Regulating Complacency: Human Limitations and Legal Efficacy

This Article examines how insights into limited human rationality can improve financial regulation. The Article identifies four categories of limitations—herd behavior, cognitive biases, overreliance on heuristics, and a proclivity to panic—that undermine the perfect-market regulatory assumptions that parties have full information and will act in their rational self-interest. The Article then analyzes how insights into these limitations can be used to correct resulting market failures. Requiring more robust disclosure and due diligence, for example, can help to reduce reliance on misleading information cascades that motivate herd behavior. Debiasing through law, such as requiring more specific, poignant, and concrete disclosure of risks and their consequences, can help to correct cognitive biases. Requiring firms to engage in more self-aware operational risk management and reporting can reduce the likelihood that parties will over-rely on heuristics. And legislating backstop market liquidity and other stabilizing controls can help to minimize panics. Regulation, however, can only partly overcome these limitations. Effective financial regulation should therefore be designed not only to address these limitations but also to try to mitigate the harm of inevitable financial failures

Analytical motion blurred shadows

A rendering framework supporting analytical visibility is extended with shadow mapping. Shadow maps containing analytical visibility data are used, leading to cases where both the projections to the shadow map and the depth tests can be time-dependent. For receivers that are static with respect to the camera, the depth tests are solved analytically over time. For dynamic receivers, point sampling is used. Problems arising from time-dependence, limited precision and necessary simplifications are investigated, and potential solutions are discussed.En rastrerare med stöd för analytisk rörelseoskärpa integreras med shadow mapping. Shadow maps med analytisk synlighetsinformation används för detta, vilket leder till situationer där både projiceringarna till shadow map:en och djupjämförelserna kan vara tidsberoende. Djupjämförelserna utförs analytiskt över tiden för mottagare som är statiska i förhållande till kameran. För dynamiska mottagare används point sampling istället. Problem som uppstår på grund av tidsberoende, begränsad precision och nödvändiga förenklingar undersöks, och potentiella lösningar diskuteras

Mapping web personal learning environments

A recent trend in web development is to build platforms which are carefully designed to host a plurality of software components (sometimes called widgets or plugins) which can be organized or combined (mashed-up) at user's convenience to create personalized environments. The same holds true for the web development of educational applications. The degree of personalization can depend on the role of users such as in traditional virtual learning environment, where the components are chosen by a teacher in the context of a course. Or, it can be more opened as in a so-called personalized learning environment (PLE). It now exists a wide array of available web platforms exhibiting different functionalities but all built on the same concept of aggregating components together to support different tasks and scenarios. There is now an overlap between the development of PLE and the more generic developments in web 2.0 applications such as social network sites. This article shows that 6 more or less independent dimensions allow to map the functionalities of these platforms: the screen dimensionmaps the visual integration, the data dimension maps the portability of data, the temporal dimension maps the coupling between participants, the social dimension maps the grouping of users, the activity dimension maps the structuring of end users–interactions with the environment, and the runtime dimensionmaps the flexibility in accessing the system from different end points. Finally these dimensions are used to compare 6 familiar Web platforms which could potentially be used in the construction of a PLE

Young students’ views on problem solving versus problem posing

For decades, problem solving has been of interest to researchers, and several studies have tried to capture the influence of students’ beliefs, attitudes and emotions towards mathematics and problem solving. However, problem posing as part of problem solving has not been investigated to the same extent. This article focuses on six-year-olds’ views on solving and posing problems. How do the students themselves describe their views on solving and posing problem-solving tasks, and what similarities and differences can be found? An educational design research study was conducted in three classes where the students first solved and then posed problem-solving tasks. Afterwards, the students were interviewed. In these interviews the students expressed positive views towards both solving and posing problem-solving tasks. The students expressed autonomy and challenge as positive when both solving and posing tasks. However, a posed task needed to be solved before being finished. Further, not all students considered problem posing to be a mathematical activity, and a plausible explanation for this is the students’ limited experience of problem posing

Editorial for the special issue "Mashup Personal Learning Environments"

Wild, F., Palmér, M., & Kalz, M. (2011). Editorial Special Issue Mashup Personal Learning Environments. International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, 3(1), 1-3.Editorial note for Special Issue Mashup Personal Learning Environments of the International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning

Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Mashup Personal Learning Environments

Wild, F., Kalz, M., & Palmér, M. (Eds.) (2008). Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Mashup Personal Learning Environments (MUPPLE08). September, 17, 2008, Maastricht, The Netherlands: CEUR Workshop Proceedings, ISSN 1613-0073. Available at http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-388.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project (funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org]) and partly sponsored by the LTfLL project (funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme, priority ISCT. Contract 212578 [http://www.ltfll-project.org

Indo-Slavic lexical isoglosses and the prehistoric dispersal of Indo-Iranian

As part of the Indo-European language family, the Indo-Iranian branch traces its origins back to the Indo-European homeland on the Pontic-Caspian steppe 5000 years ago. But how did it spread from there to Asia? The aim of this thesis is to uncover the early prehistory of Indo-Iranian by investigating its relationship to the Balto-Slavic languages of Eastern Europe, which have been hypothesized to form a subgroup with Indo-Iranian: Indo-Slavic. By comparing the linguistic data with evidence from archaeology and genetics, this thesis traces the migration path of prehistoric Indo-Iranian speakers from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, via the rivers and forests of Eastern Europe, across the Ural Mountains, and southwards to the steppes of Central Asia.Descriptive and Comparative Linguistic

Fallots tetrad hos hund och människa

Hos människa är anomalier i hjärtat bland de vanligaste medfödda missbildningarna. Även hos hund är medfödda missbildningar i hjärtat relativt vanliga men prevalensen skiljer sig både mellan renrasiga hundar och korsningar samt mellan olika raser. Fallots tetrad (TOF) är en av missbildningarna som kan ses i hjärtat. TOF räknas till en grupp av missbildningar som kallas conotruncala defekter (CTD) vilket är medfödda missbildningar som drabbar de stora artärerna och de ventrikulära utflödesvägarna. I TOF ses fyra sammanhängande defekter: ventrikulär septumdefekt, ridande aorta, pulmonalisstenos och sekundär hypertrofi av höger kammare. Defekterna uppstår tidigt under embryonalutvecklingen då hjärtat är det första organet som bildas och har en funktion i embryot. Under septumbildningen i hjärtat uppstår ett fel i de strukturer som ska bilda skiljeväggarna. Aortan och lungartären avdelas felaktigt och skiljeväggen mellan kamrarna sluts inte fullständigt. Konsekvensen, efter födelsen, blir att syrefattigt blod shuntas över från höger till vänster kammare via septumdefekten. Det ökade motståndet i truncus pulmonalis gör att syrefattigt blod kan ta sig ut i det systemiska kretsloppet och hunden drabbas av syrebrist. Missbildningarna och den följande syrebristen ger alltid kliniska symptom. Symptomen uppkommer ofta under det första levnadsåret men varierar i grad beroende på hur allvarlig förträngningen i lungartären är. Symptom kan vara ansträngningsintolerans, cyanos, utmattning, dyspné, polycytemi, synkope och dålig tillväxt. Vissa hundraser verkar vara predisponerade för TOF, däribland keeshond och engelsk bulldogg. TOF förekommer även hos människa och i detta arbete undersöks om det finns belägg för en genetisk predisposition. CTD förekommer både hos människa och hund, flera studier visar att dessa defekter både är genetiskt och embryologiskt besläktade men det är svårt att avgöra den exakta genetiska orsaken. Troligen rör det sig om en komplex, polygenetisk nedärvning där flera gener samverkar i utvecklingen av missbildningarna. En ny studie har visat att det skulle kunna röra sig om problem i den alternativa splitsningen, en viktig process som reglerar hjärtats utveckling hos däggdjur. Tydligt är att ytterligare forskning krävs på området, dels för att avgöra exakt vilka gener som är inblandande men också för att undersöka om samma gener orsakar defekterna hos både hund och människa. På humansidan finns enkla och säkra metoder för att prenatalt diagnosticera TOF, vilket kan göras redan i vecka 24. Efter födelsen sker behandling/kirurgisk korrektion av defekterna rutinmässigt. I detta arbete undersöktes om det finns liknande diagnostiska/kirurgiska metoder utvecklade för hund. Resultatet visade att det finns flera kirurgiska metoder men att operationerna både är dyra, riskfyllda och att de inte verkar utföras rutinmässigt på hund. De artiklar som hittades gällande kirurgi var skrivna av japanska och amerikanska författare vilket möjligen kan indikera att det främst är i dessa länder som kirurgi varit aktuellt. Det verkar inte heller möjligt att prenatalt diagnosticera TOF hos hund, trots att ultraljud anses vara säkert för att bedöma fostrens livsduglighet. Hos människa används ultraljud/Doppler och korrekt prenatal diagnos av CTD/TOF ställs i 77 % av fallen. Efter födelsen finns dock flera välutvecklade metoder för att diagnosticera CTD/TOF hos hund, däribland röntgen och oselektiv angiografi. Även ultraljud/Doppler kan användas.In humans, anomalies in the heart are amongst the most common birth defects. Congenital heart defects are also common in dogs, but the prevalence differs between pure breeds and mixed breeds and between different pure breeds. Tetralogy of Fallot, TOF, is one of the anomalies seen in the heart and is characterized by four associated defects: ventricular septal defect, overriding aorta, pulmonic stenosis and subsequent right ventricular hypertrophy. TOF is part of a group of malformations called conotruncal defects, CTDs, which affect the great arteries and the ventricular outflow tract. The heart is the first organ to form and to have a function in the embryo and therefore these defects evolve early. An error occurs during the cardiac septation and the structures that form the partitions in the heart will be malformed. As a result, truncus arteriosus will not be divided properly. This leads to an overriding aorta and pulmonic stenosis. In addition, the septal wall between the ventricles will not be able to close fully, leading to VSD. The malformations allow, after birth, de-oxygenated blood to flow from the right ventricle into the left, and on to the systemic circulation. Due to the hypoxaemia, the dog suffers from different clinical symptoms, which will vary in degree depending on the severity of the pulmonic stenosis. The clinical signs are often evident early in life and include intolerance to exercise, cyanosis, dyspnoea, fatigue, polycytemia, poor growth and syncopal periods/tet spells. Some breeds, as Keeshond and English bulldog, appear to have a predisposition for TOF. TOF and other conotruncal defects also occur in humans and this review examines if there is evidence for a genetic predisposition. Conotruncal defects are seen in both humans and dogs. Several studies have shown that these defects are related in both embryonic development and hereditary background, but the exact genetic origin is hard to define. The most probable explanation is that the cause is polygenetic and that several different genes coincide in an interaction network affecting cardiac development. A new report suggest that alternative splicing may be involved and affect several different genes necessary for regulation of cardiac development. Further research is required in the field, to decide which specific genes that are involved but also to investigate if the same genes are responsible for CTD in both humans and dogs. In human medicine, simple and safe methods are used to diagnose TOF as early as week 24 of gestation. After birth, treatment/surgical correction is performed routinely. This literature review investigates if there is similar diagnostic and surgical methods developed for dogs. The result showed that there are several different surgical methods developed, but the procedures are both expensive and risky, and do not seem to be performed regularly. All the articles regarding surgery used in this review are written by Japanese or American authors. This fact could perhaps suggest that surgical procedures are very uncommon and only being performed in a few countries. No articles where found regarding prenatal diagnosis of TOF in dogs, even though sonography is considered to be a safe method for evaluation of fetal viability. In humans, correct prenatal diagnosis for TOF and other CTDs is achieved in 77 % of the cases, using sonography/echocardiography/Doppler. In dogs, it is possible to make a postnatal diagnosis of TOF by using sonography/ echocardiography/Doppler. It is also possible to use survey radiographs and non-selective angiography

The effect of mindfulness group therapy on a broad range of psychiatric symptoms : A randomised controlled trial in primary health care

Background The need for psychotherapy in primary health care is on the increase but individual-based treatment is costly. The main aim of this randomised controlled trial (RCT) was to compare the effect of mindfulness-based group therapy (MGT) with treatment as usual (TAU), mainly individual-based cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), on a broad range of psychiatric symptoms in primary care patients diagnosed with depressive, anxiety and/or stress and adjustment disorders. An additional aim was to compare the effect of MGT with TAU on mindful attention awareness. Methods This 8-week RCT took place in 2012 at 16 primary care centres in southern Sweden. The study population included both men and women, aged 20–64 years (n = 215). A broad range of psychiatric symptoms were evaluated at baseline and at the 8-week follow-up using the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90). Mindful attention awareness was also evaluated using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS). Results In both groups, the scores decreased significantly for all subscales and indexes in SCL-90, while the MAAS scores increased significantly. There were no significant differences in the change in psychiatric symptoms between the two groups. The mindfulness group had a somewhat larger change in scores than the control group on the MAAS (P = 0.06, non-significant). Conclusions No significant differences between MGT and TAU, mainly individual-based CBT, were found in treatment effect. Both types of therapies could be used in primary care patients with depressive, anxiety and/or stress and adjustment disorders, where MGT has a potential to save limited resources. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01476371