680 research outputs found
Analisis Pengendalian Intern Piutang Usaha Pada PT. ANI Unit Percetakan Arnoldus Ende
This research is to analyze the Accounts Receivable Internal Control at PT. ANI Arnoldus Ende Printing Unit. The research method used is descriptive qualitative research methods. Sources of data in this study are using primary and secondary data. The results achieved in this study are to show that the company's internal control for trade receivables actually exists, but it does not function properly which can be seen in the inefficient internal control procedures for providing accounts receivable. During the initial process, the internal control procedure for giving accounts receivable, which checks customer credit data, should have been carried out by the sales department. At the stage of delivery of ordered goods or finished goods it should be done by the shipping department, but at PT. ANI Arnoldus Printing unit is carried out by the Production Department. Approval of accounts receivable is carried out by company managers, but in the organizational structure there is an internal control team (budget), where in this study the main tasks and functions of the internal supervisory team (budget) are not visible
Saltmarsh restoration: the shift from a terrestrial to a marine environment
Over recent decades salt marshes have been restored as a cost-effective response to coastal biodiversity loss and flood management. Previous research on established sites has demonstrated that restored marshes have significantly different sediment properties than natural marshes which appears to broadly impact ecosystem function.
A study was conducted to examine the differences in natural and realigned salt marshes in terms of plant biodiversity, sediment characteristics (bulk density, water content, pH and nutrients) and microbial communities in Colchester Essex, UK. We studied three pairs of natural and realigned salt marshes of different ages, 13, 62, 118 years since breaching of the sea wall. Furthermore, we studied monthly changes of sediment characteristics of a newly realigned site from breach to 14 months of tidal inundation. In addition to monthly sediment changes, we placed invertebrate exclusion chambers in the newly realigned marsh to examine the effect of bioturbation in changing sediment characteristics and microbial communities.
Sediment characteristics of our realigned marshes were significantly different than those of the natural marshes. In addition, natural marshes displayed higher variability and heterogeneity in nutrient and water content than our realigned marshes. Within our newly realigned salt marsh we observed that despite the different starting sediment characteristics, 14 months after inundation our realigned site was broadly similar to the natural marsh but only on the top 5cm of sediment, indicating the presence of a relic agricultural layer which can affect the hydrology and development of the system. Macro-invertebrate colonization has shown that it can influence the geochemical characteristic and microbial communities of sediment in a newly realigned salt marsh. Microbial communities’ composition and abundances within a newly realigned marsh are significantly different from natural marshes 14 months post inundation
Mesospheric Density Climatologies Determined at Midlatitudes Using Rayleigh Lidar
The original Rayleigh-scatter lidar that operated at the Atmospheric Lidar Observatory (ALO; 41.7°N, 111.8°W) in the Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences (CASS) on the campus of Utah State University (USU), collected 11 years of data between 1993 and 2004. From Rayleigh lidar photon-count returns, relative densities throughout the mesosphere, from 45 to 90 km, were determined. Using these relative densities, three climatologies are derived, each using a different density normalization method at 45 km: the first method normalized the relative densities to a constant; the second normalized them to the NRLMSISe00 empirical model; and the third normalized them to the CPC analyses, a first principles, assimilative, meteorological model. From there, the average density profile for each night of the composite year is found by averaging the nighttime density profiles in a multi-year, 31-day window centered on that particular night. From these three density climatologies, some different and many common features in the mesospheric densities are evident. In the future, with improvements to the lidar, it will be possible to provide an absolute normalization for the density profiles
Biased Self-supervised learning for ASR
Self-supervised learning via masked prediction pre-training (MPPT) has shown
impressive performance on a range of speech-processing tasks. This paper
proposes a method to bias self-supervised learning towards a specific task. The
core idea is to slightly finetune the model that is used to obtain the target
sequence. This leads to better performance and a substantial increase in
training speed. Furthermore, this paper proposes a variant of MPPT that allows
low-footprint streaming models to be trained effectively by computing the MPPT
loss on masked and unmasked frames. These approaches are evaluated for
automatic speech recognition on the Librispeech corpus, where 100 hours of data
served as the labelled data and 860 hours as the unlabelled data. The biased
training outperforms the unbiased training by 15.5% after 250k updates and
23.8% after 100k updates on test-other. For the streaming models, the
pre-training approach yields a reduction in word error rate of 44.1%.Comment: Submitted to ICASSP 202
Discerning primary versus diagenetic signals in carbonate carbon and oxygen isotope records: An example from the Permian-Triassic boundary of Iran
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordSedimentary successions across the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) are marked by a prominent negative carbon isotope excursion. This excursion, found in both fossil (e.g., brachiopod) and bulk carbonate at many sites around the world, is generally considered to be related to a global carbon cycle perturbation. Oxygen isotopes also show a negative excursion across the PTB, but because δ18O is more prone to diagenetic overprint (especially in bulk carbonate), these data are often not used in palaeoenvironmental analyses. In the present study, bulk-rock and brachiopod δ13C and δ18O, as well as conodont δ18O, were analyzed in PTB successions at Kuh-e-Ali Bashi and Zal (NW Iran) in order to evaluate diagenetic overprints on primary marine isotopic signals. The results show that the use of paired C-O isotopes and Mn-Sr concentrations is not sufficient to identify diagenetic alteration in bulk materials, because δ13C-δ18O covariation can be due to environmental factors rather than diagenesis, and Sr/Ca and Mn/Ca ratios can vary as a function of bulk-rock lithology. Comparison of δ13C profiles shows that all bulk carbonate is altered to some degree, although the general bulk-rock trend mimics that of the brachiopod data with a systematic offset of -1.2(±0.4)‰. This suggests that the first-order δ13C trend in bulk carbonate is generally robust but that the significance of small-scale carbon isotope fluctuations is uncertain, especially when such fluctuations are linked to lithologic variation. The PTB interval, which is marked by a low-carbonate 'Boundary Clay' in the study sections, may be especially prone to diagenetic alteration, e.g., via late-stage dolomitization. Comparison of oxygen-isotope profiles for bulk rock and well-preserved fossils (both brachiopods and conodonts) shows that the former are offset by -2.1(±0.4)‰. Diagenetic modeling suggests that these offsets were the product mainly of early diagenesis at burial temperatures of ~50-80°C and water/rock ratios of <10. Authigenic carbonates precipitated during early diagenesis represent a potentially major sink for isotopically light carbon at a global scale that has received relatively little attention to date.TJA thanks the Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF EAR-1053449), the NASA Exobiology program (NNX13AJ1IG), and the China University of Geosciences—Wuhan (SKL-GPMR program GPMR201301, and SKL-BGEG programBGL21407) for their support. This study was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; projects KO1829/12-1, KO1829/12-2 and KO2011/8-1)
Alcohol Affects the Brain's Resting-State Network in Social Drinkers
Acute alcohol intake is known to enhance inhibition through facilitation of GABAA receptors, which are present in 40% of the synapses all over the brain. Evidence suggests that enhanced GABAergic transmission leads to increased large-scale brain connectivity. Our hypothesis is that acute alcohol intake would increase the functional connectivity of the human brain resting-state network (RSN). To test our hypothesis, electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements were recorded from healthy social drinkers at rest, during eyes-open and eyes-closed sessions, after administering to them an alcoholic beverage or placebo respectively. Salivary alcohol and cortisol served to measure the inebriation and stress levels. By calculating Magnitude Square Coherence (MSC) on standardized Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (sLORETA) solutions, we formed cortical networks over several frequency bands, which were then analyzed in the context of functional connectivity and graph theory. MSC was increased (p<0.05, corrected with False Discovery Rate, FDR corrected) in alpha, beta (eyes-open) and theta bands (eyes-closed) following acute alcohol intake. Graph parameters were accordingly altered in these bands quantifying the effect of alcohol on the structure of brain networks; global efficiency and density were higher and path length was lower during alcohol (vs. placebo, p<0.05). Salivary alcohol concentration was positively correlated with the density of the network in beta band. The degree of specific nodes was elevated following alcohol (vs. placebo). Our findings support the hypothesis that short-term inebriation considerably increases large-scale connectivity in the RSN. The increased baseline functional connectivity can -at least partially- be attributed to the alcohol-induced disruption of the delicate balance between inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmission in favor of inhibitory influences. Thus, it is suggested that short-term inebriation is associated, as expected, to increased GABA transmission and functional connectivity, while long-term alcohol consumption may be linked to exactly the opposite effect
Preditores clÃnicos e biológicos da evolução para doença de Alzheimer em pacientes com comprometimento cognitivo leve amnéstico
OBJECTIVE: To identify predictors of the progression from pre-dementia stages of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's disease is relevant to clinical management and to substantiate the decision of prescribing antidementia drugs. METHOD: Longitudinal study of a cohort of elderly adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and healthy controls, carried out to estimate the risk and characterize predictors of the progression to Alzheimer's disease. RESULTS: Patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment had a higher risk to develop Alzheimer's disease during follow-up (odds ratio = 4.5, CI95% [1.3-13.6], p = 0.010). At baseline, older age, lower scores on memory tests and presence of the APOE*4 allele predicted the progression from amnestic mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease. In a sub sample of amnestic mild cognitive impairment patients, those who progressed to Alzheimer's disease had lower cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of amyloid-beta peptide (Aβ42, p = 0.020) and higher concentrations of total TAU (p = 0.030) and phosphorylated TAU (p = 0.010), as compared to non-converters. DISCUSSION: This is the first Brazilian study to report cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers in the prediction of the conversion from MCI to Alzheimer's disease. Our data are in accordance with those reported in other settings. The measurement of cerebrospinal fluid total-TAU, phospho-TAU and Aβ42 may help identify patients with mild cognitive impairment at higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease.OBJETIVO: A identificação de preditores da conversão para a doença de Alzheimer em pacientes com comprometimento cognitivo leve é relevante para o manejo clÃnico e para decidir sobre a prescrição de drogas antidemência. MÉTODO: Estudo longitudinal em coorte de indivÃduos idosos com comprometimento cognitivo leve amnéstico e controles saudáveis; estimativa do risco da progressão para doença de Alzheimer nos dois grupos; determinação das variáveis preditivas desse desfecho. RESULTADOS: Pacientes com comprometimento cognitivo leve amnéstico apresentaram maior risco de desenvolver doença de Alzheimer ao longo do seguimento (odds ratio = 4,5, CI95% [1,3-13,6], p = 0,012). Na avaliação inicial, idade mais avançada, escores mais baixos nos testes cognitivos e do alelo APOE*4 foram preditores da conversão do comprometimento cognitivo leve amnéstico para doença de Alzheimer. Em uma subamostra de pacientes com comprometimento cognitivo leve amnéstico, aqueles que progrediram para doença de Alzheimer tinham concentrações liquóricas mais baixas do peptÃdeo beta-amilóide (Aβ42, p = 0,020) e mais altas da proteÃna TAU total (p = 0,030) e TAU fosforilada (p = 0,010) do que os pacientes que não progrediram para doença de Alzheimer. DISCUSSÃO: Este é o primeiro estudo brasileiro com biomarcadores liquóricos a relatar preditores da conversão comprometimento cognitivo leve-doença de Alzheimer. Nossos dados biológicos (aumento de TAU total e fosfo-TAU; redução de Aβ42), e podem auxiliar na identificação dos pacientes com comprometimento cognitivo leve com maior risco de evolução para demência
- …