3,881 research outputs found

    The politics of internet privacy regulation in a globalised world: an examination of regulatory agencies' autonomy, politicisation, and lobbying strategies

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    The rapid proliferation of new information technologies has not only made internet privacy one of the most pressing issues of the contemporary area, it has also triggered new regulatory challenges because of their cross-border character. This PhD thesis examines the politics of internet privacy regulation at the global level. Existing research has largely investigated the extent to which there is no international privacy regime, when and why data protection regulations in the European Union affect member state laws and trade relations, and how interest groups shape data protection regulations in the EU. Little scholarly attention, however, has been accorded to the decision-making processes and policies produced beyond the legislative arena. Non-legislative and technical modes of policy-making are yet becoming more prominent in global politics. This research focuses on global data protection and internet privacy rules determined by leading, but little-known, internet regulatory agencies, in particular: the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, World Wide Web Consortium, Internet Engineering Task Force, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. It investigates three distinct but interconnected questions regarding regulatory agencies' autonomy, politicisation, and interest groups' lobbying strategies. Each of the three questions corresponds to one substantive chapter and makes distinct contributions, using separate theoretical frameworks, methods, and analyses. Taken together, the chapters provide important theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on the making of internet privacy regulation, with a special emphasis on the role of corporate interests

    Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion. Collected Works, Volume 5

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    This fifth volume on Advances and Applications of DSmT for Information Fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics, and is available in open-access. The collected contributions of this volume have either been published or presented after disseminating the fourth volume in 2015 in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals, or they are new. The contributions of each part of this volume are chronologically ordered. First Part of this book presents some theoretical advances on DSmT, dealing mainly with modified Proportional Conflict Redistribution Rules (PCR) of combination with degree of intersection, coarsening techniques, interval calculus for PCR thanks to set inversion via interval analysis (SIVIA), rough set classifiers, canonical decomposition of dichotomous belief functions, fast PCR fusion, fast inter-criteria analysis with PCR, and improved PCR5 and PCR6 rules preserving the (quasi-)neutrality of (quasi-)vacuous belief assignment in the fusion of sources of evidence with their Matlab codes. Because more applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the fourth book of DSmT in 2015, the second part of this volume is about selected applications of DSmT mainly in building change detection, object recognition, quality of data association in tracking, perception in robotics, risk assessment for torrent protection and multi-criteria decision-making, multi-modal image fusion, coarsening techniques, recommender system, levee characterization and assessment, human heading perception, trust assessment, robotics, biometrics, failure detection, GPS systems, inter-criteria analysis, group decision, human activity recognition, storm prediction, data association for autonomous vehicles, identification of maritime vessels, fusion of support vector machines (SVM), Silx-Furtif RUST code library for information fusion including PCR rules, and network for ship classification. Finally, the third part presents interesting contributions related to belief functions in general published or presented along the years since 2015. These contributions are related with decision-making under uncertainty, belief approximations, probability transformations, new distances between belief functions, non-classical multi-criteria decision-making problems with belief functions, generalization of Bayes theorem, image processing, data association, entropy and cross-entropy measures, fuzzy evidence numbers, negator of belief mass, human activity recognition, information fusion for breast cancer therapy, imbalanced data classification, and hybrid techniques mixing deep learning with belief functions as well

    Advancing Time-Dependent Earthquake Risk Modelling

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    Catastrophe (CAT) risk models are commonly used in the (re)insurance industry and by public organizations to estimate potential losses due to natural hazards like earthquakes. Conventional earthquake risk modelling involves several significant modelling assumptions, which mainly neglect: (a) the interaction between adjacent faults; (b) the long-term elastic-rebound behaviour of faults; (c) the short-term hazard increase associated with aftershocks; and (d) the damage accumulation in building assets that results from the occurrence of multiple earthquakes in a short time window. Several recent earthquake events/sequences (e.g., 2010/2012 Canterbury earthquakes, New Zealand; 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes, USA; 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes) have emphasised the simplicity of these assumptions and the need for earthquake risk models to start accounting for the short-and long-term time-dependent characteristics of earthquake risk. This thesis introduces an end-to-end framework for time-dependent earthquake risk modelling that incorporates (a) advancements in long-term time-dependent fault and aftershock modelling in the hazard component of the risk modelling framework; and (b) vulnerability models that account for the damage accumulation due to multiple ground motions occurring in a short period of time. The long-term time-dependent fault model used incorporates the elastic-rebound motivated methodologies of the latest Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3) and explicitly accounts for fault-interaction triggering between major known faults. The Epidemic-Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model is used to simulate aftershocks, representing the short-term hazard increase observed after large mainshocks. Damage-dependent fragility and vulnerability models are then used to account for damage accumulation. Sensitivity analyses of direct economic losses to these time dependencies are also conducted, providing valuable guidance on integrating time dependencies in earthquake risk modelling

    Scientific opinion on the tolerable upper intake level for vitamin D, including the derivation of a conversion factor for calcidiol monohydrate

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    Following two requests from the European Commission (EC), the EFSA Panel on Nutrition, Novel Foods and Food Allergens (NDA) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the revision of the tolerable upper intake level (UL) for vitamin D and to propose a conversion factor (CF) for calcidiol monohydrate into vitamin D3 for labelling purposes. Vitamin D refers to ergocalciferol (vitamin D2), cholecalciferol (vitamin D3), and calcidiol monohydrate. Systematic reviews of the literature were conducted to assess the relative bioavailability of calcidiol monohydrate versus vitamin D3 on serum 25(OH)D concentrations, and for priority adverse health effects of excess vitamin D intake, namely persistent hypercalcaemia/hypercalciuria and endpoints related to musculoskeletal health (i.e. falls, bone fractures, bone mass/density and indices thereof). Based on the available evidence, the Panel proposes a CF for calcidiol monohydrates of 2.5 for labelling purposes. Persistent hypercalciuria, which may be an earlier sign of excess vitamin D than persistent hypercalcaemia, is selected as the critical endpoint on which to base the UL for vitamin D. A lowest-observed-adverse-effect-level (LOAEL) of 250 μg/day is identified from two randomised controlled trials in humans, to which an uncertainty factor of 2.5 is applied to account for the absence of a no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL). A UL of 100 μg vitamin D equivalents (VDE)/day is established for adults (including pregnant and lactating women) and for adolescents aged 11–17 years, as there is no reason to believe that adolescents in the phase of rapid bone formation and growth have a lower tolerance for vitamin D compared to adults. For children aged 1–10 years, a UL of 50 μg VDE/day is established by considering their smaller body size. Based on available intake data, European populations are unlikely to exceed the UL, except for regular users of food supplements containing high doses of vitamin D

    Acoustic Propagation Variation with Temperature Profile in Water Filled Steel Pipes at Pressure

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    Conventional pressure leak testing of buried pipelines compares measurements of pressure with pipe wall temperature. An alternative proposed method uses acoustic velocity measurements to replace pipe wall temperature measurements. Early experiments using this method identified anomalous results of rising acoustic velocities thought to be caused by air solution. This research investigated the anomalous acoustic velocity measurements by evaluation of acoustic velocity variation with pressure, temperature and air solution. Quiescent air solution rate experiments were carried out in water filled pipes. Computer modelling of the air bubble shape variation with pipe diameter was found to agree with bubble and drop experiments over the pipe diameter range from 100 mm to 1000 mm. Bubbles were found to maintain constant width over a large volume range confirmed by experiments and modelling

    Using population biobanks to understand complex traits, rare diseases, and their shared genetic architecture

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    The study of the role of genetic variability in common traits has led to a growing number of studies aimed at representing whole populations. These studies gather multiple layers of information on healthy and non-healthy individuals at large scales, constituting what is known as population biobanks.In this thesis I took advantage of the potential of these population biobanks to measure the influence of genetic variation in common and rare traits. I explored the mechanisms behind these by exploring their interaction with conditions, physiological measurements, and habits in general and healthy population. First, I used the Lifelines cohort, with genetic information of Dutch population. Here, my colleagues and I explored traits with different levels of genetic influence we uncovered associations between both Blood type and dairy consumption with human gut microbiome function and composition, and we identified a protective factor for a rare type of cardiomyopathy with potential use for diagnosis.Additionally, within a global collaboration across world-wide biobanks totaling > 2 million individuals, we demonstrated the robustness of the connections between genetic variation and 14 different diseases across the populations. We also provided methodological guidance for the combination of the effects of genetic variation to calculate the risk of disease in studies including biobanks with populations of different ethnic backgrounds.Overall, my PhD research contributed on identifying and validating which factors are relevant for potential clinical applications, and provided guidelines to be used in future genetic studies on common traits and diseases at a global scale

    Development of an R package to learn supervised classification techniques

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    This TFG aims to develop a custom R package for teaching supervised classification algorithms, starting with the identification of requirements, including algorithms, data structures, and libraries. A strong theoretical foundation is essential for effective package design. Documentation will explain each function’s purpose, accompanied by necessary paperwork. The package will include R scripts and data files in organized directories, complemented by a user manual for easy installation and usage, even for beginners. Built entirely from scratch without external dependencies, it’s optimized for accuracy and performance. In conclusion, this TFG provides a roadmap for creating an R package to teach supervised classification algorithms, benefiting researchers and practitioners dealing with real-world challenges.Grado en Ingeniería Informátic

    Investigating Middle Stone Age foraging behaviour in the Karoo, South Africa

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    The Middle Stone Age (MSA) in Africa ~500- 50 kyr is recognised as a key time-period associated with important developments in hominin evolution, including the appearance of earliest genetic markers for Homo sapiens. Despite advances, our knowledge of the behaviour of hominins during this period is limited, especially for the early MSA (EMSA) pre-160ka. This study presents new data on animal bones recovered at the Bundu Farm site, in the upper Karoo region of the Northern Cape, South Africa, dated to circa ~300ka and found in association with EMSA type lithic facies, burning and hearth-like features. Previous analysis of the Bundu fauna compared the site to a G/wi hunter-gatherer 'biltong' processing locale, implying primary access to animal carcasses and socially complex hunting behaviour, circa 400-300 ka. An interpretation at odds with other interpretations of the EMSA data that suggest limited hunting and social complexity, and which would therefore have significant implications for MSA archaeology. To test the biltong hypothesis my study presents new data on the fracture characteristics of non-fresh animal bone broken by hammerstone and new environmental data for the site from an analysis of ostrich eggshell isotopes. Experimental and environmental data are used to provide a new interpretation of the Bundu fauna and my conclusion is that the data while not supporting the biltong model, does indicate evidence of delayed communal food consumption, use of fire and the transformation of foodstuffs into meals presaging and echoing social and ecological adaptations seen in the later MSA and LSA. The data also highlights a greater role for carnivores in the accumulation of the faunal assemblage and expedient hominin foraging similar to the preceding ESA and brings attention to the ecological relationships between hominins and carnivores in a Pleistocene Karoo environment that was markedly different from that of today. The study therefore rejects the biltong hypothesis for Bundu Farm as both inconsistent with likely EMSA social structures and ecology and instead proposes the site as evidence for novel behaviour indicative of a transition from ESA to MSA lifeways. The Bundu Farm site reflecting a rare archaeological occurrence where the shift in the behavioural trajectory that led to our species is observed

    An Epidemiological and Pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic Investigation into the Impact of Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales

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    Background: According to the 2019 CDC Antibiotic Resistance Threats Report, more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the United States each year, leading to more than 35,000 deaths. Among the most urgent threats identified by the CDC are carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE). Despite efforts to control the spread of these organisms, the number of estimated cases between 2012 and 2017 remained stable. In 2017, an estimated 13,100 hospitalized cases of CRE led to approximately 1,100 deaths and $130 million attributable healthcare costs. This dissertation seeks to address this issue from both a pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic and epidemiological perspective. Methods: We evaluated the susceptibility of 140 CRE clinical isolates against novel agents eravacycline and plazomicin using techniques standardized by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. We performed in-vitro static time-kill assays in 8 Verona Integron-encoded metallo-beta-lactamase (VIM)-producing CRE using single and combination exposures of cefepime, meropenem, piperacillin/tazobactam, amikacin, and plazomicin along with aztreonam and aztreonam/avibactam. Additionally, we performed a 10-year, inverse probability of treatment weighting adjusted retrospective cohort study comparing the risk in observing a composite outcome of all-cause mortality or discharge to hospice in patients having CRE vs. carbapenem-susceptible Enterobacterales (CSE) infections after 14 and 30 days. In this cohort, we also reported on the prevalence of CRE across the decade. Additionally, we compared the organism composition and susceptibilities of isolates cultured in both the CRE and CSE groups. Results: Plazomicin showed higher susceptibility than eravacycline against our CRE isolates. In time kill studies, plazomicin was bactericidal against 5/8 isolates as monotherapy. Meropenem/amikacin or meropenem/plazomicin were bactericidal in all experiments, except for one isolate which regrew against meropenem/plazomicin. Aztreonam/avibactam was bactericidal in all experiments tested. Neither cefepime nor piperacillin/tazobactam improved the activity of plazomicin against our isolates. Cefepime with amikacin showed inconsistent activity. In the retrospective cohort study, the overall incidence of CRE infections was 1.8%. CRE isolates exhibited higher resistance across all routinely tested antimicrobials classes compared to CSE. The CRE population appeared to be largely non-carbapenemase-producing given the high susceptibility of meropenem and the high prevalence of E. cloacae, a known AmpC-producer. Overall, the risk of composite outcome only appeared to be increased among patients with a bloodstream infection on the index date and could only be assessed when utilizing an exposure of carbapenem-non-susceptible Enterobacterales (CNSE) due to insufficient sample size. However, the results were inconclusive as they were not statistically significant. Conclusions: Novel antimicrobial agents plazomicin and aztreonam/avibactam were highly active against a collection of CRE including both Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) and VIM. Aztreonam/avibactam, meropenem/amikacin, and meropenem/plazomicin all exhibited comparably bactericidal activity. Furthermore, at an academic medical center in a non-endemic region for CRE, it appears that CRE infection may have increased the risk of experiencing the composite outcome after both 14 and 30 days, but definitive conclusions may not be drawn given the lack of statistical significance and imprecision in the estimation of the effect. The difficulties in drawing definitive conclusions from this study owing to limited sample size in the CRE or CNSE group stresses the importance of developing novel strategies and performing larger, multicenter studies when investigating highly resistant infections with low prevalence

    Essays on globalization, commodities, and local economic development

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    Over the course of this dissertation, I will explore the market mechanisms through which the unintended consequences of commodity booms in resource-oriented local labor markets have been fostered by features of international trade, which has been intensified over the past few decades. These features include offshoring, the presence of multinational companies, and participation in global value chains. For this purpose, this dissertation explores the cases of the mining and agricultural sectors in two major, resource-rich, emerging economies and exploits the different sources of exogenous variation peculiar to these commodity sectors to identify the mechanisms of trade in these sectors for contemporaneous and long-term local economic development. The work is organized in four chapters and provides a wide range of policy recommendations for resource-rich, developing economies to encourage a production structure that is more consistent with long-term local economic development. The first part of this dissertation comprises two chapters that explore the variation induced by the expansion of the copper industry in Chile, the largest copper producer, during the commodity price boom in the 2000s. The first chapter examines the heterogeneous economic impacts between multinational companies and domestic firms on the characterization of the long-term effects of a resource boom in local labor markets. On the side of firms, the empirical evidence suggests that although the linkage effect of multinationals can be lower than that of domestic firms due to offshoring, the local productivity spillovers induced by multinationals are slightly higher than those induced by domestic firms. These productivity spillovers can mitigate the productivity losses from crowding-out effects from the booming sector. Additionally, on the workers’ side, multinationals in the resource sector can affect the local economy by indirectly increasing housing rents via higher wages, which may imply lower, overall, welfare gains from the resource boom in relation to domestic firms. The second chapter analyzes the sectoral upgrading from low-processed mine copper to smelting and refined copper exports in Chile to estimate the local welfare and productivity gains from industrial upgrading in local labor markets. This chapter uses spatial variation in the relative importance between low-processed mine copper and smelting and refined copper production, with two main objectives: first, to measure the role of resource endowment and export competition in inducing industrial upgrading in the local labor markets; and second, to estimate the local welfare and productivity gains from industrial upgrading. The results suggest that the gains from this sectoral industrial upgrading in local labor markets are small and largely concentrated in the primary segment of mineral extraction. The last two chapters provide a different perspective by studying the different contexts and margins of adjustment of local areas to trade shocks to commodities. The third chapter examines the case of small-scale gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon to show how informal forms of extractive industries, relative to formal activities, are fostered by international demand shocks. For this purpose, this chapter estimates the heterogeneous effects of international price shocks on the intensity of activity of formal, informal, and illegal, small-scale gold producers. This chapter provides evidence that the differences in mining activity between illegal and legal producers disappear in the wake of high prices. The results suggest a rise in the profitability of illegal mining relative to formal and informal gold mining during price booms. Finally, the last chapter departs from the mining sector to analyze the extent to which increases in market access lead to higher local economic development and growth in remote places with low density and different degrees of specialization in agriculture. For this purpose, following a market access approach, this chapter estimates the effects of urbanization and road-infrastructure development on the structural transformation of rural villages in Chile. The empirical strategy uses the spatial and temporal variation in urban growth and road-infrastructure development to estimate the elasticities of access to urban markets by the population as well as to the farm and non-farm employment of rural villages. The results suggest important heterogeneity across rural areas, revealing that the growth of the non-farm sector induced by market access is higher in locations with better conditions for agricultural production
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