DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS: ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES

Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Mass-Radius Relation for Magnetic White Dwarfs

Recently, several white dwarfs with very strong surface magnetic fields have been observed. In this paper we explore the possibility that such stars could have sufficiently strong internal fields to alter their structure. We obtain a revised white dwarf mass-radius relation in the presence of strong internal magnetic fields. We first derive the equation of state for a fully degenerate ideal electron gas in a magnetic field using an Euler-MacLaurin expansion. We use this to obtain the mass-radius relation for magnetic $^{4}$He, $^{12}$C, and $^{56}$Fe white dwarfs of uniform composition.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures and 1 table, To appear in Ap

DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS: ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES

Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Modern Modular Building

Весь мир, и в частности Россия, уже более века испытывают дефицит жилых площадей. На протяжении этого времени, страны стремятся решить эту проблему различными способами, стараясь увеличить скорость строительства и доступность для населения. В середине XX века технический прогресс позволил поэтапно максимально укрупнить строительные элементы зданий, что привело к созданию новых индустриальных строительных систем и повышению темпов ввода жилья в разы. Тем не менее, вопрос полностью решен не был и остается актуальным по сей день. Существующее сегодня «модульное строительство» из легких блок-модулей не является столь массовым, но видится многими зарубежными архитекторами, строителями и инвесторами, наряду с другими традиционными способами разрешения жилищного кризиса с учетом современных требований по архитектуре и дизайну, комфорту и функциональности, энергоэффективности и экологичности. Вопросы сокращения издержек и влияния на окружающую среду, а также сроков реализации проектов, сегодня более чем актуальны для строительных компаний и нашли свое отражение, в том числе, в современном «модульном строительстве», в связи с чем России следовало бы обратить внимание на данную современную строительную систему, как один из способов решения проблем нехватки новых и расселения ветхих жилых площадей.The whole world and Russia, in particular, is lacking in accommodation units for more than a century. All this time countries tend to solve this problem in alternative ways trying to accelerate the housebuilding and to make housing more available for people. In the middle of the 20th century technical progress gradually enlarged the construction elements of buildings to the maximum which resulted in creation of new industrial construction systems and a multiple increase in the commissioning of housing. Nevertheless the issue hasn’t been completely resolved and remains relevant to this day. The current existing “modular construction” of light block-modules is not so massive but many foreign architects, housebuilders and investors see it along with the other traditional ways of solving the housing crisis based on modern requirements for architecture and design, comfort and functionality, energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. The issues of cost saving, environmental impact and project duration are very up-to-date for construction companies and also reflected in modern “modular construction” therefore Russia should draw its attention to this current construction system that positively proved itself abroad for the last decade as one of the solutions to the shortage of new accommodation and the resettlement of old housing

OBSERVATIONS ON THE USE OF BEHAVIORAL MODELS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

Much of the gap between the potential of Information Systems and their realization can be explained by behavioral and organizational issues. This paper outlines the scope of behavioral research in information systems using selected examples, identifies several principles underlying this work, and suggests reasons why the results of this research are of value.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

IceCube Science

We discuss the status of the kilometer-scale neutrino detector IceCube and its low energy upgrade Deep Core and review its scientific potential for particle physics. We subsequently appraise IceCube's potential for revealing the enigmatic sources of cosmic rays. After all, this aspiration set the scale of the instrument. While only a smoking gun is missing for the case that the Galactic component of the cosmic ray spectrum originates in supernova remnants, the origin of the extragalactic component remains as inscrutable as ever. We speculate on the role of the nearby active galaxies Centaurus A and M87.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures; Talk at Discrete 08, Valencia, Spai

A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH

Information Systems Working Papers Serie

The Daemo crowdsourcing marketplace

The success of crowdsourcing markets is dependent on a strong foundation of trust between workers and requesters. In current marketplaces, workers and requesters are often unable to trust each other’s quality, and their mental models of tasks are misaligned due to ambiguous instructions or confusing edge cases. This breakdown of trust typically arises from (1) flawed reputation systems which do not accurately reflect worker and requester quality, and from (2) poorly designed tasks. In this demo, we present how Boomerang and Prototype Tasks, the fundamental building blocks of the Daemo crowdsourcing marketplace, help restore trust between workers and requesters. Daemo’s Boomerang reputation system incentivizes alignment between opinion and ratings by determining the likelihood that workers and requesters will work together in the future based on how they rate each other. Daemo’s Prototype tasks require that new tasks go through a feedback iteration phase with a small number of workers so that requesters can revise their instructions and task designs before launch

Prototype tasks: Improving crowdsourcing results through rapid, iterative task design

Low-quality results have been a long-standing problem on microtask crowdsourcing platforms, driving away requesters and justifying low wages for workers. To date, workers have been blamed for low-quality results: they are said to make as little effort as possible, do not pay attention to detail, and lack expertise. In this paper, we hypothesize that requesters may also be responsible for low-quality work: they launch unclear task designs that confuse even earnest workers, under-specify edge cases, and neglect to include examples. We introduce prototype tasks, a crowdsourcing strategy requiring all new task designs to launch a small number of sample tasks. Workers attempt these tasks and leave feedback, enabling the requester to iterate on the design before publishing it. We report a field experiment in which tasks that underwent prototype task iteration produced higher-quality work results than the original task designs. With this research, we suggest that a simple and rapid iteration cycle can improve crowd work, and we provide empirical evidence that requester “quality” directly impacts result quality

Chondrocyte secretome: a source of novel insights and exploratory biomarkers of osteoarthritis

The extracellular matrix (ECM) of articular cartilage is comprised of complex networks of proteins and glycoproteins, all of which are expressed by its resident cell, the chondrocyte. Cartilage is a unique tissue given its complexity and ability to resist repeated load and deformation. The mechanisms by which articular cartilage maintains its integrity throughout our lifetime is not fully understood, however there are numerous regulatory pathways known to govern ECM turnover in response to mechanical stimuli. To further our understanding of this field, we envision that proteomic analysis of the secretome will provide information on how the chondrocyte remodels the surrounding ECM in response to load, in addition to providing information on the metabolic state of the cell. In this review, we attempt to summarize the recent mass spectrometry-based proteomic discoveries in healthy and diseased cartilage and chondrocytes, to facilitate the discovery of novel biomarkers linked to degenerative pathologies, such as osteoarthritis (OA)