Towards a classifier for digital sensitivity review

The sensitivity review of government records is essential before they can be released to the official government archives, to prevent sensitive information (such as personal information, or that which is prejudicial to international relations) from being released. As records are typically reviewed and released after a period of decades, sensitivity review practices are still based on paper records. The transition to digital records brings new challenges, e.g. increased volume of digital records, making current practices impractical to use. In this paper, we describe our current work towards developing a sensitivity review classifier that can identify and prioritise potentially sensitive digital records for review. Using a test collection built from government records with real sensitivities identified by government assessors, we show that considering the entities present in each record can markedly improve upon a text classification baseline

On the uniqueness of community banks

To the public, all banks seem alike. But banking insiders make important distinctions between community banks and all other banks. Policymakers worry that community banks’ unique characteristics threaten their survival in the face of industry consolidation. However, despite dramatic regulatory and technological changes in the industry in the past two decades, community banks have not only survived but often prospered. ; This article explores the differences between community banks and larger banks to discover what makes community banks unique. Large banks engage primarily in transactional banking—the provision of highly standardized intermediation services, such as gathering deposits and extending loans, that require little human input to manage. Community banks, in contrast, typically focus on relationship banking, which requires more human input, more detailed credit evaluation, and localized decision making. ; Examining profit and risk measures for the 1998–2002 period for both community banks and large banking organizations, the authors find evidence that small banks were generally profitable. In all but the smallest size category, community banks have performed as well as, and often better than, large banks in managing net interest margins, aggregate profits, and credit risk. Also, community banks are more likely to adopt Subchapter S tax status, which allows them to avoid direct federal income taxation and pass tax benefits on to shareholders. These institutions typically have relatively higher returns on both equity and assets than larger banks do. Whether community banks will be able to sustain this good performance will depend, the authors conclude, on how well managers find valuable relationship lending niches, invest bank capital, and balance asset quality with growth.Community banks

Women in the Superintendency: Opting In or Opting Out?

The purpose of this article was to report the most common career path to the superintendency in the Northwest. We compared career paths across four subgroups of study participants-male and female superintendents and male and female certificate holders who were not superintendents. First, we sought commonalities in the routes chosen by current male and female superintendents in the study. Second, we examined the career choices of potential superintendency applicants to determine whether they were actually gaining the types of administrative experience required by school boards and search consultants. We concluded with implications for practice based on study findings

Women in the Superintendency: Opting In or Opting Out?

The purpose of this article was to report the most common career path to the superintendency in the Northwest. We compared career paths across four subgroups of study participants-male and female superintendents and male and female certificate holders who were not superintendents. First, we sought commonalities in the routes chosen by current male and female superintendents in the study. Second, we examined the career choices of potential superintendency applicants to determine whether they were actually gaining the types of administrative experience required by school boards and search consultants. We concluded with implications for practice based on study findings

Effects of publication bias on conservation planning

Conservation planning needs reliable information on spatial patterns of biodiversity. However, existing data sets are skewed: some habitats, taxa, and locations are under-represented. Here, we map geographic publication density at the sub-national scale of individual 'provinces'. We query the Web of Science catalogues SCI and SSCI for biodiversity-related publications including country and province names (for the period 1993-2016). We combine these data with other provincial-scale factors hypothesised to affect research (i.e. economic development, human presence, infrastructure and remoteness). We show that sites that appear to be understudied, compared with the biodiversity expected from their bioclimatic conditions, are likely to have been inaccessible to researchers for a diversity of reasons amongst which current or recent armed conflicts are notable. Finally, we create a priority list of provinces where geographic publication bias is of most concern, and discuss how our provincial-scale model can assist in adjusting for publication biases in conservation planning.Comment: 10 pages; 3 figures; 1 table;R code on https://github.com/raffael-hickisch; data at https://zenodo.org/record/998889; interactive at http://bit.ly/publication_density_ma

Electrical characterization of high temperature superconductors as a function of temperature

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Nuclear Engineering, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-153).The critical currents of silver sheathed multifilamentary Bi 2Sr 2Ca2 Cu3010 (BSCCO- 2223/Ag) tapes at temperatures ranging from 77 K to 110 K were measured using a typical four-terminal technique for two different BSCCO-2223/Ag tapes manufactured by Vacuumschmelze (VAC). The critical currents for the two VAC samples were measured as a function of magnetic field strength. The critical current of each sample was well described by the generalized Kim model. The critical current was also measured as a function of angle of the magnetic field with respect to the plane of the tapes, in all cases perpendicular to the transport current flow. Both samples displayed a high sensitivity to the magnetic field orientation with the largest critical currents measured when the magnetic field was in-plane with the broad face of the tapes. The current ramp rate effect on the critical current was investigated and showed no significant effect on the critical current measurements for ramp speeds between 6 A/min and 120 A/min. The energy dissipation or AC losses as a function of peak AC magnetic field, magnetic field sweep frequency, and transport current for a VAC sample and a sample manufactured by IGC - Advanced Superconductors (IGC) were measured at 77 K. The losses were measured using a pick up coil with a lock-in amplifier to measure the magnetization of the superconducting samples. The AC losses of both samples displayed complete electromagnetic coupling of the superconducting filaments at magnetic sweep frequencies of approximately 0.1 Hz. These results are consistent with results measured at magnetic field sweep frequencies of 60 Hz.by Timothy A. MacDonald.S.M

Singlet fission spin dynamics from molecular structure: a modular computational pipeline

Singlet fission, which has applications in areas ranging form solar energy to quantum information, relies critically on transitions within a multi-spin manifold. These transitions are driven by fluctuations in the spin-spin exchange interaction, which have been linked to changes in nuclear geometry or exciton migration. Whilst simple calculations have supported this mechanism, to date little effort has been made to model realistic fluctuations which are informed by the actual structure and properties of physical materials. In this paper, we develop a modular computational pipeline for calculating singlet fission spin dynamics by way of electronic structural calculations, molecular dynamics, and numerical models of spin dynamics. The outputs of this pipeline aid in the interpretation of measured spin dynamics and allow us to place constraints on geometric fluctuations which are consistent with these observations.Comment: 23 pages (including SI), 7 Figure

A constitutively active G protein-coupled acetylcholine receptor regulates motility of larval Schistosoma mansoni

The neuromuscular system of helminths controls a variety of essential biological processes and therefore represents a good source of novel drug targets. The neuroactive substance, acetylcholine controls movement of Schistosoma mansoni but the mode of action is poorly understood. Here, we present first evidence of a functional G protein-coupled acetylcholine receptor in S. mansoni, which we have named SmGAR. A bioinformatics analysis indicated that SmGAR belongs to a clade of invertebrate GAR-like receptors and is related to vertebrate muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. Functional expression studies in yeast showed that SmGAR is constitutively active but can be further activated by acetylcholine and, to a lesser extent, the cholinergic agonist, carbachol. Anti-cholinergic drugs, atropine and promethazine, were found to have inverse agonist activity towards SmGAR, causing a significant decrease in the receptor’s basal activity. An RNAi phenotypic assay revealed that suppression of SmGAR activity in early-stage larval schistosomulae leads to a drastic reduction in larval motility. In sum, our results provide the first molecular evidence that cholinergic GAR -like receptors are present in schistosomes and are required for proper motor control in the larvae. The results further identify SmGAR as a possible candidate for antiparasitic drug targeting