The Economic Impacts of Native American Gaming in Wisconsin

An input-output model is utilized to assesses the economic impact of gambling in Native American casinos in Wisconsin. Important facts include interview information from 697 players. Positive economic gains discovered for local casino areas are offset by losses to other parts of the state and by losses due to social costs

QCD ghost dark energy cannot (even roughly) explain the main features of the accepted cosmological paradigm

We explore the whole phase space of the so called Veneziano/QCD ghost dark energy models where the dynamics of the inner trapping horizon is ignored and also the more realistic models where the time-dependence of the horizon is taken into consideration. We pay special attention to the choice of phase space variables leading to bounded and compact phase space so that no critical point of physical interest is missing. It is demonstrated that ghost dark energy is not a suitable candidate to explain the presently accepted cosmological paradigm since no critical point associated with matter dominance is found in the physical phase space of the model. A transient stage of matter dominance -- responsible for the observed amount of cosmic structure -- is an essential ingredient of the accepted cosmological paradigm. The above drawback is in addition to the well known problem with classical instability against small perturbations of the background density originated from negativity of the sound speed squared.Comment: 12 pages, 3 eps figures. Remarks on phase space analysis substantially improved. Minor corrections to the text and title. This version matches the one published in PR

Latent protein trees

Unbiased, label-free proteomics is becoming a powerful technique for measuring protein expression in almost any biological sample. The output of these measurements after preprocessing is a collection of features and their associated intensities for each sample. Subsets of features within the data are from the same peptide, subsets of peptides are from the same protein, and subsets of proteins are in the same biological pathways, therefore, there is the potential for very complex and informative correlational structure inherent in these data. Recent attempts to utilize this data often focus on the identification of single features that are associated with a particular phenotype that is relevant to the experiment. However, to date, there have been no published approaches that directly model what we know to be multiple different levels of correlation structure. Here we present a hierarchical Bayesian model which is specifically designed to model such correlation structure in unbiased, label-free proteomics. This model utilizes partial identification information from peptide sequencing and database lookup as well as the observed correlation in the data to appropriately compress features into latent proteins and to estimate their correlation structure. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the model using artificial/benchmark data and in the context of a series of proteomics measurements of blood plasma from a collection of volunteers who were infected with two different strains of viral influenza.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AOAS639 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Social Costs Of Gambling: A Comparative Study Of Nutmeg And Cheese State Gamblers

An analysis of the social costs of problem gambling finds similar results from two surveys of gamblers in treatment in Wisconsin (N=98) and Connecticut (N=112). Cost factors examined include lost work time and unemployment, bad debts, thefts, civil court costs, criminal justice system costs, and welfare costs. The problem gambler in Wisconsin imposes an annual cost of $8,681 on other persons, while Connecticut costs amount to$15,994. The variations between the two groups surveyed are found, for the most part, in costs of thefts. The differences can be explained by the fact that legalized gambling has been established longer in Connecticut

An atlas for tridiagonal isospectral manifolds

Let ${\cal T}_\Lambda$ be the compact manifold of real symmetric tridiagonal matrices conjugate to a given diagonal matrix $\Lambda$ with simple spectrum. We introduce {\it bidiagonal coordinates}, charts defined on open dense domains forming an explicit atlas for ${\cal T}_\Lambda$. In contrast to the standard inverse variables, consisting of eigenvalues and norming constants, every matrix in ${\cal T}_\Lambda$ now lies in the interior of some chart domain. We provide examples of the convenience of these new coordinates for the study of asymptotics of isospectral dynamics, both for continuous and discrete time.Comment: Fixed typos; 16 pages, 3 figure

Patterns of age-specific mortality in children in endemic areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

Understanding of the age- and season- dependence of malaria mortality is an important prerequisite for epidemiologic models of malaria immunity. However, most studies of malaria mortality have aggregated their results into broad age groups and across seasons, making it hard to predict the likely impact of interventions targeted at specific age groups of children. We present age-specific mortality rates for children aged < 15 years for the period of 2001-2005 in 7 demographic surveillance sites in areas of sub-Saharan Africa with stable endemic Plasmodium falciparum malaria. We use verbal autopsies (VAs) to estimate the proportion of deaths by age group due to malaria, and thus calculate malaria-specific mortality rates for each site, age-group, and month of the year. In all sites a substantial proportion of deaths (ranging from 20.1% in a Mozambican site to 46.2% in a site in Burkina Faso) were attributed to malaria. The overall age patterns of malaria mortality were similar in the different sites. Deaths in the youngest children (< 3 months old) were only rarely attributed to malaria, but in children over 1 year of age the proportion of deaths attributed to malaria was only weakly age-dependent. In most of the sites all-cause mortality rates peaked during the rainy season, but the strong seasonality in malaria transmission in these sites was not reflected in strong seasonality in the proportion of deaths attributed to malaria, except in the two sites in Burkina Faso. Improvement in the specificity of malaria verbal autopsies would make it easier to interpret the age and season patterns in such data

An optical fiber hydrogen sensor using a palladium-coated ball lens

A self-referenced optical fiber refractometer using a ball lens as a sensor head has been developed and characterized. A 350-μm ball lens created at the tip of a single mode fiber has been coated with a 40-nm optically thin layer of palladium that reacts with hydrogen to form a hydride, which has a lower reflectivity than pure palladium. Optical reflectance measurements from the tip of the ball lens were performed to determine the hydrogen response. The change in reflectivity is proportional to the hydrogen concentration in the range 0% to 1% hydrogen in air with a detection limit down to 10 ppm (1σ) in air. This technique offers a simple sensor head arrangement, with a larger sampling area (~40 times) than a typical single-mode fiber core. A statistical image analysis of a palladium film, with cracks created by accelerated failure, confirms that the anticipated sensor area for a ball lens sensor head has a more predictable reflectivity than that of a bare fiber core

Otimização do processo de biogestão anaeróbia a partir da mistura de água residual de suinocultura, vinhaça e gliceraol bruto

Orientador : Prof. Dr. Joel Gustavo TelekenCo-orientador : Prof. Dr. Jonathan DieterDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor Palotina, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Bioenergia. Defesa: Palotina, 11/03/2016Inclui referências: f. 62-68Área de concentraçãoResumo: Nos últimos anos a produção de biocombustíveis líquidos e gasosos, dentre os quais o biogás, tem se intensificando principalmente pelo aumento da demanda energética, além da crescente preocupação com as questões ambientais. O presente estudo teve como objetivo a produção de biogás utilizando como substrato misturas de glicerol bruto, vinhaça e água residual de suinocultura, visando avaliar o efeito destes substratos tanto na eficiência de tratamento dos mesmos, como no volume e composição do biogás produzido, com o intuito de determinar a mistura ótima destes substratos e o estudo da cinética de produção de biogás utilizando reatores de bancada com operação em batelada. Os resultados mais desejáveis tanto para a produção de metano quanto para a remoção da carga orgânica nos efluentes foi obtida utilizando concentrações de vinhaça e glicerol de 5 %. A mistura ótima foi determinada em função do volume dos substratos, e correspondeu a 4,28 % de glicerol, 3,22 % de vinhaça, e 92,5 % de ARS, estimando uma produção de 2494 mL de metano por batelada, quando utilizado os substratos nestas proporções. Esta mistura foi utilizada em biodigestores de escala piloto com alimentação semi-contínua para a avaliação do perfil de produção de biogás. Os resultados corroboraram com os obtidos em escala laboratorial. A utilização da mistura resultou em incrementos significativos na produção de biogás e metano, superando os 300 % para este último gás. Desta forma, baseado no poder calorífico do metano, os biodigestores quando alimentados com a mistura ótima tiveram uma produção de energia três vezes maior do que quando alimentados somente com ARS. Além disso, baseado na remoção da carga orgânica e redução dos teores de sólidos totais e voláteis, foi constatado um aumento na eficiência do tratamento dos efluentes. Com relação aos modelos matemáticos utilizados, todos representaram bem os dados experimentais, o que possibilitou o estudo da cinética de produção de biogás, onde os experimentos 7, 8, 9 e 10, com misturas contendo 93,33 % de ARS, 3,33 % de glicerol bruto, e 3,33 % de vinhaça foram os que apresentaram os melhores resultados em relação ao tempo da fase lag, volume máximo de biogás produzido e velocidade específica máxima. Palavras-chave: codigestão, cinética, perfil de produção.Abstract: In recent years the production of liquid and gaseous biofuels, among which the biogas has been increasing mainly due to increased energy demand, and the growing concern about environmental issues. This study aimed to biogas production using as substrate mixtures of crude glycerol, stillage and wastewater swine, to evaluate the effect of these substrates in both treatment efficiency thereof, as the volume and composition of the biogas produced with the order to determine the optimal mix of these substrates and the study of biogas production kinetics using benchtop reactors operating in batch. The most desirable results in terms of methane production and for the removal of organic matter in the effluent vinasse was obtained using concentrations of 5% and glycerol. The optimum mixture was determined by the volume of substrates, and amounted to 4.28% glycerol, 3.22% of vinasse, and 92.5% of ARS, estimating a production of 2494 mL of methane per batch, when used the substrates in these proportions. This mixture was used as digesters semi-continuously feeding pilot scale to evaluate the production profile biogás. The results corroborate those obtained on the laboratory scale. The use of the mixture resulted in significant increases in the production of biogas and methane, exceeding 300% for the latter gas. Thus, based on the calorific power of methane, fed to the digesters where the optimal mixture had a power output three times larger than that when fed only with ARS. Furthermore, based on the removal of organic matter and reduction of volatile total solids content and was found an increase in the wastewater treatment efficiency. Regarding the mathematical models used, all represented well the experimental data, allowing the study of biogas production kinetics, where the experiments 7, 8, 9 and 10, with mixtures containing 93.33% of ARS 3.33 % of crude glycerol, and 3.33% of vinasse showed the best results in relation to the phase lag time, maximum volume of produced biogas and maximum specific speed. Keywords: co-digestion, kinetic, production profile