4,674 research outputs found

    UMSL Bulletin 2023-2024

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    The 2023-2024 Bulletin and Course Catalog for the University of Missouri St. Louis.https://irl.umsl.edu/bulletin/1088/thumbnail.jp

    Restoring and valuing global kelp forest ecosystems

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    Kelp forests cover ~30% of the world’s coastline and are the largest biogenic marine habitat on earth. Across their distribution, kelp forests are essential for the healthy functioning of marine ecosystems and consequently underpin many of the benefits coastal societies receive from the ocean. Concurrently, rising sea temperatures, overgrazing by marine herbivores, sedimentation, and water pollution have caused kelp forests populations to decline in most regions across the world. Effectively managing the response to these declines will be pivotal to maintaining healthy marine ecosystems and ensuring the benefits they provide are equitably distributed to coastal societies. In Chapter 1, I review how the marine management paradigm has shifted from protection to restoration as well as the consequences of this shift. Chapter 2 introduces the field of kelp forest restoration and provides a quantitative and qualitative review of 300 years of kelp forest restoration, exploring the genesis of restoration efforts, the lessons we have learned about restoration, and how we can develop the field for the future. Chapter 3 is a direct answer to the question faced while completing Chapter 2. This chapter details the need for a standardized marine restoration reporting framework, the benefits that it would provide, the challenges presented by creating one, and the solutions to these problems. Similarly, Chapter 4 is a response to the gaps discovered in Chapter 2. Chapter 4 explores how we can use naturally occurring positive species interactions and synergies with human activities to not only increase the benefits from ecosystem restoration but increase the probability that restoration is successful. The decision to restore an ecosystem or not is informed by the values and priorities of the society living in or managing that ecosystem. Chapter 5 quantifies the fisheries production, nutrient cycling, and carbon sequestration potential of five key genera of globally distributed kelp forests. I conclude the thesis by reviewing the lessons learned and the steps required to advance the field kelp forest restoration and conservation

    The Politics of Platformization: Amsterdam Dialogues on Platform Theory

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    What is platformization and why is it a relevant category in the contemporary political landscape? How is it related to cybernetics and the history of computation? This book tries to answer such questions by engaging in multidisciplinary dialogues about the first ten years of the emerging fields of platform studies and platform theory. It deploys a narrative and playful approach that makes use of anecdotes, personal histories, etymologies, and futurable speculations to investigate both the fragmented genealogy that led to platformization and the organizational and economic trends that guide nowadays platform sociotechnical imaginaries

    Complexity Science in Human Change

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    This reprint encompasses fourteen contributions that offer avenues towards a better understanding of complex systems in human behavior. The phenomena studied here are generally pattern formation processes that originate in social interaction and psychotherapy. Several accounts are also given of the coordination in body movements and in physiological, neuronal and linguistic processes. A common denominator of such pattern formation is that complexity and entropy of the respective systems become reduced spontaneously, which is the hallmark of self-organization. The various methodological approaches of how to model such processes are presented in some detail. Results from the various methods are systematically compared and discussed. Among these approaches are algorithms for the quantification of synchrony by cross-correlational statistics, surrogate control procedures, recurrence mapping and network models.This volume offers an informative and sophisticated resource for scholars of human change, and as well for students at advanced levels, from graduate to post-doctoral. The reprint is multidisciplinary in nature, binding together the fields of medicine, psychology, physics, and neuroscience

    Digital twin development for improved operation of batch process systems

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    2023-2024 Boise State University Undergraduate Catalog

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    This catalog is primarily for and directed at students. However, it serves many audiences, such as high school counselors, academic advisors, and the public. In this catalog you will find an overview of Boise State University and information on admission, registration, grades, tuition and fees, financial aid, housing, student services, and other important policies and procedures. However, most of this catalog is devoted to describing the various programs and courses offered at Boise State

    Exploring Virtual Reality and Doppelganger Avatars for the Treatment of Chronic Back Pain

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    Cognitive-behavioral models of chronic pain assume that fear of pain and subsequent avoidance behavior contribute to pain chronicity and the maintenance of chronic pain. In chronic back pain (CBP), avoidance of movements often plays a major role in pain perseverance and interference with daily life activities. In treatment, avoidance is often addressed by teaching patients to reduce pain behaviors and increase healthy behaviors. The current project explored the use of personalized virtual characters (doppelganger avatars) in virtual reality (VR), to influence motor imitation and avoidance, fear of pain and experienced pain in CBP. We developed a method to create virtual doppelgangers, to animate them with movements captured from real-world models, and to present them to participants in an immersive cave virtual environment (CAVE) as autonomous movement models for imitation. Study 1 investigated interactions between model and observer characteristics in imitation behavior of healthy participants. We tested the hypothesis that perceived affiliative characteristics of a virtual model, such as similarity to the observer and likeability, would facilitate observers’ engagement in voluntary motor imitation. In a within-subject design (N=33), participants were exposed to four virtual characters of different degrees of realism and observer similarity, ranging from an abstract stickperson to a personalized doppelganger avatar designed from 3d scans of the observer. The characters performed different trunk movements and participants were asked to imitate these. We defined functional ranges of motion (ROM) for spinal extension (bending backward, BB), lateral flexion (bending sideward, BS) and rotation in the horizontal plane (RH) based on shoulder marker trajectories as behavioral indicators of imitation. Participants’ ratings on perceived avatar appearance were recorded in an Autonomous Avatar Questionnaire (AAQ), based on an explorative factor analysis. Linear mixed effects models revealed that for lateral flexion (BS), a facilitating influence of avatar type on ROM was mediated by perceived identification with the avatar including avatar likeability, avatar-observer-similarity and other affiliative characteristics. These findings suggest that maximizing model-observer similarity may indeed be useful to stimulate observational modeling. Study 2 employed the techniques developed in study 1 with participants who suffered from CBP and extended the setup with real-world elements, creating an immersive mixed reality. The research question was whether virtual doppelgangers could modify motor behaviors, pain expectancy and pain. In a randomized controlled between-subject design, participants observed and imitated an avatar (AVA, N=17) or a videotaped model (VID, N=16) over three sessions, during which the movements BS and RH as well as a new movement (moving a beverage crate) were shown. Again, self-reports and ROMs were used as measures. The AVA group reported reduced avoidance with no significant group differences in ROM. Pain expectancy increased in AVA but not VID over the sessions. Pain and limitations did not significantly differ. We observed a moderation effect of group, with prior pain expectancy predicting pain and avoidance in the VID but not in the AVA group. This can be interpreted as an effect of personalized movement models decoupling pain behavior from movement-related fear and pain expectancy by increasing pain tolerance and task persistence. Our findings suggest that personalized virtual movement models can stimulate observational modeling in general, and that they can increase pain tolerance and persistence in chronic pain conditions. Thus, they may provide a tool for exposure and exercise treatments in cognitive behavioral treatment approaches to CBP

    Essays in High Frequency Trading and Market Structure

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    High Frequency Trading (HFT) is the use of algorithmic trading technology to gain a speed advantage when operating in financial markets. The increasing gap between the fastest and the slowest players in financial markets raises questions around the efficiency of markets, the strategies players must use to trade effectively and the overall fairness of markets which regulators must maintain. This research explores markets affected by HFT activity from three perspectives. Firstly an updated microstructure model is proposed to allow for empirical exploration of current levels of noise in financial markets, this illustrates current noise levels are not disruptive to dominant trading strategies. Second, a ARCH type model is used to de-compose market data into a series of traders working price levels to demonstrate that in cases of suspected market abuse, regulators can assess the impact individual traders make on price even in fast markets. Finally, a review of various HFT control measures are examined in terms of effectiveness and in light of an ordoliberal benchmark of fairness. The work illustrates the extents to which HFT activity is not yet disruptive, but also shows where HFT can be a conduit for market abuse and provides a series of recommendations around use of circuit breakers, algorithmic governance standards and additional considerations where assets are dual listed in different countries

    General Course Catalog [2022/23 academic year]

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    General Course Catalog, 2022/23 academic yearhttps://repository.stcloudstate.edu/undergencat/1134/thumbnail.jp
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