6,768 research outputs found
Athletics and Violence Against Women: A Study of Relationship
This study looked to explore the correlation of violence and being a student athlete. The study was conducted at a small, private, Catholic college in the Northeastern part of the United States. There were 18 female participants and 24 male participants. The participants completed a 27 question survey pertaining to attitudes about violence against women. An independent T –test and a Pearson correlation was used. However, both tests proved the null hypothesis and the data proved not to be statistically significant. Yet, the negative reactions of the participants were significant. Research determined that more data and research is needed
Statistical inference for time-inhomogeneous volatility models
This paper offers a new approach for estimating and forecasting the
volatility of financial time series. No assumption is made about the parametric
form of the processes. On the contrary, we only suppose that the volatility can
be approximated by a constant over some interval. In such a framework, the main
problem consists of filtering this interval of time homogeneity; then the
estimate of the volatility can be simply obtained by local averaging.
We construct a locally adaptive volatility estimate (LAVE) which can perform
this task and investigate it both from the theoretical point of view and
through Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, the LAVE procedure is applied to a
data set of nine exchange rates and a comparison with a standard GARCH model is
also provided. Both models appear to be capable of explaining many of the
features of the data; nevertheless, the new approach seems to be superior to
the GARCH method as far as the out-of-sample results are concerned
Natural zeolites and white wines from Campania region (Southern Italy): a new contribution for solving some oenological problems
The purpose of this research is to provide a new mixture of Campanian zeolitized tuffs for solving two specific problems in the production of white wines: the protein and tartaric stability. In fact, a very frequent cause of turbidity and formation of organic deposits in white wines is the occurrence of thermolabile and thermostable proteins colloidal suspensions which precipitate in time, especially in summertime and during the storage and transport. Normally, to mitigate this risk wine producers use organic and inorganic stabilizers and clarifiers. The best known treatment, recognized also by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) foresees the use of bentonite with a montmorillonite content not lower than 80%. The present paper aims at evaluating the use of two high zeolite grade Italian volcanoclastites such as the Neapolitan Yellow Tuff (NYT) and the Yellow Facies of the Campanian Ignimbrite (YFCI), in the treatment of three peculiar white wines of the Campanian region (Southern Italy): Falanghina, Fiano di Avellino and Greco di Tufo. Granulates were produced starting from tuff blocks as provided by quarries. Some grain size fractions have been prepared to investigate the zeolite content (phillipsite + chabazite + analcime) by X-ray diffraction (XRD). A 2-5 mm grain size fraction was chosen for NYT and a 5-10 mm for YFCI. Three Campanian monocultivar white wines were used for the test: the Falanghina 2006 vintage, the Fiano di Avellino DOCG 2007 vintage, and the Greco di Tufo DOCG 2008 vintage. 48 samples with mixture of the zeolitized tuffs, 1 sample with mixture of a synthetic zeolite A and 1 sample with mixture of a commercial sodium activated bentonite were prepared. ICP-OES analysis for the determination of ECEC, Ion Chromatography (IC) analyses for the determination of some major cations and Turbidimetric tests for the definition of the protein stabilization process before and after treatments were also carried out. It was evidenced that high zeolitized tuff/wine ratios enable the protein stabilization whereas a significant decrease of potassium ion after the treatment with a zeolite-rich powder improves the tartaric stability, a serious problem in all the wine productions. The results of these tests refer to a laboratory scale research. A transfer of the experiment to a pilot plant scale is in progress
The Different Environmental Dependencies of Star-formation for Giant and Dwarf Galaxies
We examine the origins of the bimodality observed in the global properties of
galaxies around a stellar mass of 3x10^10 M_sun by comparing the environmental
dependencies of star-formation for the giant and dwarf galaxy populations. The
Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR4 spectroscopic dataset is used to produce a sample
of galaxies in the vicinity of the supercluster centered on the cluster A2199
at z=0.03 that is ~90% complete to a magnitude limit of M*+3.3. From these we
measure global trends with environment for both giant (M_r<-20 mag) and dwarf
(-19<M_r<-17.8 mag) subsamples using the luminosity-weighted mean stellar age
and H_alpha emission as independent measures of star-formation history. The
fraction of giant galaxies classed as old (t>7 Gyr) or passive (EW[H_alpha]<4
A) falls gradually from ~80% in the cluster cores to ~40% in field regions
beyond 3-4 R_virial, as found in previous studies. In contrast, we find that
the dwarf galaxy population shows a sharp transition at ~1 R_virial, from being
predominantly old/passive within the cluster, to outside where virtually all
galaxies are forming stars and old/passive galaxies are only found as
satellites to more massive galaxies. These results imply fundamental
differences in the evolution of giant and dwarf galaxies: whereas the
star-formation histories of giant galaxies are determined primarily by their
merger history, star-formation in dwarf galaxies is much more resilient to the
effects of major mergers. Instead dwarf galaxies become passive only once they
become satellites within a more massive halo, by losing their halo gas
reservoir to the host halo, or through other environment-related processes such
as galaxy harassment and/or ram-pressure stripping.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Optimal Fully Electric Vehicle load balancing with an ADMM algorithm in Smartgrids
In this paper we present a system architecture and a suitable control
methodology for the load balancing of Fully Electric Vehicles at Charging
Station (CS). Within the proposed architecture, control methodologies allow to
adapt Distributed Energy Resources (DER) generation profiles and active loads
to ensure economic benefits to each actor. The key aspect is the organization
in two levels of control: at local level a Load Area Controller (LAC) optimally
calculates the FEVs charging sessions, while at higher level a Macro Load Area
Aggregator (MLAA) provides DER with energy production profiles, and LACs with
energy withdrawal profiles. Proposed control methodologies involve the solution
of a Walrasian market equilibrium and the design of a distributed algorithm.Comment: This paper has been accepted for the 21st Mediterranean Conference on
Control and Automation, therefore it is subjected to IEEE Copyrights. See
IEEE copyright notice at http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecopyrightform.pd
Photometric redshifts with Quasi Newton Algorithm (MLPQNA). Results in the PHAT1 contest
Context. Since the advent of modern multiband digital sky surveys,
photometric redshifts (photo-z's) have become relevant if not crucial to many
fields of observational cosmology, from the characterization of cosmic
structures, to weak and strong lensing. Aims. We describe an application to an
astrophysical context, namely the evaluation of photometric redshifts, of
MLPQNA, a machine learning method based on Quasi Newton Algorithm. Methods.
Theoretical methods for photo-z's evaluation are based on the interpolation of
a priori knowledge (spectroscopic redshifts or SED templates) and represent an
ideal comparison ground for neural networks based methods. The MultiLayer
Perceptron with Quasi Newton learning rule (MLPQNA) described here is a
computing effective implementation of Neural Networks for the first time
exploited to solve regression problems in the astrophysical context and is
offered to the community through the DAMEWARE (DAta Mining & ExplorationWeb
Application REsource) infrastructure. Results. The PHAT contest (Hildebrandt et
al. 2010) provides a standard dataset to test old and new methods for
photometric redshift evaluation and with a set of statistical indicators which
allow a straightforward comparison among different methods. The MLPQNA model
has been applied on the whole PHAT1 dataset of 1984 objects after an
optimization of the model performed by using as training set the 515 available
spectroscopic redshifts. When applied to the PHAT1 dataset, MLPQNA obtains the
best bias accuracy (0.0006) and very competitive accuracies in terms of scatter
(0.056) and outlier percentage (16.3%), scoring as the second most effective
empirical method among those which have so far participated to the contest.
MLPQNA shows better generalization capabilities than most other empirical
methods especially in presence of underpopulated regions of the Knowledge Base.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics; 9 pages, 2
figure
Weak Lensing Mass Reconstruction of the Galaxy Cluster Abell 209
Weak lensing applied to deep optical images of clusters of galaxies provides
a powerful tool to reconstruct the distribution of the gravitating mass
associated to these structures. We use the shear signal extracted by an
analysis of deep exposures of a region centered around the galaxy cluster Abell
209, at redshift z=0.2, to derive both a map of the projected mass distribution
and an estimate of the total mass within a characteristic radius. We use a
series of deep archival R-band images from CFHT-12k, covering an area of 0.3
deg^2. We determine the shear of background galaxy images using a new
implementation of the modified Kaiser-Squires-Broadhurst pipeline for shear
determination, which we has been tested against the ``Shear TEsting Program 1
and 2'' simulations. We use mass aperture statistics to produce maps of the 2
dimensional density distribution, and parametric fits using both
Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) and singular-isothermal-sphere profiles to constrain
the total mass. The projected mass distribution shows a pronounced asymmetry,
with an elongated structure extending from the SE to the NW. This is in general
agreement with the optical distribution previously found by other authors. A
similar elongation was previously detected in the X-ray emission map, and in
the distribution of galaxy colours. The circular NFW mass profile fit gives a
total mass of M_{200} = 7.7^{+4.3}_{-2.7} 10^{14} solar masses inside the
virial radius r_{200} = 1.8\pm 0.3 Mpc. The weak lensing profile reinforces the
evidence for an elongated structure of Abell 209, as previously suggested by
studies of the galaxy distribution and velocities.Comment: accepted by A&A, 15 pages, 11 figure
Structure and Evolution of Galaxy Clusters: Internal Dynamics of ABCG 209 at z~0.21
We study the internal dynamics of the rich galaxy cluster ABGC 209 on the
basis of new spectroscopic and photometric data. The distribution in redshift
shows that ABCG 209 is a well isolated peak of 112 detected member galaxies at
z=0.209, characterised by a high value of the line-of-sight velocity
dispersion, sigma_v=1250-1400 Km/s, on the whole observed area (1 Mpc/h from
the cluster center), that leads to a virial mass of M=1.6-2.2x10^15 M_sun
within the virial radius, assuming the dynamical equilibrium. The presence of a
velocity gradient in the velocity field, the elongation in the spatial
distribution of the colour-selected likely cluster members, the elongation of
the X-ray contour levels in the Chandra image, and the elongation of cD galaxy
show that ABCG 209 is characterised by a preferential NW-SE direction. We also
find a significant deviation of the velocity distribution from a Gaussian, and
relevant evidence of substructure and dynamical segregation. All these facts
show that ABCG 209 is a strongly evolving cluster, possibly in an advanced
phase of merging.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures. A&A in pres
Compulsory Licensing of Patented Pharmaceutical Inventions: Evaluating the Options
In this Comment, the author traces the relevant legislative history pertaining to compulsory licensing of patented pharmaceuticals from the TRIPS Agreement of 1994 to the 2003 waiver to, and later proposed amendment of, article 31, which enables poor countries to obtain needed medicines from other countries that possess manufacturing capacity. The Comment then evaluates recent, controversial uses of the relevant legislative machinery as viewed from different critical perspectives. The Comment shows how developing countries seeking access to esential medicines can collaborate in ways that would avoid undermining incentives to innovation and other social costs attributed to compulsory licensing. It ends by defending the legality of recent measures taken to promote public health in developing countries, and by reminding developed countries that unilateral retaliation against such measures is demonstrably illegal under WTO foundational law and jurisprudence
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