UNSETTLING: THE REAL INFLUX OF SYRIAN REFUGEES

While heated arguments have been sparked by President Obama’s plan to accept more Syrians, one key aspect remains little examined in the public debate: the government’s long-running program for helping refugees establish new lives in America. The federal government oversees a complex program to help refugees come to this country. But is is an effort that does not live up to all its promises, leaving the path more difficult for refugees to adapt to their new homeland. A NYCity News Service investigation examining hundreds of audits, financial filings and internal government reports found government-funded refugee charities contracted to help the newcomers are misspending money. Promised services are delayed or never delivered, medical care is often postponed beyond guidelines, and there is little monitoring to track if needed help gets to refugees

Does market digitalization always benefit firms? The Latin American case

Purpose Prior research has found that firms\u27 adoption of digital technologies (i.e. digitalization) enhances transaction efficiency and improves firm performance. However, this finding is based on the assumption that firms respond to consumers\u27 adoption of digital technology (market digitalization) in a timely fashion. The study investigates the impact of market digitalization on firm performance in Latin America, where resistance to change is often higher, despite the positive impact on performance when companies respond to the environmental shock of digitalization by restructuring. Design/methodology/approach Using data from seven Latin American countries from 1997 to 2018 (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and Mexico), fixed-effects panel regression robustly supports the results. Findings Most Latin American firms fail to capitalize on the benefits of market digitalization, and their performance declines as a result. The authors extend research on digitalization by incorporating theoretical insights from the restructuring literature, finding that implementing a substantial restructuring strategy is a viable way to overcome market digitalization. Originality/value The authors demonstrate that the digitalization–firm performance relationship is more complex than has been described in studies using samples from developed economies. The authors establish restructuring as an effective adaptation strategy in Latin America, although the institutional environment\u27s characteristics may constrain or discourage firms from adopting it

Experimentally exploring compressed sensing quantum tomography

In the light of the progress in quantum technologies, the task of verifying the correct functioning of processes and obtaining accurate tomographic information about quantum states becomes increasingly important. Compressed sensing, a machinery derived from the theory of signal processing, has emerged as a feasible tool to perform robust and significantly more resource-economical quantum state tomography for intermediate-sized quantum systems. In this work, we provide a comprehensive analysis of compressed sensing tomography in the regime in which tomographically complete data is available with reliable statistics from experimental observations of a multi-mode photonic architecture. Due to the fact that the data is known with high statistical significance, we are in a position to systematically explore the quality of reconstruction depending on the number of employed measurement settings, randomly selected from the complete set of data, and on different model assumptions. We present and test a complete prescription to perform efficient compressed sensing and are able to reliably use notions of model selection and cross-validation to account for experimental imperfections and finite counting statistics. Thus, we establish compressed sensing as an effective tool for quantum state tomography, specifically suited for photonic systems.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Lunar Dust Separation for Toxicology Studies

During the Apollo missions, crewmembers were briefly exposed to dust in the lunar module, brought in after extravehicular activity. When the lunar ascent module returned to micro-gravity, the dust that had settled on the floor now floated into the air, causing eye discomfort and occasional respiratory symptoms. Because our goal is to set an exposure standard for 6 months of episodic exposure to lunar dust for crew on the lunar surface, these brief exposures of a few days are not conclusive. Based on experience with industrial minerals such as sandblasting quartz, an exposure of several months may cause serious damage, while a short exposure may cause none. The detailed characteristics of sub-micrometer lunar dust are only poorly known, and this is the size range of particles that are of greatest concern. We have developed a method for extracting respirable dust (<2.5 micron) from Apollo lunar soils. This method meets stringent requirements that the soil must be kept dry, exposed only to pure nitrogen, and must conserve and recover the maximum amount of both respirable dust and coarser soil. In addition, we have developed a method for grinding coarser lunar soil to produce sufficient respirable soil for animal toxicity testing while preserving the freshly exposed grain surfaces in a pristine state

Sub-10-Micron and Respirable Particles in Lunar Soils

Based on published lunar soil grain size distribution data, we estimate that 1-3% of the mass of typical mature lunar soils is comprised of grains less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. These particles are in the respirable range (small enough to be inhaled). Estimates are used because the early methods of obtaining grain size distributions did not give reliable results below about 10 micrometers. Grain size analyses of Apollo 11 soil 10084 by a laser diffraction technique shows that this soil contains roughly 2% by volume in the respirable grain size, in agreement with our prior estimate

Decision analysis applied to the fishery of the sea snail Concholepas concholepas from central northern coast of Chile

Formal decision analysis was applied to the management of loco (Concholepas concholepas, Fam. Muricidae) in Chile, 29-35 degrees S. Four interested groups were considered &quot;Fishers&quot;, &quot;Scientists&quot;, &quot;Buyers&quot; and the &quot;State&quot;, along with three fishing effort levels and four subobjectives. The method was found to encourage the emergence of a consensus (here: halving of effort), and is recommended for use in other fisheries

Optimal Compressive Strength of RHA Ultra-High-Performance Lightweight Concrete (UHPLC) and Its Environmental Performance Using Life Cycle Assessment

Frequent laboratory needs during the production of concrete for infrastructure development purposes are a factor of serious concern for sustainable development. In order to overcome this trend, an intelligent forecast of the concrete properties based on multiple data points collected from various concrete mixes produced and cured under different conditions is adopted. It is equally important to consider the impact of the concrete components in this attempt to take care of the environmental risks involved in this production. In this work, 192 mixes of an ultra-high-performance lightweight concrete (UHPLC) were collected from literature representing different mixes cured under different periods and laboratory conditions. These mix proportions constitute measured variables, which are curing age (A), cement content (C), fine aggregate (FAg), plasticizer (PL), and rice husk ash (RHA). The studied concrete property was the unconfined compressive strength (Fc). This exercise was necessary to reduce multiple dependence on laboratory examinations by proposing concrete strength equations. First, the life cycle assessment evaluation was conducted on the rice husk ash-based UHPLC, and the results from the 192 mixes show that the C-783 mix (87 kg/m3 RHA) has the highest score on the environmental performance evaluation, while C-300 (75 kg/m3 RHA) with life cycle indices of 289.85 kg CO2eq. Global warming potential (GWP), 0.66 kg SO2eq. Terrestrial acidification and 5.77 m3 water consumption was selected to be the optimal choice due to its good profile in the LCA and the Fc associated with the mix. Second, intelligent predictions were conducted by using six algorithms (ANN-BP), (ANN-GRG), (ANN-GA), (GP), (EPR), and (GMDH-Combi). The results show that (ANN-BP) with performance indices of R; 0.989, R2; 0.979, mean square error (MSE); 2252.55, root mean squared error (RMSE); 42.46 MPa and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE); 4.95% outclassed the other five techniques and is selected as the decisive model. However, it also compared well and outclassed previous models, which had used gene expression programming (GEP) and random forest regression (RFR) and achieved R2of 0.96 and 0.91, respectively. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-11-03 Full Text: PD

A phase II study of Yondelis® (trabectedin, ET-743) as a 24-h continuous intravenous infusion in pretreated advanced breast cancer

Yondelis® (trabectedin, ET-743) is a novel marine-derived anticancer compound found in the ascidian Ecteinascidia turbinata. It is currently under phase II/III development in breast cancer, hormone refractory prostate cancer, sarcomas and ovarian cancer. Activity in breast cancer experimental models has been reported, and preliminary evidence of activity in this setting during the phase I programme has also been observed. The present study assessed the activity and feasibility of trabectedin in women with advanced breast cancer previously treated with conventional therapies. Patients with advanced disease previously treated with at least one but not more than two regimens that included taxanes or anthracyclines as palliative therapy were eligible. Trabectedin 1.5 mg m−2 was administered as a 24-h continuous infusion every 3 weeks. Patients were kept on therapy until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity or patient refusal. Twenty-seven patients were included between April 1999 and September 2000. Their median age was 54 years (range: 36–67) and 63% of them had two metastatic sites. Twenty-two patients were performance status 1. All patients had previously received anthracyclines, and 23 out of 27 patients had received taxanes. Of 21 patients with measurable disease, three confirmed partial responses, one unconfirmed partial response and two minor responses (49 and 32% tumour shrinkage) were observed; six patients had stable disease. Median survival was 10 months (95% confidence interval: 4.88–15.18). Transient and noncumulative transaminitis was observed in most of the patients. The pharmacokinetic profile of trabectedin in this patient's population is in line with the overall data available with this schedule. The policy of dose adjustments based on the intercycle peaks of bilirubin and alkaline phosphatase appears to have a positive impact in the therapeutic index of trabectedin. Trabectedin can induce response and tumour control in previously treated advanced breast cancer, with manageable toxicity, thus warranting further development as a single agent or in combination regimens