The Impact of Government Policy on the Matching Efficiency of Minnesota’s Labor Market

Matching efficiency is one of the most important labor market indicators. It demonstrates how effectively the labor market matches unemployed workers to job vacancies. Various factors, including government policy, might have an impact on matching efficiency. The main objective of this thesis is to explore the influence of government policy on the matching efficiency of Minnesota in 1995-2017. The paper describes the process of calculating the monthly values of matching efficiency based on a Cobb-Douglas matching function with constant returns to scale. This empirically obtained variable is used for examining the relationship between the calculated matching efficiency of the labor market of Minnesota and elements of government policy. This research studies the impact of a minimum wage, government spending, refugee arrivals, and Medicaid enrollment on the state’s matching efficiency. Empirical analysis shows that only one investigated potential predictor of matching efficiency has a positive correlation with the response variable

A method for increasing the accuracy of image annotating in crowd-sourcing

Crowdsourcing is a new approach to solve tasks when a group of volunteers replaces experts. Recent results show that crowdsourcing is an efficient tool for annotating large datasets. Geo-Wiki is an example of successful citizen science projects. The goal of Geo-Wiki project is to improve a global land cover map by applying crowdsourcing for image recognition. In our research, we investigate methods for increasing reliability of data collected during The Cropland Capture Game (Geo-Wiki). In this regard, we performed analysis of all main steps of the crowdsourcing campaign: image processing and aggregation of collected votes. During the research, we used methods of Computer Vision and Machine Learning. This allowed us to increase accuracy of the aggregated votes from 76% to 87%. Copyright © by the paper's authors

Positronium in a liquid phase: formation, bubble state and chemical reactions

This chapter reviews the following items: 1. Energy deposition and track structure of fast positrons: ionization slowing down, number of ion-electron pairs, typical sizes, thermalization, electrostatic interaction between e+ and its blob, effect of local heating; 2. Positronium formation in condensed media: the Ore model, quasifree Ps state, intratrack mechanism of Ps formation; 3. Fast intratrack diffusion-controlled reactions: Ps oxidation and ortho-para conversion by radiolytic products, reaction rate constants, interpretation of the PAL spectra in water at different temperatures; 4. Ps bubble models. "Non-point" positronium: wave function, energy contributions, relationship between the pick-off annihilation rate and the bubble radius

How to Increase the Accuracy of Crowdsourcing Campaigns?

Crowdsourcing is a new approach to performing tasks, with a group of volunteers rather than experts. For example, the Geo-Wiki project [1] aims to improve the global land-cover map by crowdsourcing for image recognition. Though crowdsourcing gives a simple way to perform tasks that are hard to automate, analysis of data received from non-experts is a challenging problem that requires a holistic approach. Here we study in detail the dataset of the Cropland Capture game (part of Geo-Wiki project) to increase the accuracy of campaign’s results. Using this analysis, we developed a methodology for a generic type of crowdsourcing campaign similar to the Cropland Capture game. The proposed methodology relies on computer vision and machine learning techniques. Using the Cropland Capture dataset we showed that our methodology increases agreement between aggregated volunteers’ votes and experts’ decisions from 77% to 86%. [1] Fritz, Steffen, et al. “Geo-Wiki. Org: The use of crowdsourcing to improve global land cover.” Remote Sensing 1.3 (2009): 345-354

Improved Vote Aggregation Techniques for the Geo-Wiki Cropland Capture Crowdsourcing Game

Crowdsourcing is a new approach for solving data processing problems for which conventional methods appear to be inaccurate, expensive, or time-consuming. Nowadays, the development of new crowdsourcing techniques is mostly motivated by so called Big Data problems, including problems of assessment and clustering for large datasets obtained in aerospace imaging, remote sensing, and even in social network analysis. By involving volunteers from all over the world, the Geo-Wiki project tackles problems of environmental monitoring with applications to flood resilience, biomass data analysis and classification of land cover. For example, the Cropland Capture Game, which is a gamified version of Geo-Wiki, was developed to aid in the mapping of cultivated land, and was used to gather 4.5 million image classifications from the Earth’s surface. More recently, the Picture Pile game, which is a more generalized version of Cropland Capture, aims to identify tree loss over time from pairs of very high resolution satellite images. Despite recent progress in image analysis, the solution to these problems is hard to automate since human experts still outperform the majority of machine learning algorithms and artificial systems in this field on certain image recognition tasks. The replacement of rare and expensive experts by a team of distributed volunteers seems to be promising, but this approach leads to challenging questions such as: how can individual opinions be aggregated optimally, how can confidence bounds be obtained, and how can the unreliability of volunteers be dealt with? In this paper, on the basis of several known machine learning techniques, we propose a technical approach to improve the overall performance of the majority voting decision rule used in the Cropland Capture Game. The proposed approach increases the estimated consistency with expert opinion from 77% to 86%

Dithiophosphorylation of racemic and enantiomerically pure trimethyl-N-(1-phenylethyl)silanamine

Trimethylsilyl P-aryl-N-[(RS)-, (S)-(-)-, and (R)-(+)-(1-phenylethyl)] phosphonamidodithioates were synthesized by reactions of 2,4-diaryl-1,3, 2λ5,4λ5-dithiadiphosphetane 2,4-disulfides with racemic and and enantiomerically pure trimethyl-N-(1-phenylethyl) silanamine. © 2013 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd

Optically active s-esters of dithiophosphoric acid on the basis of (1S)-endo-(-)-borneol

The ammonium salt of optically active dithiophosphoric acid obtained by the reaction of tetraphosphorus decasulfide with (1S)-endo-(-)-borneol reacts with benzoyl chloride, methyl chloroacetate and epichlorohydrin to form novel dithiophosphate S-esters. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Optically active dithiophosphoric acid, its ammonium salt, and S-esters on the basis of (1 R)-endo-(+)-fenchyl alcohol

© 2014 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC. Optically active dithiophosphoric acid was prepared by the reaction of tetraphosphorus decasulfide with (1R)-endo-(+)-fenchyl alcohol. The ammonium salt of dithiophosphoric acid prepared reacts with methyl chloroacetate and benzoyl chloride to give dithiophosphate S-esters

Comparative Analysis of Strategies for Innovative Development of the Fuel and Energy Complex: The Experience of the EU Countries

Most European countries do not have large reserves of natural resources and depend on imported energy resources. In this regard, the government of the European Union has approved a new energy policy aimed at developing a “green” economy and combating dependence on non-renewable resources. Currently, the European Union is a leader in the development of renewable energy sources. Many states have achieved success in this industry, their experience can be used in other countries where alternative energy is not so widespread. This study analyzes and compares existing strategies for the innovative development of the fuel and energy complex of EU member states. The process of formation of the EU energy policy and its distinctive features were studied. The example of Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Finland was used to study in detail the impact of the new energy policy approved by the EU government. The prospects for the introduction of alternative energy sources in the geographical and climatic conditions of Kazakhstan have been assessed. Synthesizing the information obtained, a list of tips for the successful development of alternative energy in the Republic of Kazakhstan was proposed