Stock Market Interdependence and Trade Relations: A Correlation Test for the U.S. and Its Trading Partners

Based on the well-established trade relations between the U.S. and its major trading partners, this paper examines the robustness of the trade relation hypothesis which, in some recent studies, argues that difference in trade relations among countries can significantly explain difference in the stock market interdependence. The generalized VDC analysis is employed to measure the stock market interdependence, and the correlation test with bootstrap procedure is applied to test the hypothesis. The results indicate that the hypothesis is hardly as a general rule.

Healthsouth Corporation: The First Case Against A Company Under The Sarbanes-Oxley Act

HealthSouth Corporation, one of the nation’s largest healthcare providers, was the first company charged under the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.  HealthSouth’s CEO, Richard Scrushy, and 16 of its executives were indicted for allegedly using a sophisticated scheme to overstate the company’s earnings by as much as $2.7 billion between 1986 and 2002.  Fifteen of the sixteen indicted executives pleaded guilty and another was convicted by jurors.  After five months of court hearing, Scrushy was acquitted of all criminal charges.  However, he remains a defendant in 40 cases filed by former HealthSouth investors and creditors.   This case is based on court materials and other publicly available information and has been used in several undergraduate and MBA courses.  The case and the accompanying teaching notes have proven to be an effective tool in teaching students the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and in helping students become more ethically conscious

EpiSleeve: Multimodal Night-time Seizure Detection

This project involves the creation of a nighttime wearable device that can measure heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, temperature, motion, and skin resistivity using sensors placed on the upper and lower arm. Incorporating a wide variety of sensors allows for detection of focal and generalized epilepsy. These sensors will be used to collect data to wirelessly (via Bluetooth) transmit to a separate base station for processing to determine if a seizure has occurred. If a seizure is detected for a specified period of time, the base station can call (via cellular communications) for medical aid to prevent harm to users. Once this device is validated, the technology will help users track seizures better and grant peace of mind if a seizure were to occur.https://commons.case.edu/intersections-fa20/1037/thumbnail.jp

Techno-economic modeling and optimization of solar-driven high-temperature electrolysis systems

We present a techno-economic analysis of solar-driven hightemperature electrolysis systems used for the production of hydrogen and synthesis gas. We consider different strategies for the incorporation of solar energy, distinguished by the use of differing technologies to provide solar power and heat: i) thermal approaches (system 1) using concentrated solar technologies to provide heat and to generate electricity through thermodynamic cycles, ii) electrical approaches (system 2) using photovoltaic technologies to provide electricity and to generate heat through electrical heaters, and iii) hybrid approaches (system 3) utilizing concentrated solar technologies and photovoltaics to provide heat and electricity. We find that system 3 generates hydrogen at a high efficiency (ηSTF = 9.9%, slightly lower than the best performing system 1 with 10.6%) and at a low cost (Cfuel = $4.9/kg, lowest cost of all three systems) at reference conditions, providing evidence for the competitiveness of this hybrid approach for scaled solar hydrogen generation. Sensitivity analysis indicates an optimal working temperature for system 3 of 1350 K, which balances the increased thermal receiver losses with the reduced electrolysis cell potential when increasing the temperature. Lower working pressure always favors high system efficiency and low cost. The working current densities for thermoneutral voltage were determined for various temperature and pressure combinations, and trends for efficient and cost-effective thermoneutral operation were identified. The water conversion extent was optimized to avoid mass transport limitations in the electrodes while ensuring large fuel generation rates. For synthesis gas production, a H2/CO molar ratio of 2 can be achieved by tuning the inlet feeding molar ratio of CO2/H2O, temperature, and pressure. This study introduces a flexible simulation framework of solar-driven high-temperature electrolysis systems allowing for the assessment of competing solar integration approaches and for the guidance of the operational conditions maximizing efficiency and minimizing cost, providing pathways for scalable solar fuel processing

Prevalence and characteristics of advocacy curricula in Australian public health degrees

Background: Public health advocacy is a fundamental part of health promotion practice. Advocacy efforts can lead to healthier public policies and positive impacts on society. Public health educators are responsible for equipping graduates with cross-cutting advocacy competencies to address current and future public health challenges. Problem: Knowledge of the extent to which students are taught public health advocacy is limited. To determine whether advocacy teaching within public health degrees matches industry needs, knowledge of pedagogical approaches to advocacy curricula is required. This study sought to understand the extent to which advocacy is taught and assessed within Australian public health degrees. Methodology: Australian public health Bachelor's and Master's degrees were identified using the CRICOS database. Open-source online unit guides were reviewed to determine where and how advocacy was included within core and elective units (in title, unit description or learning outcomes). Degree directors and convenors of identified units were surveyed to further garner information about advocacy in the curriculum. Results: Of 65 identified degrees, 17 of 26 (65%) undergraduate degrees and 24 of 39 (62%) postgraduate degrees included advocacy within the core curriculum, while 6 of 26 (23%) undergraduate and 8 of 39 (21%) postgraduate offered no advocacy curriculum. Implications: Australian and international public health competency frameworks indicate advocacy curriculum should be included in all degrees. This research suggests advocacy competencies are not ubiquitous within Australian public health curricula. The findings support the need to advance public health advocacy teaching efforts further

Parental contributions to aspects of ethnic development among four- and seven-year-old Chinese-American children

This study had two major purposes. The first focused upon understanding the development of aspects of ethnic development among 4- and 7-year-old Chinese-American boys and girls from immigrant and non-immigrant families. The second focused upon understanding the contribution of selected parental (fathers' and mothers') characteristics on aspects of children's ethnic development. Results revealed 7-year-olds had significantly higher ethnic awareness and cognition scores than 4-year-olds. However, 7-year-olds also had significantly lower negative ethnic attitudes scores, and tended to have lower ethnic preference scores than 4-year-olds. In addition, ethnic awareness and cognition were the criterion variables harboring most of the significant predictor variables. Age was the strongest predictor variable. Parental (fathers' and mothers' combined) encouragement was a significant negative predictor of children's negative attitudes, while parental child rearing attitudes tended to be a positive predictor of children's ethnic awareness. Among 4-year-olds, ethnic awareness and cognition were the criterion variables harboring most of the significant predictor variables. Among 7-year-olds, however, ethnic preference and positive ethnic attitudes were those harboring most of the significant predictor variables. Selected fathers' characteristics appeared to be more predictive of aspects of children's ethnic development than mothers', particularly among 4-year-olds. However, selected fathers' and mothers' characteristics were found to contribute both positively and negatively to aspects of 4- and 7-year-old Chinese-American children's ethnic development

Measuring inequalities in the distribution of the Fiji health workforce

Background: Despite the centrality of health personnel to the health of the population, the planning, production and management of human resources for health remains underdeveloped in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In addition to the general shortage of health workers, there are significant inequalities in the distribution of health workers within LMICs. This is especially true for countries like Fiji, which face major challenges in distributing its health workforce across many inhabited islands. Methods: In this study, we describe and measure health worker distributional inequalities in Fiji, using data from the 2007 Population Census, and Ministry of Health records of crude death rates and health workforce personnel. We adopt methods from the economics literature including the Lorenz Curve/Gini Coefficient and Theil Index to measure the extent and drivers of inequality in the distribution of health workers at the sub-national level in Fiji for three categories of health workers: doctors, nurses, and all health workers (doctors, nurses, dentists and health support staff). Population size and crude death rates are used as proxies for health care needs. Results: There are greater inequalities in the densities of health workers at the provincial level, compared to the divisional level in Fiji – six of the 15 provinces fall short of the recommended threshold of 2.3 health workers per 1,000 people. The estimated decile ratios, Gini co-efficient and Thiel index point to inequalities at the provincial level in Fiji, mainly with respect to the distribution of doctors; however these inequalities are relatively small. Conclusion: While populations with lower mortality tend to have a slightly greater share of health workers, the overall distribution of health workers on the basis of need is more equitable in Fiji than for many other LMICs. The overall shortage of health workers could be addressed by creating new cadres of health workers; employing increasing numbers of foreign doctors, including specialists; and increasing funding for health worker training, as already demonstrated by the Fiji government. Close monitoring of the equitable distribution of additional health workers in the future is critical

An Architecture for Improved Surface Code Connectivity in Neutral Atoms

In order to achieve error rates necessary for advantageous quantum algorithms, Quantum Error Correction (QEC) will need to be employed, improving logical qubit fidelity beyond what can be achieved physically. As today's devices begin to scale, co-designing architectures for QEC with the underlying hardware will be necessary to reduce the daunting overheads and accelerate the realization of practical quantum computing. In this work, we focus on logical computation in QEC. We address quantum computers made from neutral atom arrays to design a surface code architecture that translates the hardware's higher physical connectivity into a higher logical connectivity. We propose groups of interleaved logical qubits, gaining all-to-all connectivity within the group via efficient transversal CNOT gates. Compared to standard lattice surgery operations, this reduces both the overall qubit footprint and execution time, lowering the spacetime overhead needed for small-scale QEC circuits. We also explore the architecture's scalability. We look at using physical atom movement schemes and propose interleaved lattice surgery which allows an all-to-all connectivity between qubits in adjacent interleaved groups, creating a higher connectivity routing space for large-scale circuits. Using numerical simulations, we evaluate the total routing time of interleaved lattice surgery and atom movement for various circuit sizes. We identify a cross-over point defining intermediate-scale circuits where atom movement is best and large-scale circuits where interleaved lattice surgery is best. We use this to motivate a hybrid approach as devices continue to scale, with the choice of operation depending on the routing distance

A Comprehensive Dataset of Grains for Granular Jamming in Soft Robotics: Grip Strength and Shock Absorption

We test grip strength and shock absorption properties of various granular material in granular jamming robotic components. The granular material comprises a range of natural, manufactured, and 3D printed material encompassing a wide range of shapes, sizes, and Shore hardness. Two main experiments are considered, both representing compelling use cases for granular jamming in soft robotics. The first experiment measures grip strength (retention force measured in Newtons) when we fill a latex balloon with the chosen grain type and use it as a granular jamming gripper to pick up a range of test objects. The second experiment measures shock absorption properties recorded by an Inertial Measurement Unit which is suspended in an envelope of granular material and dropped from a set height. Our results highlight a range of shape, size and softness effects, including that grain deformability is a key determinant of grip strength, and interestingly, that larger grain sizes in 3D printed grains create better shock absorbing materials

Overview of the BioLaySumm 2023 Shared Task on Lay Summarization of Biomedical Research Articles

This paper presents the results of the shared task on Lay Summarisation of Biomedical Research Articles (BioLaySumm), hosted at the BioNLP Workshop at ACL 2023. The goal of this shared task is to develop abstractive summarisation models capable of generating "lay summaries" (i.e., summaries that are comprehensible to non-technical audiences) in both a controllable and non-controllable setting. There are two subtasks: 1) Lay Summarisation, where the goal is for participants to build models for lay summary generation only, given the full article text and the corresponding abstract as input; and 2) Readability-controlled Summarisation, where the goal is for participants to train models to generate both the technical abstract and the lay summary, given an article's main text as input. In addition to overall results, we report on the setup and insights from the BioLaySumm shared task, which attracted a total of 20 participating teams across both subtasks.Comment: Published at BioNLP@ACL202