Exploring an Objective Weighting System for Travel & Tourism Pillars

AbstractThe World Economic Forum employs Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Indexes (TTCI) to measure the travel & tourism (T&T) global competitiveness of a country. The TTCI overall scores are calculated with an arithmetic mean aggregation from the scores of the fourteen composite pillars with a subjective assumption of all the pillars having the same weights. This paper attempts to release such a subjective assumption by proposing a new solution framework to explore an objective weighting system for the pillars. The proposed solution framework employs the Expectation Maximization (EM) clustering algorithm to group the 139 ranked countries into three classes and then performs the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) analysis to explore the objective weighting system for the fourteen pillars. The results show that tourism infrastructure, ground transport infrastructure, air transport infrastructure, cultural resources, health and hygiene, and ICT infrastructure are the six most critical pillars contributing to the TTCI overall scores. Accordingly, the policy makers should allocate limited resources with priority to improve these six pillars to frog leap the T&T global competitiveness

EGAM Induced by Energetic-electrons and Nonlinear Interactions among EGAM, BAEs and Tearing Modes in a Toroidal Plasma

In this letter, it is reported that the first experimental results are associated with the GAM induced by energetic electrons (eEGAM) in HL-2A Ohmic plasma. The energetic-electrons are generated by parallel electric fields during magnetic reconnection associated with tearing mode (TM). The eEGAM localizes in the core plasma, i.e. in the vicinity of q=2 surface, and is very different from one excited by the drift-wave turbulence in the edge plasma. The analysis indicated that the eEGAM is provided with the magnetic components, whose intensities depend on the poloidal angles, and its mode numbers are jm/nj=2/0. Further, there exist intense nonlinear interactions among eEGAM, BAEs and strong tearing modes (TMs). These new findings shed light on the underlying physics mechanism for the excitation of the low frequency (LF) Alfv\'enic and acoustic uctuations.Comment: 5 pages,4 figure

Size Doesn't Matter: Towards a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology

notes: As the primary author, O’Malley drafted the paper, and gathered and analysed data (scientific papers and talks). Conceptual analysis was conducted by both authors.publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticlePhilosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms, and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology – including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations

Model-based Prediction of Length of Stay for Rehabilitating Stroke Patients

Background/Purpose: Accurate length-of-stay (LOS) estimates have an impact on medical costs for stroke patients. Most studies have reported only descriptive sample means or have provided linear-model-based estimates for LOS. This study calculated point and interval estimates by treating hospital discharge as an event, and utilizing the proportional hazards(PH) model to provide the estimation of hospital stay for first-ever stroke patients in a rehabilitation department of a clinical center. Methods: Pairwise analysis for correlations between age, sex, comorbidity status, modified Barthel index (MBI) and functional independence measure (FIM) was performed. These explanatory variables are used in the K-sample comparisons, the chi(2) test for association, the PH regression analysis, and log-transformed linear (LTL) regression. Results: The PH model gave a prediction on estimated mean LOS, with an absolute bias of 0.85 days, by combining MBI and FIM into a single variable, or a bias of 1.15 days and 1.16 days with MBI and FIM variables, respectively The LTL-based estimation generated a bias of 5.91 days. The PH model has relatively shorter confidence intervals than those obtained by sample-mean and LTL methods. Conclusion: We recommend using the PH model for predicting mean LOS when the PH assumption for patients with different clinical characteristics is satisfied. However, the proposed method only applies to rehabilitating stroke patients. [J Formos Med Assoc 2009;108(8):653-662

Predictors of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid exposure among herbicide applicators.

To determine the major factors affecting the urinary levels of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) among county noxious weed applicators in Kansas, we used a regression technique that accounted for multiple days of exposure. We collected 136 12-h urine samples from 31 applicators during the course of two spraying seasons (April to August of 1994 and 1995). Using mixed-effects models, we constructed exposure models that related urinary 2,4-D measurements to weighted self-reported work activities from daily diaries collected over 5 to 7 days before the collection of the urine sample. Our primary weights were based on an earlier pharmacokinetic analysis of turf applicators; however, we examined a series of alternative weighting schemes to assess the impact of the specific weights and the number of days before urine sample collection that were considered. The derived models accounting for multiple days of exposure related to a single urine measurement seemed robust with regard to the exact weights, but less to the number of days considered; albeit the determinants from the primary model could be fitted with marginal losses of fit to the data from the other weighting schemes that considered a different numbers of days. In the primary model, the total time of all activities (spraying, mixing, other activities), spraying method, month of observation, application concentration, and wet gloves were significant determinants of urinary 2,4-D concentration and explained 16% of the between-worker variance and 23% of the within-worker variance of urinary 2,4-D levels. As a large proportion of the variance remained unexplained, further studies should be conducted to try to systematically assess other exposure determinants

Essential Role for Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor in Gastritis Induced by Helicobacter pylori

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is an upstream regulator of immune and inflammatory responses; however, its role in Helicobacter pylori (HP)-associated gastritis remains unknown. We infected MIF knockout (KO) and wild-type mice with SS1 HP and found that 2 weeks after infection, MIF and its receptor CD74 were markedly up-regulated in wild-type mice. This up-regulation preceded the up-regulation of both tumor necrosis factor-α and intercellular adhesion molecule-1, as well as the development of moderate gastritis at 8 weeks, as determined by a significant infiltration of neutrophils, T cells, and macrophages. In contrast, KO mice were protected against HP-induced gastritis by preventing the up-regulation of CD74 and Th1-mediated immune injury, including a reduction in the Th1 transcriptional factor T-bet and the expression of interferon-γ. Additionally, inhibition of skin delayed type hypersensitivity reactions to HP antigens in KO mice also suggested a critical role for MIF in cell-mediated injury. A regulatory role for MIF in Th1-immune responses was further demonstrated by the finding that antigen-primed CD4+ T cells lacking MIF failed to differentiate into the Th1 phenotype; these cells were instead promoted to Th2 differentiation after challenge with HP antigen in vitro. Results from this study indicated that inhibition of HP-induced innate immune responses and Th1-mediated immune injury may be the key mechanisms by which KO mice failed to develop gastritis after HP infection

Preferential Formation of Homochiral Helical Sandwich-Shaped Architectures through the Metal-Mediated Assembly of Tris(imidazoline) Ligands with a Set of d(3)-d(10) Transition-Metal Ions

A novel type of chiral tris-monodentate imidazolinyl ligands ((S,S,S)-4 and (R,R,R)-4) has been achieved in good yields. The ligands show a strong tendency to induce the generation of the discrete sandwich-shaped M3L2 architectures with programmed helicity through the edge-directed complexation with a series of d(3)-d(10) transition-metal ions, while taking advantage of the steric hindrance of the bulky substituents of the imidazoline rings to avoid the formation of extended metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). In spite of different coordination geometries, monovalent metal ions (e.g. Ag+), divalent metal ions (e.g. Pd2+, Cu2+, Cd2+, Zn2+, Co2+, Mn2+, and Ni2+), and even trivalent metal ions (e.g. Fe3+ and Cr3+) exhibit isostructural coordination. Installation of stereo-centers fused onto the imidazoline rings results in favored handedness of the self-assemblies through the expression of molecular chirality into supramolecular helicity. In the crystal structures of[M-3{(S,S,S)-4}(2)], the self-assembly has to adopt the M form to relax the van der Waals repulsions of the phenyl and isopropyl groups. The replacement of (SSS)-4 with (R,R,R)-4 exclusively affords the opposite helicity (P). These results should provide important insights for the design of chiral helical capsule-like assemblies