Solving a Paradox of Evidential Equivalence

David Builes presents a paradox concerning how confident you should be that any given member of an infinite collection of fair coins landed heads, conditional on the information that they were all flipped and only finitely many of them landed heads. We argue that if you should have any conditional credence at all, it should be 1/2

Costs, payments and incentives in family planning programs

A variety of monetary policies regarding contraception exists around the world. These range from high user charges in some countries, to free contraceptives in many, to incentives and disincentives in others. This paper examines these policies, focuses on charges and payments as they existed in early 1988, looks at the consistency of monetary policies within countries, and considers the ethical issues raised by each kind of incentive.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health,Reproductive Health,Economic Theory&Research,Pharmaceuticals&Pharmacoeconomics

Using multiple GPUs to accelerate string searching for digital forensic analysis

String searching within a large corpus of data is an important component of digital forensic (DF) analysis techniques such as file carving. The continuing increase in capacity of consumer storage devices requires corresponding im-provements to the performance of string searching techniques. As string search-ing is a trivially-parallelisable problem, GPGPU approaches are a natural fit – but previous studies have found that local storage presents an insurmountable performance bottleneck. We show that this need not be the case with modern hardware, and demonstrate substantial performance improvements from the use of single and multiple GPUs when searching for strings within a typical forensic disk image

The role of sustainability assessment in sustainability management for urban redevelopment

Sustainability assessment has the potential to influence decision making and hence to improve the management of sustainability. This paper presents the development and reporting of benchmark sustainability indicators and discusses the challenges of embedding sustainability indicators into existing process for urban infrastructure development. It links sustainability indicators with a range of tools that were implemented within a Sustainability Enhancement and Monitoring Framework for the £1billion redevelopment of Dundee Waterfront. The sustainability monitoring framework followed the UK and Scottish Government thematic indicator approach and provided a set of Sustainability Benchmark Indicators for assessing and managing a public sector funded urban redevelopment. The process of indicator development was iterative and consisted of three main activities, literature, interviews and document analysis. Indicators were finalised through close working with Dundee City Council, Scottish Enterprise and partnership stakeholders. The indicators were successfully established in 2010 within Dundee City Council at project and departmental level, providing the link across policies, programmes and projects. The indictor development process is discussed and the findings of a January 2015 review of changes in the benchmark indicators will be reported. The transition of the indicators over time and its impact on future sustainability enhancement opportunities are evaluated alongside the implications for sustainability management of Dundee Waterfront. The efficacy of the benchmark indicators to support sustainability management over the planned 30 year programme of urban redevelopment is discussed. The wider implications of the findings of the Dundee Waterfront project are reviewed in the context of current work on sustainability assessment

Antibody engineering to develop new antirheumatic therapies

There has been a therapeutic revolution in rheumatology over the past 15 years, characterised by a move away from oral immuno-suppressive drugs toward parenteral targeted biological therapies. The potency and relative safety of the newer agents has facilitated a more aggressive approach to treatment, with many more patients achieving disease remission. There is even a prevailing sense that disease 'cure' may be a realistic goal in the future. These developments were underpinned by an earlier revolution in molecular biology and protein engineering as well as key advances in our understanding of rheumatoid arthritis pathogenesis. This review will focus on antibody engineering as the key driver behind our current and developing range of antirheumatic treatments

Effects Of Alpha-GPC and Huperzine-A On Short Term Memory, Anaerobic Power Output, Post Exhaustion Compared To Caffeine And Placebo In Healthy College Age Students

Introduction: The use of multi-ingredient pre-workout supplements has been steadily on the rise in the fitness industries. Companies make claims about improvements in performance both physically and cognitively for users but seldom provide research to back up the claims made about the ingredients or dosages. Purpose: To examine the effects of Huperzine-A and Alpha-GPC on short term memory and anaerobic power output, post exhaustion compared to caffeine and placebo in healthy college age students. Methods: The study was conducted as a double blind, placebo controlled, randomized design on 62 healthy adults (N=62 height 68.4 ± 3.5 in., weight 78.5 ± 15.1 kg.). The wash out period was a minimum of 48 hours after completion of the familiarization. Subjects reported to the exercise physiology lab thirty minutes before testing began and consumed either a caffeine, Alpha-GPC and Hup-A, or placebo solution. After the thirty-minute digestion period subjects performed one computer-based short-term memory test, and a thirty-second Wingate anaerobic power test. Subjects then performed an exhaustion protocol before repeating the memory and power test. Once all testing was completed subjects returned between 2 and 14 days after the last test and repeat the protocol. A power analysis was run using G* Power software 3.1.9.2 based from Zeigenfuss et al., (2008). The percent change between pre and post was compared across visits using ANOVA with repeated measures. Significance was found with an Alpha level P ≤ 0.05 with Tukey Post Hoc analysis will be used to determine pairwise comparisons. All stats were run on IBM SPSS 23. Results: The ANOVA with repeated measures and Tukey Post Hoc analysis found there was no significant difference in performance pre to post, between groups, or factoring the percent change pre to post. Conclusion: This result suggests there is no physical or mental benefit acutely dosing 600 mg. of Alpha-GPC and 200 mcg. of Huperzine-A in healthy recreationally active adults. This was the first study to look at the two in combination so, the finding is neither supported nor opposed to the current body of research. The finding does oppose the logic some supplement companies have been using to justify their sales tactics. Future research should investigate the effects of a loading period on physical and mental performance

Major project team learning:examining building information modelling

The speed of technological advancement of software development drives the need for individual and team learning to exploit these developments for competitive advantage. Using a major long term redevelopment as a case study a review of learning processes and project team learning in the context of a voluntary approach to adopting of BIM prior to 2016 is examined. The speed of adoption of BIM across a large redevelopment project covering several years is variable and the differences of preparedness between team members from different organisations raises the question of how effective the project team can be in sharing learning and increasing the speed of adoption of BIM. The benefits of understanding the project environment as a formal learning context are recognised where teams are working in partnering arrangements but the focus is usually on post project review of what went wrong with little time to critically evaluate other variables. Knowledge Management has the potential to help understand and then facilitate greater participation amongst stakeholders in project team learning. The research team undertook decision mapping and knowledge elicitation techniques and applied these to the Dundee Waterfront to identify key factors relevant to successful project management, enabling the Waterfront Project Team to understand current practice. The effectiveness of project team learning in relation to BIM within this long-term major redevelopment is influenced by positive motivational drivers for individuals to learn how to use and apply BIM, the level of organisational support for learning and professional development and the project information and communication systems. In practice the current approach to sharing of knowledge within the project team indicates a fragmented approach in relation to the adoption and application of BIM to managing construction projects

Federal Programs Available to Unemployed Workers

[Excerpt] Four groups of federal programs target unemployed workers: unemployment insurance, health care assistance, job search assistance, and training. This report presents information on federal programs targeted to unemployed workers specifically, but does not attempt to discuss means-tested programs (such as Medicaid or SSI) that are available regardless of employment status. This report will be updated with major new legislation