Antennas and Propagation of Implanted RFIDs for Pervasive Healthcare Applications

© 2010 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.This post-acceptance version of the paper is essentially complete, but may differ from the official copy of record, which can be found at the following web location (subscription required to access full paper): http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2010.205101

Sustainability on the Horizon? An investigation into Sustainable Banking Practices in an Emerging Economy

Purpose: This study investigates sustainability practices in the banking industry, focusing on a developing economy. It employs the triple-bottom-line framework to answer the following research question: How do banks in Nigeria conceptualise sustainability, and what role does it play in their banking practices? Design/approach/methodology: This study adopts a social constructivist approach in its exploration of banking sustainability practices in an emerging economy, and the research design is a purpose-based (exploratory) approach. The qualitative data was collected from 33 bank personnel from various bank units and departments through semi-structured interviews in order to achieve the research objective. Findings: The study reveals a lack of sustainability policies and programmes, as banks focus mainly on profitability. It uncovers unfair treatments of bank workers through casualisation, low wages, and work overload. It indicates that most banks in developing countries ignore environmental considerations, as they still carry out paper-based transactions and use dieselpowered generators, which cause various negative environmental impacts. It also confirms that governments and banks in the country are not doing enough to propagate sustainable practices and banks have also not taken advantage of the sustainability concept to promote their brands; instead, they consider it as requiring additional operational costs. Practical implications: The findings demonstrate the need for banks to see sustainability from a marketing point of view and adopt sustainable practices to create additional value that will improve their brand image and enhance their competitiveness. Originality/value: The importance of sustainability in the banking industry in emerging economies is considered a viable means of contributing to the overall development goals of the United Nations as the world tries to preserve the environment. It also highlights the consequences of inaction or unsustainable banking practices

Functional Sequential Treatment Allocation

Consider a setting in which a policy maker assigns subjects to treatments, observing each outcome before the next subject arrives. Initially, it is unknown which treatment is best, but the sequential nature of the problem permits learning about the effectiveness of the treatments. While the multi-armed-bandit literature has shed much light on the situation when the policy maker compares the effectiveness of the treatments through their mean, much less is known about other targets. This is restrictive, because a cautious decision maker may prefer to target a robust location measure such as a quantile or a trimmed mean. Furthermore, socio-economic decision making often requires targeting purpose specific characteristics of the outcome distribution, such as its inherent degree of inequality, welfare or poverty. In the present paper we introduce and study sequential learning algorithms when the distributional characteristic of interest is a general functional of the outcome distribution. Minimax expected regret optimality results are obtained within the subclass of explore-then-commit policies, and for the unrestricted class of all policies

Spectral decomposition of starbursts and AGNs in 5-8 micron Spitzer IRS spectra of local ULIRGs

We present an analysis of the 5-8 micron Spitzer-IRS spectra of a sample of 68 local Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs). Our diagnostic technique allows a clear separation of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) and starburst (SB) components in the observed mid-IR emission, and a simple analytic model provides a quantitative estimate of the AGN/starburst contribution to the bolometric luminosity. We show that AGNs are ~30 times brighter at 6 micron than starbursts with the same bolometric luminosity, so that even faint AGNs can be detected. Star formation events are confirmed as the dominant power source for extreme infrared activity, since ~85% of ULIRG luminosity arises from the SB component. Nonetheless an AGN is present in the majority (46/68) of our sources.Comment: 5 Pages, 3 figures. MNRAS Letters, Accepte

A gas-rich AGN near the centre of a galaxy cluster at z ~ 1.4

The formation of the first virialized structures in overdensities dates back to ~9 Gyr ago, i.e. in the redshift range z ~ 1.4 - 1.6. Some models of structure formation predict that the star formation activity in clusters was high at that epoch, implying large reservoirs of cold molecular gas. Aiming at finding a trace of this expected high molecular gas content in primeval clusters, we searched for the 12CO(2-1) line emission in the most luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN) of the cluster around the radio galaxy 7C 1756+6520 at z ~ 1.4, one of the farthest spectroscopic confirmed clusters. This AGN, called AGN.1317, is located in the neighbourhood of the central radio galaxy at a projected distance of ~780 kpc. The IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer was used to investigate the molecular gas quantity in AGN.1317, observing the 12CO(2-1) emission line. We detect CO emission in an AGN belonging to a galaxy cluster at z ~ 1.4. We measured a molecular gas mass of 1.1 x 10^10 Msun, comparable to that found in submillimeter galaxies. In optical images, AGN.1317 does not seem to be part of a galaxy interaction or merger.We also derived the nearly instantaneous star formation rate (SFR) from Halpha flux obtaining a SFR ~65 Msun/yr. This suggests that AGN.1317 is actively forming stars and will exhaust its reservoir of cold gas in ~0.2-1.0 Gyr.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

The Effect of Scientific Inquiry Learning Model and Creative Thinking Ability on Science Process Skills of Student

The aims of this research were to analyze science process skills of students using scientific inquiry Learning Model is better than science process skills of students using conventional learning, analyze science process skills of students who have high category in creative thinking ability better than low category in creative thinking ability, and analyzethe interaction between scientific inquiry learning and the level of creative thinking ability in improving the science process skills. The research type was quasi experiment and two group pretest-posttest designs were used in this study. The population of the study was grade X of SMAN 1 Stabat Academic Year 2014/2015. The sample was chosen by using cluster random class technique. The sample was divided into two classes, the experiment class taught by scientific inquiry and control class taught by conventional learning. The instrument was consisting of science process skills test and creative thinking ability test. Data in this research was analyzed by using two way ANOVA. The results of this research showed that the scientific inquiry learning model was better than conventional learning in improving the students science process skills, the science process skills of the students who had high category in creative thinking ability was better than low category, and there was interaction between scientific inquiry learning model and the level of creative thinking ability in improving students science process skills

Pengaruh Model Pembelajaran Inkuiri Dan Kreativitas Terhadap Keterampilan Generik Sains Siswa Di SMA Negeri 1 Peukan Pidie

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk: (1) Mengetahui perbedaan keterampilan generik sains siswa menggunakan model pembelajaran inkuiri dan pembelajaran konvensional. (2) Mengetahui keterampilan generik sains antara siswa yang mempunyai kreativitas tinggi dan siswa yang mempunyai kreativitas rendah. (3) Mengetahui interaksi antara model pembelajaran inkuiri dengan kreativitas terhadap keterampilan generik sains siswa pada materi alat alat optik. Penelitian ini merupakan jenis penelitian quasi eksperimen. Populasi penelitian ini adalah seluruh siswa kelas X semester II SMA Negeri 1 Peukan Pidie T.A. 2013/2014 sebanyak 5 kelas (152 orang). Sampel penelitian terdiri dari 2 kelas yaitu kelas X-1 (kelas Eksperimen) dan kelas X-4 (kelas kontrol) yang ambil secara cluster random sampling. Instrumen penelitian berupas tes keterampilan generik sains dan tes kreativitas. Data dianalisis menggunakan SPSS 17, hasil pengujian hipotesis ANAVA 2 jalur sebagai berikut: (1) Model pembelajaran Inkuri lebih baik dalam meningkatkan keterampilan generik sains siswa dari pada pembelajaran konvensional. (2) Keterampilan generik sains siswa yang mempunyai kreativitas tinggi lebih baik dibanding dengan siswa yang mempunyai kreativitas rendah. (3) Ada interaksi antara model pembelajaran Inkuiri dengan pembelajaran konvemsional dan kreativitas terhadap keterampilan generik sains siswa

Efek Model Pembelajaran Kooperatif Tipe Group Investigation Dan Teamwork Skills Terhadap Hasil Belajar Fisika

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk: Mengetahui perbedaan hasil belajarfisika siswa melalui model pembelajaran kooperatif tipe GroupInvestigationdengan model pembelajaran Direct Instruction. Mengetahui perbedaan hasilbelajar fisika antara kelompok siswa yang memiliki teamwork skills dibawah rata-rata dengan di atas rata-rata. Mengetahui interaksi antara modelpembelajaran dengan tingkat teamwork skills siswa dalam mempengaruhi hasil belajar siswa. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian quasi eksperimen dengan desain faktorial 2x2. Populasi penelitian ini adalah seluruh siswakelas X. Sampel dalam penelitian ini dilakukan secara cluster randomsebanyak dua kelas, dimana kelas pertama sebagai kelas eksperimenditerapkan model pembelajaran kooperatif tipe Group Investigation dankelas kedua sebagai kelas kontrol diterapkan model pembelajaran DirectInstruction. Instrumen yang digunakan dalampenelitian ini yaitu instrumentes hasil belajar fisika dalam bentuk uraian sebanyak 8 soal dan insrumenobservasi teamwok skills yang telah dinyatakan valid dan reliabel. Datadianalisis menggunakan analisis Anava dua jalur. Dari hasil penelitian dapatdisimpulkan bahwa: Hasil belajar fisika pada model kooperatif tipe groupinvestigation lebih tinggi dibandingkan model direct interuction. Hasilbelajar fisika pada kelompok siswa yang memiliki tingkat teamwork skills diatas rata-rata lebih tinggi dibandingkan di bawah rata-rata. Terdapatinteraksiantara model pembelajaran dengan tingkat teamwork skills siswa dalammempengaruhi hasil belajar siswa. Model pembelajaran kooperatif tipegroup investigation sangat baik diterapkan pada kelompok siswa yangmemiliki teamwork skills di atas rata-rata. Sedangkan pada model directinteruction tidak perlu memperhatikan teamwork skills