Bouncing cosmologies with dark matter and dark energy

We review matter bounce scenarios where the matter content is dark matter and dark energy. These cosmologies predict a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum with a slightly red tilt for scalar perturbations and a small tensor-to-scalar ratio. Importantly, these models predict a positive running of the scalar index, contrary to the predictions of the simplest inflationary and ekpyrotic models, and hence could potentially be falsified by future observations. We also review how bouncing cosmological space-times can arise in theories where either the Einstein equations are modified or where matter fields that violate the null energy condition are included.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, v2: Discussion extended and clarifications added. Invited review for special edition of Univers

Do business groups affect corporate cash holdings?:Evidence from a transition economy

AbstractWe examine whether business groups’ influence on cash holdings depends on ownership. Group affiliation can increase firms’ agency costs or benefit firms by providing an internal capital market, especially in transition economies characterized by weak investor protection and difficult external capital acquisition. A hand-collected dataset of Chinese firms reveals that group affiliation decreases cash holdings, alleviating the free-cash-flow problem of agency costs. State ownership and control of listed firms moderate this benefit, which is more pronounced when the financial market is less liquid. Group affiliation facilitates related-party transactions, increases debt capacity and decreases investment-cash-flow sensitivity and overinvestment. In transitional economies, privately controlled firms are more likely to benefit from group affiliation than state-controlled firms propped up by the government

JRDB-Pose: A Large-scale Dataset for Multi-Person Pose Estimation and Tracking

Autonomous robotic systems operating in human environments must understand their surroundings to make accurate and safe decisions. In crowded human scenes with close-up human-robot interaction and robot navigation, a deep understanding requires reasoning about human motion and body dynamics over time with human body pose estimation and tracking. However, existing datasets either do not provide pose annotations or include scene types unrelated to robotic applications. Many datasets also lack the diversity of poses and occlusions found in crowded human scenes. To address this limitation we introduce JRDB-Pose, a large-scale dataset and benchmark for multi-person pose estimation and tracking using videos captured from a social navigation robot. The dataset contains challenge scenes with crowded indoor and outdoor locations and a diverse range of scales and occlusion types. JRDB-Pose provides human pose annotations with per-keypoint occlusion labels and track IDs consistent across the scene. A public evaluation server is made available for fair evaluation on a held-out test set. JRDB-Pose is available at https://jrdb.erc.monash.edu/ .Comment: 13 pages, 11 figure

Project-based strategic management education: A client perspective on key challenges

This paper explores the benefits of project-based learning from the small business client perspective. The reflections of a sample of small businesses were collected through a feedback survey after participating in a semester-long project-based learning process developed for the Strategic Management curriculum in the College of Business at Western Carolina University (WCU). The clients that participated in projects are primarily local and regional businesses in Western North Carolina; they were sourced through the Small Business Centers (SBC) located at the area community colleges and the Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC) located at WCU. Most participating organizations are existing small businesses or start-ups with a high probability and capacity for growth that will enhance the economic development of the region. Literature review of both small business and project-based pedagogy challenges demonstrated the potential for co-creation of value. This study laid out the steps we took to organize a project-based Strategic Management pedagogy. Our analysis of both close- and open-ended client feedback revealed four key success factor themes for developing a mutually beneficial project-based pedagogy: communication and interaction, project organization and student preparation, quality of work, and co-creation of value; the specific priority actions for each theme are detailed in the paper

Characterization of Livestock Odors Using Steel Plates, Solid Phase Microextraction, and Multidimensional-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry-Olfactometry

Livestock odor characterization is one of the most challenging analytical tasks. This is because odor-causing gases are often present at very low concentrations in a complex matrix of less important or irrelevant gases. The objective of this project was to develop a set of characteristic reference odors from a swine barn in Iowa, and in the process identify compounds causing characteristic swine odor. Odor samples were collected using a novel sampling methodology consisting of clean steel plates exposed inside and around the swine barn for up to one week. Steel plates were then transported to the laboratory and stored in clean jars. Headspace solid phase microextraction (SPME) was used to extract characteristic odorants collected on the plates. All analyses were conducted on a Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)-Olfactometry system where the human nose is used as a detector simultaneously with chemical analysis via MS. The effects of sampling time, distance from a source, and the presence of particulate matter (PM) on the abundance of specific gases, odor intensity, and odor character were tested. Steel plates were effectively able to collect key volatile compounds and odorants. The abundance of specific gases and odor was amplified when plates collected PM. The results of this research indicate that PM is major carrier of odor and several key swine odorants. Three odor panelists were consistent in identifying p-cresol as closely resembling characteristic swine odor as well as attributing the largest odor response out of the samples to p-cresol. Further research is warranted to determine how the control of PM emissions from swine housing could affect odor emissions