Open Access Policy: Numbers, Analysis, Effectiveness

The PASTEUR4OA project analyses what makes an Open Access (OA) policy effective. The total number of institutional or funder OA policies worldwide is now 663 (March 2015), over half of them mandatory. ROARMAP, the policy registry, has been rebuilt to record more policy detail and provide more extensive search functionality. Deposit rates were measured for articles in institutions' repositories and compared to the total number of WoS-indexed articles published from those institutions. Average deposit rate was over four times as high for institutions with a mandatory policy. Six positive correlations were found between deposit rates and (1) Must-Deposit; (2) Cannot-Waive-Deposit; (3) Deposit-Linked-to-Research-Evaluation; (4) Cannot-Waive-Rights-Retention; (5) Must-Make-Deposit-OA (after allowable embargo) and (6) Can-Waive-OA. For deposit latency, there is a positive correlation between earlier deposit and (7) Must-Deposit-Immediately as well as with (4) Cannot-Waive-Rights-Retention and with mandate age. There are not yet enough OA policies to test whether still further policy conditions would contribute to mandate effectiveness but the present findings already suggest that it would be useful for current and future OA policies to adopt the seven positive conditions so as to accelerate and maximise the growth of OA.Comment: 49 pages, 21 figures, 15 tables. Pasteur4OA Work Package 3 report: Open Access policies 201

An analysis of short haul air passenger demand, volume 2

Several demand models for short haul air travel are proposed and calibrated on pooled data. The models are designed to predict demand and analyze some of the motivating phenomena behind demand generation. In particular, an attempt is made to include the effects of competing modes and of alternate destinations. The results support three conclusions: (1) the auto mode is the air mode's major competitor; (2) trip time is an overriding factor in intermodal competition, with air fare at its present level appearing unimportant to the typical short haul air traveler; and (3) distance appears to underly several demand generating phenomena, and therefore, must be considered very carefully to any intercity demand model. It may be the cause of the wide range of fare elasticities reported by researchers over the past 15 years. A behavioral demand model is proposed and calibrated. It combines the travel generating effects of income and population, the effects of modal split, the sensitivity of travel to price and time, and the effect of alternative destinations satisfying the trip purpose

Robustness: a New Form of Heredity Motivated by Dynamic Networks

We investigate a special case of hereditary property in graphs, referred to as {\em robustness}. A property (or structure) is called robust in a graph $G$ if it is inherited by all the connected spanning subgraphs of $G$. We motivate this definition using two different settings of dynamic networks. The first corresponds to networks of low dynamicity, where some links may be permanently removed so long as the network remains connected. The second corresponds to highly-dynamic networks, where communication links appear and disappear arbitrarily often, subject only to the requirement that the entities are temporally connected in a recurrent fashion ({\it i.e.} they can always reach each other through temporal paths). Each context induces a different interpretation of the notion of robustness. We start by motivating the definition and discussing the two interpretations, after what we consider the notion independently from its interpretation, taking as our focus the robustness of {\em maximal independent sets} (MIS). A graph may or may not admit a robust MIS. We characterize the set of graphs \forallMIS in which {\em all} MISs are robust. Then, we turn our attention to the graphs that {\em admit} a robust MIS (\existsMIS). This class has a more complex structure; we give a partial characterization in terms of elementary graph properties, then a complete characterization by means of a (polynomial time) decision algorithm that accepts if and only if a robust MIS exists. This algorithm can be adapted to construct such a solution if one exists

Building a Foundation for Survey: Employing a Focused Introduction

This paper discusses the impact of introducing a multi-day introduction in an art history survey course in order to promote student awareness of the transferability of the skills and strategies of visual analysis to other contexts and courses outside of the discipline. Class discussion, course activities, and supplemental support materials were developed with the goal of generating student interest, investment, and self-efficacy in connection with art historical methodology and study strategies. Student performance and feedback in a recent survey course employing this introduction was then compared to earlier offerings of the course that did not employ this introduction. Preliminary results suggest the potential effectiveness of this approach. The observable behavior of students indicated greater enthusiasm and participation with the course. Academic metrics of student performance on course assessments demonstrated improvement in every area, at both the beginning and end of the semester. The teaching assessment instrument given at the end of the semester also showed an increase in students’ own evaluation of the effectiveness of the course in developing both their knowledge and broader academic skills

Reflections on Doris Lessing: Age, Enclosure, and the Female Experience

This thesis analyzes the life experiences of female protagonists in Doris Lessing stories. Often referencing the motif of the mirror in Lessing’s work, it discusses age, life circumstances, relationships, and more, and looks at how women are viewed and treated in these stories

Lattice-corrected strain-induced vector potentials in graphene

The electronic implications of strain in graphene can be captured at low energies by means of pseudovector potentials which can give rise to pseudomagnetic fields. These strain-induced vector potentials arise from the local perturbation to the electronic hopping amplitudes in a tight-binding framework. Here we complete the standard description of the strain-induced vector potential, which accounts only for the hopping perturbation, with the explicit inclusion of the lattice deformations or, equivalently, the deformation of the Brillouin zone. These corrections are linear in strain and are different at each of the strained, inequivalent Dirac points, and hence are equally necessary to identify the precise magnitude of the vector potential. This effect can be relevant in scenarios of inhomogeneous strain profiles, where electronic motion depends on the amount of overlap among the local Fermi surfaces. In particular, it affects the pseudomagnetic field distribution induced by inhomogeneous strain configurations, and can lead to new opportunities in tailoring the optimal strain fields for certain desired functionalities.Comment: Errata for version

An Estimation of the Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow Apparent Optical Brightness Distribution Function

By using recent publicly available observational data obtained in conjunction with the NASA Swift gamma-ray burst mission and a novel data analysis technique, we have been able to make some rough estimates of the GRB afterglow apparent optical brightness distribution function. The results suggest that 71% of all burst afterglows have optical magnitudes with mR < 22.1 at 1000 seconds after the burst onset, the dimmest detected object in the data sample. There is a strong indication that the apparent optical magnitude distribution function peaks at mR ~ 19.5. Such estimates may prove useful in guiding future plans to improve GRB counterpart observation programs. The employed numerical techniques might find application in a variety of other data analysis problems in which the intrinsic distributions must be inferred from a heterogeneous sample.Comment: 15 pages including 2 tables and 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

An IoT and Blockchain-based Approach for Ensuring Transparency and Accountability in Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory compliance is an essential exercise in the modern societies confirming safety and prevention of harm to consumers. Despite many efforts from international and national quality control authorities, transparency and accountability in regulatory compliance remain a challenging technical-legal problem sitting atop a heavy reliance on trust. This paper presents a theoretical model of regulatory compliance aiming at improving accountability for systems and data audit and introduces a higher degree of transparency in management and quality control. It explores the technical aspects of two emerging technologies the Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain, and using a common use-case in practice shows how to better align these technologies with legal concerns and trust in regulatory compliance