard polarization combined diode module to Rb D2-line. The laser bandwidth was narrowed from 4 nm to 0.005 nm (2.6 GHz, FWHM) with 38.3 W output and an external cavity efficiency of 80%. This FADOF-based polarization-insensitive external-cavity scheme would find many applications, such as high energy atomic gas laser pumping (alkali lasers, metastable rare gas lasers) and quantum optics, etc.

Elemental geochemical evidence for controlling factors and mechanisms of transitional organic matter accumulation: The upper Permian Longtan Formation black shale in the Lower Yangtze region, South China

The marine-continental transitional shale in the upper Permian Longtan Formation is not only regarded as an excellent source rock, but also one of the crucial layers of shale gas exploration in the Lower Yangtze region, South China. However, controlling factors and mechanisms of transitional organic matter (OM) accumulation in such a setting are not well understood. In this study, the characteristics of total organic carbon (TOC) and elemental geochemistry of 22 rock samples collected from one core and two different types of outcrops are systematically investigated to characterize the paleoenvironmental conditions and OM accumulation mechanisms. Results show that shales developed in a tidal flat-lagoon environment display high TOC contents ranging from 6.16% to 10.10% (average 8.50%), whereas these formed in a deltaic environment exhibit medium-high TOC contents varying from 0.93% to 6.70% (average 3.26%). These data also elucidate that the target shales in the Longtan Formation were deposited in a complex paleoenvironment with strong water-mass restriction that was mainly characterized by warm and humid paleoclimate, high primary productivity, oxic-to-dysoxic conditions, and a high sedimentary rate. Besides, the transitional OM accumulation is not determined by a single factor, but is the result of the mutual configuration and coupling of multiple factors such as paleoclimate, paleoproductivity, paleoredox, and sedimentary rate. All these factors will directly or indirectly affect OM supply or preservation. Finally, the “integrated model” for transitional OM accumulation is proposed. The model stresses two aspects: on one hand, the warm and humid paleoclimate not only facilitates the growth of higher plants, but also accelerates the chemical weathering rate of the parent rocks and increases the input of nutrients to the water column, which is conducive to the blooms of lower aquatic organisms. Both higher plant debris and lower aquatic organisms together provide abundant OM sources. On the other hand, although the oxidized water environment is usually unfavorable for OM preservation, a higher sedimentary rate can greatly shorten OM exposure time in the decomposition region of aerobic bacteria, and a number of organic matters cannot be oxidized or degraded through the rapid burial. These findings also add to our knowledge that despite the oxygenated water environment during transitional shale deposition, TOC contents are not necessarily lower.

Synchronization of polarization chaos in mutually coupled free-running VCSELs.

We numerically demonstrate and analyze polarization chaos synchronization between two free-running vertical cavity surface emitting semiconductor lasers (VCSELs) in the mutual coupling configuration under two scenarios: parallel injection and orthogonal injection. Specifically, we investigate the effect of external parameters (the bias current, frequency detuning and coupling coefficient) and internal parameters (the linewidth enhancement factor, spin-flip relaxation rate, field decay rate, carrier decay rate, birefringence and dichroism) on the synchronization quality. Finally simulation results confirm that in the parallel injection, chaotic synchronization can reach a cross-correlation coefficient of 0.99 within a range of parameter mismatch ±12%. On the other hand, the chaos synchronization for orthogonal injection only reaches a cross-correlation coefficient of 0.95 within a range of parameter mismatch ±3%.

A new amido-phosphane as ligand for copper and silver complexes. Synthesis, characterization and catalytic application for azide-alkyne cycloaddition in glycerol.

The new sterically hindered amido-phosphane 1,3,7-triaza-5-phosphabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane-3,7-diylbis(phenylmethanone), DBPTA (1), has been obtained via an open-cage double N-acylation of 1,3,5-triaza-7-phosphadamantane (PTA) using benzoic anhydride. DBPTA is the only acyl derivative of PTA that contains an aromatic appendage. Due to the bulky nature of the benzoyl C(O)Ph groups, they exhibit mutual anti configuration as confirmed by solution NMR and single crystal X-ray diffraction. Compound 1 is readily soluble in common polar organic and green solvents, making it a very versatile ligand that could be used in a variety of reaction systems. To assess the coordination characteristics of the new phosphane, seven copper complexes of formulas [Cu(DBPTA)4]BF4 (2), [CuX(DBPTA)3] {X = Br (3) and I (4)}, [Cu(μ-X)(DBPTA)2]2 {X = Br (5) and I (6)}, [Cu(bpy)(DBPTA)2]Y {Y = BF4 (7) and BPh4 (8)} {bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine}, and three silver complexes with formulas [Ag(DBPTA)4]NO3 (9), [Ag(Tpm*)(DBPTA)]NO3 (10) and [Ag(Tpms)(DBPTA)] (11) {Tpm* = tris(3,5-dimethyl-1-pyrazolyl)methane, Tpms = tris(pyrazol-1-yl)methanesulfonate} have been synthesised. Compounds 1-11 were characterized by elemental analyses and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), as well as by FT-IR and NMR (1H, 13C, 31P, COSY and HSQC) spectroscopic techniques. The catalytic activity of the complexes has been investigated for 1,3-dipolar azide-alkyne cycloaddition reaction using glycerol as a reaction medium to afford 1,4-disubstituted-1,2,3-triazoles. Complex 7 was found to be the most efficient catalyst, affording triazoles in yields up to 97% after 18 h under standard bench experimental conditions (at 23 °C, aerobic conditions and in the absence of any additional bases) and up to 98% after 15 minutes under microwave irradiation (125 °C, 30 W). The catalysis proceeds with a broad substrate scope according to "Click" rules providing a significant contribution to "Green Chemistry".

Devising food consumption: complex households and the socio-material work of meal box schemes

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to explore how digitally-enabled food provisioning platforms reconfigure households’ food consumption. Taking a market studies approach, and drawing on an ethnographic study of 15 households signing up to meal box schemes, the paper examines how meal box schemes, as market devices, work towards materially-semiotically organising household food consumption. Analysis shows that the process of devising food consumption is demanding, dynamic and complex. While these market devices had to be worked into households, and thus demanded considerable work on the part of consumers, they also worked for consumers, performing an array of material-semiotic tasks for them, making their everyday food practices more convenient, adding food variation, and enabling them to pursue multiple food aspirations. During this process, market devices did not govern consumers nor did consumers domesticate market devices. Instead, market devices and consumers were locked in a complex and unstable process of mutual configuration.

Optimizing the distribution of transmission line tower and foundation

In the mountainous transmission lines, in order to respond to the national and national grid requirements for environmental protection, the design institute needs to design the towers for the long and short legs and the foundation of the tower. To this end, the paper gives the design scheme of the long and short leg iron tower in Liaoning area, and analyzes the design conditions of the iron tower, the base surface measurement of the iron tower, the insulation coordination and the optimization design of the tower. The purpose of this paper is to find the mutual configuration of the long and short leg towers and the high and low foundations that can be used to optimize the transmission line in mountainous projects, and use finite element software to verify that the minimum amount of base materials is the same when the tower position is constant. The basic base surface has the least amount of shovel excavation, which can better protect the geographical environment of the area where the tower is located, and can also control the amount of basic materials to a certain extent and reduce the total investment of the project.

Ontological violence: Catherine Malabou on plasticity, performativity, and writing the feminine

ABSTRACT Catherine Malabou's opinion of non-essentialist models of gender identity and art is unambiguous: in her words, they are ‘catastrophic’ to women and to artists (Malabou [2014]. ‘Sujet: Femme'. de(s)générations des féminismes 21, 29-38: 135). What, then, are the implications of Malabou's hallmark concept of ‘plasticity’ on theories of performativity? Has plasticity come to supplant performativity, just as Malabou believes that it has come to supplant Derridean writing? Or if, as Malabou suggests, philosophical concepts are inherently plastic, may we maintain that performativity was always already plastic? In the following article, I read Malabou's work on writing alongside her work on the feminine in order to question how plasticity and performativity might be examined together to theorise the ways in which the discursive and the material interact in the production of subjectivities. By highlighting the performativity at play within Malabou's own writing about the end of writing, I propose that her work challenges her claim that literature cannot deconstruct philosophy. In response to Malabou's anti-essentialist plastic theory of the essence of woman, I underline the parallels between performativity and plasticity and suggest that the two concepts overlap in their mutual configuration of identity and form as mutable and transformable.

Synthesis of β-lactams via diastereoselective, intramolecular Kinugasa reactions.

Intramolecular Kinugasa reactions on in situ generated carbohydrate-derived alkynylnitrones are described. The effects of the length of chains, their mutual configuration, influence of experimental conditions on product distribution and feasibility of the β-lactam ring construction were studied. Intramolecular reactions proceed with high stereoselectivity to provide in each case one product only. The cycloadducts from tartaric acid were converted into the corresponding non-racemic 4-acetoxy azetidinones in good yields.

Identification of defects in a ferromagnet by solving the inverse problem of magnetostatics

For many industries, the problem of detecting and classifying surface defects by a magnetic method is very important. Wherein the mutual configuration of magnetic converters and the object under study can be shown on the example of a device for in-pipe inspection of large-diameter pipes of gas pipelines. In this case, the magnetic transducers are located in the device inside the pipe, while the defects are located on the outer surface of the pipe. The data obtained from magnetic Hall transducers, measuring the magnetic field of scattering over the entire surface of the pipe, allows us to solve the inverse problem of magnetostatics on the restoration of magnetic fields to their sources. Due to the fact, that the pipes are made of a magnetically soft ferromagnet, it becomes possible to solve the problem of restoring the geometry of the surface corrosion defect in the metal. The proposed work contains an algorithm for reconstructing the geometry of surface defects of corrosion of an arbitrary shape from the measured magnetic scattering field over the metal surface opposite to surface, which contained the defect.

Validation of Machine Learning Models for Health Insurance Risks Assessment

A universal healthcare policy success is impossible without the use of insurance instruments. The healthcare and insurance industries are on the verge of integrating seamlessly with the help of sensors and algorithms. This research work focuses on validating an algorithm that can help to model and classify health insurance risk data. Six algorithms Logistic Regression (LR), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Decision Tree (DT), Naive Bayes (NB) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) were evaluated and objective validation of these algorithms has been demonstrated. To maintain the replicability of the study the data and code are available in public repository. From the study, it is clear that the KNN algorithm is best suited as a risk classifier. This is evidence from the values of R2, error metrics, completeness score, explained variance, normalized mutual score v measure score, precision, recall, f1 score, and accuracy metrics. Secondly, the algorithms have been validated using 10 k-fold method using five types of performance metrics. In almost all cases, it was found that the KNN algorithm performs consistently and is the most suitable numerically. This can be attributed that the standard deviation remains tight of performance metrics in evaluation. From all the validation test, it can be claimed that on the current dataset, the KNN algorithm with Accuracy, Homogeneity Score Explained variance and Normalized mutual score hyper-parameter configuration is the best performer.

PROBABILITIES OF PHYSICAL LINK BETWEEN THE COMPONENTS OF THE SELECTED MULTIPLE SYSTEMS FROM WDS CATALOG

Astrometric CCD observations of visual components of double and multiple stars were performed using the RI MAO Axial Meridian Circle (AMC) with new Apogee Alta AI-F8300 CCD camera mounted at the telescope in 2018. Observations were carried out automatically in drift- scan mode using a standard R filter. Objects for observational program were selected from the Washington Double Star Catalog (WDS). During the 23 nights, 983 observations of 579 double and multiple systems from the WDS catalog were obtained. Astrometric reductions of the observations showed high accuracy, with an average error of one position about 0.1 in right ascension and declination for stars up to 16 mag , which were observed more than 3 times. The purpose of our study was to measure the parameters of the mutual configuration of pairs from the original images and to draw some conclusions about the physical connection of the components in the selected systems. The measurement array that will be sent to the WDS database includes values of positional angle, angular separation, stellar magnitude difference, and epoch of the observation. A detailed analysis of the pairs of stars in the selected 5 systems to clarify their composition and the nature of the link between them was made. Positional data from the Hipparcos, Tycho2, UCAC4, Gaia DR2, and Pan-STARRS (PS1) catalogs were used as sources of additional information about the investigated stars. The search for possible invisible stars in the selected systems was performed using the statistical Wielen method, based on the analysis of the differences of instantaneous and long-term averaged proper motions of the stars. The proper motions of the space Gaia DR2 catalog were considered to be instantaneous, the long-term averaged proper motions were used from Tycho-2 and UCAC4 catalogs. Obtained values of the statistical parameter in some cases indicate a high probability of existence of invisible close components in the studied systems. Detailed comments of the results for each of the selected systems are provided.

The mononuclear MoO2 2+ complexes with stereochemically rigid 4-aminobenzhydrazide based ligands

A range of dioxidomolybdenum(VI) complexes has displayed very high catalytic activities and exquisite selectivity. The dioxidomolybdenum(VI) mononuclear complexes with 4-aminobenzoylhydrazone ligands (salicylaldehyde (H2L1), 3- methoxysalicylaldehyde (H2L2), or 4- methoxysalicylaldehyde 4-aminobenzoylhydrazone (H2L3) being of the type cis-[MoO2L1-3(D)] ; D = MeOH, EtOH, H2O, dmf] have been prepared and structurally characterized. The crystal structure analysis of mononuclear complexes (Fig.1.) reveals distorted octahedral Mo(VI) coordination by ONO donor atoms from dianionic tridentate 4- aminobenzoylhydrazone ligands, two oxido oxygen atoms from the MoO22+ moiety and the oxygen atom from coordinated alcohol molecules (D = MeOH, EtOH).The molybdenum oxido groups of the MoO22+ moiety show the expected mutual cis configuration and are located trans to the imine nitrogen atom and coordinated alcohol molecule. The bond distances range around Mo follows trend: Mo-Ot < Mo-O(phenolate) < Mo- O(hydrazone part) < Mo-N< MoO(ROH ; R=Me, Et). The bicyclic system of two chelate rings is slightly folded along the axis of molybdenum- imino bond and by the offset of metal centre apart from chelate planes towards the terminal oxygen atom. The most deviation from chelate rings coplanarity is shown by the phenolate oxygen atom due to its participation in intermolecular interactions. The complexes were tested for catalytic epoxidation of cyclooctene under eco-friendly reaction conditions by using aqueous tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) as an oxidant. Due to trans effect of oxido oxygen atom, Mo-O(D) bond is the longest bond distance within molybdenum coordination sphere and it expected to be the point of maximum catalytic reactivity of the complexes. It is previously shown that pentacoordinated molybdenum systems activate oxidizing agent TBHP through adduct formation assisted by the O–H…O hydrogen bond. Another explanation of the substituent influence is p-π conjunctive effect with methoxy group due to increasing electron density of the phenyl ring.

Shielding of electromagnetic radiation by multilayer textile sets

This paper presents the continuation of research on shielding efficiency (SE) of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) by woven fabric made of cotton (warps and wefts) and a hybrid yarn (wefts). This hybrid yarn was made of stainless steel yarn by Bekinox wrapped with an enamelled copper wire from Synflex Elektro GmbH, Germany. The pitch of copper coil on a hybrid yarn equals 3 mm. The wefts were introduced into the fabric in the following order: 1 hybrid yarn, 1 cotton yarn, 1 hybrid yarn, 1 cotton yarn, etc. The construction of this specific fabric was proven to be the most efficient in terms of the hybrid weft construction and the fabric construction to shield EMR among other previously tested fabrics with different weft configuration. The current study proposes to verify the effect of the number of layers of the fabrics and their mutual configuration on the final SE of the multilayered set. Some of the most interesting findings of this study are that increasing the number of layers placed on top of one another with an offset angle of 0° to more than two does not provide a higher SE; however, using three such layers provides an SE of 56 dB, which is over two times higher than that provided by a single layer. Increasing the number of layers of fabric aligned at an angle of 45° provides a higher SE only for a frequency of 30 MHz.

Keeping all fluorines on the same side

Organic Chemistry Carbon-fluorine bonds are highly polarized, and this effect is magnified when several of them reside on the same face of a saturated ring. However, most existing fluorination methods have difficulty consistently producing this all-cis mutual configuration. Wiesenfeldt et al. used a