On the rough Gronwall lemma and its applications

We present a rough path analog of the classical Gronwall Lemma introduced recently by A. Deya, M. Gubinelli, M. Hofmanov\'a, S. Tindel in [arXiv:1604.00437] and discuss two of its applications. First, it is applied in the framework of rough path driven PDEs in order to establish energy estimates for weak solutions. Second, it is used in order to prove uniqueness for reflected rough differential equations

Sir Temi Zammit

Dan l-editorjal jesprimi s-sogħba għat-telfa ta’ Sir Temi Zammit, membru li ta kontribut qawwi anke fil-letteratura speċjalment fil-Għaqda tal-Kittieba tal-Malti.N/

Problematising international placements as a site of intercultural learning

This paper theorises some of the learning outcomes of a three-year project concerning student learning in international social work placements in Malaysia. The problematic issue of promoting cultural and intercultural competence through such placements is examined, where overlapping hegemonies are discussed in terms of isomorphism of social work models, that of the nation state, together with those relating to professional values and knowledge, and the tyrannies of received ideas. A critical discussion of cultural competence as the rationale for international placements is discussed in terms of the development of the graduating social worker as a self-reflexive practitioner. The development of sustainable international partnerships able to support student placement and the issue of non-symmetrical reciprocation, typical of wide socio-economic differentials across global regions, is additionally discussed

Diversification strategies for the service sector

An analysis of the American economy shows that the service sector overshadows the manufacturing sector, both in size and in state of tunnoil. The tunnoil is due to Ute rapid expansion of franchise chains, computerization, evolving professional standards, and competitive pressures. From the consumer's perspective, as client sensitivity intensifies and professional malpractice suits become more threatening, the issue of understanding and examining services becomes more important. In line with Wind's (1982) observation, service decisions in a finn are not limited to individual services. A finn should take into account its service line (a number of related services), service mix (combination of service lines), and service portfolio (assortments of service mixes). The lines of demarcation among these tenns are not always clear because they depend on organizational position as well as personal preferences in defining classification systems. At the most basic level, an institution offers only a singular service. Extensions of offerings within a restricted and related group of service categories constitute a service line, an exanlple of which is the tax consulting services market where an accountant may file a tax form on behalf of a client either by mail or through computer services linked up with the IRS office.peer-reviewe

Modern slavery in business: The sad and sorry state of a non-field

“Modern slavery,” a term used to describe severe forms of labor exploitation, is beginning to spark growing interest within business and society research. As a novel phenomenon, it offers potential for innovative theoretical and empirical pathways to a range of business and management research questions. And yet, development into what we might call a “field” of modern slavery research in business and management remains significantly, and disappointingly, underdeveloped. To explore this, we elaborate on the developments to date, the potential drawbacks, and the possible future deviations that might evolve within six subdisciplinary areas of business and management. We also examine the value that nonmanagement disciplines can bring to research on modern slavery and business, examining the connections, critiques, and catalysts evident in research from political science, law, and history. These, we suggest, offer significant potential for building toward a more substantial subfield of research

Body Form Modulates the Prediction of Human and Artificial Behaviour from Gaze Observation

The future of human–robot collaboration relies on people’s ability to understand and predict robots' actions. The machine-like appearance of robots, as well as contextual information, may influence people’s ability to anticipate the behaviour of robots. We conducted six separate experiments to investigate how spatial cues and task instructions modulate people’s ability to understand what a robot is doing. Participants observed goal-directed and non-goal directed gaze shifts made by human and robot agents, as well as directional cues displayed by a triangle. We report that biasing an observer's attention, by showing just one object an agent can interact with, can improve people’s ability to understand what humanoid robots will do. Crucially, this cue had no impact on people’s ability to predict the upcoming behaviour of the triangle. Moreover, task instructions that focus on the visual and motor consequences of the observed gaze were found to influence mentalising abilities. We suggest that the human-like shape of an agent and its physical capabilities facilitate the prediction of an upcoming action. The reported findings expand current models of gaze perception and may have important implications for human–human and human–robot collaboration

Modeling of Indirect Evaporative Cooling Systems: A Review

Air-to-air indirect evaporative cooling (IEC) systems are particular heat exchangers that use the latent heat of evaporation of water to cool down an air stream, without increasing its specific humidity, thus guaranteeing adequate thermohygrometric conditions in the refrigerated environment with low energy consumption. Dew-point indirect evaporative cooling (DIEC) systems are based on the IEC technology, but they recirculate a part of the air taken from the room to be refrigerated, in order to possibly achieve a lower air temperature. IEC and DIEC systems are becoming increasingly common these years, as they can ensure a good efficiency, minimizing the environmental impact of the air-conditioning system. Consequently, it has been necessary to develop models, both analytical and numerical, to quickly and accurately design this type of system and to predict their performance. This paper presents a review of the analytical and numerical models developed specifically for IEC and DIEC systems, highlighting their method, main innovations and advantages, and possible limitations. From this analysis, it emerged that analytical models have been developed since the late 1990s and only few of them are suitable for DIEC heat exchangers, while numerical models for both IEC and DIEC systems are gaining popularity in recent years. Almost all the analyzed models have been validated by comparison with numerical and/or experimental data, showing a maximum discrepancy within 10% in the majority of the cases. However, the validations were performed for a few specific cases, so in real applications it might be difficult to associate the model boundary conditions and the heat exchangers operating conditions, such as nozzles orientations, plates materials, water flow rates, and configurations. Another common limitation concerns the modeling of some properties, as wettability factor and air density, which might affect the accuracy of the results

The development of EPSAS: contributions from the literature

EPSAS are being considered in the EU context where a need for harmonisation in Governmental Accounting (GA) has been recognised as important to increase the reliability of sources of information to the National Accounts (NA) figures. However, GA and NA are two different and parallel reporting systems at national level, even if, within the European context, EPSAS intend to contribute for their convergence. The relationship between GA and NA has been recurrently addressed in the literature over the last two decades, with professionals being more proactive while academics have been more reactive in the debate. Several issues have been raised. This paper recaptures and revises these issues, synthesising academic and practitioner literature, archival documents and reports of EU working groups, from 1996 to 2018. The analysis highlights the more controversial areas, and those that seemed already settled but yet are now, within the context of EPSAS development, being raised again. Specifically, the paper calls attention to (1) the need to manage between two different conceptual frameworks of GA and NA; (2) the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration between the professionals involved, namely accountants, public administrators and statisticians; (3) the role of budgetary accounting and the alignment required between reporting in GA and NA, reducing and harmonising adjustments to be made when translating data from one into the other; and (4) the need to address auditing issues, as EPSAS on their own may not be enough to ensure reliability of the information reported.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Additional Saturday occupational therapy for adults receiving inpatient physiotherapy rehabilitation : A prospective cohort study

Background The first aim of this study was to investigate the impact of providing an additional four hours of Saturday occupational therapy to patients receiving Saturday physiotherapy in an inpatient setting on length of stay, functional independence, gait and balance. The second aim was to conduct an economic evaluation to determine if the introduction of a Saturday occupational therapy service in addition to physiotherapy resulted in a net cost savings for the rehabilitation facility. Methods A prospective cohort study with a historical control was conducted in an Australian private mixed rehabilitation unit from 2015–2017. Clinical outcomes included the Functional Independence Measure (Motor, Cognitive, Total), gait speed (10 Meter Walk test) and five balance measures (Timed Up and Go test, Step test, Functional Reach, Feet Together Eyes Closed and the Balance Outcome Measure of Elder Rehabilitation). Economic outcomes were rehabilitation unit length of stay and additional treatment costs. Results A total of 366 patients were admitted to the rehabilitation unit over two 20-week periods. The prospective cohort (receiving Saturday occupational therapy and physiotherapy) had 192 participants and the historical control group (receiving Saturday physiotherapy only) had 174 participants. On admission, intervention group participants had higher cognitive (p < 0.01) and total (p < 0.01) Functional Independence Measure scores. Participation in weekend therapy by the intervention group was 11% higher, attending more sessions (p < 0.01) for a greater length of time (p < 0.01) compared to the historical control group. After controlling for differences in admission Functional Independence Measure scores, rehabilitation length of stay was estimated to be reduced by 1.39 (p = 0.08) days. The economic evaluation identified potential cost savings of AUD1,536 per patient. The largest potential savings were attributed to neurological patients AUD4,854. Traumatic and elective orthopaedic patients realised potential patient related cost savings per admission of AUD2,668 and AUD2,180, respectively. Conclusions Implementation of four hours of Saturday occupational therapy in addition to physiotherapy results in a more efficient service, enabling a greater amount of therapy to be provided on a Saturday over a shorter length of stay. Provision of multidisciplinary Saturday rehabilitation is potentially cost reducing for the treating hospital

Experimental Characterization of the Wettability of Coated and Uncoated Plates for Indirect Evaporative Cooling Systems

Indirect Evaporative Cooling (IEC) is a very promising technology to substitute and/or integrate traditional air conditioning systems, due to its ability to provide cooling capacity with limited power consumption. Literature studies proved that a higher wettability of the IEC plates corresponds to better performance of the system. In this work, wettability of three different surfaces used for IEC systems plates—uncoated aluminum alloy (AL), standard epoxy coating (STD), and a hydrophilic lacquer (HPHI)—is studied and characterized in terms of static and dynamic contact angles. The static contact angle resulted to be the lowest for the HPHI surface (average 69°), intermediate for the STD surface (average 75°), and the highest for the AL surface (average 89°). The analysis of the dynamic contact angles showed that their transient behavior is similar for all the surfaces, and the advancing and receding contact angles obtained are consistent with the results of the static analysis. These results will be useful as input parameters in models aimed at predicting the IEC system performance, also using computational fluid dynamics