Ascertaining the impact of endogenous and exogenous factors on the performance of students taking non-specialist accounting courses

This study aims to evaluate the potential determinants of academic performance of non-specialist accounting students. Considering both actual and initially expected performance, in conjunction with students’ learning styles and preferences, we use two econometric methods - Ordinal Probit and Ordinary Least Squared - in order to investigate and assess the impact of endogenous and the exogenous factors on the students’ academic achievement. Eventually, based on the results of our estimations, and by dividing the non-specialist students into segments, according to their demographic characteristics, we run a series of simulations to estimate empirically the likelihood of the students to report an academic performance weaker, in line, better, and considerably better than what they expected

Are Tomato-Spotted Wilt Virus Management Tactics Good Enough?

Management of tomato-spotted wilt virus is complex and requires more than one treatment for near optimum results. We investigated tomato and pepper growers’ perception on the effectiveness of tactics using Bayesian Logistic regression. The perceived chance that each tactics will control the disease was about a coin toss.Tomato-spotted wilt virus, pest and disease management, Bayesian logistic regression, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, Food Security and Poverty, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Risk and Uncertainty,

Spectrum occupancy measurements and lessons learned in the context of cognitive radio

Various measurement campaigns have shown that numerous spectrum bands are vacant even though licenses have been issued by the regulatory agencies. Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) based on Cognitive Radio (CR) has been regarded as a prospective solution to improve spectrum utilization for wireless communications. Empirical measurement of the radio environment to promote understanding of the current spectrum usage of the different wireless services is the first step towards deployment of future CR networks. In this paper we present our spectrum measurement setup and discuss lessons learned during our measurement activities. The main contribution of the paper is to introduce global spectrum occupancy measurements and address the major drawbacks of previous spectrum occupancy studies by providing a unifying methodological framework for future spectrum measurement campaigns

Oscillatory oblique stagnation-point flow toward a plane wall

Two-dimensional oscillatory oblique stagnation-point flow toward a plane wall is investigated. The problem is a eneralisation of the steady oblique stagnation-point flow examined by previous workers. Far from the wall, the flow is composed of an irrotational orthogonal stagnation-point flow with a time-periodic strength, a simple shear flow of constant vorticity, and a time-periodic uniform stream. An exact solution of the Navier-Stokes equations is sought for which the flow streamfunction depends linearly on the coordinate parallel to the wall. The problem formulation reduces to a coupled pair of partial differential equations in time and one spatial variable. The first equation describes the oscillatory orthogonal stagnation-point flow discussed by previous workers. The second equation, which couples to the first, describes the oblique component of the flow. A description of the flow velocity field, the instantaneous streamlines, and the particle paths is sought through numerical solutions of the governing equations and via asymptotic analysis

Experimental detection using cyclostationary feature detectors for cognitive radios

© 2014 IEEE. Signal detection is widely used in many applications. Some examples include Cognitive Radio (CR) and military intelligence. Without guaranteed signal detection, a CR cannot reliably perform its role. Spectrum sensing is currently one of the most challenging problems in cognitive radio design because of various factors such as multi-path fading and signal to noise ratio (SNR). In this paper, we particularly focus on the detection method based on cyclostationary feature detectors (CFD) estimation. The advantage of CFD is its relative robustness against noise uncertainty compared with energy detection methods. The experimental result present in this paper show that the cyclostationary feature-based detection can be robust compared to energy-based technique for low SNR levels

Cooperative wideband spectrum sensing with multi-bit hard decision in cognitive radio

Cognitive radio offers an increasingly attractive solution to overcome the underutilization problem. A sensor network based cooperative wideband spectrum sensing is proposed in this paper. The purpose of the sensor network is to determine the frequencies of the sources and reduced the total sensing time using a multi-resolution sensing technique. The final result is computed by data fusion of multi-bit decisions made by each cooperating secondary user. Simulation results show improved performance in energy efficiency

Quality measurements of an UWB reduced-size CPW-fed aperture antenna

The paper presents a characterization of a compact co-planar waveguide (CPW)-fed slot loaded low return loss planar printed antenna designed for wireless communication and ultra-wideband (UWB) applications. Following a review of the antenna design, which was implemented and simulated using Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS), the paper presents laboratory measurements of relative gain and impulse response transformed from the frequency domain. An antenna quality metric based on time-domain S21 is discussed and related to antenna quality metrics such as the System Fidelity Factor (SFF)

Modelling the Performance of a Shallow Water Code

Peer reviewe

Protease activity as a prognostic factor for wound healing in venous leg ulcers.

BACKGROUND: Venous leg ulcers (VLUs) are a common type of complex wound that have a negative impact on people's lives and incur high costs for health services and society. It has been suggested that prolonged high levels of protease activity in the later stages of the healing of chronic wounds may be associated with delayed healing. Protease modulating treatments have been developed which seek to modulate protease activity and thereby promote healing in chronic wounds. OBJECTIVES: To determine whether protease activity is an independent prognostic factor for the healing of venous leg ulcers. SEARCH METHODS: In February 2018, we searched the following databases: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Embase and CINAHL. SELECTION CRITERIA: We included prospective and retrospective longitudinal studies with any follow-up period that recruited people with VLUs and investigated whether protease activity in wound fluid was associated with future healing of VLUs. We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) analysed as cohort studies, provided interventions were taken into account in the analysis, and case-control studies if there were no available cohort studies. We also included prediction model studies provided they reported separately associations of individual prognostic factors (protease activity) with healing. Studies of any type of protease or combination of proteases were eligible, including proteases from bacteria, and the prognostic factor could be examined as a continuous or categorical variable; any cut-off point was permitted. The primary outcomes were time to healing (survival analysis) and the proportion of people with ulcers completely healed; the secondary outcome was change in ulcer size/rate of wound closure. We extracted unadjusted (simple) and adjusted (multivariable) associations between the prognostic factor and healing. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two review authors independently assessed studies for inclusion at each stage, and undertook data extraction, assessment of risk of bias and GRADE assessment. We collected association statistics where available. No study reported adjusted analyses: instead we collected unadjusted results or calculated association measures from raw data. We calculated risk ratios when both outcome and prognostic factor were dichotomous variables. When the prognostic factor was reported as continuous data and healing outcomes were dichotomous, we either performed regression analysis or analysed the impact of healing on protease levels, analysing as the standardised mean difference. When both prognostic factor and outcome were continuous data, we reported correlation coefficients or calculated them from individual participant data.We displayed all results on forest plots to give an overall visual representation. We planned to conduct meta-analyses where this was appropriate, otherwise we summarised narratively. MAIN RESULTS: We included 19 studies comprising 21 cohorts involving 646 participants. Only 11 studies (13 cohorts, 522 participants) had data available for analysis. Of these, five were prospective cohort studies, four were RCTs and two had a type of case-control design. Follow-up time ranged from four to 36 weeks. Studies covered 10 different matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) and two serine proteases (human neutrophil elastase and urokinase-type plasminogen activators). Two studies recorded complete healing as an outcome; other studies recorded partial healing measures. There was clinical and methodological heterogeneity across studies; for example, in the definition of healing, the type of protease and its measurement, the distribution of active and bound protease species, the types of treatment and the reporting of results. Therefore, meta-analysis was not performed. No study had conducted multivariable analyses and all included evidence was of very low certainty because of the lack of adjustment for confounders, the high risk of bias for all studies except one, imprecision around the measures of association and inconsistency in the direction of association. Collectively the research indicated complete uncertainty as to the association between protease activity and VLU healing. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: This review identified very low validity evidence regarding any association between protease activity and VLU healing and there is complete uncertainty regarding the relationship. The review offers information for both future research and systematic review methodology

Sonification Mapping Configurations: Pairings Of Real-Time Exhibits And Sound

Presented at the 19th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2013) on July 6-9, 2013 in Lodz, Poland.Visitors to aquariums typically rely on their vision to interact with live exhibits that convey rich descriptive and aesthetic visual information. However, some visitors may prefer or need to have an alternative interpretation of the exhibitÕs visual scene to improve their experience. Musical sonification has been explored as an interpretive strategy for this purpose and related work provides some guidance for sonification design, yet more empirical work on developing and validating the music-to-visual scene mappings needs to be completed. This paper discusses work to validate mappings that were developed through an investigation of musician performances for two specific live animal exhibits at the Georgia Aquarium. In this proposed study, participants will provide feedback on musical mapping examples which will help inform design of a real-time sonification system for aquarium exhibits. Here, we describe our motivation, methods, and expected contributions