The capability of capacitive sensors in the monitoring relative humidity in hypogeum environments

Hypogeum environments are characterized by high levels of relative humidity (RH). Most humidity sensors currently in use are based on the capacitive effect of the dielectric material to change according to water vapour uptake. In hypogeum environments the dielectric material can be saturated by water vapor, implying a significant error in the RH measurement. To improve the capacity of this type of humidity sensors, a modified hygrometer capacitive sensor, which uses a heating cycle to avoid the condensation, has been recently developed by Rotronic®. During four field campaigns in two different hypogea environments (the Monkey Tomb in Siena and the Mithreum of Caracalla Baths in Rome), RH was measured using the conventional capacitive sensor (CCS) and the heated capacitive sensor (HCS). The purpose of this study was to investigate the capability of HCS to detect RH variations when the environmental conditions were close to vapor saturation. Significant differences were found between the measurements of the two sensors: when RH was close to 100%, the CCS was not able to detect the RH decrease, giving only a measure of RH=100%, while HCS detected such a RH decrease. Therefore, these results encourage the use of HCS in the monitoring of RH levels in extreme humidity sites such as hypogea sites

Review on Nonoccupational Personal Solar UV Exposure Measurements

Solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation follows people during their whole life. Exposure to UV radiation is vital but holds serious risks, too. The quantification of human UV exposure is a complex issue. UV exposure is directly related to incoming UV radiation as well as to a variety of factors such as the orientation of the exposed anatomical site with respect to the sun and the duration of exposure. The use of badge-sensors allows assessing the UV exposure of differently oriented body sites. Such UV devices have been available for over 40 years, and a variety of measuring campaigns have been undertaken since then. This study provides an overview of those studies which reported measurements of the personal UV exposure (PE) during outdoor activities of people not related to their occupation. This overview is given chronologically to show the progress of knowledge in this research and is given with respect to different activities. Special focus is put on the ratio of personal exposure to ambient UV radiation. This ratio, when given as a function of solar elevation, allows estimating PE at any other location or date if ambient UV radiation is known

Bootstrapping Neural tests for conditional heteroskedasticity

We deal with bootstrapping tests for detecting conditional heteroskedasticity in the context of standard and nonstandard ARCH models. We develope parametric and nonparametric bootstrap tests based both on the LM statistic and a neural statistic. The neural tests are designed to approximate an arbitrary nonlinear form of the conditional variance by a neural function. While published tests are valid asymptotically, they are not exact in finite samples and suffer from a substantial size distortion: the finite-sample error remains non-negligible, even for several hundred observations. Here, we treat this problem using bootstrap methods, making possible a better finite-sample estimate of the distribution of the test statistic. A graphical presentation employing a size-correction principle is used to show the true power of the tests rather than the spurious nominal power typically givenBootstrap, Artificial Neural Networks, ARCH models, inference tests

BPS states and their reductions

We develop a method to identify the BPS states in the Hilbert space of a supersymmetric field theory on a generic curved space which preserves at least two real supercharges. We also propose a one-to-one map between BPS states in d-dimensional field theories and states that contribute to the supersymmetric partition function of a corresponding (d-1)-dimensional field theory. As an application we obtain the superconformal index on rounded and squashed three spheres, and we show a natural reduction of the respective indices to the three-dimensional exact partition functions. We discuss the validity of the correspondence both at the perturbative and at the non-perturbative level and exploit the idea to uplift the computation of the exact supersymmetric partition function on a general manifold to a higher dimensional index.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure, typos fixe

A Bootstrap Neural Network Based Heterogeneous Panel Unit Root Test: Application to Exchange Rates

This paper proposes a bootstrap artificial neural network based panel unit root test in a dynamic heterogeneous panel context. An application to a panel of bilateral real exchange rate series with the US Dollar from the 20 major OECD countries is provided to investigate the Purchase Power Parity (PPP). The combination of neural network and bootstrapping significantly changes the findings of the economic study in favour of PPP.Artificial neural network, panel unit root test, bootstrap, Monte Carlo experiments, exchange rates.

Co-opting the stars: Divination and the politics of resistance in Buddhist Thailand

Beginning in 2020, young people in Thailand have led rallies to protest the interference of the military and the monarchy in politics. They have also condemned the role played by Buddhist discourse and court ritual in celebrating kings as divine. ‘No God, No King, Only Human’ reads a protest sign. Simultaneously, however, some groups of protesters have used the same ‘religious’ repertoire, such as the astrological tradition of the court, in their activism, turning it into an instrument of resistance. This article explores this apparent ambivalence via an ethnographic focus on divination, a long-standing central feature of Thai politics. Drawing from a decade of fieldwork conducted with diviners (mo du) and their clients from both pro-regime and pro-democracy camps, including prominent young activists, I argue that progressive individuals do not necessarily need to reject cosmological ideas and rituals deemed conservative in order to resist. Rather, many proactively co-opt them to enhance their own position in the polity, further demonstrating the inability of those in power to live up to accepted moral standards. This strategy, which builds on a Southeast Asian tradition of millenarianism, mobilises dogmatic notions including karma in support of narratives and practices of resistance

BYOD strategies in higher education: current knowledge, students’ perspectives, and challenges

The use of mobile computing devices has become an integral part of virtually every aspect of our personal and professional life, and education is no exception to this paradigm. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategies are becoming increasingly prevalent in teaching, learning and assessment across all age groups, however the evaluation of their relative effectiveness compared to traditional pedagogies is still a controversial matter.Despite the vast number of reports attesting the successful integration of BYOD in higher education, it has been argued that a significant proportion of the studies on the topic are highly heterogeneous from both a theoretical and methodological standpoint.While BYOD strategies have been put in place in an increasing number of educational institutions around the world, the extent of their implementation varies widely between (and in most cases within) different institutions. This observation highlights the critical importance of the development of a solid theoretical and practical framework to underpin the integration of BYOD in higher education.The first part of this paper will aim to critically evaluate the state of the art of the literature on the efficacy of BYOD strategies in higher education, highlighting potential benefits and drawbacks. As a paradigmatic example of caveats arising from the use of BYOD in higher education, it has been argued that teaching and learning strategies based on the use of personal mobile computing devices may pose a significant risk to aggravate digital divide between students who have access to (and operational mastery of) such devices, and students who do not.The critical evaluation of the advantages and pitfalls of BYOD will be used as a theoretical scaffold for the second part of the paper, which will outline the results of a recent case study to give a practical account of the implementation of BYOD in higher education. A survey was carried out within a cohort of level 4 Biology, Biochemistry, and Marine Biology students to investigate the students’ perception of the effectiveness of Nearpod as a formative assessment tool. While the majority (65%) of the participants had never used BYOD in an educational context before enrolling into university, the students’ account of its efficacy appears overwhelmingly positive. Most students expressed a clear preference for electronic formative assessment and commended its superior helpfulness compared to traditional methods. The vast majority of the participants (over 90%) did not perceive BYOD as potentially aggravating digital divide among their peers.Keywords: BYOD; higher education; electronic; interactive; formative assessment; digital divide; personal computing devices; smartphone; tablet; laptop