108 research outputs found
V-ROOM: a virtual meeting system with intelligent structured summarisation
With the growth of virtual organisations and multinational companies, virtual collaboration tasks are becoming more important for employees. This paper describes the development of a virtual meeting system, called V-ROOM. An exploration of facilities required in such a system has been conducted. The findings highlighted that intelligent systems are needed, especially since information that individuals have to know and process, is vast. The survey results showed that meeting summarisation is one of the most important new features that should be added to virtual meeting systems for enterprises. This paper highlights the innovative methods employed in V-ROOM to produce relevant meeting summaries. V- ROOM's approach is compared to other methods from the literature and it is shown how the use of meta-data provided by parts of the V-ROOM system can improve the quality of summaries produced
The composition of wage differentials between migrants and natives
We consider the role of unobservables, such as differences in search frictions, reservation wages, and productivities for the explanation of wage differentials between migrants and natives. We disentangle these by estimating an empirical general equilibrium search model with on-the-job search due to Bontemps et al. (1999) on segments of the labour market defined by occupation, age, and nationality using a large scale German administrative dataset.
The native-migrant wage differential is then decomposed into several parts, and we focus especially on the component that we label âmigrant effectâ, being the difference in wage offers between natives and migrants in the same occupation-age segment in firms of the same productivity. Counterfactual decompositions of wage differentials allow us to identify and quantify their drivers, thus explaining within a common framework what is often labelled the unexplained wage gap
Do state visits affect cross-border mergers and acquisitions
This paper studies the relation between state visits and cross-border merger and acquisition
(M&A) activity. Based on 1161 state visits and 11,531 cross-border acquisitions, we find that
corporations from visiting countries are more likely to acquire corporations in countries hosting
the visit. Domestic acquisitions in the host country or M&As with non-visiting countries are not
elevated. Evidence from instrumental variable analysis points towards a causal effect of state
visits on M&A activity. Further analysis shows that the elevated M&A activity originating from
visiting countries can be attributed to business networking and a reduction in investment uncertainty and cultural barriers
Foliar calcium effects on quality and primary and secondary metabolites of white-fleshed âLemonatoâ peaches
âLemonatoâ is a Greek peach melting-flesh white-flesh cultivar with high nutritional value highly appreciated by the consumers. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of pre-harvest foliar calcium application on fruit quality, primary metabolite profile, antioxidant activity, total phenolic content, and phenolic profile of the âLemonatoâ peach, clone âStamatisâ. The experiment was conducted for two years, 2019 and 2020, in two commercial orchards at Kato Lehonia and Agios Vlasios regions, central Greece, where the âLemonatoâ clone âStamatisâ is traditionally cultivated. The treatments were organic calcium (Ca), calciumâsilicate in nanoparticles (CaâSi), and calcium chloride (CaCl2). Foliar application of the different Ca formulations, commonly used as a horticultural practice, were not effective at improving the fruit quality characteristics in this clone, which is characterized by fruit softening during ripening. The study revealed the sugars and organic acid composition and phenolic profile of the âLemonatoâ peach, clone âStamatisâ. Peach fruit quality, primary metabolites, and phenolic compounds of the two orchards showed a different response to organic Ca and CaâSi, indicating that genetic or environmental factors may also be involved. A higher concentration of organic Ca and CaCl2 increased the peach fruit phenolic compounds content and the total antioxidant activity, improving the fruit nutritional qualit
Breakdown of the adiabatic limit in low dimensional gapless systems
It is generally believed that a generic system can be reversibly transformed
from one state into another by sufficiently slow change of parameters. A
standard argument favoring this assertion is based on a possibility to expand
the energy or the entropy of the system into the Taylor series in the ramp
speed. Here we show that this argumentation is only valid in high enough
dimensions and can break down in low-dimensional gapless systems. We identify
three generic regimes of a system response to a slow ramp: (A) mean-field, (B)
non-analytic, and (C) non-adiabatic. In the last regime the limits of the ramp
speed going to zero and the system size going to infinity do not commute and
the adiabatic process does not exist in the thermodynamic limit. We support our
results by numerical simulations. Our findings can be relevant to
condensed-matter, atomic physics, quantum computing, quantum optics, cosmology
and others.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Nature Physics (originally
submitted version
Polarization of the Microwave Background in Reionized Models
I discuss the physics of polarization in models with early reionization. For
sufficiently high optical depth to recombination the polarization is boosted on
large scales while it is suppressed on smaller scales. New peaks appear in the
polarization power spectrum, their position is proportional to the square root
of the redshift at which the reionization occurs while their amplitude is
proportional to the optical depth. For standard scenarios the rms degree of
linear polarization as measured with a 7 degree FWHM antenna (like the one of
the Brown University experiment) is , , for an optical depth of 1, 0.5 or 0 respectively. For a 1 degree FWHM
antenna this same models give , and .
Detailed measurement of polarization on large angular scales could provide an
accurate determination of the epoch of reionization, which cannot be obtained
from temperature measurements alone.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, Revised to match PRD accepeted version.
Improved COBE normaliztion so some numerical results change slightl
CMB Telescopes and Optical Systems
The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) is now firmly established as
a fundamental and essential probe of the geometry, constituents, and birth of
the Universe. The CMB is a potent observable because it can be measured with
precision and accuracy. Just as importantly, theoretical models of the Universe
can predict the characteristics of the CMB to high accuracy, and those
predictions can be directly compared to observations. There are multiple
aspects associated with making a precise measurement. In this review, we focus
on optical components for the instrumentation used to measure the CMB
polarization and temperature anisotropy. We begin with an overview of general
considerations for CMB observations and discuss common concepts used in the
community. We next consider a variety of alternatives available for a designer
of a CMB telescope. Our discussion is guided by the ground and balloon-based
instruments that have been implemented over the years. In the same vein, we
compare the arc-minute resolution Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and the
South Pole Telescope (SPT). CMB interferometers are presented briefly. We
conclude with a comparison of the four CMB satellites, Relikt, COBE, WMAP, and
Planck, to demonstrate a remarkable evolution in design, sensitivity,
resolution, and complexity over the past thirty years.Comment: To appear in: Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems (PSSS), Volume 1:
Telescopes and Instrumentatio
Depolarization of the cosmic microwave background by a primordial magnetic field and its effect upon temperature anisotropy
We estimate the depolarizing effect of a primordial magnetic field upon the
cosmic microwave background radiation due to differential Faraday rotation
across the last scattering surface. The degree of linear polarization of the
CMB is significantly reduced at frequencies around and below 30 GHz , where is the value of the primordial field
at recombination. The depolarizing mechanism reduces the damping of
anisotropies due to photon diffusion on small angular scales. The multipoles of the CMB temperature anisotropy correlation function in a
standard cold dark matter cosmology increase by up to 7.5\% at frequencies
where depolarization is significant.Comment: Latex, 23 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Protein Content and Oil Composition of Almond from Moroccan Seedlings: Genetic Diversity, Oil Quality and Geographical Origin
The protein and oil content and the fatty acid profile of the kernels of selected almond genotypes from four different Moroccan regions were determined in order to evaluate the kernel quality of the plant material of these different regions. The ranges of oil content (48.7â64.5 % of kernel DW), oleic (61.8â80.2 % of total oil), linoleic (11.4â27.0 %), palmitic (5.6â7.7 %), stearic (1.3â3.1 %), and palmitoleic (0.4â0.9 %) acid percentages agreed with previous results of other almond genotypes, but the protein content (14.1â35.1 % of kernel DW) showed that some genotypes had higher values than any previously recorded in almond. Some genotypes from mountainous regions showed kernels with very high oil content as well as high and consistent oleic and linoleic ratio, establishing a possible differentiation according to the geographical origin. These differences may allow establishing a geographical denomination for almond products. In terms of genetic diversity, oleic and linoleic acids were confirmed to be the most variable components of almond oil chemical composition among genotypes. Additionally, the genotypes with extreme favorable values, such as high protein content, could be incorporated into an almond breeding program aiming at an increase in kernel quality.Peer ReviewedPrunus amygdalusProtein contentOil contentFatty acidsQualityGenetic resourcesBreedingPublishe
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