Automobility

Cars are machines with which we have complicated and ambivalent relations. Automobility considers the car as vehicle in multiple senses: as a vehicle of mobility and constraint, of representation and rituals, of communication and cultural meaning, of production and power, of desire and destruction. The artwork and research are rooted in an examination of my own relationship to the car, of relations I have observed in other people, and an exploration of the spaces, places, and practices designed for cars

On the Eikonal Approximation in AdS Space

We explore the eikonal approximation to graviton exchange in AdS_5 space, as relevant to scattering in gauge theories. We restrict ourselves to the regime where conformal invariance of the dual gauge theory holds, and to large 't Hooft coupling where the computation involves pure gravity. We give a heuristic argument, a direct loop computation, and a shock wave derivation. The scalar propagator in AdS_3 plays a key role, indicating that even at strong coupling, two-dimensional conformal invariance controls high-energy four-dimensional gauge-theory scattering.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures; published version: updated references and several clarifying remarks adde

Influence factor of Chinese elders' wealth management behaviour: an empirical study

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the influential demographic variables of elders’ wealth management behaviour. Purpose sampling for 122 older consumers (aged over 65) who participate in wealth management programme with instrument, was conducted in April 2007 in China (Taiwan area). Regression was performed for the data analysis. The results showed gender, educational background, and living location being key factors affecting elder consumers’ wealth-management behaviours, including consumers’ familiarity with financial products/services, sources of professional information, sources of word-of-mouth information, investment intention, and investment confidence. The main contributions of this not only include enhancing existing literature concerning wealth management, marketing, and elder behaviours (especially for clarifying how the controversial factors work), but unveiling elders’ behaviour tendency in such a blooming emerging market. Practical implications to bank marketers are also given

Public policy and retirement saving incentives in the UK

With ageing populations, OECD governments are searching for policies to increase retirement incomes. The UK government has introduced a series of policies, including the introduction of Personal Pensions from April 1988, of Stakeholder Pensions from April 2001, and the planned introduction of a National Pensions Saving Scheme (NPSS), designed to encourage individuals to save in retirement accounts rather than relying on state provision of social security in old age. These changes have been accompanied by changes in the tax treatment of private pensions. Arguably, the frequency and complexity of these reforms heightens the difficulties that households face in implementing consistent lifetime saving strategies. We examine some of these reform episodes in order to discover how households responded given the micro-incentives implied by this sequence of reforms – in particular those arising from the introduction of Personal and Stakeholder Pensions.Retirement saving pensions.

Increased hazard of myocardial infarction with insulin‐provision therapy in actively smoking patients with diabetes mellitus and stable ischemic heart disease: The BARI 2D (Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation 2 Diabetes) trial

Background In the BARI 2D (Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation 2 Diabetes) trial, randomization of diabetic patients with stable ischemic heart disease to insulin provision ( IP ) therapy, as opposed to insulin sensitization ( IS ) therapy, resulted in biochemical evidence of impaired fibrinolysis but no increase in adverse clinical outcomes. We hypothesized that the prothrombotic effect of IP therapy in combination with the hypercoagulable state induced by active smoking would result in an increased risk of myocardial infarction ( MI ). Methods and Results We analyzed BARI 2D patients who were active smokers randomized to IP or IS therapy. The primary end point was fatal or nonfatal MI . PAI ‐1 (plasminogen activator inhibitor 1) activity was analyzed at 1, 3, and 5 years. Of 295 active smokers, MI occurred in 15.4% randomized to IP and in 6.8% randomized to IS over the 5.3 years ( P =0.023). IP therapy was associated with a 3.2‐fold increase in the hazard of MI compared with IS therapy (hazard ratio: 3.23; 95% confidence interval, 1.43–7.28; P =0.005). Baseline PAI ‐1 activity (19.0 versus 17.5 Au/mL, P =0.70) was similar in actively smoking patients randomized to IP or IS therapy. However, IP therapy resulted in significantly increased PAI ‐1 activity at 1 year (23.0 versus 16.0 Au/mL, P =0.001), 3 years (24.0 versus 18.0 Au/mL, P =0.049), and 5 years (29.0 versus 15.0 Au/mL, P =0.004) compared with IS therapy. Conclusions Among diabetic patients with stable ischemic heart disease who were actively smoking, IP therapy was independently associated with a significantly increased hazard of MI . This finding may be explained by higher PAI ‐1 activity in active smokers treated with IP therapy. Clinical Trial Registration URL : http://www.clinicaltrials.gov . Unique identifier: NCT 00006305. </jats:sec

Error Control of Iterative Linear Solvers for Integrated Groundwater Models

An open problem that arises when using modern iterative linear solvers, such as the preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG) method or Generalized Minimum RESidual method (GMRES) is how to choose the residual tolerance in the linear solver to be consistent with the tolerance on the solution error. This problem is especially acute for integrated groundwater models which are implicitly coupled to another model, such as surface water models, and resolve both multiple scales of flow and temporal interaction terms, giving rise to linear systems with variable scaling. This article uses the theory of 'forward error bound estimation' to show how rescaling the linear system affects the correspondence between the residual error in the preconditioned linear system and the solution error. Using examples of linear systems from models developed using the USGS GSFLOW package and the California State Department of Water Resources' Integrated Water Flow Model (IWFM), we observe that this error bound guides the choice of a practical measure for controlling the error in rescaled linear systems. It is found that forward error can be controlled in preconditioned GMRES by rescaling the linear system and normalizing the stopping tolerance. We implemented a preconditioned GMRES algorithm and benchmarked it against the Successive-Over-Relaxation (SOR) method. Improved error control reduces redundant iterations in the GMRES algorithm and results in overall simulation speedups as large as 7.7x. This research is expected to broadly impact groundwater modelers through the demonstration of a practical approach for setting the residual tolerance in line with the solution error tolerance.Comment: 13 pages and 1 figur