Experimental Analysis of the Reputational Incentives in a Self Regulated Organization

Self regulation is a mechanism of quality vigilance that is frequently used in credence good industries. The providers in these markets generally form a Self Regulated Organization (SRO), composed by some members of the industry, whose main job is to convince consumers through an active surveillance of her members that they will receive goods or services with high standards of quality. The SRO main objective is to create confidence among consumers about the quality they are receiving from the market. Hence, consumers expects that an SRO: a) effectively watch her members, controlling their quality provision; and b) punish and publicly denounce those members found providing a bad quality service, as a credible signal of her level of surveillance and the quality the consumers may expect from other members. However, self regulation imply by definition a situation of regulatory capture, hence the following questions naturally appear: ¿Does the SRO has the correct incentives to do her job?, and ¿where do those incentives may come from?. The main objective of this work is to analyse in the lab how consumers interpret or learn to interpret the exposure that receive from an SRO, and given this interpretation if the SRO behaviour is consistent with the presence or absence of a reputational incentive to denounce. A full run of the experimental sessions is conducted from March to May 2004 at the University of ChileCredence Good, Self-Regulated Organization, Sender-Receiver Games, Reputational Incentives

Fisheries production systems, climate change and climate variability in West Africa: an annotated bibliography

This bibliography is intended for people who are involved in fisheries, aquaculture, climate change, disaster management and policy development in West Africa or interested in one or more of these issues. The literature in this bibliography includes peer-reviewed journals, books and book chapters, grey reports and institutional technical papers, but is restricted to literature in English. They were gathered through an extensive web search using fisheries, fish, coastal, inland, aquaculture and/or in combination with climate change and impacts, climate variability, specific country names, West Africa and Gulf of Guinea as the main keywords.Fisheries, Climatic change, Aquaculture, Inland fisheries, Bibliographies, Disasters, Africa, West,

Miniature all-optical flexible forward-viewing photoacoustic endoscopy probe for surgical guidance

A miniature flexible photoacoustic endoscopy probe that provides high-resolution 3D images of vascular structures in the forward-viewing configuration is described. A planar Fabry-Perot ultrasound sensor with a -3dB bandwidth of 53 MHz located at the tip of the probe is interrogated via a flexible fiber bundle and a miniature optical relay system to realize an all-optical probe measuring 7.4 mm in outer diameter at the tip. This approach to photoacoustic endoscopy offers advantages over previous piezoelectric based distal-end scanning probes. These include a forward-viewing configuration in widefield photoacoustic tomography mode, finer spatial sampling (87 µm spatial sampling interval), and wider detection bandwidth (53 MHz) than has been achievable with conventional ultrasound detection technology and an all-optical passive imaging head for safe endoscopic use

Percepciones y concepciones sobre cultura institucional en los actores de la Instituci?n Educativa Fundadores Ram?n Bueno y Jos? Triana en Girardot

78 P?ginasLa presente publicaci?n evidencia los resultados de una investigaci?n que determin? e interpret? las percepciones y concepciones sobre Cultura Institucional de los directivos docentes, los docentes y los estudiantes de la Instituci?n Educativa Fundadores Ram?n Bueno y Jos? Triana de Girardot en el a?o 2012,dentro de un estudio de tipo mixto que busc? identificar todos los rasgos culturales que ha generado la Instituci?n como ente social aportando elementos te?ricos y metodol?gicos al estudio de la Cultura Organizacional. Para ello, se tuvieron en cuenta tres categor?as que respondieron a cinco ejes: la concepci?n de los valores, las percepci?n de los valores en la realidad, la correspondencia de la misi?n y la visi?n, los rituales en la Instituci?n y las tradiciones, mitos y leyendas en la Instituci?n. Para tal fin se tuvieron en cuenta dos momentos; primero, se realiz? un estudio de Redes Sem?nticas Naturales que utiliz? los cinco ejes como est?mulos generadores; por otra parte, se utiliz? la entrevista para corroborar el estudio cuantitativo tomando como punto de partida las tres categor?as planteadas. Se encontr? que el respeto es el valor que mejor desarrolla la manera de ser de las personas seg?n la concepci?n de los actores de la Instituci?n Educativa, pero en la realidad es el que m?s se infringe por lo que el precepto y la realidad tienen un significado opuesto. Por otro lado, se evidenci? heterogeneidad en la percepci?n de los docentes, directivos docentes y estudiantes frente al impacto que genera la misi?n y la visi?n de la instituci?n. Finalmente, se interpretaron los rituales, tradiciones, mitos y leyendas que ofrecieron una identidad propia del plantel con el fin de fortalecer los que contribuyen a su buen funcionamiento cultural y transformar la concepci?n de las acciones consideradas como negativas. This publication evidences the results of a study that determined and interpreted perceptions and conceptions about institutional culture of school administrators, teachers and students of Institucion Educativa Fundadores Ram?n Bueno y Jos? Triana of Girardot in 2012, within a mixed type study sought to identify all cultural features generated by the institution as a social entity providing theoretical and methodological elements to the study of organizational culture. To this purpose, three categories were considered responding to five axes: the conception of values, the values perceived in reality, the correspondence of the mission and vision, the rituals in the Institution, and traditions, myths and legends in the Institution. To this end, two moments were considered: first, a study of natural semantic networks that used the five axes as stimuli generators, on the other hand, the interview was used to corroborate the quantitative study taking as its starting point the three categories proposed. It was found that respect is the value that best develops the way of being of the people according to the conception of the actors of the educational institution, but in reality it is the most widely violated so the precept and reality have meaning opposite. On the other hand, it was made evident heterogeneity in the perception of teachers, school administrators and students against the impact that generates the mission and vision of the institution. Finally, it was interpreted the rituals, traditions, myths and legends that offered a campus identity in order to strengthen those who contribute to its best cultural operation and transforming conception of the actions considered as negatives.1. PLANTEAMIENTO DEL PROBLEMA 14 1.1 CONTEXTUALIZACION DEL PROBLEMA 14 1.2 DESCRIPCI?N DEL PROBLEMA 14 1.3 FORMULACION DEL PROBLEMA 16 1.3.1 Pregunta Principal 16 1.3.2 PREGUNTAS SECUNDARIAS 16 2. JUSTIFICACION 17 3. OBJETIVOS 18 3.1. OBJETIVO GENERAL 18 3.2. OBJETIVOS ESPEC?FICOS 18 4. MARCO TEORICO Y CONCEPTUAL 19 4.1 ANTECENDENTES 19 4.2 HACIA EL CONCEPTO DE CULTURA INSTITUCIONAL 20 4.2.1 Concepciones sobre cultura institucional 22 4.2.2 Enfoques o perspectivas de la cultura Institucional 22 4.3 LA CULTURA INSTITUCIONAL HECHA VALORES Y PRINCIPIOS 26 4.4 LA MISI?N Y LA VISI?N EN EL MARCO DE LA CULTURA INSTITUCIONAL 28 4.5 TRADICIONES, MITOS, RITOS Y CREENCIAS EN LA ESCUELA.29 5. METODOLOGIA 33 5.1 TIPO DE INVESTIGACI?N 33 5.2 T?CNICAS E INSTRUMENTOS. 33 5.3 PARTICIPANTES 33 5.4 PROCEDIMIENTOS 34 5.5 LA ENCUESTA 36 5.6 T?CNICAS Y PROCEDIMIENTOS DE AN?LISIS DE LA INFORMACI?N 36 6. RESULTADOS 37 6.1 RESULTADOS PARA LA PALABRA EST?MULO: CONCEPTO DE VALOR 37 6.2 RESULTADOS PARA LA PALABRA EST?MULO: VALORES Y PRINCIPIOS EN LA REALIDAD 42 6.3 RESULTADOS PARA LAS PALABRAS EST?MULO: MISI?N Y VISI?N COMO IMPACTO 48 6.4 RESULTADOS PARA LAS PALABRAS EST?MULO: TRADICIONES, MITOS Y LEYENDAS EN LA CULTURA DE LA I.E. 56 6.5 RESULTADOS PARA LAS PALABRAS EST?MULO: RITUALES EN LA CULTURA DE LA I.E. 62 7. CONCLUSIONES70 REFERENCIAS 7

Photoacoustic imaging with a multi-view Fabry-Perot scanner

Planar Fabry-Pérot (FP) ultrasound sensor arrays have been used to produce in-vivo photoacoustic images of high quality due to their broad detection bandwidth, small element size, and dense spatial sampling. However like all planar arrays, FP sensors suffer from the limited view problem. Here, a multi-angle FP sensor system is described that mitigates the partial view effects of a planar FP sensor while retaining its detection advantages. The possibility of improving data acquisition speed through the use of sub-sampling techniques is also explored. The capabilities of the system are demonstrated with 3D images of pre-clinical targets

Use of a flexible optical fibre bundle to interrogate a Fabry–Perot sensor for photoacoustic imaging

Photoacoustic imaging systems based on a Fabry Perot (FP) ultrasound sensor that is read-out by scanning a free-space laser beam over its surface can provide high resolution photoacoustic images. However, this type of free-space scanning usually requires a bulky 2-axis galvanometer based scanner that is not conducive to the realization of a lightweight compact imaging head. It is also unsuitable for endoscopic applications that may require complex and flexible access. To address these limitations, the use of a flexible, coherent fibre bundle to interrogate the FP sensor has been investigated. A laboratory set-up comprising an x-y scanner, a commercially available, 1.35 mm diameter, 18,000 core flexible fibre bundle with a custom-designed telecentric optical relay at its distal end was used. Measurements of the optical and acoustic performance of the FP sensor were made and compared to that obtained using a conventional free-space FP based scanner. Spatial variations in acoustic sensitivity were greater and the SNR lower with the fibre bundle implementation but high quality photoacoustic images could still be obtained. 3D images of phantoms and ex vivo tissues with a spatial resolution and fidelity consistent with a free-space scanner were acquired. By demonstrating the feasibility of interrogating the FP sensor with a flexible fibre bundle, this study advances the realization of compact hand-held clinical scanners and flexible endoscopic devices based on the FP sensing concept

Orthogonal Fabry-Perot sensors for photoacoustic tomography

Photoacoustic images of exquisite quality have previously been obtained using planar Fabry-Pérot ultrasound sensors, as they can synthesize detection arrays with small, highly sensitive, elements. However, their planarity prevents reconstruction of structures perpendicular to the sensor plane, which gives rise to limited-view artifacts. Here, a novel FP sensor array configuration is described that incorporates two orthogonal planar arrays in order to overcome this limitation. Three dimensional photoacoustic images of suitably structured phantoms, obtained using a time reversal reconstruction algorithm, are used to demonstrate the significant improvement in the reconstructed images

Probing the optical readout characteristics of Fabry-Perot ultrasound sensors through realistic modelling

The Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) is widely used in photoacoustic imaging (PAI) as an ultrasound (US) sensor due to its high sensitivity to weak US waves. Such high sensitivity is important as it allows for increasing the depth in tissue at which PAI can access, thus strongly influencing its clinical applicability. FPI sensitivity is impacted by many factors including the FPI mirror reflectivity, focussed beam spot size, FPI cavity thickness and aberrations introduced by the optical readout system. Improving FPI sensitivity requires a mathematical model of its optical response which takes all of these factors into account. Previous attempts to construct such a model have been critically limited by unrealistic assumptions. In this work we have developed a general model of FPI optical readout which based upon electromagnetic theory. By making very few assumptions, the model is able to replicate experimental results and allows insight to be gained into the operating principles of the sensor

Edge wetting of an Ising three-dimensional system

The effect of edge on wetting and layering transitions of a three-dimensional spin-1/2 Ising model is investigated, in the presence of longitudinal and surface magnetic fields, using mean field (MF) theory and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. For T=0, the ground state phase diagram shows that there exist only three allowed transitions, namely: surface and bulk transition, surface transition and bulk transition. However, there exist a surface intra-layering temperature $T_{L}^{s}$, above which the surface and the intra-layering surface transitions occur. While the bulk layering and intra-layering transitions appear above an other finite temperature $T_{L}^{b} (\ge T_{L}^{s})$. These surface and bulk intra-layering transitions are not seen in the perfect surfaces case. Numerical values of $T_{L}^{s}$ and $T_{L}^{b}$, computed by Monte Carlo method are found to be smaller than those obtained using mean field theory. However, the results predicted by the two methods become similar, and are exactly those given by the ground state phase diagram, for very low temperatures. On the other hand, the behavior of the local magnetizations as a function of the external magnetic field, shows that the transitions are of the first order type. $T_{L}^{s}$ and $T_{L}^{b}$ decrease when increasing the system size and/or the surface magnetic field. In particular, $T_{L}^{b}$ reaches the wetting temperature $T_{w}$ for sufficiently large system sizes.Comment: 11 Pages latex, 12 Figures P