Interest rates mapping

The present study deals with the analysis and mapping of Swiss franc interest rates. Interest rates depend on time and maturity, defining term structure of the interest rate curves (IRC). In the present study IRC are considered in a two-dimensional feature space - time and maturity. Geostatistical models and machine learning algorithms (multilayer perceptron and Support Vector Machines) were applied to produce interest rate maps. IR maps can be used for the visualisation and patterns perception purposes, to develop and to explore economical hypotheses, to produce dynamic asses-liability simulations and for the financial risk assessments. The feasibility of an application of interest rates mapping approach for the IRC forecasting is considered as well.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. Presented at Applications of Physics in Financial Analysis conference (APFA6), Lisbon, Portugal, 200

Reducing geographic inequalities in access times for acute treatment of myocardial infarction in a large country: the example of Russia.

Background: Russia has the largest area of any country in the world and has one of the highest cardiovascular mortality rates. Over the past decade, the number of facilities able to perform percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) has increased substantially. We quantify the extent to which the constraints of geography make equitable access to this effective technology difficult to achieve. Methods: Hospitals performing PCIs in 2010 and 2015 were identified and combined with data on the population of districts throughout the country. A network analysis tool was used to calculate road-travel times to the nearest PCI facility for those aged 40+ years. Results: The number of PCI facilities increased from 144 to 260 between 2010 and 2015. Overall, the median travel time to the closest PCI facility was 48 minutes in 2015, down from 73 minutes in 2010. Two-thirds of the urban population were within 60 minutes' travel time to a PCI facility in 2015, but only one-fifth of the rural population. Creating 67 new PCI facilities in currently underserved urban districts would increase the population share within 60 minutes' travel to 62% of the population, benefiting an additional 5.7 million people currently lacking adequate access. Conclusions: There have been considerable but uneven improvements in timely access to PCI facilities in Russia between 2010 and 2015. Russia has not achieved the level of access seen in other large countries with dispersed populations, such as Australian and Canada. However, creating a relatively small number of further PCI facilities could improve access substantially, thereby reducing inequality

Pretransitional phenomena in dilute crystals with first-order phase transition

Pretransitional phenomena at first-order phase transition in crystals diluted by 'neutral' impurities (analogue of nonmagnetic atoms in dilute magnets) are considered. It is shown that field dependence of order parameter becomes nonanalytical in the stability region of the ordered phase, while smeared jumps of thermodynamic parameters and anomalous (non-exponential) relaxation appear near transition temperature of pure crystal.Comment: 4 page

Spin-glass instability of short-range spherical ferromagnet

In structurally disordered ferromagnets the weak random dipole-dipole exchange may transform the polydomain state into a spin-glass one. To some extent the properties of such phase in disordered isotropic ferromagnet can be qualitatively described by the spherical model with the short-range ferromagnetic interaction and weak frustrated infinite-range random-bond exchange. This model is shown to predict that spin-glass phase substitute the ferromagnetic one at the arbitrary small disorder strength and that its thermodynamics has some similarity to that of polydomain state along with some significant distinctions. In particular, the longitudinal susceptibility at small fields becomes frozen below transition point at a constant value depending on the disorder strength, while the third order nonlinear magnetic susceptibilitiy exhibits the temperature oscillations in small field near the transition point. The relation of these predictions to the experimental data for some disordered isotropic ferromagnets is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Hysteresis loop signatures of phase transitions in a mean-field model of disordered Ising magnet

In accordance with recent experiments the mean-field type theories predict the presence of numerous metastable minima (states) in the rugged free-energy landscape of frustrated disordered magnets. This multiplicity of long-lived states with lifetimes greater than $10^5 s$ makes the task to experimentally determine which of them has the lowest free energy (and thus what thermodynamic phase the sample is in) seem rather hopeless the more so as we do not know a protocol (such as field-cooling or zero-field-cooling) leading to the equilibrium state(s). Nevertheless here we show in the framework of Landau-type phenomenological model that signatures of the mean-field equilibrium phase transitions in such highly nonequilibrium systems may be found in the evolution of the hysteresis loop form. Thus the sequence of transitions from spin-glass to mixed phase and to ferromagnetic one results in the changes from inclined hysteresis loop to that with the developing vertical sides and to one with the perfectly vertical sides. Such relation between loop form and the location of global minimum may hold beyond the mean-field approximation and can be useful in the real experiments and Monte-Carlo simulations of the problems involving rugged potential landscape. Also the very existence of the quasi-static loops in spin glass and mixed phases implies that the known disorder-smoothing of the first-order transition can be always accompanied by the emergence of multiple metastable states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; misprints corrected, slight deviations from published version (abstract and references

Critical Point Correlation Function for the 2D Random Bond Ising Model

High accuracy Monte Carlo simulation results for 1024*1024 Ising system with ferromagnetic impurity bonds are presented. Spin-spin correlation function at a critical point is found to be numerically very close to that of a pure system. This is not trivial since a critical temperature for the system with impurities is almost two times lower than pure Ising $T_c$. Finite corrections to the correlation function due to combined action of impurities and finite lattice size are described.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures after LaTeX fil

Disparities in length of life across developed countries: Measuring and decomposing changes over time within and between country groups

Published version. Source at http://doi.org/10.1186/s12963-016-0094-0. License CC BY 4.0.Background. Over the past half century the global tendency for improvements in longevity has been uneven across countries. This has resulted in widening of inter-country disparities in life expectancy. Moreover, the pattern of divergence appears to be driven in part by processes at the level of country groupings defined in geopolitical terms. A systematic quantitative analysis of this phenomenon has not been possible using demographic decomposition approaches as these have not been suitably adapted for this purpose. In this paper we present an elaboration of conventional decomposition techniques to provide a toolkit for analysis of the inter-country variance, and illustrate its use by analyzing trends in life expectancy in developed countries over a 40-year period. Methods. We analyze trends in the population-weighted variance of life expectancy at birth across 36 developed countries and three country groups over the period 1970–2010. We have modified existing decomposition approaches using the stepwise replacement algorithm to compute age components of changes in the total variance as well as variance between and within groups of Established Market Economies (EME), Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The method is generally applicable to the decomposition of temporal changes in any aggregate index based on a set of populations. Results. The divergence in life expectancy between developed countries has generally increased over the study period. This tendency dominated from the beginning of 1970s to the early 2000s, and reversed only after 2005. From 1970 to 2010, the total standard deviation of life expectancy increased from 2.0 to 5.6 years among men and from 1.0 to 3.6 years among women. This was determined by the between-group effects due to polarization between the EME and the FSU. The latter contrast was largely fueled by the long-term health crisis in Russia. With respect to age, the increase in the overall divergence was attributable to between-country differences in mortality changes at ages 15–64 years compared to those aged 65 and older. The within-group variance increased, especially among women. This change was mostly produced by growing mortality differences at ages 65 and older. Conclusions. From the early 1970s to the mid-2000s, the strong divergence in life expectancy across developed countries was largely determined by the between-group variance and mortality polarization linked to the East–West geopolitical division

Surgical treatment of a mine blast wound of the T11 vertebra with anatomical disruption of the spinal cord: a rare clinical case and a brief review of the current literature

The experience of treating a patient with a mine blast wound of the T11 vertebra with an anatomical disruption of the spinal cord, bilateral hemo- and pneumothorax is presented. As a result of the injury, the patient suffered massive destruction of soft tissues with the formation of a full-thickness defect up to the vertebral bodies. The tactics of staged surgical treatment of the patient are described: elimination of fracture dislocation, fixation of the spine and plastic surgery of the soft tissues of the wound defect using the VAC system. A review of current publications devoted to the epidemiology and tactics of treatment of combat injuries of the spine and spinal cord is presented

Consolidating orientation of pedagogic functions of university teachers in international students training

© 2016 Fedorenko and Bykova. Open Access terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.This article is focused on the development of the structure and content of consolidating orientation of pedagogical functions of university teachers in international students’ training. The leading method of research is the modeling method that allows producing of the established structure’s and content’s justification of consolidating orientation of teachers’ pedagogical functions. The article deals with the structure and content of the concept “consolidating orientation of university teachers’ pedagogical functions”; defines the content of educational process’s updating in international students’ training through the implementation of the consolidating orientation of teachers’ pedagogical functions; substantiates the educational-methodical complex of educational process’s updating of international students on the basis of the results of the study. The productivity of educational-methodical complex is proved using the criteria of formation of: cross-cultural interaction competence; ability to overcome barriers of cross-cultural communication; skills of objective evaluation of their own positions in the cross-cultural interaction with teachers, fellow students, in society; ability to plan cross-cultural interaction with others in the course of their professional activities; planning abilities of “settling” in the region, and others