Improved Precision and Efficiency of a Modified ORG0020 Dynamic Respiration Test Setup for Compost Stability Assessment

The ORG0020 dynamic respiration test is effective at distinguishing source segregated organic waste derived composts across a wide range of stabilities when compared to other standard tests; however, using the original diaphragm pump and manifold setup, the test is affected by variability in flow rate with time and across sample replicate vessels. Here, we demonstrate the use of a multichannel peristaltic pump to deliver a more consistent air flow to individual vessels. Using finished and unfinished industry compost samples from different sites with varying stabilities, we provide evidence of greater precision of the modified setup compared to the original. Furthermore, the reduced need for air flow adjustment resulted in improved running cost efficiency with less labour demand. Analysis of compost sample oxygen demand supports the current test air flow rate of 25–75 mL min−1, although the improved air flow control will enable future narrowing of the acceptable range for better inter-laboratory performance

Temporal profile of endogenous anatomical repair and functional recovery following spinal cord injury in adult zebrafish

Regenerated cerebrospinal axons are considered to be involved in the spontaneous recovery of swimming ability following a spinal cord injury in adult zebrafish. We employed behavioral analysis, neuronal tracing, and immunocytochemistry to determine the exact temporal relationship between swimming ability and regenerated cerebrospinal axon number in adult zebrafish with a complete spinal cord transection. Between two and eight weeks post-lesion, swimming gradually improved to 44% of sham-injured zebrafish. Neurons within the reticular formation, magnocellular octaval nucleus, and nucleus of the medial longitudinal fascicle grew their axon across and at least four millimeters beyond the lesion. The largest increases in swimming ability and number of regenerated cerebrospinal axons were observed between two and four weeks post-lesion. Regression analyses revealed a significant correlation between swimming ability and the number of regenerated axons. Our results indicate the involvement of cerebrospinal axons in swimming recovery after spinal cord injury in adult zebrafish. © 2014 Vajn et al

Gender health inequalities and economic productivity in OECD countries

The presented study deals with the relations between the economic life of developed countries and the health of women and men. The primary objective of the presented study was to assess the relations between gender health inequalities and economic productivity in a sample of OECD countries, with a focus on the classification of their health care systems. Analyses included selected causes of mortality as health variables, each in a specification of men and women, and economic productivity represented by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person employed (in USD at current prices). The health care systems were represented by multiple insurance model (MI), national health system (NHS) and single payer model (SPM). The analysed data were collected from OECD databases for the period from 2011 to 2016. The analytical processing was carried out by applying descriptive analysis, regression analysis examining the effects of gender inequalities in health on economic productivity, and relationship analysis. Based on the findings, it can be stated that the vast majority of gender inequalities in health is significant. Also, it has been confirmed that gender inequalities in health have an effect on economic productivity. In general (with a few exceptions), it can be concluded that if gender inequalities in health are reduced, economic productivity is expected to increase. From the point of view of the analysed relations, the NHS health care system can be considered the most positive

Optimizing the capital structure of the company to maximize its profits by using neural networks on the example of building companies

Nowadays, there are many methods meant for the optimization of an enterprise capital structure. Thus, the aim of this contribution is to find the most efficient way of a company´s possession capital structure. The article simply strives to find such a capital structure that ensures an adequate profit, respectively equity evaluation provided for money. For this purpose, balance sheets, respectively their parts informing about the sources of enterprise financing and the results, respectively only the total profit after taxation of all enterprises running their business between 2006 to 2015, will be used. To find the model neural networks will be used – specifically a multi-layer perceptron network and a neural network of a radial basic function. A neural network which will help a construction company find a suitable financing source structure so, that it could reach the requested ROE of 10%. The model will be useful not only for a building company management but also for evaluating its performance and health by the competitors, creditors or suppliers.В теперішній час існує багато методів, призначених для оптимізації структури капіталу підприємства. Мета даної статті – пошук найбільш ефективного способу управління структурою капіталу компанії. У статті наведено приклад пошуку структури капіталу, яка забезпечить необхідний відсоток прибутку і, відповідно, дозволить зробити оцінку акцій з метою подальшого їх продажу. Для аналізу використані дані про діяльність підприємств з 2006 по 2015 р. На цій основі були побудовані багатошарові пересептронні мережі та мережі радіально-базисної функції. Оптимальною вважається мережа, яка дозволяє будівельній компанії знайти відповідну фінансову структуру з рентабельністю власного капіталу 10%. Модель актуальна не тільки для управління будівельною компанією, але й для аналізу її діяльності конкурентами і партнерами.В настоящее время существует множество методов, предназначенных для оптимизации структуры капитала предприятия. Цель данной статьи – поиск наиболее эффективного способа управления структурой капитала компании. В статье приведен пример поиска структуры капитала, которая обеспечит необходимый процент прибыли и, соответственно, позволит произвести оценку акций для последующей их продажи. Для анализа использованы данные о деятельности предприятий с 2006 по 2015 г. На этой основе были построены многослойные пересептронные сети и сети радиально-базисной функции. Оптимальной считается сеть, которая позволяет строительной компании найти подходящую финансовую структуру с рентабельностью собственного капитала 10%. Модель актуальна не только для управления строительной компанией, но и для анализа ее деятельности конкурентами и партнерами

El hacinamiento penitenciario y la afectación a la resocialización de los internos como fin de la pena, Ayacucho- 2020

El trabajo de investigación desarrollado, planteo como objetivo general: Determinar como el Hacinamiento Penitenciario, afecta a la resocialización de los Internos como fin de la pena, Ayacucho-2020. Con un tipo de investigación básica descriptiva y diseño basado en la teoría fundamentada. La recolección de datos se realizó mediante el uso de la guía de entrevista y la guía de análisis documentario, los que luego de validados por el juicio de tres expertos fueron aplicados a 2 Fiscales y 3 abogados en derecho penal y procesal penal, los cuales tienen conocimiento de casos acaecidos en nuestra ciudad. En el desarrollo del trabajo se obtuvo como resultados a través de la experiencia de los profesionales del derecho que si existe una clara y evidente afectación del hacinamiento en los centros de reclusión hacia el factor de resocialización de los internos, lo cual no cumple con efectividad el fin de la pena. Lográndose concluir que la resocialización de los internos del centro penitenciario del distrito de Ayacucho, no se logra efectivizar debido a que el hacinamiento penitenciario es un elemento limitante como también influyente en dicha acción de buscar su inclusión dentro de la sociedad, y por ende debe reforzar las políticas de estado en este sector para poder establecer las mejoras necesarias, cumpliendo así el fin resocializador de la pena

‘Communities of resistance’ and the use of newspaper discussion boards Polish workers in Japanese foreign investments

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Maciej Bancarzewski, and Jane Hardy, ‘‘Communities of resistance’ and the use of newspaper discussion boards: Polish workers in Japanese foreign investments’, New Technology, Work and Employment, Vol. 32 (2): 160-173, July 2017, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12091. Under embargo until 25 July 2019. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.This article examines the content of two hundred posts on newspaper discussion boards by workers in a cluster of Japanese foreign investments in Poland. The conclusions are first, that the material experiences of workers generate a set of themes in relation to the labour process with regard to wages and working conditions, bullying and monitoring that exhibit similarities across countries. Second, we argue that an analysis of the discourse used is shaped by political and institutional conditions, which reveal national differences in how workers perceive and locate their exploitation. Finally, in relation to debates about workers’ resistance and the use of the internet we argue that the interaction of themes related to the material experience of work are intertwined with institutionally embedded understandings of exploitation, which not only enable a shared framework for venting, but also provide the basis for a community of resistance.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The conceptualisation and measurement of DSM-5 Internet Gaming Disorder: the development of the IGD-20 Test

Background: Over the last decade, there has been growing concern about ‘gaming addiction’ and its widely documented detrimental impacts on a minority of individuals that play excessively. The latest (fifth) edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) included nine criteria for the potential diagnosis of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and noted that it was a condition that warranted further empirical study. Aim: The main aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable standardised psychometrically robust tool in addition to providing empirically supported cut-off points. Methods: A sample of 1003 gamers (85.2% males; mean age 26 years) from 57 different countries were recruited via online gaming forums. Validity was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), criterion-related validity, and concurrent validity. Latent profile analysis was also carried to distinguish disordered gamers from non-disordered gamers. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were performed to determine an empirical cut-off for the test. Results: The CFA confirmed the viability of IGD-20 Test with a six-factor structure (salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict and relapse) for the assessment of IGD according to the nine criteria from DSM-5. The IGD-20 Test proved to be valid and reliable. According to the latent profile analysis, 5.3% of the total participants were classed as disordered gamers. Additionally, an optimal empirical cut-off of 71 points (out of 100) seemed to be adequate according to the sensitivity and specificity analyses carried

Collective emotions online and their influence on community life

E-communities, social groups interacting online, have recently become an object of interdisciplinary research. As with face-to-face meetings, Internet exchanges may not only include factual information but also emotional information - how participants feel about the subject discussed or other group members. Emotions are known to be important in affecting interaction partners in offline communication in many ways. Could emotions in Internet exchanges affect others and systematically influence quantitative and qualitative aspects of the trajectory of e-communities? The development of automatic sentiment analysis has made large scale emotion detection and analysis possible using text messages collected from the web. It is not clear if emotions in e-communities primarily derive from individual group members' personalities or if they result from intra-group interactions, and whether they influence group activities. We show the collective character of affective phenomena on a large scale as observed in 4 million posts downloaded from Blogs, Digg and BBC forums. To test whether the emotions of a community member may influence the emotions of others, posts were grouped into clusters of messages with similar emotional valences. The frequency of long clusters was much higher than it would be if emotions occurred at random. Distributions for cluster lengths can be explained by preferential processes because conditional probabilities for consecutive messages grow as a power law with cluster length. For BBC forum threads, average discussion lengths were higher for larger values of absolute average emotional valence in the first ten comments and the average amount of emotion in messages fell during discussions. Our results prove that collective emotional states can be created and modulated via Internet communication and that emotional expressiveness is the fuel that sustains some e-communities.Comment: 23 pages including Supporting Information, accepted to PLoS ON

Interaction and engagement with an anxiety management app: Analysis using large-Scale behavioral data

© Paul Matthews, Phil Topham, Praminda Caleb-Solly. Background: SAM (Self-help for Anxiety Management) is a mobile phone app that provides self-help for anxiety management. Launched in 2013, the app has achieved over one million downloads on the iOS and Android platform app stores. Key features of the app are anxiety monitoring, self-help techniques, and social support via a mobile forum (“the Social Cloud”). This paper presents unique insights into eMental health app usage patterns and explores user behaviors and usage of self-help techniques. Objective: The objective of our study was to investigate behavioral engagement and to establish discernible usage patterns of the app linked to the features of anxiety monitoring, ratings of self-help techniques, and social participation. Methods: We use data mining techniques on aggregate data obtained from 105,380 registered users of the app’s cloud services. Results: Engagement generally conformed to common mobile participation patterns with an inverted pyramid or “funnel” of engagement of increasing intensity. We further identified 4 distinct groups of behavioral engagement differentiated by levels of activity in anxiety monitoring and social feature usage. Anxiety levels among all monitoring users were markedly reduced in the first few days of usage with some bounce back effect thereafter. A small group of users demonstrated long-term anxiety reduction (using a robust measure), typically monitored for 12-110 days, with 10-30 discrete updates and showed low levels of social participation. Conclusions: The data supported our expectation of different usage patterns, given flexible user journeys, and varying commitment in an unstructured mobile phone usage setting. We nevertheless show an aggregate trend of reduction in self-reported anxiety across all minimally-engaged users, while noting that due to the anonymized dataset, we did not have information on users also enrolled in therapy or other intervention while using the app. We find several commonalities between these app-based behavioral patterns and traditional therapy engagement