Designing a personal information transaction object

© 2016 IEEE. As mobile and wearable technologies grow in popularity, ever-increasing volumes of valuable, fine-grained personal information are generated as people go about their daily lives. This information may be exchanged by individuals for "free" services, but there is currently no widely adopted means by which individuals can benefit financially from their personal information. To address this problem we consider a Primary Personal Information Market (PPIM) - a market on which individuals can be financially compensated in exchange for access to their personal information. We draw on Design Science and Market Engineering to justify design choices for a permissions-based Personal Information Transaction Object (PITO), a commodity which could be successfully traded on a Primary Personal Information Market

Fractal Weyl law behavior in an open, chaotic Hamiltonian system

We numerically show fractal Weyl law behavior in an open Hamiltonian system that is described by a smooth potential and which supports numerous above-barrier resonances. This behavior holds even relatively far away from the classical limit. The complex resonance wave functions are found to be localized on the fractal classical repeller.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. to appear in Phys Rev

Marijuana and Youth

This paper contains the first estimates of the price sensitivity of the prevalence of youth marijuana use. Survey data on marijuana use by high school seniors from the Monitoring the Future Project are combined with data on marijuana prices and potency from the Drug Enforcement Administration Office of Intelligence or Intelligence Division. Our estimates of the price elasticity of annual marijuana participation range from 0.06 to 0.47, while those for thirty day participation range from 0.002 to 0.69. These estimates clearly imply that changes in the real, quality adjusted price of marijuana contributed significantly to the trends in youth marijuana use between 1982 and 1998, particularly during the contraction in use from 1982 to 1992. Similarly, changes in youth perceptions of the harms associated with regular marijuana use had a substantial impact on both the contraction in use during the 1982 though 1992 period and the subsequent expansion in use after 1992. These findings underscore the usefulness of considering price in addition to more traditional determinants in any analysis of marijuana consumption decisions made by youths.

The Effects of Being in a “New Relationship” on Levels of Testosterone in Men.

In light of previous research showing that different types of relationships affect levels of testosterone in men, this study examined whether categorizing relationship types according to relationship length can shed further light on variations in levels of testosterone. Salivary testosterone samples were obtained from a sample of men and details about their relationship status, sociosexual orientation, extra-pair sexual interest, and their perceptions of their relationships were recorded. Using a median split analysis, participants who indicated that they had been in their relationship for less than 12 months were categorized as being in “new relationships” and those in longer relationships being categorized as in long-term relationships. Results showed that levels of testosterone of single men and men in new relationships did not differ, but both had significantly greater levels of testosterone than men in long-term relationships. Differences in levels of testosterone were unrelated to sociosexual orientation and extra-pair sexual interest. These findings support the evolutionary explanation of levels of testosterone in men varying in accordance with their internal motivation to seek new potential mates

Quantum equilibration in finite time

It has recently been shown that small quantum subsystems generically equilibrate, in the sense that they spend most of the time close to a fixed equilibrium state. This relies on just two assumptions: that the state is spread over many different energies, and that the Hamiltonian has non-degenerate energy gaps. Given the same assumptions, it has also been shown that closed systems equilibrate with respect to realistic measurements. We extend these results in two important ways. First, we prove equilibration over a finite (rather than infinite) time-interval, allowing us to bound the equilibration time. Second, we weaken the non degenerate energy gaps condition, showing that equilibration occurs provided that no energy gap is hugely degenerate.Comment: 7 page

Maternal plasma extracellular vesicle size and concentration in pregnancies affected by early-onset fetal growth restriction

Background: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nanoparticles thought to be involved in cell-to- cell communication. Despite their popularity in other fields, there remains a notable literature gap in their role in pregnancy. This study aimed to characterise maternal circulating EVs at the time of delivery in cases of early-onset fetal growth restriction (FGR). Method: Pre-delivery maternal plasma samples were collected from 18 pregnancies diagnosed with early-onset FGR (estimated fetal weight <3rd centile at 20 + 0–26 + 6 weeks). EVs were isolated using IZON size-exclusion columns and analysed for size and concentration by nanoparticle tracking analysis. Results: Gestation at delivery ranged from 25 + 0 to 38 + 6 weeks with seven male and 11 female infants. EV size and concentration did not differ by fetal sex or between pregnancies with or without hypertensive disease, raised umbilical artery pulsatility index or placental classification of maternal vascular malperfusion. EV size and concentration showed no association with birthweight z score (BWz) overall, but in the eight pregnancies unaffected by hypertensive disease there was a significant positive association between modal EV size and BWz (p = 0.072). This association remained significant after adjustment for gestational age. Conclusion: Our results suggest several important preg-nancy characteristics are not associated with differences in maternal EV size or concentration. In non-hypertensive pregnancies modal diameter increased with increasing birthweight z score. This association requires confirmation in a larger cohort, including appropriate-for-gestational- age pregnancies. Future work will explore the association be-tween EV cargo and the placental transcriptom

Optimising the isolation of placental-derived extracellular vesicles from maternal plasma

Background: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nanoparticles released by the majority of organs hypothesised to be involved with cell to cell communication. The concentration of EVs in maternal plasma increase over the course of pregnancy, with a 30 fold increase seen by the end of the third trimester. With the majority of these EVs hypothesised to be of placental origin, it is important to develop a method of isolating placental derived EVs from maternal plasma. Method: Pre-delivery maternal plasma samples were col-lected from 18 pregnancies diagnosed with early-onset FGR (estimated fetal weight <3rd centile at 20+0–26+6 weeks). EVs were isolated using IZON size-exclusion columns. Once concentrated, they were bound to immunomagnetic beads conjugated with placental alkaline phosphatase antibody (PLAP) to seperate those of placental origin from EVs from other maternal organs. The PLAP bound EVs were then lysed, and their cargo analysed using qPCR for mRNA and m i c r oR NA's. Results: Whilst it was not possible to analyse the mRNA pro-file of these EVs, it was found that microRNAs which have been identified to be produced by the placenta were found in the placental EVs, but not in the maternal EVs. Conclusions: Whilst this is preliminary findings, it is believed that this method is successful at isolating placental EVs from a pool of total EVs in maternal plasma. Since it is known that the mRNA and microRNA profile of placental tissue changes in pregnancy complications such as FGR, the translation of this method calls further research into whether these changes are also reflected in the cargo of placental derived EVs. This would aid the development of a non-invasive placental biops

Shear stress fluctuations in the granular liquid and solid phases

We report on experimentally observed shear stress fluctuations in both granular solid and fluid states, showing that they are non-Gaussian at low shear rates, reflecting the predominance of correlated structures (force chains) in the solidlike phase, which also exhibit finite rigidity to shear. Peaks in the rigidity and the stress distribution's skewness indicate that a change to the force-bearing mechanism occurs at the transition to fluid behaviour, which, it is shown, can be predicted from the behaviour of the stress at lower shear rates. In the fluid state stress is Gaussian distributed, suggesting that the central limit theorem holds. The fibre bundle model with random load sharing effectively reproduces the stress distribution at the yield point and also exhibits the exponential stress distribution anticipated from extant work on stress propagation in granular materials.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, latex. Replacement adds journal reference and addresses referee comment

Superscars in the LiNC=LiCN isomerization reaction

We demonstrate the existence of superscarring in the LiNC=LiCN isomerization reaction described by a realistic potential interaction in the range of readily attainable experimental energies. This phenomenon arises as the effect of two periodic orbits appearing "out of the blue"in a saddle--node bifurcation taking place in the dynamics of the system. Potential practical consequences of this superlocalization in the corresponding wave functions are also considered.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. to appear in EP