The Use of Selected Methods of Linear Ordering to Assess the Innovation Performance of the European Union Member States

The growing interest in measuring economic and social phenomena that are difficult to observe directly increases the need for researchers to broaden the use of multivariate statistical analysis methods. The ease of interpreting results presented in the form of rankings makes it common practice to use different methods of linear ordering of objects. If the appropriate assumptions are met, the determined set of variables allows for the construction of a synthetic measure whose ordered values provide a ranking. Such a statistical approach is quite often used in assessing the level of innovativeness of economies, and the literature abounds in various innovation indices. The starting point of this paper is a set of 27 variables on the basis of which the Summary Innovation Index is developed. After verifying the statistical assumptions and reducing the database to 21 diagnostic factors, the authors construct a total of nine innovation rankings, using different methods of linear ordering and selected procedures for normalisation of variables. The aim of the paper is therefore to assess the impact of selected methods of linear ordering (Hellwig’s method, TOPSIS method, GDM method) and various procedures for normalising variables (classic standardisation, positional standardisation, quotient transformation) on the final ranking of the EU Member States due to the level of their innovation performance. The obtained results confirm that the applied method of linear ordering and the selection of the normalisation procedure have an impact on the final ranking of the examined objects – in this case, the final ranking of the EU Member States due to the level of their innovativeness analysed in the presented research

Exclusive two-photon annihilation at large energy or large virtuality

I review recent progress in the theory of gamma gamma annihilation into meson or baryon pairs at large energy, and of the process gamma* gamma* -> pi0 at large photon virtuality.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Presented at PHOTON 2003, Frascati, Italy, 7-11 April 200

A symptomatic pelvic rib

Pelvic rib is a rare anomaly where ectopic rib is found in a pelvic region. It is usually found occasionally in asymptomatic patients. We report a case of 15-year-old male, diagnosed with a symptomatic pelvic rib. It had an unusual presentation creating a pseudotumour associated with pain and reduced range of motion in the hip joint. Patient was operated on with good result and final diagnosis was confirmed in pathological examination. (Folia Morphol 2018; 77, 2: 406–408

Persistent left superior vena cava with an absent right superior vena cava in a 72-year-old male with multivessel coronary artery disease

Congenital anomalies of systemic veins are usually asymptomatic and foundincidentally during ultrasonography, computed tomography (CT) or magneticresonance examinations performed for other clinical indications. Persistent leftsuperior vena cava (PLSVC) with absent right superior vena cava (RSVC) is thecongenital aberration in the thoracic venous system which occurs in only 0.09%to 0.13% of patients who have congenital heart defects. In this paper, we presentthe extremely rare case of a 72-year-old male with PLSVC associated withan absence of RSVC, referred for coronary CT angiography. Multidetector CTangiography is a powerful tool for the detection of venous anomalies, which isessential before invasive procedures such as the implantation of pacemakers

Prevalence of congenital coronary artery anomalies and variants in 726 consecutive patients based on 64-slice coronary computed tomography angiography

  Background: Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is helpful in making a precise noninvasive evaluation of coronary anatomy, allowing concomitant evaluation of other cardiac structures. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of coronary artery variations detected by 64-slice mutidetector CT. Materials and methods: The results of ECG-gated CCTA in 726 consecutive patients (mean age 58 years) were analysed retrospectively. The main indicationsfor CCTA were a typical chest pain, angina pectoris, screening for coronary artery disease and determination of the patency of bypass grafts or stents. Acquisitionwas performed with a 64-detector CT scanner with retrospective ECG gating. Imaging results were assessed by experienced cardiovascular radiologist. Results: The overall incidence of coronary artery anomalies was 1.1% (8 out of 726 participants). The most common anomaly was an anomalous origin of the circumflex artery from the right coronary sinus with a retroaortic course (4 patients,0.6%), followed by origin of right coronary artery from the left coronary sinus (2 patients, 0.3%). One patient with abnormal origin of the left main artery from the right coronary sinus (0.1%) and 1 patient with a circumflex artery origin from the proximal segment of the right coronary artery (0.1%) were observed, both with retroartic course. Conclusions: CCTA is a noninvasive imaging technique useful for the precise evaluation of variations of the coronary arteries. This study shows similar results to other reports on this subject.

Approximate solution to a hybrid model with stochastic volatility: a singular-perturbation strategy

We study a hybrid model of Sch¨obel-Zhu-Hull-White-type from a singular-perturbationanalysis perspective. The merit of the paper is twofold: On one hand, we find boundary conditions for the deterministic non-linear degenerate parabolic partial differential equation for the evolution of the stock price. On the other hand, we combine two-scales regular- and singular-perturbation techniques to find an approximate solution to the pricing PDE. The aim is to produce an expression that can be evaluated numerically very fast

Uncertainty quantification and Heston model

In this paper, we study the impact of the parameters involved in Heston model by means of Uncertainty Quantification. The Stochastic Collocation Method already used for example in computational fluid dynamics, has been applied throughout this work in order to compute the propagation of the uncertainty from the parameters of the model to the output. The well-known Heston model is considered and involved parameters in the Feller condition are taken as uncertain due to their important influence on the output. Numerical results where the Feller condition is satisfied or not are shown as well as a numerical example with real market data

POLISH TOWNS AND THE CHANGES IN THEIR AREAS AND POPULATION DENSITIES

DOI: 10.2478 Available on-line at: http://www.bulletinofgeography.umk.pl http://versita.com/bgssThis article presents the spatial and population density changes in Polish towns in the years 1960–2003. The assumed time frame allowed identifying area changes for a complete set of towns in different socio-economic conditions: the period of intense industrialisation, the economic crisis of the 1980s, the period of economic transition and finally in the years of a market economy. The investigation revealed that the trend shown by changes and the size of a town as measured by the number of its population are distinctly interrelated. It also demonstrated a much stronger dynamics of changes in the first subperiod, i.e. years 1960–1985, followed by a phase of relative stabilization (compared with the previous period) after the year 1980 (mainly of the spatial changes). Moreover, change intensity and change trends observed for the urban areas and population densities vary considerably in terms of space