Application of the SAFT-γ Mie group contribution equation of state to fluids of relevance to the oil and gas industry

Calculated data for all the figures presented in publication

Determination of bulk discharge current in the dielectric film of MEMS capacitive switches

The present work presents a new method to calculate the discharge current in the bulk of dielectric films of MEMS capacitive switches. This method takes into account the real MEMS switch with non uniform trapped charge and air gap distributions. Assessment of switches with silicon nitride dielectric film shows that the discharge current transient seems to obey the stretched exponential law. The decay characteristics depend on the polarization field’s polarity, a fact comes along with experimental results obtained from thermally stimulated depolarization currents (TSDC) method used in MIM capacitors

Facial affect "in the wild": a survey and a new database

Well-established databases and benchmarks have been developed in the past 20 years for automatic facial behaviour analysis. Nevertheless, for some important problems regarding analysis of facial behaviour, such as (a) estimation of affect in a continuous dimensional space (e.g., valence and arousal) in videos displaying spontaneous facial behaviour and (b) detection of the activated facial muscles (i.e., facial action unit detection), to the best of our knowledge, well-established in-the-wild databases and benchmarks do not exist. That is, the majority of the publicly available corpora for the above tasks contain samples that have been captured in controlled recording conditions and/or captured under a very specific milieu. Arguably, in order to make further progress in automatic understanding of facial behaviour, datasets that have been captured in in the-wild and in various milieus have to be developed. In this paper, we survey the progress that has been recently made on understanding facial behaviour in-the-wild, the datasets that have been developed so far and the methodologies that have been developed, paying particular attention to deep learning techniques for the task. Finally, we make a significant step further and propose a new comprehensive benchmark for training methodologies, as well as assessing the performance of facial affect/behaviour analysis/ understanding in-the-wild. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such a benchmark for valence and arousal "in-the-wild" is presente

CAPTURING TEACHER BASIC NEEDS SATISFACTION: VALIDATION EVIDENCE FOR THE GREEK SCALE MEASURING PE TEACHERS’ BNS

According to self-determination theory, teachers’ basic needs satisfaction is essential for the quality of their motivation, teaching, and work behavior. Considering the lack of valid and reliable instruments measuring teachers’ basic needs satisfaction (for autonomy, competence and relatedness) within the Greek context, we evaluated the factorial validity and internal consistency for the Greek version of the Basic Needs Satisfaction Scale for Teachers (BNSST; Longo et al., 2016). Standard back-translation procedures were followed. Focusing on Physical Education (PE) teachers, the validity of the measure was evaluated via two cross-sectional studies with samples of pre-service (n=109; study 1) and in-service (n=91; study 2) teachers. The psychometric properties of the instrument were established through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach’s alphas, and latent variables’ associations with external criteria. In both studies, factor analyses results supported the construct validity of the 9-item, 3-correlated factors model, producing satisfactory goodness of fit indices, suggesting that the three needs are positively related with each other. Internal consistency analysis produced acceptable values for all the scales of the study. In line with theoretical assumptions and past research evidence, latent variables correlations with external criteria showed that basic needs satisfaction connects positively with their beneficence, cooperation willingness, intrinsic motivation and identified regulation. Furthermore, structural equation modeling revealed a positive connection between teachers’ general basic needs satisfaction and their autonomous motivation, work engagement, and work satisfaction, suggesting that the fulfillment of teacher basic needs can positively predict their well-being at work. The present findings suggest that the BNSST-GR has good psychometric properties and provide initial support for the instruments’ validity and reliability. Such measurements may prove useful in examining Greek teachers’ basic needs satisfaction in a variety of work-related contexts (e.g., teacher professional development).  Article visualizations

TEACHERS’ SELF-DETERMINED MOTIVATION IN RELATION TO NON-TEACHING WORK TASKS

The present article reports on two studies (pilot and main) aiming to examine the psychometric properties of two scales assessing (a) teachers’ work motivation and (b) their involvement in non-teaching work tasks, and to explore the associations between the two constructs under the theoretical framework of self-determination theory (SDT). A Greek version of Blais’ Work Motivation Inventory (BWMI-TGr) was adapted for teachers, and a new instrument measuring teacher behaviour relevant to non-teaching work tasks was developed. Rigorous analyses supported the construct validity and internal consistency of the scales used. The findings suggested that teachers’ intrinsic motivation presents the most optimal patterns of relationships with non-teaching work behaviours, such as preparation for teaching, professional training, education-related reading, collaboration with parents, and participation in the school’s cultural activities. Identified and introjected regulations exhibited positive relationships only with teacher involvement in cultural activities, whereas external regulation had no positive relationship with non-teaching work tasks. The findings are discussed through the lens of SDT and strategies are proposed for school climate improvements, which target the cultivation of teachers’ intrinsic motivation at work.  Article visualizations

Aff-Wild: Valence and Arousal ‘in-the-wild’ Challenge

The Affect-in-the-Wild (Aff-Wild) Challenge proposes a new comprehensive benchmark for assessing the performance of facial affect/behaviour analysis/understanding 'in-the-wild'. The Aff-wild benchmark contains about 300 videos (over 2,000 minutes of data) annotated with regards to valence and arousal, all captured 'in-the-wild' (the main source being Youtube videos). The paper presents the database description, the experimental set up, the baseline method used for the Challenge and finally the summary of the performance of the different methods submitted to the Affect-in-the-Wild Challenge for Valence and Arousal estimation. The challenge demonstrates that meticulously designed deep neural networks can achieve very good performance when trained with in-the-wild data

Sovereign Risk and Asset and Liability Management—Conceptual Issues

Country practices towards managing financial risks on a sovereign balance sheet continue to evolve. Each crisis period, and its legacy on sovereign balance sheets, reaffirms the need for strengthening financial risk management. This paper discusses some salient features embedded in the current generation of sovereign asset and liability management (SALM) approaches, including objectives, definitions of relevant assets and liabilities, and methodologies used in obtaining optimal SALM outcomes. These elements are used in developing an analytical SALM framework which could become an operational instrument in formulating asset management and debtor liability management strategies at the sovereign level. From a portfolio perspective, the SALM approach could help detect direct and derived sovereign risk exposures. It allows analyzing the financial characteristics of the balance sheet, identifying sources of costs and risks, and quantifying the correlations among these sources of risk. The paper also outlines institutional requirements in implementing an SALM framework and seeks to lay the ground for further policy and analytical work on this topi