6,012 research outputs found
Mother's education and birth weight
Low birth weight has considerable short and long-term consequences and leads to high costs to the individual and society even in a developed economy. Low birth weight is partially a consequence of choices made by the mother pre- and during pregnancy. Thus policies affecting these choices could have large returns. Using British data, maternal education is found to be positively correlated with birth weight. We identify a causal effect of education using the 1947 reform of the minimum school leaving age. Change in compulsory school leaving age has been previously used as an instrument, but has been criticised for mostly picking up time trends. Here, we demonstrate that the policy effects differ by social background and hence provide identification across cohorts but also within cohort. We find modest but heterogenous positive effects of maternal education on birth weight with an increase from the baseline weight ranging from 2% to 6%.Returns to education, health
A Fixed Parameter Tractable Approximation Scheme for the Optimal Cut Graph of a Surface
Given a graph cellularly embedded on a surface of genus , a
cut graph is a subgraph of such that cutting along yields a
topological disk. We provide a fixed parameter tractable approximation scheme
for the problem of computing the shortest cut graph, that is, for any
, we show how to compute a approximation of
the shortest cut graph in time .
Our techniques first rely on the computation of a spanner for the problem
using the technique of brick decompositions, to reduce the problem to the case
of bounded tree-width. Then, to solve the bounded tree-width case, we introduce
a variant of the surface-cut decomposition of Ru\'e, Sau and Thilikos, which
may be of independent interest
Annotation of Tribolium nuclear receptors reveals an evolutionary overacceleration of a network controlling the ecdysone cascade
The Tribolium genome contains 21 nuclear receptors, representing all of the
six known subfamilies. When compared to other species, this first complete set
for a Coleoptera reveals a strong conservation of the number and identity of
nuclear receptors in holometabolous insects. Two novelties are observed: the
atypical NR0 gene knirps is present only in brachyceran flies, while the NR2E6
gene is found only in Tribolium and in Apis. Using a quantitative analysis of
the evolutionary rate, we discovered that nuclear receptors could be divided
into two groups. In one group of 13 proteins, the rates follow the trend of the
Mecopterida genome-wide acceleration. In a second group of five nuclear
receptors, all acting together at the top of the ecdysone cascade, we observed
an overacceleration of the evolutionary rate during the early divergence of
Mecopterida. We thus extended our analysis to the twelve classic ecdysone
transcriptional regulators and found that six of them (ECR, USP, HR3, E75, HR4
and Kr-h1) underwent an overacceleration at the base of the Mecopterida
lineage. By contrast, E74, E93, BR, HR39, FTZ-F1 and E78 do not show this
divergence. We suggest that coevolution occurred within a network of regulators
that control the ecdysone cascade. The advent of Tribolium as a powerful model
should allow a better understanding of this evolution
Performances of a GNSS receiver for space-based applications
Space Vehicle (SV) life span depends on its station keeping capability. Station keeping is the ability of the vehicle to maintain position and orientation. Due to external perturbations, the trajectory of the SV derives from the ideal orbit. Actual positioning systems for satellites are mainly based on ground equipment, which means heavy infrastructures. Autonomous positioning and navigation systems using Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) can then represent a great reduction in platform design and operating costs. Studies have been carried out and the first operational systems, based on GPS receivers, become available. But better availability of service could be obtained considering a receiver able to process GPS and Galileo signals. Indeed Galileo system will be compatible with the current and the modernized GPS system in terms of signals representation and navigation data. The greater
availability obtained with such a receiver would allow
significant increase of the number of point solutions and
performance enhancement. For a mid-term perspective Thales Alenia Space finances a PhD to develop the concept of a reconfigurable receiver able to deal with both the GPS system and the future Galileo system. In this context, the aim of this paper is to assess the performances of a receiver designed for Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) applications. It is shown that high improvements are obtained with a receiver designed to track both GPS and Galileo satellites. The performance assessments have been used to define the specifications of the future satellite GNSS receiver
On the Enumeration of Minimal Dominating Sets and Related Notions
A dominating set in a graph is a subset of its vertex set such that each
vertex is either in or has a neighbour in . In this paper, we are
interested in the enumeration of (inclusion-wise) minimal dominating sets in
graphs, called the Dom-Enum problem. It is well known that this problem can be
polynomially reduced to the Trans-Enum problem in hypergraphs, i.e., the
problem of enumerating all minimal transversals in a hypergraph. Firstly we
show that the Trans-Enum problem can be polynomially reduced to the Dom-Enum
problem. As a consequence there exists an output-polynomial time algorithm for
the Trans-Enum problem if and only if there exists one for the Dom-Enum
problem. Secondly, we study the Dom-Enum problem in some graph classes. We give
an output-polynomial time algorithm for the Dom-Enum problem in split graphs,
and introduce the completion of a graph to obtain an output-polynomial time
algorithm for the Dom-Enum problem in -free chordal graphs, a proper
superclass of split graphs. Finally, we investigate the complexity of the
enumeration of (inclusion-wise) minimal connected dominating sets and minimal
total dominating sets of graphs. We show that there exists an output-polynomial
time algorithm for the Dom-Enum problem (or equivalently Trans-Enum problem) if
and only if there exists one for the following enumeration problems: minimal
total dominating sets, minimal total dominating sets in split graphs, minimal
connected dominating sets in split graphs, minimal dominating sets in
co-bipartite graphs.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, In revisio
Integration of dynamic behaviour variations in the stability lobes method: 3D lobes construction and application to thin-walled structure milling
Vibratory problems occurring during peripheral milling of thin-walled structures affect the quality of the fin- ished part and, to a lesser extent, the tool life and the spindle life. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to limit these problems with a suitable choice of cutting conditions. The stability lobes theory makes it possible to choose the appropriate cutting con- ditions according to the dynamical behaviour of the tool or the part. We introduce the dynamical behaviour variation of the part with respect to the tool position in order to determine optimal cutting conditions during the machining process. This general- ization of the classical lobes diagram leads us to a 3D lobes diagram construction. These computed results are compared with real experiments of down-milling of thin-walled structures
Influence of material removal on the dynamic behavior of thin-walled structures in peripheral milling
Machining is a material removal process that alters the dynamic properties during machining operations. The peripheral milling of a thin-walled structure generates vibration of the workpiece and this influences the quality of the machined surface. A reduction of tool life and spindle life can also be experienced when machining is subjected to vibration. In this paper, the linearized stability lobes theory allows us to determine critical and optimal cutting conditions for which vibration is not appar- ent in the milling of thin-walled workpieces. The evolution of the mechanical parameters of the cut- ting tool, machine tool and workpiece during the milling operation are not taken into account. The critical and optimal cutting conditions depend on dynamic properties of the workpiece. It is illustrated how the stability lobes theory is used to evaluate the variation of the dynamic properties of the thin- walled workpiece. We use both modal measurement and finite element method to establish a 3D rep- resentation of stability lobes. The 3D representation allows us to identify spindle speed values at which the variation of spindle speed is initiated to improve the surface finish of the workpiece
A rao-blackwellized particle filter for INS/GPS integration
The localization performance of a navigation system can be
improved by coupling different types of sensors. This paper focuses on INS-GPS integration. INS and GPS measurements allow to dene a non-linear state space model, which is appropriate to particle ltering. This model being conditionally linear Gaussian, a Rao-Blackwellization procedure can be applied to reduce the variance of the estimates
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