The life?course formation of teachers? profession. How emotions affect VET teachers? social identity.

One of the less developed issues in the sociology of education concerns how the social formation of emotions affects teachers? collective identities. In this article we outline the ingredients of a conceptual scheme explaining the emotional dynamics which form teachers? social identities through a life-course perspective. In particular, we show how educational and job experiences related to teachers? social trajectories create emotional dynamics in their identities which undermine the sense of belongingness to their profession. Our methodology was based on biographical ? narrative interviews treated through a Critical Realism prism in order to bring to the fore the causal process through which a specific outcome is formed. By researching the extreme case of VET teachers in Greece who were put into redundancy for two years in the memorandum years, we explore why the threat of job loss, instead of mobilizing collective action, feeds feelings of self-blame and of shame which annul teachers? social ties.

Macrofaunal assemblages associated with the sponge Sarcotragus foetidus Schmidt, 1862 (Porifera: Demospongiae) at the coasts of Cyprus and Greece

Background: This paper describes a dataset of macrofaunal organisms associated with the sponge Sarcotragus foetidus Schmidt, 1862, collected by scuba diving from two sampling sites: one in Greece (North Aegean Sea) and one in Cyprus (Levantine Sea). New information: This dataset includes macrofaunal taxa inhabiting the demosponge Sarcotragus foetidus and contributes to the ongoing efforts of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) which aims at filling the gaps in our current knowledge of the world's oceans. This is the first paper, to our knowledge, where the macrofauna associated with S. foetidus from the Levantine Basin is being recorded. In total, 90 taxa were recorded, from which 83 were identified to the species level. Eight of these species are new records for the Levantine Basin. The dataset contains 213 occurrence records, fully annotated with all required metadata. It is accessible at http://lifewww-00.her.hcmr.gr:8080/medobis/resource.do?r=organismic_assemblages_sarcotragus_foetidus_cyprus_greec

A Protocol of a Pilot Experimental Study Using Social Network Interventions to Examine the Social Contagion of Attitudes Towards Childhood Vaccination in Parental Social Networks

Increasing vaccination hesitancy that burdens global health and safety can be attributed to multiple reasons. Individuals’ social environment seems to be the catalyst for vaccination hesitancy perpetuation, thus it is important to examine the influence of different social network mechanisms in vaccination attitudes’ contagion. The proposed pilot experiment will examine the social contagion of childhood vaccination attitudes within a parental community using social network interventions. By identifying centrally-located people or groups of like-minded individuals from a parents’ community, we will examine whether the position of a person within a social group can have a greater impact in spreading positive vaccination messages to other community members. Parents will be recruited from social media and will be randomly assigned into three groups. Firstly, each group will participate in an online game to map their social networks and identify members with certain network position, who will then receive a short training about valid vaccination information provisions. All groups’ members will participate in daily vaccination discussion groups for one week, where the selected members will spread positive vaccination attitudes to others. We hypothesize that centrally located individuals and like-minded group of people will more likely cause a change on the childhood-vaccination attitudes and will sustain a long-term change at 3 months follow-up, compared to randomly located people

Covariance matrix estimation applied in value-at-risk and margin risk methodologies

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Estimation of Sea Surface Current Velocities using AIS Data

The Automatic Identification System (AIS) provides information for tracking and monitoring vessel activity in real time. The vessel traffic data from AIS includes position coordinates in latitude and longitude, speed and course over ground, the vessel's unique identification number, and many more. In this work, we investigate the use of AIS data for estimating sea surface current velocities in the Eastern Mediterranean sea. Specifically, we apply the dead reckoning technique to compute the difference between the projected position and the true position of a vessel over time, which is mainly attributed on the force of sea surface currents. The estimated sea surface current velocities and directions are compared with the ones provided by the Copernicus Marine ocean product system. The analysis reveals that the dead reckoning technique can be used reliably for estimating sea currents at a very fine granularity, especially in high-traffic and coastal areas, where there is an increased complexity of obtaining accurate results from other sources

Neural networks: the panacea in fraud detection?

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to test the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) as a tool in fraud detection. Design/methodology/approach – Following a review of the relevant literature on fraud detection by auditors, the authors developed a questionnaire which they distributed to auditors attending a fraud detection seminar. The questionnaire was then used to develop seven ANNs to test the usage of these models in fraud detection. Findings – Utilizing exogenous and endogenous factors as input variables to ANNs and in developing seven different models, an average of 90 per cent accuracy was found in the fraud detection prediction model. It has, therefore, been demonstrated that ANNs can be used by auditors to identify fraud-prone companies. Originality/value – Whilst previous researchers have looked at empirical predictors of fraud, fraud risk assessment methods and mechanically fraud risk assessment methods, no other research has combined both exogenous and endogenous factors in developing ANNs to be used in fraud detection. Thus, auditors can use ANNs as complementary to other techniques at the planning stage of their audit to predict if a particular audit client is likely to have been victimized by a fraudster.Auditors, Financial reporting, Fraud, Neural nets