On pairwise comparison matrices that can be made consistent by the modification of a few elements

Pairwise comparison matrices are often used in Multi-attribute Decision Making forweighting the attributes or for the evaluation of the alternatives with respect to a criteria. Matrices provided by the decision makers are rarely consistent and it is important to index the degree of inconsistency. In the paper, the minimal number of matrix elements by the modification of which the pairwise comparison matrix can be made consistent is examined. From practical point of view, the modification of 1, 2, or, for larger matrices, 3 elements seems to be relevant. These cases are characterized by using the graph representation of the matrices. Empirical examples illustrate that pairwise comparison matrices that can be made consistent by the modification of a few elements are present in the applications

The Comedy of the Arts College

The Arts College - the Arts College. There is without doubt a savour of feebleness and effeminacy in the phrase. And on the countenance of the college itself there is beginoing to appear the intense and baffled look of the subject of comedy. It is beginning to pay the price of its court of the current romantic eccentricity, of its wanderings from its ancient concern for the larger visions of the human spirit. In its older allegiance it had stood in the midst of the chaos of life, stably anchored in the flux, offering to those who came to it that detached, clarified vision and perspective to which it itself had attained. Its point of view was neither wholly resthetic, like our modern romanticism, reveling in sensuous reaction to the drift of phenomena; nor wholly intellectualistic, like our modern science, throwing out of count the intangible elements of the human consciousness with its emotions and affections and its spontaneous intuitions; nor was it temporal, like our modern vocationalism,concerning itself with the practical affairs of making a living. It was humane. It had reached the center. It saw life steadily and wholly, for it had attained to a point of view from which to orientate the chaos

The Comedy of the Arts College

The Arts College - the Arts College. There is without doubt a savour of feebleness and effeminacy in the phrase. And on the countenance of the college itself there is beginoing to appear the intense and baffled look of the subject of comedy. It is beginning to pay the price of its court of the current romantic eccentricity, of its wanderings from its ancient concern for the larger visions of the human spirit. In its older allegiance it had stood in the midst of the chaos of life, stably anchored in the flux, offering to those who came to it that detached, clarified vision and perspective to which it itself had attained. Its point of view was neither wholly resthetic, like our modern romanticism, reveling in sensuous reaction to the drift of phenomena; nor wholly intellectualistic, like our modern science, throwing out of count the intangible elements of the human consciousness with its emotions and affections and its spontaneous intuitions; nor was it temporal, like our modern vocationalism,concerning itself with the practical affairs of making a living. It was humane. It had reached the center. It saw life steadily and wholly, for it had attained to a point of view from which to orientate the chaos

Intimate partner violence, health behaviours, and chronic physical illness among South African women

Objectives. An association between intimate partner violence and adverse physical health outcomes and health-risk behaviours among women has been established, most scientific research having been conducted in the USA and other developed countries. There have been few studies in developing countries, including South Africa, which has one of the highest rates of intimate partner violence in the world. We therefore sought to study the association between physical intimate partner violence and physical health outcomes and behaviours among South African women. Methods. Using data from the cross-sectional, nationally representative South African Stress and Health Study, we assessed exposure to intimate partner violence, health-risk behaviours, health-seeking behaviours and chronic physical illness among a sample of 1 229 married and cohabiting women. Results. The prevalence of reported violence was 31%. This correlated with several health-risk behaviours (smoking, alcohol consumption, and use of non-medical sedatives, analgesics and cannabis) and health-seeking behaviours (recent visits to a medical doctor or healer). Intimate partner violence was not significantly associated with chronic physical illness, although rates of headache, heart attack and high blood pressure reached near-significance. Conclusions. Partner violence against women is a significant public health problem in South Africa, associated with healthrisk behaviours and increased use of medical services. Public health programmes should incorporate interventions to mitigate the impact of violence on victims and reduce the risk of negative behavioural outcomes. Further investigation of the pathways between violence exposure and health behaviours is needed to inform the design of such programming

Tunable dipolar magnetism in high-spin molecular clusters

We report on the Fe17 high-spin molecular cluster and show that this system is an exemplification of nanostructured dipolar magnetism. Each Fe17 molecule, with spin S=35/2 and axial anisotropy as small as D=-0.02K, is the magnetic unit that can be chemically arranged in different packing crystals whilst preserving both spin ground-state and anisotropy. For every configuration, molecular spins are correlated only by dipolar interactions. The ensuing interplay between dipolar energy and anisotropy gives rise to macroscopic behaviors ranging from superparamagnetism to long-range magnetic order at temperatures below 1K.Comment: Replaced with version accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Compositional analysis of InAs-GaAs-GaSb heterostructures by low-loss electron energy loss spectroscopy

As an alternative to Core-Loss Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy, Low-Loss EELS is suitable for compositional analysis of complex heterostructures, such as the InAs-GaAs-GaSb system, since in this energy range the edges corresponding to these elements are better defined than in Core-Loss. Furthermore, the analysis of the bulk plasmon peak, which is present in this energy range, also provides information about the composition. In this work, compositional information in an InAs-GaAs-GaSb heterostructure has been obtained from Low-Loss EEL spectra

BARD1 nonsense variant c.1921C>T in a patient with recurrent breast cancer

No abstract available