Modeling cognitive load as a self-supervised brain rate with electroencephalography and deep learning

The principal reason for measuring mental workload is to quantify the cognitive cost of performing tasks to predict human performance. Unfortunately, a method for assessing mental workload that has general applicability does not exist yet. This research presents a novel self-supervised method for mental workload modelling from EEG data employing Deep Learning and a continuous brain rate, an index of cognitive activation, without requiring human declarative knowledge. This method is a convolutional recurrent neural network trainable with spatially preserving spectral topographic head-maps from EEG data to fit the brain rate variable. Findings demonstrate the capacity of the convolutional layers to learn meaningful high-level representations from EEG data since within-subject models had a test Mean Absolute Percentage Error average of 11%. The addition of a Long-Short Term Memory layer for handling sequences of high-level representations was not significant, although it did improve their accuracy. Findings point to the existence of quasi-stable blocks of learnt high-level representations of cognitive activation because they can be induced through convolution and seem not to be dependent on each other over time, intuitively matching the non-stationary nature of brain responses. Across-subject models, induced with data from an increasing number of participants, thus containing more variability, obtained a similar accuracy to the within-subject models. This highlights the potential generalisability of the induced high-level representations across people, suggesting the existence of subject-independent cognitive activation patterns. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by providing scholars with a novel computational method for mental workload modelling that aims to be generally applicable, does not rely on ad-hoc human-crafted models supporting replicability and falsifiability.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, 1 tabl

Alternative Dispute Resolution Design in Financial Markets—Some More Equal Than Others: Hong Kong\u27s Proposed Financial Dispute Resolution Center in the Context of the Experience in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, and Singapore

Systems of financial dispute resolution currently operate in most major financial centers throughout the world. As such systems expand and develop to address a growing number of finance-related disputes, they must inevitably address the question of their role and function in financial market regulation. Such questions are rooted in the larger socio-legal dispute processing debate examining how institutional dispute resolution mechanisms effectively regulate the repeat player knowledge/power gap through appropriate policies and procedures. Using the example of Hong Kong in comparison with financial dispute resolution models currently in existence in the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and the United States, this article finds that the appropriateness of a dispute resolution method is arguably informed by whether it takes on a regulatory or non-regulatory role. Regulatory dispute resolution modes taking on inquisitorial elements may be preferred when displacing the judicial function as they incorporate safeguards for disputants against the discretion of the third party intervener. But even for non-regulatory schemes, inquisitorial elements aimed at addressing the power/knowledge gap including suggesting the provision of information regarding relevant standards and rules, at least as touchstones, may still be incorporated into consensual models of dispute resolution, which aim to ensure a de minimis level of equity and fairness in the process

An empirical model for predicting the feasibility of corporate turnaround

The primary objective of this research was to identify the determinants of corporate turnaround feasibility and their effect (in terms of their state of existence and their existence) on the probability of corporate turnaround feasibility in Successful and Non Successful Turnaround Companies. The other objective was the development of an empirical model of the determinants of corporate turnaround feasibility capable of predicting the feasibility of corporate turnarounds. One hundred \u27troubled companies \u27 were identified out of two hundred and eleven publicly listed companies of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange through observations of their share price performance, earnings before interest and tax, earnings after interest and tax and by the Malaysian Z- Score (PNB Score) failure detection model test. They were further demarcated into 57 Successful Turnaround Companies (STC) and 43 Non Successful Turnaround Companies (NSTC). These two groups were then compared on the determinants of turnaround feasibility. The study confirms that the feasibility of corporate turnaround of an organisation is dependent on the existence (exists or non existant) and the state of existence (whether favourable or non favourable) of a set of variables or determinants of corporate turnaround feasibility i.e. Causes of Decline, Severity of Crisis, Company\u27s Historical Strategy, Industry Characteristics, Company\u27s Cost Price Structure, Commitment of Shareholders, Commitment of Bankers, Commitment of Creditors, Commitment of Employees, New Competent Management, Viable Core Business, Bridge Capital and Realistic Turnaround Plan. In identifying the existence and the state of existence of the key determinants of corporate turnaround feasibility in the STC and the NSTC, it was found that the STC had higher occurrences of favourable states of existence for the key determinants than the NSTC. STC\u27s were also found to experience higher occurrences of existence (exists) in the key determinants compared to the NSTC. A \u27Corporate Turnaround Feasibility Intensity Model\u27 was developed to test corporate turnaround feasibility intensity level. Subsequently, the empirical model or the multivariate logistic regression model was then applied to finalise and reaffirm the feasibility of the corporate turnaround of the organisation. The qualitative and empirical models complement each other in their application, or used on their own can test the feasibility of corporate turnaround. The availability of both qualitative and empirical models above to test and to predict the feasibility of corporate turnaround from this research can help solve one of the biggest dilemmas facing numerous shareholders, top management, management consultants and bankers, namely, deciding whether to go ahead with the turnaround process or not. The models can help save costly errors in terms of money, labour cost, psychological turmoil, time and wasteful resources due to wrong decision making. They also constitute a new contribution to knowledge

E. Wyndham Hulme's Classification of the Attributes of Books: On an Early Model of a Core Bibliographical Entity

Modelling bibliographical entities is a prominent activity within knowledge organization today. Current models of bibliographic entities, such as Functional Requirements for Bibliographical Records (FRBR) and the Bibliographic Framework (BIBFRAME), take inspiration from data-modelling methods developed by computer scientists from the mid-1970s on. Thus, it would seem that the modelling of bibliographic entities is an activity of very recent vintage. However, it is possible to find examples of bibliographical models from earlier periods of knowledge organization. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to one such model, outlined by the early 20th-century British classification theorist E. Wyndham Hulme in his essay on “Principles of Book Classification” (1911–1912). There, Hulme set forth a classification of various attributes by which books can conceivably be classified. These he first divided into accidental and inseparable attributes. Accidental attributes were subdivided into edition-level and copy-level attributes and inseparable attitudes, into physical and non-physical attributes. Comparison of Hulme’s classification of attributes with those of FRBR and BIBFRAME 2.0 reveals that the different classes of attributes in Hulme’s classification correspond to groups of attributes associated with different bibliographical entities in those models. These later models assume the existence of different bibliographic entities in an abstraction hierarchy among which attributes are distributed, whereas Hulme posited only a single entity— the book—, whose various aspects he clustered into different classes of attributes. Thus, Hulme’s model offers an interesting alternative to current assumptions about how to conceptualize the relationship between attributes and entities in the bibliographical universe

Unraveling the Complexity of Metal Ion Dissolution: Insights from Hybrid First-Principles/Continuum Calculations

The study of ion dissolution from metal surfaces has a long-standing history, wherein the gradual dissolution of solute atoms with increasing electrode potential, leading to their existence as ions in the electrolyte with integer charges, is well-known. However, our present work reveals a more intricate and nuanced physical perspective based on comprehensive first-principles/continuum calculations. We investigate the dissolution and deposition processes of 22 metal elements across a range of applied electrode potentials, unveiling diverse dissolution models. By analyzing the energy profiles and valence states of solute atoms as a function of the distance between the solute atom and metal surface, we identify three distinct dissolution models for different metals. Firstly, solute atoms exhibit an integer valence state following an integer-valence jump, aligning with classical understandings. Secondly, solute atoms attain an eventual integer valence, yet their valence state increases in a non-integer manner during dissolution. Lastly, we observe solute atoms exhibiting a non-integer valence state, challenging classical understandings. Furthermore, we propose a theoretical criterion for determining the selection of ion valence during electrode dissolution under applied potential. These findings not only contribute to a deeper understanding of the dissolution process but also offer valuable insights into the complex dynamics governing metal ion dissolution at the atomic level. Such knowledge has the potential to advance the design of more efficient electrochemical systems and open new avenues for controlling dissolution processes in various applications.Comment: still dont hav

Technological activities and their impact on the financial performance of the firm: Exploitation and exploration within and between firms.

This article analyzes the financial performance consequences of technology strategies categorized along two dimensions: (1) explorative versus exploitative and (2) solitary versus collaborative. The financial performance implications of firms’ positioning along these two dimensions has important managerial implications, but has received only limited attention in prior studies. Drawing on organizational learning theory and technology alliances literature, a set of hypotheses on the performance implications of firms’ technology strategies are derived. These hypotheses are tested empirically on a panel dataset (1996-2003) of 168 R&D-intensive firms based in Japan, the US and Europe and situated in five different industries (chemicals, pharmaceuticals, ICT, electronics, non-electrical machinery). Patent data are used to construct indicators of explorative versus exploitative technological activities (activities in new or existing technology domains) and collaborative versus solitary technological activities (joint versus single patent ownership). The financial performance of firms is measured via a market value indicator: Tobin’s Q index. The analyses confirm the existence of an inverted U-shape relationship between the share of explorative technological activities and financial performance. In addition, it is observed that most sample firms do not reach the optimal level of explorative technological activities. These findings point to the relevance of creating a balance between exploitation and exploration in the context of technological activities. Moreover, they suggest that, for the majority of R&D intensive firms, reaching such a balance between exploration and exploitation implies investing additional efforts and resources in exploring new knowledge domains. The analyses also show that firms, engaging more intensively in collaboration, perform relatively stronger in explorative activities. At the same time, a negative relationship between the share of collaborative technological activities and a firm’s market value is observed. Contrary to our expectations, it is collaboration in explorative technological activities, rather than collaboration in exploitative technological activities, that leads to a reduction in firm value. These findings question the relevance of open business models for technological activities. In particular, they suggest that the potential advantages of collaboration for (explorative) technological activities (i.e. access to complementary knowledge from other partners, sharing of technological costs and risks) might not compensate for the potential disadvantages, such as the incurred increase in coordination costs and the need to share innovation rewards across innovation partners.

Necessary conditions of first-order for an optimal boundary control problem for viscous damage processes in 2D

Controlling the growth of material damage is an important engineering task with plenty of real world applications. In this paper we approach this topic from the mathematical point of view by investigating an optimal boundary control problem for a damage phase-field model for viscoelastic media. We consider non-homogeneous Neumann data for the displacement field which describe external boundary forces and act as control variable. The underlying hyberbolic-parabolic PDE system for the state variables exhibit highly nonlinear terms which emerge in context with damage processes. The cost functional is of tracking type, and constraints for the control variable are prescribed. Based on recent results from [M. H. Farshbaf-Shaker, C. Heinemann: A phase field approach for optimal boundary control of damage processes in two-dimensional viscoelastic media. Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 25 (2015), 2749--2793], where global-in-time well-posedness of strong solutions to the lower level problem and existence of optimal controls of the upper level problem have been established, we show in this contribution differentiability of the control-to-state mapping, well-posedness of the linearization and existence of solutions of the adjoint state system. Due to the highly nonlinear nature of the state system which has by our knowledge not been considered for optimal control problems in the literature, we present a very weak formulation and estimation techniques of the associated adjoint system. For mathematical reasons the analysis is restricted here to the two-dimensional case. We conclude our results with first-order necessary optimality conditions in terms of a variational inequality together with PDEs for the state and adjoint state system

Balanced growth path solutions of a Boltzmann mean field game model for knowledge growth

In this paper we study balanced growth path solutions of a Boltzmann mean field game model proposed by Lucas et al [13] to model knowledge growth in an economy. Agents can either increase their knowledge level by exchanging ideas in learning events or by producing goods with the knowledge they already have. The existence of balanced growth path solutions implies exponential growth of the overall production in time. We proof existence of balanced growth path solutions if the initial distribution of individuals with respect to their knowledge level satisfies a Pareto-tail condition. Furthermore we give first insights into the existence of such solutions if in addition to production and knowledge exchange the knowledge level evolves by geometric Brownian motion

Regional structure of wages and external economies in Spain

Regional data on wages for the Spanish economy show that workers who live in developed regions earn more than workers in other regions. Literature on external economies provides a possible explanation of why firms do not move from these regions to others where wages are lower. Previous studies for the Spanish case use aggregated sectoral data to explain in terms of external economies why average wages are different across regions. The original contribution of this paper consists of using individual data to detect the existence and nature of external economies as an explanatory cause of territorial wage differences. With this aim, we have used individual data from the EPF 1990-91 (INE). This information permits us to control the influence of individual and job characteristics on wages to, first, detect the existence of external economies and, second, to test alternative explanations of their presence. The empirical evidence obtained confirms the relevance of territorial external economies and their influence on wages, as a result of improvements in the productive efficiency of the firm. In concrete terms, the more relevant external economies are associated with the regional human capital stock and geographical productive specialisation- Los datos sobre salarios provinciales muestran la existencia de diferencias salariales geográficas de considerable magnitud. Algunos estudios disponibles para el caso español tratan de explicar dichas diferencias en términos de economías externas utilizando para ello datos sobre salarios medios sectoriales. La principal aportación de este trabajo reside en el empleo de datos individuales para detectar la existencia y averiguar la naturaleza de las economías externas que afectan a los salarios de un territorio. Los datos individuales utilizados proceden de la EPF 1990/91. La información estadística disponible ha permitido controlar la influencia de las características individuales y del puesto de trabajo sobre el salario con el objetivo de, primero, detectar la existencia de economías externas y, después, conocer el origen y naturaleza de las mismas. La evidencia empírica obtenida confirma la relevancia de las economías externas territoriales y su influencia positiva sobre los salarios, como resultado de las mejoras aportadas a la eficiencia productiva de las empresas localizadas en dicho territorio. En concreto, las economías externas más importantes son las generadas por el stock de capital humano provincial y por la especialización del territorio