Do high and volatile levels of public investment suggest misconduct ? the role of institutional quality

This paper investigates the impact of institutional quality on public investment levels over the period 1984-2008. Moreover, it studies how the volatility of public investment and the quality of infrastructure are affected by institutional quality, and explores the contribution of other critical factors. The findings suggest an inverse relationship between public investment levels and institutional quality, supporting the idea that governments use public investment as a vehicle for rent-seeking or to compensate for the fall in private investment due to the poor business environment. In addition, aid flows, revenues and abundance of natural resources contribute positively to the level of capital spending. The author also finds that high volatility of public investment is associated with a lower quality of governance. An increase in revenues is associated with a reduction in the volatility of capital spending, suggesting that proper macroeconomic management smoothes the investment cycle. Finally, the paper provides some tentative evidence of a positive relationship between institutional quality and the quality of infrastructure.Investment and Investment Climate,Debt Markets,Non Bank Financial Institutions,Public Sector Economics,Emerging Markets

Design and Experimental Evaluation of a Single Incision Laparoscopic Surgery Camera System for Minimally Invasive Surgery

Single incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS) offers many benefits over traditional open surgery. SILS is a type of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) which aims to reduce patient trauma by decreasing the number of incisions required for a surgical operation down to one located at the belly button (umbilicus). This offers patient benefits including reduced trauma, risk of infection, post-operative pain, scaring, and a shorter recovery time. SILS remains surgically challenging due to limited surgical tool motion and positioning of the traditional laparoscope through the SILS entry incision. The SILS-specific camera systems presented here integrates all the features of a laparoscopic vision system into a small, inexpensive, portable package that enables point-of-care applications, does not compete for space with the surgical tools, and removes the need for a dedicated laparoscope port. Two different designs were developed by incorporating a camera and viewing system directly into the SILS port (SILS Port Camera) and then by completely decoupling the camera and viewing system from the SILS port (SILS Magnet Camera). Each approach was developed into a prototype and experimentally tested in order to prove initial feasibility and functionality of the device as compared to the traditional industry SILS laparoscopic setup. The first functionality test was performed using an ex vivo participant study pitting the SILS camera against a traditional laparoscopic set up over two different surgical tasks, ball drop and cutting tasks. The participant study indicated the SILS Port Camera performs similarly to a typical SILS setup. However the SILS Magnet Camera approach showed a significant improvement in functionality when compared with the traditional SILS setup. Both devices were tested in an in vivo porcine model by a practicing surgeon. The SILS Port Camera resulted in a premature termination of a cholecystectomy due to tool interference and poor view of the surgical site. The SILS Magnet Camera allowed for successful cystic duct resection and liver biopsy. The surgeon noted increased viewing capacity from the cameras pan/tilt system, enhanced camera system mobility offered by the magnets, the increased range and movement for his hands, and the ability to use the extra port for a third tool for liver retraction

Transport processes in wavy walled channels

Due to their complex shape, wavy walled geometries are capable of inducing unsteady and even chaotic flows at low Reynolds numbers. The convective effects of the unsteady motion significantly enhances heat and mass transport in the fluid. Because of this, wavy walled channels are commonly used in applications such as heat exchangers. Despite their common use however, a systematic investigation of the dependence of the fluid flow and heat transfer on the geometric parameters of the channel does not exist. In many heat exchanger applications, the working fluid contains suspended particulates. When cooling these particle laden flows, thermophoretic forces induced on the particles by thermal gradients in the fluid result in their deposition along the cooler walls. This process, known as fouling, leads to the formation of a porous layer, which reduces the effectiveness of the cooler. One application in which fouling is a significant issue is exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) used in diesel and gasoline engines to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions. The heat exchanger used in this process experiences rapid degradation in performance from fouling caused by the high concentration of soot particles entrained in the exhaust gas. Recently, engine manufacturers have begun using wavy walled heat exchangers as empirical evidence suggests that this geometry is less prone to fouling. However, a limited amount of research has been performed to understand how this geometry reduces fouling and the dependence of this reduction on the geometric parameters of the channel. In this work we use computational modeling to investigate the effect of asymmetric wavy walled channel geometries on laminar fluid flow and heat/mass transfer. To this end, we develop a computational model based on the lattice Boltzmann method, explicit finite differences and Brownian dynamics to simulate unsteady viscous flow and heat/mass transport in wavy walled channel geometries and use this model to systematically examine these processes. Furthermore, we investigate the formation of deposit layers resulting from thermophoretic deposition of particulates transported by the flow onto the channel walls and probe how this process can be mitigated using a wavy wall geometry. The results from our studies are important for designing laminar heat/mass exchangers utilizing unsteady flows for enhancing transport processes. Additionally these results provide valuable information necessary to develop heat exchangers which are less prone to fouling.Ph.D

Wildfires identification: Semantic segmentation using support vector machine classifier

summary:This paper deals with wildfire identification in the Alaska regions as a semantic segmentation task using support vector machine classifiers. Instead of colour information represented by means of BGR channels, we proceed with a normalized reflectance over 152 days so that such time series is assigned to each pixel. We compare models associated with $\mathcal{l}1$-loss and $\mathcal{l}2$-loss functions and stopping criteria based on a projected gradient and duality gap in the presented benchmarks

Effects of Exogenous Yeast and Bacteria on the Microbial Population Dynamics and Outcomes of Olive Fermentations.

In this study, we examined Sicilian-style green olive fermentations upon the addition of Saccharomyces cerevisiae UCDFST 09-448 and/or Pichia kudriazevii UCDFST09-427 or the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) Lactobacillus plantarum AJ11R and Leuconostoc pseudomesenteroides BGM3R. Olives containing S. cerevisiae UCDFST 09-448, a strain able to hydrolyze pectin, but not P. kudriazevii UCDFST 09-427, a nonpectinolytic strain, exhibited excessive tissue damage within 4 weeks. DNA sequencing of fungal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions and comparisons to a yeast-specific ITS sequence database remarkably showed that neither S. cerevisiae UCDFST 09-448 nor P. kudriazevii UCDFST 09-427 resulted in significant changes to yeast species diversity. Instead, Candida boidinii constituted the majority (>90%) of the total yeast present, independent of whether S. cerevisiae or P. kudriazevii was added. By comparison, Lactobacillus species were enriched in olives inoculated with potential starter LAB L. plantarum AJ11R and L. pseudomesenteroides BGM3R according to community 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. The bacterial diversity of those olives was significantly reduced and resembled control fermentations incubated for a longer period of time. Importantly, microbial populations were highly dynamic at the strain level, as indicated by the large variations in AJ11R and BGM3R cell numbers over time and reductions in the numbers of yeast isolates expressing polygalacturonase activity. These findings show the distinct effects of exogenous spoilage and starter microbes on indigenous communities in plant-based food fermentations that result in very different impacts on product quality. IMPORTANCE Food fermentations are subject to tremendous selective pressures resulting in the growth and persistence of a limited number of bacterial and fungal taxa. Although these foods are vulnerable to spoilage by unintended contamination of certain microorganisms, or alternatively, can be improved by the deliberate addition of starter culture microbes that accelerate or beneficially modify product outcomes, the impact of either of those microbial additions on community dynamics within the fermentations is not well understood at strain-specific or global scales. Herein, we show how exogenous spoilage yeast or starter lactic acid bacteria confer very different effects on microbial numbers and diversity in olive fermentations. Introduced microbes have long-lasting consequences and result in changes that are apparent even when levels of those inoculants and their major enzymatic activities decline. This work has direct implications for understanding bacterial and fungal invasions of microbial habitats resulting in pivotal changes to community structure and function

Grassroots Professional Development via the New England Research Data Management Roundtables

Objectives: To meet the changing needs of our campuses, librarians responsible for research data services are often tasked with starting new endeavors with new populations without much support. This paper reports on a collaborative effort to build a community of practice of librarians tasked with addressing the research data needs of their campuses, describes how this effort was evaluated, and presents future opportunities. Methods: In March of 2015, three librarians found themselves in a situation of serendipitous professional development: one was seeking to provide a new method of mentorship, and two more were working on an event, hoping to broadcast it to a wider community. From these two disparate goals, the Research Data Management (RDM) Roundtables were created. The RDM Roundtables planning committee developed a low-cost professional development day divided into two parts: a morning session that detailed an idea or solution relevant to our practice, and an afternoon roundtable discussion on practical aspects of research data services. Evaluations from these events were coded in NVivo and we report on the common themes. Results: Participants returned sixty-one evaluations from four events. Five themes emerged from the evaluations: learning, sharing, format, networking, and empathy. Conclusion: The events provide a valuable professional development experience for attendees, and the authors hope that by providing a description of the events’ development, others will establish their own local communities of practice