Testing Onion Market Integration in Pakistan

This paper analyses spatial market integration using monthly wholesale real price of onion in four regional markets located in each of the four provinces of Pakistan. Unit root test indicates that the price series in each location are stationary, and the series are represented as autoregressive model for eachlocation. The error correction model results show that the regional markets of onion have strong price linkages, and thus are spatially integrated.

Mutual information as an order parameter for quantum synchronization

Spontaneous synchronization is a fundamental phenomenon, important in many theoretical studies and applications. Recently this effect has been analyzed and observed in a number of physical systems close to the quantum mechanical regime. In this work we propose the mutual information as a useful order parameter which can capture the emergence of synchronization in very different contexts, ranging from semi-classical to intrinsically quantum mechanical systems. Specifically we first study the synchronization of two coupled Van der Pol oscillators in both classical and quantum regimes and later we consider the synchronization of two qubits inside two coupled optical cavities. In all these contexts, we find that mutual information can be used as an appropriate figure of merit for determining the synchronization phases, independently of the specific details of the system

Spoof detection using time-delay shallow neural network and feature switching

Detecting spoofed utterances is a fundamental problem in voice-based biometrics. Spoofing can be performed either by logical accesses like speech synthesis, voice conversion or by physical accesses such as replaying the pre-recorded utterance. Inspired by the state-of-the-art \emph{x}-vector based speaker verification approach, this paper proposes a time-delay shallow neural network (TD-SNN) for spoof detection for both logical and physical access. The novelty of the proposed TD-SNN system vis-a-vis conventional DNN systems is that it can handle variable length utterances during testing. Performance of the proposed TD-SNN systems and the baseline Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) is analyzed on the ASV-spoof-2019 dataset. The performance of the systems is measured in terms of the minimum normalized tandem detection cost function (min-t-DCF). When studied with individual features, the TD-SNN system consistently outperforms the GMM system for physical access. For logical access, GMM surpasses TD-SNN systems for certain individual features. When combined with the decision-level feature switching (DLFS) paradigm, the best TD-SNN system outperforms the best baseline GMM system on evaluation data with a relative improvement of 48.03\% and 49.47\% for both logical and physical access, respectively

Mobile app to support cancer patients:caregivers’ view

Abstract. Mobile healthcare systems that support patients’ treatments have become more common in recent years. The purpose of this study was to find out how health care professionals experience the use of the AforCP mobile application when monitoring the breast cancer patients’ wellbeing, the assessment of the symptoms, the side effects of the treatments, and how the implementation of the application was experienced. The AforCP is a mobile application that allows cancer patients to determine their own health status and independently monitor their symptoms. In addition, cancer clinics can monitor the well-being of their patients and evaluate how the symptoms of the patients are developing in real-time. The study was carried out at a Finnish university hospital, where the AforCP information system had been in pilot use for about nine months. The study was conducted as a qualitative case study and the research material was collected from the theme interviews made to five health professionals including doctors and nurses. The content analysis was used to analyse the content of the interviews. Earlier studies have, among other things, demonstrated that patient-reported outcome systems may help communication between the patients and healthcare professionals and they may even prolong the survival time of cancer patients. Additional research was needed to gain insight into how the healthcare professionals perceived the AforCP system when following the patients’ healthcare. Healthcare professionals experienced that the AforCP reduced phone calls from the patients and the side effects of the treatments were received earlier. The patients were able to record information about their wellbeing at a time appropriate for them. They did not have to remember all important things when visiting a doctor and using a completely new drug. The healthcare professionals believed that the system could give a better picture of possible side effects than if it had been run without this system. The implementation of the AforCP system turned out to be a challenge. The interviewed healthcare professionals felt that the pilot project did not go as it was originally planned. Due to the small number of patients as users of the application the staff did not reach sufficient routine in using it. Some of them would have needed more training in the introduction phase. The integration into the main patient information system however would have reduced double recordings and saved working time from them. It is important to pay attention to the planning and implementation of the pilot project in which patient’s well-being is monitored so that users’ attitudes towards the use of the system could be as positive as possible. Health care professionals are especially looking for systems that could offer them savings in work time and give them a clear picture of how their patients are doing.Tiivistelmä. Terveydenhuollon mobiilijärjestelmät ovat yleistyneet viimeisten vuosien aikana potilaiden hoidon tukena. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää, miten terveydenhuollon ammattilaiset kokivat AforCP mobiilisovelluksen käytön potilaiden hoidon tukena heidän voinnin ja hoidon haittavaikutusten seurannassa. AforCP on mobiilijärjestelmä, jonka avulla syöpäpotilaat voivat itse määrittää terveydentilansa ja monitoroida itsenäisesti oireitaan. Lisäksi syöpäpotilaita hoitavat klinikat voivat seurata potilaidensa hyvinvointia ja arvioida potilaiden oireiden kehittymistä reaaliaikaisesti. Tutkimus toteutettiin suomalaisessa yliopistosairaalassa, jossa AforCP tietojärjestelmä oli ollut pilottikäytössä noin yhdeksän kuukauden ajan. Tutkimus tehtiin laadullisena tapaustutkimuksena ja tutkimusmateriaali kerättiin teemahaastatteluilla terveydenhuollon ammattilaisilta, lääkäreiltä ja sairaanhoitajilta. Haastateltavia terveydenhuollon ammattilaisia oli viisi. Haastattelujen sisällön analyysimenetelmänä käytettiin sisällönanalyysiä. Aikaisemmat tutkimukset ovat mm. osoittaneet itseraportointijärjestelmien parantavan potilaiden ja lääkärin kommunikaatiota ja jopa pidentävän syöpäpotilaiden elossaoloaikaa. Lisätutkimusta tarvittiin, jotta saatiin tietoa siitä, miten terveydenhuollon ammattilaiset kokivat AforCP-järjestelmän käytön potilaiden voinnin ja haittavaikutusten seurannassa. Lisäksi tavoitteena oli saada tietoa järjestelmän käyttöönotosta. Terveydenhuollon ammattilaiset kokivat, että AforCP vähensi puheluita potilailta. He saivat hoitojen sivuvaikutukset tietoonsa aikaisemmin. Potilaat pystyivät kirjaamaan vointinsa seurantaan liittyviä tietoja heille sopivana ajankohtana. Potilaiden ei tarvinnut muistaa asioita lääkärikäynnillä ja käyttäessään täysin uutta lääkettä, terveydenhuollon ammattilaiset olettivat, että järjestelmä voisi antaa paremmin kuvan mahdollisista sivuvaikutuksista, kuin jos olisi toimittu ilman järjestelmää. AfoCP-järjestelmän käyttöönotossa koettiin olleen kohtuullisen paljon haasteita. Haastatellut terveydenhuollon ammattilaiset kokivat, ettei pilottiprojekti sujunut alkuperäisten suunnitelmien mukaan. Koska potilasmäärä oli pieni, henkilökunnalle ei syntynyt riittävää rutiinia järjestelmän käyttöön. Osa heistä olisi toivonut saavansa enemmän koulutusta käyttöönottovaiheessa. Integraatio potilastietojärjestelmään olisi vähentänyt moninkertaista kirjaamista ja säästänyt työaikaa. Potilaiden voinnin seurantaan käytettävien mobiilijärjestelmien käyttöönottoprojektin suunnitteluun, resursointiin ja toteutukseen on tärkeää kiinnittää huomiota, jotta käyttäjien asenteet järjestelmän käyttöä kohtaan voisivat olla mahdollisimman positiiviset Terveydenhuollon ammattilaiset hakevat järjestelmiltä erityisesti työajansäästöä ja selkeää kuvaa potilaan voinnista

Measure for the Degree of Non-Markovian Behavior of Quantum Processes in Open Systems

We construct a general measure for the degree of non-Markovian behavior in open quantum systems. This measure is based on the trace distance which quantifies the distinguishability of quantum states. It represents a functional of the dynamical map describing the time evolution of physical states, and can be interpreted in terms of the information flow between the open system and its environment. The measure takes on nonzero values whenever there is a flow of information from the environment back to the open system, which is the key feature of non-Markovian dynamics.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, published versio

A Map-Reduce Parallel Approach to Automatic Synthesis of Control Software

Many Control Systems are indeed Software Based Control Systems, i.e. control systems whose controller consists of control software running on a microcontroller device. This motivates investigation on Formal Model Based Design approaches for automatic synthesis of control software. Available algorithms and tools (e.g., QKS) may require weeks or even months of computation to synthesize control software for large-size systems. This motivates search for parallel algorithms for control software synthesis. In this paper, we present a Map-Reduce style parallel algorithm for control software synthesis when the controlled system (plant) is modeled as discrete time linear hybrid system. Furthermore we present an MPI-based implementation PQKS of our algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first parallel approach for control software synthesis. We experimentally show effectiveness of PQKS on two classical control synthesis problems: the inverted pendulum and the multi-input buck DC/DC converter. Experiments show that PQKS efficiency is above 65%. As an example, PQKS requires about 16 hours to complete the synthesis of control software for the pendulum on a cluster with 60 processors, instead of the 25 days needed by the sequential algorithm in QKS.Comment: To be submitted to TACAS 2013. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1207.4474, arXiv:1207.409

Optomechanical circuits for nanomechanical continuous variable quantum state processing

We propose and analyze a nanomechanical architecture where light is used to perform linear quantum operations on a set of many vibrational modes. Suitable amplitude modulation of a single laser beam is shown to generate squeezing, entanglement, and state-transfer between modes that are selected according to their mechanical oscillation frequency. Current optomechanical devices based on photonic crystals may provide a platform for realizing this scheme.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

The relationship of individual comorbid chronic conditions to diabetes care quality.

ObjectiveMultimorbidity affects 26 million persons with diabetes, and care for comorbid chronic conditions may impact diabetes care quality. The aim of this study was to determine which chronic conditions were related to lack of achievement or achievement of diabetes care quality goals to determine potential targets for future interventions.Research design and methodsThis is an exploratory retrospective analysis of electronic health record data for 23 430 adults, aged 18-75, with diabetes who were seen at seven Midwestern US health systems. The main outcome measures were achievement of six diabetes quality metrics in the reporting year, 2011 (glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) control and testing, low-density lipoprotein control and testing, blood pressure control, kidney testing). Explanatory variables were 62 chronic condition indicators. Analyses were adjusted for baseline patient sociodemographic and healthcare utilization factors.ResultsThe 62 chronic conditions varied in their relationships to diabetes care goal achievement for specific care goals. Congestive heart failure was related to lack of achievement of cholesterol management goals. Obesity was related to lack of HbA1c and BP control. Mental health conditions were related to both lack of achievement and achievement of different care goals. Three conditions were related to lack of cholesterol testing, including congestive heart failure and substance-use disorders. Of 17 conditions related to achieving control goals, 16 were related to achieving HbA1c control. One-half of the comorbid conditions did not predict diabetes care quality.ConclusionsFuture interventions could target patients at risk for not achieving diabetes care for specific care goals based on their individual comorbidities