Improving survey measures of household inflation expectations

Expectations about future inflation are generally thought to play an important role in households’ decisions about spending and saving. They are also of great interest to central bankers, who take them into account when determining policy or assessing the effectiveness of communications with the public. To help improve existing survey measures of inflation expectations, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently joined with other institutions and academic consultants to develop a set of survey questions that will yield more reliable information on households’ inflation expectations, inflation uncertainty, and expectations about future wage changes.Inflation (Finance) ; Households - Economic aspects ; Economic surveys ; Federal Reserve Bank of New York ; Economic forecasting

Scheduling on Hybrid Platforms: Improved Approximability Window

Modern platforms are using accelerators in conjunction with standard processing units in order to reduce the running time of specific operations, such as matrix operations, and improve their performance. Scheduling on such hybrid platforms is a challenging problem since the algorithms used for the case of homogeneous resources do not adapt well. In this paper we consider the problem of scheduling a set of tasks subject to precedence constraints on hybrid platforms, composed of two types of processing units. We propose a $(3+2\sqrt{2})$-approximation algorithm and a conditional lower bound of 3 on the approximation ratio. These results improve upon the 6-approximation algorithm proposed by Kedad-Sidhoum et al. as well as the lower bound of 2 due to Svensson for identical machines. Our algorithm is inspired by the former one and distinguishes the allocation and the scheduling phases. However, we propose a different allocation procedure which, although is less efficient for the allocation sub-problem, leads to an improved approximation ratio for the whole scheduling problem. This approximation ratio actually decreases when the number of processing units of each type is close and matches the conditional lower bound when they are equal

Group versus Individual Web Accessibility Evaluations: Effects with Novice Evaluators

We present an experiment comparing performance of 20 novice evaluators of accessibility carrying out Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 conformance reviews working individually to performance obtained when they work in teams of two. They were asked to first carry out an individual assessment of a web page. Later on, they were matched randomly to constitute a group of two and they were asked to revise their initial assessment and to produce a group assessment of the same page. Results indicate that significant differences were found for sensitivity (inversely related to false negatives: +8%) and agreement (when measured in terms of the majority view: +10%). Members of groups exhibited strong agreement on the evaluation results among them and with the group outcome. Other measures of validity and reliability are not significantly affected by group work. Practical implications of these findings are that, for example, when it is important to reduce the false-negative rate, then employing a group of two people is more useful than having individuals carrying out the assessment. Openings for future research include further explorations of whether similar results hold for groups larger than two or what is the effect of mixing people with different accessibility background. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS When novice accessibility evaluators work in groups, their ability to identify all the true problems increases (by 8%). Likewise, reliability of group evaluations increases (by 10%). Individual or group evaluations can be considered as equivalent methods with respect to false positives (if differences up to 8% in correctness are tolerated). Individual or group evaluations can be considered as equivalent methods with respect to overall effectiveness (if differences up to 11% in F-measure are tolerated)

A scheme for time-dependent resource reservation in QoS-enabled IP networks

Abstract. A number of distributed applications require communication services with Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. The QoS provisioning issue in the Internet has been addressed by the IETF with the definition of the Integrated Services (IntServ) and Differentiated Services (Diffserv) frameworks. Resource reservation mechanisms on which these models are based are totally time-unaware. Yet, we believe that, in some cases, associating a time interval to network resource reservations could be useful for both users and network providers. In this paper we present a distributed scheme for time-dependent reservations in QoS-enabled IP networks. We also show how the standard signalling protocol RSVP may support this new reservation style, with only a few minor modifications. Finally, we present a first prototype implementation of the major component of the proposed architecture and we provide some hints on future applicability scenarios of the advance reservation paradigm and its impact on related topics such as policing and charging techniques in QoS-enabled IP networks.

Typing Copyless Message Passing

We present a calculus that models a form of process interaction based on copyless message passing, in the style of Singularity OS. The calculus is equipped with a type system ensuring that well-typed processes are free from memory faults, memory leaks, and communication errors. The type system is essentially linear, but we show that linearity alone is inadequate, because it leaves room for scenarios where well-typed processes leak significant amounts of memory. We address these problems basing the type system upon an original variant of session types.Comment: 50 page

ASPETTI FISIOGRAFICI DELL\u27ISTRIA FLYSCHIOIDE NORD-OCCIDENTALE

Vengono esaminate alcune componenti ambientali naturali deii\u27Istria compresa nella "sinclinale di Trieste- Capodistria ", con riferimento particolare alle caratteristiche oroidrografiche dell \u27 entroterra e ai relativi condizionamenti sulla morfologia costiera.Sjevero-zapadni dio istarskog poluotoka, poznat kao flisni facies ili kao dio Sive lstre odnosno Zute lstre, tektonski pripada sinklinali Trst-Kopar. S ovog su podrucja pregledno rekognoscirane, sa sistemsko-ambijentalnog gledista, neke prirodne komponente stratigrafsko-opisne, pedoloske te, posebno, oroidrografske prirode. Evidentirane su i neke skupne geomorfoloske osobitosti, imajuéi posbeno u vidu inducirane uvjete duz obalne linije, gdje genetska interpretacija zahtjeva da se uzmu u obzir mnogobrojne interferencije jednog naglasenog ingresijskog mora

L\u27INDICE DELLI SEMPLICI DI G. F. TOMMASINI, VESCOVO DI CITTANOVA NEL XVII SECOLO, RICUPERATO IN CONCORDANZA CON LA NOMENCLATURA SCIENTIFICA ATTUALE INDAGINE SULLA PRIMA DOCUMENTAZIONE DELLE PIANTE MEDICINALI DELL\u27ISTRIA, QUALE CONTRIBUTO ALLE CONOSCENZE REGIONALI DI FARMACOGEOGRAFIA STORICA

Nel presente lavoro viene esperito il riconoscimento e il ricupero all \u27 indagine scientifica di un seicentesco elenco di semplici della regione istri ana, prima importante documentazione fannacogeografica regionale, ricavata dalla corografia di G. F. Tommasini, episcopus emoniensis.Monsignor G. F. Tommasini , nov igradski biskup od 1642. do 1653., napi sao je jeclno od prvih korografs kih dj ela o Istri, bogatog clragocjenim poclacima i svjeclocanstvima, ne samo pov ijesno-humani sti ckog karaktera, veé i an ima koji se od nose na razne grane geografske znanosti , ukljucujuéi i farmakogeografiju . U prvom djelu njegov ih >>Komentara«, posebno u XV!I poglavlju, popisano je c.ca 300 vrsta ljekovitog bilja, od kojih su mnoge potanko specifici rane u vise sorti , te cesto lokali zirane prema ambijentu i po regionalnim teritorijima, koji predstav ljaju bastinu »r!jedij1 Obicnih Provincije«. Autor u ovom radu, redi giranom u sematskoj formi, pokusava pronaéi znanstvenu konkordancu medunarodne binominalne klasifikacije svakog >>Obicnog«, pribjegavajuéi bilo veoma sirokom ali i dvosmi slenom sinonimi cnom prilogu Bota nick ih autora Cinquecenta i Seicenta, bilo odgovarajuéim na roclnim naz ivima Mattiol a, u to vrij eme najv ise u upotrebi . Za svaku cvijetnu jedinicu, tako ponovno identificiranu, utvrdeni su efektivni ekoloski zahtjev i i sadasnji area li , radi njihove prihvatljivosti i uporedbe sa anima oznacenim kod Tommasini-ja. Ovaj prilog spasava nju floristickih poznanstava Jstre XVII stoljeéa predstavlja vrijedan osnov za daljnja istraz ivanja i podstrek zastiti jedne delikatne bastine, ciji biotopi u nckim slucajevima veé propadaju

Challenges recruiting to a proof-of-concept pharmaceutical trial for a rare disease: The trigeminal neuralgia experience

Background: This study aimed to describe recruitment challenges encountered during a phase IIa study of vixotrigine, a state and use-dependent Nav1.7 channel blocker, in individuals with trigeminal neuralgia. Methods: This was an international, multicenter, placebo-controlled, randomized withdrawal study that included a 7-day run-in period, a 21-day open-label phase, and a 28-day double-blind phase in which patients (planned n = 30) were randomized to vixotrigine or placebo. Before recruitment, all antiepileptic drugs had to be stopped, except for gabapentin or pregabalin. After the trial, patients returned to their original medications. Patient recruitment was expanded beyond the original five planned (core) centers in order to meet target enrollment (total recruiting sites N = 25). Core sites contributed data related to patient identification for study participation (prescreening data). Data related to screening failures and study withdrawal were also analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: Approximately half (322/636; 50.6%) of the patients who were prescreened at core sites were considered eligible for the study and 56/322 (17.4%) were screened. Of those considered eligible, 26/322 (8.1%) enrolled in the study and 6/322 (1.9%) completed the study. In total, 125 patients were screened across all study sites and 67/125 (53.6%) were enrolled. At prescreening, reasons for noneligibility varied by site and were most commonly diagnosis change (78/314; 24.8%), age > 80 years (75/314; 23.9%), language/distance/mobility (61/314; 19.4%), and noncardiac medical problems (53/314; 16.9%). At screening, frequently cited reasons for noneligibility included failure based on electrocardiogram, insufficient pain, and diagnosis change. Conclusions: Factors contributing to recruitment challenges encountered in this study included diagnosis changes, anxiety over treatment changes, and issues relating to distance, language, and mobility. Wherever possible, future studies should be designed to address these challenges. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01540630. EudraCT, 2010-023963-16. 07 Aug 2015

On the use of ABACUS high resolution glider observations for the assessment of phytoplankton ocean biomass from CMEMS model products

Ocean biomass distribution has a growing importance in the world economy as a global strategic reserve, due to environmental and industrial applications and its variability related to climate change. Satellite imagery allows multi-resolution methodologies to obtain estimation, and hopefully classification, of biomass content over sea surface. This information is largely used in numerical simulations and nowadays represents an important contribute to future projections. Nevertheless, satellite, models and classical in situ monitoring resolution/accuracy sometimes cannot provide data at the finer spatial scales needed to describe the complex three-dimensional water column system. On the other hand, glider surveys allow scientists to collect observations of ocean phenomena at very high resolution along the water column, to assess numerical simulations reliability and, eventually, to assimilate these data into ocean models. In this study, we present a quantitative comparison between the glider observations collected in the Algerian Basin (Western Mediterranean Sea) during the ABACUS surveys from 2014 to 2018, and the daily outputs of two co-located CMEMS model products (i.e., GLB and IBI). The achieved results point out that model products are well correlated with glider potential temperature measurements but they still need improvements to provide a correct representation of the chlorophyll concentration variability in the study area. Generally, IBI daily simulations present higher linear correlation with concurrent glider in situ data than GLB ones. IBI products also reproduce better the pattern of the local maxima of chlorophyll concentration across the Algerian Basin. Nevertheless, they largely underestimate glider chlorophyll measurements and present significant differences that limit their capability to reproduce its upper ocean concentration that is needed for accomplishing advanced ecological studies.This work was realized in the framework of the PON R&I 2014–2020 “AIM – Attraction and International Mobility” at Università degli Studi di Napoli Parthenope. Glider missions were performed in the framework of the Algerian BAsin Circulation Unmanned Survey (ABACUS) observational projects. The ABACUS 1 missions (2014) were supported by the Joint European Research Infrastructure network for Coastal Observatories (JERICO) TransNational Access (TNA) third call (grant agreement no. 262584). The ABACUS 2 missions (2015) were realized through the SOCIB glider facility open access programme. The research leading to ABACUS 3 (2016) and ABACUS 4 (2017 and 2018) was supported by the European Union's H2020 Framework Programme (h2020-INFRAIA-2014–2015) (JERICOsingle bondNEXT grant agreement no. 654410).Peer reviewe