Set Of Projects Research Articles

Rhesus macaque versus rat divergence in the corticospinal projectome

We used viral intersectional tools to map the entire projectome of corticospinal neurons associated with fine distal forelimb control in Fischer 344 rats and rhesus macaques. In rats, we found an extraordinarily diverse set of collateral projections from corticospinal neurons to 23 different brain and spinal regions. Remarkably, the vast weighting of this "motor" projection was to sensory systems in both the brain and spinal cord, confirmed by optogenetic and transsynaptic viral intersectional tools. In contrast, rhesus macaques exhibited far heavier and narrower weighting of corticospinal outputs toward spinal and brainstem motor systems. Thus, corticospinal systems in macaques primarily constitute a final output system for fine motor control, whereas this projection in rats exerts a multi-modal integrative role that accesses far broader CNS regions. Unique structural-functional correlations can be achieved by mapping and quantifying a single neuronal system's total axonal output and its relative weighting across CNS targets.

Selection Regimes and Selection Errors: A Multi-method Study

How can organizations structure their selection of innovation projects to reduce errors in the form of false positives (investments that should not have been made) and false negatives (investments that should have been made but were not)? Although simulations and case studies exist, our theoretical understanding of the effects of selection regimes on both types of errors has been limited due to a lack of decision and outcome data over a large set of projects. We use 121 interviews and secondary material from an accelerator targeting mobile application developers to understand how it implemented three different selection regimes over time and map these to existing literature. We complement this with unique data of 3,580 innovation projects submitted to the accelerator where we collected the outcomes for both funded and rejected projects to measure false positives and false negatives at the project-level. Our findings suggest that despite efforts to improve selection regimes, there are remarkable similarities between them in the tendency to select false positives and false negatives. Considering differences in the pools of projects submitted for selection, as the accelerator strove to tighten the quality distribution in the last selection regime, our evidence suggests that they instead became more likely to make false positive and false negative decisions. This finding holds despite a range of different controls, and aligns with the mechanism that the selectors focused too much on the team’s past track record in a process that is more random than they assumed.

A Model in Which Well-Orderings of the Reals Appear at a Given Projective Level

The problem of the existence of analytically definable well-orderings at a given level of the projective hierarchy is considered. This problem is important as a part of the general problem of the study of the projective hierarchy in the ongoing development of descriptive set theory. We make use of a finite support product of the Jensen-type forcing notions to define a model of set theory ZFC in which, for a given n>2, there exists a good Δn1 well-ordering of the reals but there are no such well-orderings in the class Δn−11. Therefore the existence of a well-ordering of the reals at a certain level n>2 of the projective hierarchy does not imply the existence of such a well-ordering at the previous level n−1. This is a new result in such a generality (with n>2 arbitrary), and it may lead to further progress in studies of the projective hierarchy.

SuMo: A mutation testing approach and tool for the Ethereum blockchain

Blockchain technologies have had a rather disruptive impact on many sectors of the contemporary society. The establishment of virtual currencies is probably the most representative case. Nonetheless, the inherent support to trustworthy electronic interactions has widened the possible adoption contexts. In the last years, the introduction of Smart Contracts has further increased the potential impact of such technologies. These self-enforcing programs have interesting peculiarities (e.g., code immutability) that require innovative testing strategies. This paper presents a mutation testing approach for assessing the quality of test suites accompanying Smart Contracts written in Solidity, the language used by the Ethereum Blockchain. Specifically, we propose a novel suite of mutation operators capable of simulating a wide variety of traditional programming errors and Solidity-specific faults. The operators come in two flavors: Optimized, for faster mutation testing campaigns, and Non-Optimized, for performing a more thorough adequacy assessment. We implemented our approach in a proof-of-concept work, SuMo (SOlidity MUtator), and we evaluated its effectiveness on a set of real-world Solidity projects. The experiments highlighted a recurrent low Mutation Score for the test suites shipped with the selected applications. Moreover, analyzing the surviving mutants of a selected project helped us to identify faulty test cases and Smart Contract code. These results suggest that SuMo can concretely improve the fault-detection capabilities of a test suite, and help to deliver more reliable Solidity code.

Analysis of a deep learning-based method for generation of SPECT projections based on a large Monte Carlo simulated dataset

BackgroundIn recent years, a lot of effort has been put in the enhancement of medical imaging using artificial intelligence. However, limited patient data in combination with the unavailability of a ground truth often pose a challenge to a systematic validation of such methodologies. The goal of this work was to investigate a recently proposed method for an artificial intelligence-based generation of synthetic SPECT projections, for acceleration of the image acquisition process based on a large dataset of realistic SPECT simulations.MethodsA database of 10,000 SPECT projection datasets of heterogeneous activity distributions of randomly placed random shapes was simulated for a clinical SPECT/CT system using the SIMIND Monte Carlo program. Synthetic projections at fixed angular increments from a set of input projections at evenly distributed angles were generated by different u-shaped convolutional neural networks (u-nets). These u-nets differed in noise realization used for the training data, number of input projections, projection angle increment, and number of training/validation datasets. Synthetic projections were generated for 500 test projection datasets for each u-net, and a quantitative analysis was performed using statistical hypothesis tests based on structural similarity index measure and normalized root-mean-squared error. Additional simulations with varying detector orbits were performed on a subset of the dataset to study the effect of the detector orbit on the performance of the methodology. For verification of the results, the u-nets were applied to Jaszczak and NEMA physical phantom data obtained on a clinical SPECT/CT system.ResultsNo statistically significant differences were observed between u-nets trained with different noise realizations. In contrast, a statistically significant deterioration was found for training with a small subset (400 datasets) of the 10,000 simulated projection datasets in comparison with using a large subset (9500 datasets) for training. A good agreement between synthetic (i.e., u-net generated) and simulated projections before adding noise demonstrates a denoising effect. Finally, the physical phantom measurements show that our findings also apply for projections measured on a clinical SPECT/CT system.ConclusionOur study shows the large potential of u-nets for accelerating SPECT/CT imaging. In addition, our analysis numerically reveals a denoising effect when generating synthetic projections with a u-net. Clinically interesting, the methodology has proven robust against camera orbit deviations in a clinically realistic range. Lastly, we found that a small number of training samples (e.g., ~ 400 datasets) may not be sufficient for reliable generalization of the u-net.

The G20 emission projections to 2030 improved since the Paris Agreement, but only slightly

Many years passed since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, which invites countries to determine their own contributions to climate change mitigation efforts. The Agreement does not offer a standard to measure progress but relies on a process of periodic stocktakes to inform ambition-raising cycles. To contribute to this process, we compare 2021 greenhouse gas emission projections up to 2030 against equivalent projections prepared back in 2015. Both sets of projections were prepared using the same bottom-up modelling approach that accounts for adopted policies at the time. We find that 2021 projections for the G20 as a group are almost 15% lower (approximately 6 GtCO2eq) in 2030 than projected in 2015. Annual emissions grow 1% slower in the coming decade than projected in 2015. This slower growth mostly stems from the adoption of new policies and updated expectations on technology uptake and economic growth. However, around one-quarter of these changes are explained by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on short-term emissions and economic forecasts. These factors combined result in substantially lower emission projections for India, the European Union plus the UK (EU27 + UK), the Unites States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. We observe a remarkable change in South African projections that changed from a substantial increase to now a decline, driven in part by the planned phase-out of most of its coal-based power. Emissions in India are projected to grow slower than in 2015 and in Indonesia faster, but emissions per capita in both countries remain below 5 tCO2eq in 2030, while those in the EU27 + UK decline faster than expected in 2015 and probably cross the 5 tCO2eq threshold before 2030. Projected emissions per capita in Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the United States are now lower than projected in 2015 but remain above 15 tCO2eq in 2030. Although emission projections for the G20 improved since 2015, collectively they still slightly increase until 2030 and remain insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goals. The G20 must urgently and drastically improve adopted policies and actions to limit the end-of-century warming to 1.5 °C.

Does project management matter? The relationship between project management effort, complexity, and profitability

The purpose of this study is to explore the causal impact of project management effort on project profitability (i.e., profit on sales) for varying degrees of project complexity in an engineer-to-order (ETO) project setting. We use a sample of 917 projects’ status reports of a large firm that offers ETO products coupled with a control function approach to empirically investigate the causal effect of project management effort on projects’ profitability. Furthermore, we investigate the marginal impact of project management effort and its effect for different degrees of project complexity. Our results reveal a positive but diminishing impact of project management effort on project profitability. Furthermore, we find that higher project complexity jeopardizes project profitability. However, project management's marginal impact increases with increasing project complexity, ultimately leading to higher returns of more complex projects. While previous research provided correlational evidence between project management and project success, this study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to demonstrate a causal impact of project management on profitability. The results offer unique insights into the economic benefits of project management while taking into account the complexity of the projects. The study confirms the benefits of project management efforts regarding project profitability and underlines the high relevance of project management for complex projects, thereby underlining the importance of contingency theory. It shows that firms can compensate higher ETO customization and higher project complexity through higher project management effort.

Achieving Project Performance through Work from Home during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mediating Role of Procrastination

Abstract. The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to work from home; however, its complexities, effects, and effectiveness in project-based settings have received little attention. The current study aims to test the effects of working from home on project performance, with procrastination acting as a mediator. The survey method is used to collect cross-sectional data for telecom sector-related projects, which is then analyzed using the SEM analysis in AMOS. The study’s key findings are that working from home has a significant positive effect on project performance and staff procrastination. While staff procrastination has a negative impact on project performance. Furthermore, procrastination was discovered to be a mediator in the relationship between work from home and project performance. The finding implies that work from home must be properly managed in order to be effective in a project setting especially in Pakistan.

Enhancing Clinical Teaching in Critical Thinking, High-Value Care, and Health Care Equity.

Faculty development in the clinical setting is challenging to implement and assess. This study evaluated an intervention (IG) to enhance bedside teaching in three content areas: critical thinking (CT), high-value care (HVC), and health care equity (HCE). The Communities of Practice model and Theoretical Domains Framework informed IG development. Three multidepartmental working groups (WGs) (CT, HVC, HCE) developed three 2-hour sessions delivered over three months. Evaluation addressed faculty satisfaction, knowledge acquisition, and behavior change. Data collection included surveys and observations of teaching during patient care. Primary analyses compared counts of post-IG teaching behaviors per hour across intervention group (IG), comparison group (CG), and WG groups. Statistical analyses of counts were modeled with generalized linear models using the Poisson distribution. Eighty-seven faculty members participated (IG n = 30, CG n = 28, WG n = 29). Sixty-eight (IG n = 28, CG n = 23, WG n = 17) were observed, with a median of 3 observation sessions and 5.2 hours each. Postintervention comparison of teaching (average counts/hour) showed statistically significant differences across groups: CT CG = 4.1, IG = 4.8, WG = 8.2; HVC CG = 0.6, IG = 0.9, WG = 1.6; and HCE CG = 0.2, IG = 0.4, WG = 1.4 ( P < .001). A faculty development intervention focused on teaching in the context of providing clinical care resulted in more frequent teaching of CT, HVC, and HCE in the intervention group compared with controls. WG faculty demonstrated highest teaching counts and provide benchmarks to assess future interventions. With the creation of durable teaching materials and a cadre of trained faculty, this project sets a foundation for infusing substantive content into clinical teaching.

The Effects of Separate Facial Areas on Emotion Recognition in Different Adult Age Groups: A Laboratory and a Naturalistic Study.

The identification of facial expressions is critical for social interaction. The ability to recognize facial emotional expressions declines with age. These age effects have been associated with differential age-related looking patterns. The present research project set out to systematically test the role of specific facial areas for emotion recognition across the adult lifespan. Study 1 investigated the impact of displaying only separate facial areas versus the full face on emotion recognition in 62 younger (20–24 years) and 65 middle-aged adults (40–65 years). Study 2 examined if wearing face masks differentially compromises younger (18–33 years, N = 71) versus middle-aged to older adults’ (51–83 years, N = 73) ability to identify different emotional expressions. Results of Study 1 suggested no general decrease in emotion recognition across the lifespan; instead, age-related performance seems to depend on the specific emotion and presented face area. Similarly, Study 2 observed only deficits in the identification of angry, fearful, and neutral expressions in older adults, but no age-related differences with regards to happy, sad, and disgusted expressions. Overall, face masks reduced participants’ emotion recognition; however, there were no differential age effects. Results are discussed in light of current models of age-related changes in emotion recognition.

China and the World Bank—How contrasting development approaches affect the stability of African states

China’s development model challenges the approaches of traditional donors like the World Bank (WB). While some see this mostly as a chance, Chinese aid specifically and aid in general are also suspected of undermining developing countries’ stability for various reasons. To examine the effect of aid on stability thoroughly, we define stability as a continuum ranging from outright over social conflict to attitudes about democracy. We find no evidence that either WB or Chinese aid increases conflict in Africa using a comprehensive set of georeferenced aid projects and sub-national stability measures. Those results are robust and hold across different types of outright conflict, but also for social conflict. Overall, WB aid correlates more strongly with a reduction of conflict than Chinese aid. Moreover, WB aid is associated with a more positive attitude about democracy, while Chinese aid is related to an increased acceptance of authoritarian models.

Connections matter: a proxy measure for evaluating network membership with an application to the Seventh Research Framework Programme

Although the topic of networks has received significant attention from the scientific literature, it remains to be seen whether it is possible to quantify the degree to which an organisation benefits from being part of a network. Starting from the concept of network value and that of Metcalfe’s Law, this paper introduces and defines the collective network effect (CNE). CNE is based on the concept that a network member is not only affected by its friends but also by the friends of its friends. By taking into account network connection patterns, CNE provides a proxy for quantifying the benefit of network membership. We computed the CNE for the nodes of a large network built using the whole set of common projects among the participants of the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development of the European Commission. The obtained results show that nodes with a higher CNE have access to substantially more conspicuous fundings than nodes with a lower CNE. In general, such a measure could supplement other centrality measures and be useful for organisations and companies aiming to evaluate both their current situation and the potential partners they should link with in order to extract the highest benefits from network membership.

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF PLANS FOR TRANSFORMATION OF ELECTRICAL AND HEAT SUPPLY SYSTEMS

The system-forming sectors of municipal energy are electricity and heat supply. With small amounts of transformation on small planning horizons, the fragmentary approach to the consideration of individual sectors does not significantly affect the quality of planning. Large-scale transformation on large planning horizons calls for a holistic approach to the energy, energy consuming and other relevant sectors. District heating is considered as an integrating environment to increase the share of variable solar and wind generation, the use of waste material and energy flows. This approach allows you to identify and use synergistic and multiplier effects and avoid the negative consequences of fragmentary solutions. The algorithm of transformation of existing power and heat supply systems is considered in the article. It includes the stages of forming the initial set of projects and alternative scenarios, as well as the stage of determining the recommended scenario using synergetic and cartoon effects. A cause-and-effect analysis scheme has been proposed to identify these effects. Bibl. 50, Fig. 3, Tab. 1.

Effects on macroinvertebrate communities a year after the rehabilitation of an urban river (Tinto River, Portugal)

The Tinto River is a small urban watercourse in the Douro River basin (Portugal) that has been subject to various types of environmental disturbances over the years, which has led to severe degradation of its ecological status. Between 2013 and 2017, several studies were carried out to characterize and monitor some environmental parameters and to identify sources of environmental disturbances. From these studies, a set of actions and projects were undertaken in 2017–2019 to mitigate some of the environmental problems and to rehabilitate the river and its riverside areas. Here, we compare some parameters related to the river’s ecological state (naturalness of the channel and banks, physicochemical conditions and benthic macroinvertebrate community) before the interventions and one year after the interventions at Tinto River. Conductivity, oxygen concentration and biotic indices improved after one year, especially during the adverse hydrological conditions brought on by a very dry summer and autumn with some flood episodes.

Mental Workload (MWL) Measurement of Officers in Simulated Ship Navigation; Determining the Redlines of Performance

The main aim of this study is to measure the MWL of the operators according to the increasing workload during simulated ship navigation and it is aimed to contribute to the clarification of upper redline of task demands. Eye responses and performance results of 12 participants were recorded during the measurements carried out in bridge simulator. In addition, NASA-TLX was used for 12 participants at the end of each step of the scenarios. The results showed that MWL of the participants increased as the task load increased and their performance decreased. It has been observed that the developed ANN model can predict the MWL based on eye response indices (accuracy: 79.2%). The results of this study also showed that the task demand, whose upper red line became apparent, drew a set of projections and possibilities in which navigation conditions could not be performed by a single operator.

A Universal Representation for Quantum Commuting Correlations

We explicitly construct an Archimedean order unit space whose state space is affinely isomorphic to the set of quantum commuting correlations. Our construction only requires fundamental techniques from the theory of order unit spaces and operator systems. Our main results are achieved by characterizing when a finite set of positive contractions in an Archimedean order unit space can be realized as a set of projections on a Hilbert space.

Drift Artifacts Correction for Laboratory Cone-Beam Nanoscale X-ray Computed Tomography by Fitting the Partial Trajectory of Projection Centroid

A self-correction method for the drift artifacts of laboratory cone-beam nanoscale X-ray computed tomography (nano-CT) based on the trajectory of projection centroid (TPC) is proposed. This method does not require additional correction phantoms, simplifying the correction process. The whole TPC is estimated by the partial TPC in the optimal projection set. The projection drift is calculated by the measured TPC and the estimated TPC. The interval search method is used so that the proposed method can adapt to the case of a truncated projection due to drift. The fixed-angle scanning experiment of the Siemens star and the partial derivative analysis of the projection position show the necessity of correcting drift artifacts. Further, the Shepp–Logan phantoms with different drift levels are simulated. The results show that the proposed method can effectively estimate the horizontal and vertical drifts within the projection drift range of ±2 mm (27 pixels) with high accuracy. Experiments were conducted on tomato seed and bamboo stick to validate the feasibility of the proposed method for samples with different textures. The correction effect on different reconstructed slices indicates that the proposed method provides performance superior to the reference scanning method (RSM) and global fitting. In addition, the proposed method requires no extra scanning, which improves the acquisition efficiency, as well as radiation utilization.

Stakeholder analysis and landscape in a hospital project – elements and implications for value creation

PurposeThis study primarily aims to analyse stakeholder management challenges and how these emerge in the stakeholder landscape in a large hospital project. From this analysis, the authors aim to identify the implications that stakeholder management has on value creation in a hospital project.Design/methodology/approachThe research method is qualitative. Empirical data were collected in three cycles: project internal documentation, thematic interviews and survey. The literature related to hospital projects, stakeholder analysis and management, stakeholder salience and landscape is summarised, informing the qualitative design of the study.FindingsThe authors noted the importance of project-specific stakeholder identification, salience analysis and landscape description. The regulatory, formal and contractual stakeholders give an over-simplistic picture on stakeholder map. The operative stakeholder map and landscape describe the complexity, uncertainty, dynamism and institutional context inducing the challenges for the stakeholder management. There is an evident potential of utilising the stakeholder landscape and its elements in the resulting collaborative value creation in hospital projects. Multiple and changing stakeholders with differing expectations are an important opportunity to improve the value creation process.Originality/valueStakeholder management has recently attracted much attention in the industrial project setting. This research attempts to identify the operative stakeholder landscape in a large hospital project, not to mention its impact on value creation. This study offers a framework that can help academics and project management practitioners tackle the challenges amongst project stakeholders.

Towards a three-dimensional mapping of virus-host proximal protein interactions

Towards a three-dimensional mapping of virus-host proximal protein interactions The SARS-CoV-2 proximal interactome project sets out to build a comprehensive, three-dimensional map of protein virus-host protein interactions inside living human cells. It aims to shed light on unknown mechanisms of infection. It is made possible by a combination of advanced interactomics techniques coupled with algorithms for the 3D visualisation of networks.

Environmental governance of a Belt and Road project in Montenegro – National agency and external influences

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious effort to increase trans-continental connectivity and cooperation mainly through infrastructure investments and trade. On the one hand, this globally unparalleled initiative is expected to foster economic growth, but on the other hand, it can have substantial environmental implications. The BRI creates new challenges and opportunities for environmental governance as new actor constellations emerge in BRI host countries to plan and construct large infrastructure projects. Although China has outlined its vision of building a “green Belt and Road”, it remains unknown how it unfolds on the ground.As an example of a BRI project with clear environmental implications, we present a case study of the Bar-Boljare highway in Montenegro. Based on expert interviews, we elucidate the complex web of actors and contractual arrangements involved, and demonstrate how internal and external actors exert influence on domestic environmental governance in this EU candidate country in the Western Balkans. We find that Montenegro has substantial agency over the environmental governance of this BRI project, but shows little concern over the environmental impacts of the project. Environmental issues could have been prevented during the spatial planning phase, but important governance instruments such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) were of limited effectiveness due to its fast and late completion, lack of assessment of alternative routes, and the limited enforcement of the provisions therein. International institutions like the EU or UNESCO have drawn on their normative power in environmental governance to demand greater environmental safeguards from Montenegrin authorities. This case is illustrative of a larger set of BRI projects which run the risk of falling short on sustainability due to a lack of environmentally sound and transparent planning and implementation.