Designing a Belief Function-Based Accessibility Indicator to Improve Web Browsing for Disabled People

The purpose of this study is to provide an accessibility measure of web-pages, in order to draw disabled users to the pages that have been designed to be ac-cessible to them. Our approach is based on the theory of belief functions, using data which are supplied by reports produced by automatic web content assessors that test the validity of criteria defined by the WCAG 2.0 guidelines proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) organization. These tools detect errors with gradual degrees of certainty and their results do not always converge. For these reasons, to fuse information coming from the reports, we choose to use an information fusion framework which can take into account the uncertainty and imprecision of infor-mation as well as divergences between sources. Our accessibility indicator covers four categories of deficiencies. To validate the theoretical approach in this context, we propose an evaluation completed on a corpus of 100 most visited French news websites, and 2 evaluation tools. The results obtained illustrate the interest of our accessibility indicator

House prices and the stance of monetary policy

This paper estimates a Bayesian vector autoregression for the U.S. economy that includes a housing sector and addresses the following questions: Can developments in the housing sector be explained on the basis of developments in real and nominal gross domestic product and interest rates? What are the effects of housing demand shocks on the economy? How does monetary policy affect the housing market? What are the implications of house price developments for the stance of monetary policy? Regarding the latter question, we implement a Cespedes et al. (2006) version of a monetary conditions index

Belief Hierarchical Clustering

In the data mining field many clustering methods have been proposed, yet standard versions do not take into account uncertain databases. This paper deals with a new approach to cluster uncertain data by using a hierarchical clustering defined within the belief function framework. The main objective of the belief hierarchical clustering is to allow an object to belong to one or several clusters. To each belonging, a degree of belief is associated, and clusters are combined based on the pignistic properties. Experiments with real uncertain data show that our proposed method can be considered as a propitious tool

Antibody Therapies in Autoimmune Encephalitis

Autoimmune encephalitis (AE) comprises a heterogeneous group of disorders in which the host immune system targets self-antigens expressed in the central nervous system. The most conspicuous example is an anti-N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor encephalitis linked to a complex neuropsychiatric syndrome. Current treatment of AE is based on immunotherapy and has been established according to clinical experience and along the concept of a B cell-mediated pathology induced by highly specific antibodies to neuronal surface antigens. In general, immunotherapy for AE follows an escalating approach. When first-line therapy with steroids, immunoglobulins, and/or plasma exchange fails, one converts to second-line immunotherapy. Alkylating agents could be the first choice in this stage. However, due to their side effect profile, most clinicians give preference to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) directed at B cells such as rituximab. Newer mAbs might be added as a third-line therapy in the future, or be given even earlier if shown effective. In this chapter, we will discuss mAbs targeting B cells (rituximab, ocrelizumab, inebulizumab, daratumumab), IL-6 (tocilizumab, satralizumab), the neonatal Fc receptor (FCRn) (efgartigimod, rozanolixizumab), and the complement cascade (eculizumab). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13311-021-01178-4

High-rate deposition of microcrystalline silicon p-i-n solar cells in the high pressure depletion regime

Hydrogenated microcryst. silicon films (micro c-Si:H) deposited at high deposition rates (.apprx.2 nm/s) by means of the very-high-frequency deposition technique in the high pressure depletion regime have been integrated into single junction p-i-n solar cells. It is demonstrated that micro c-Si:H solar cells can be optimized using a twofold approach. First the bulk properties, deposited under steady-state plasma conditions, are optimized by monitoring the presence of cryst. grain boundaries in micro c-Si:H. These hydrogenated cryst. grain boundaries can easily be detected via the cryst. surface hydrides contribution to the narrow high stretching modes by IR transmission spectroscopy. The cryst. grain boundaries suffer from post-deposition oxidn. which results in a reduced red response of the solar cell. The absence of these cryst. surfaces in an as-deposited micro c-Si:H matrix reflects the device grade microcryst. bulk material. Second, the prevention of silane back-diffusion from the background during the initial growth is a necessity to deposit a uniform micro c-Si:H phase over the entire film thickness. The initial growth is optimized while preserving the optimized bulk properties deposited under steady-state conditions, using initial profiling of plasma parameters such as the silane flow and the very-high-frequency power d. Solar cell devices with efficiency of 8.0% at a micro c-Si:H deposition rate of 2.0 nm/s are obtained using the presented approach

Malignant tumours of the kidney: imaging strategy

Primitive malignant renal tumours comprise 6% of all childhood cancers. Wilms tumour (WT) or nephroblastoma is the most frequent type accounting for more than 90%. Imaging alone cannot differentiate between these tumours with certainty but it plays an important role in screening, diagnostic workup, assessment of therapy response, preoperative evaluation and follow-up. The outcome of WT after therapy is excellent with an overall survival around 90%. In tumours such as those where the outcome is extremely good, focus can be shifted to a risk-based stratification to maintain excellent outcome in children with low risk tumours while improving quality of life and decreasing toxicity and costs. This review will discuss the imaging issues for WT from the European perspective and briefly discuss the characteristics of other malignant renal tumours occurring in children and new imaging techniques with potential in this matter

Trading risks: The value of relationships, models and face-to-face interaction in the global reinsurance market

Over the past 20 years, the reinsurance industry has experienced three profound forces for change. First, technological change has improved information distribution and strengthened connections between global markets. Second, regulatory emphasis on global equivalence in trading practices has generated pressure for convergence across different marketplaces. Third, the widespread acceptance of vendor property catastrophe models has led to more standardised approaches to the evaluation of reinsurance risks, levelling the playing field for decision-making on at least some classes of business. These changes have intensified competition between reinsurance markets. Reinsurance trading centres in remote geographic locations, such as Bermuda, where it is more difficult to transact business face-to-face, have been able to write risk via electronic communications and now have very significant positions in the global reinsurance market. Simultaneously, Lloyd’s of London, one of the original reinsurance markets that is still very much based on the face-to-face approach, has demonstrated its capability to weather financial shocks and downturns and remains an important player in global reinsurance