A key function of local governments is to provide a wide array of public services. The supply of these services has been found to create spatial spillovers among neighbouring municipalities. Although ...it is generally agreed that spillovers are present in models that explain government expenditures, their type—whether endogenous, exogenous or residual—and sign—whether positive or negative—remain ambiguous. In most cases, a subjective process is used to select the type of spatial regression model used in analysis, with mixed results. Per capita expenditures of ten subprogrammes (Security, Housing, Welfare, Environment, Social services, Employment promotion, Health, Education, Culture and Sport) are analysed for all Spanish municipalities with more than 5000 inhabitants in the 2010–2012 period. A Spatial Seemingly Unrelated Regression methodology in a panel framework is used to incorporate correlation between different subprogrammes and spatial dependence. Our results show that the three types of spatial effects are present. Furthermore, substantive dependence is positive in most cases, while negative residual dependence is observed in some.
The psychological experience of Latinos/as is deeply rooted in a collectivistic culture that values relationships. This provides them with a sense of identity, purpose, and meaning in life. ...Consequently, self-actualization is most authentically achieved through their collective values and behaviors and the family plays a central role in defining self-actualizing. The family and the collective are the primary loci where Latinos/as meet their needs for safety, belonging, love, respect, and self-esteem. They are able to reach their full potential, capacities, and talents through positive and nurturing interactions with others. Familismo, personalismo, and simpatia are some of the most important cultural values and behaviors that allow them to fulfill their vocation as highly relational people.
Obtaining precise reducer order battery models is a key component in designing lithium-ion battery management systems. In general, with conventional order reduction techniques, low order is followed ...by low accuracy. To overcome such limitation, this paper presents a frequency-based constructive method to obtain broad-band low-order approximations of the solid-phase lithium-ion diffusion submodel, the core of the reference pseudo-two-dimensional electrochemical model of lithium-ion cells. The proposed method is a combination of an improvement on the residue grouping technique and of standard balancing and truncation/residualization methods borrowed from control systems theory. As main result, dramatic order reductions from 3000th to 5th-order with minimum accuracy losses are obtained. Taking a well-known case-study of a lithium-ion battery model, it is shown that 5th-order models offer approximations with maximum absolute errors of 0.5%, for characteristic times up to
9.54
×
10
4
s
. The proposed method will help to obtain accurate real-time estimations of surface concentration and state of charge of lithium-ion batteries.
Graphic abstract
The productivity of paratransit systems could be improved if transit agencies had the tools to accurately predict which trip reservations are likely to result in trips. A potentially useful approach ...to this prediction task is the use of machine learning algorithms, which are routinely applied in, for example, the airline and hotel industries to make predictions on reservation outcomes. In this study, the application of machine learning (ML) algorithms is examined for two prediction problems that are of interest to paratransit operations. In the first problem the operator is only concerned with predicting which reservations will result in trips and which ones will not, while in the second prediction problem the operator is interested in more than two reservation outcomes. Logistic regression, random forest, gradient boosting, and extreme gradient boosting were the main machine learning algorithms applied in this study. In addition, a clustering-based approach was developed to assign outcome probabilities to trip reservations. Using trip reservation data provided by the Metropolitan Bus Authority of Puerto Rico, tests were conducted to examine the predictive accuracy of the selected algorithms. The gradient boosting and extreme gradient boosting algorithms were the best performing methods in the classification tests. In addition, to illustrate an application of the algorithms, demand forecasting models were generated and shown to be a promising approach for predicting daily trips in paratransit systems. The best performing method in this exercise was a regression model that optimally combined the demand predictions generated by the machine learning algorithms considered in this study.
Electrochemical models are a widespread framework to simulate lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and to design their battery management algorithms. To obtain numerically efficient models, the polynomial ...approximation (PA) is one of many order reduction techniques applied to the solid-state lithium-ion (SSLi
+
) diffusion equation, the core of the so-called pseudo-two-dimensional electrochemical model (P2DM). Although the validity of PA is constrained to slow-varying current scenarios, many algorithms reported in the literature to estimate the state-of-charge of Li-ion cells rely on low-order PA-based dynamic models (PADMs) derived from the P2DM. Moreover, assuming that most properties of their low-order counterparts are inherited, some authors suggest that PADMs of arbitrary high order can be used to provide very accurate approximations of the state-of-charge, even under complex operating conditions. Nevertheless, to authors knowledge, in the open literature there is not a proper analysis to support such assertion. In this paper, by introducing a systematic method to derive PADMs of arbitrary order, the ability of high-order PADMs to reproduce the average and surface concentrations described by the SSLi
+
diffusion equation is investigated in time and frequency domains, with the aid of classic control systems theory techniques. The main result shows that PADMs of order greater than 2 are structurally fragile as non-minimum-phase zeros as well as spurious unstable modes are induced by the PA technique, implying that high-order PADMs are not suitable for simulation or estimation purposes because of their weak internal structure.
Graphic abstract
Mean Profiles of the NEO Personality Inventory Allik, Jüri; Church, A. Timothy; Ortiz, Fernando A. ...
Journal of cross-cultural psychology,
04/2017, Volume:
48, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and its latest version, the NEO-PI-3, were designed to measure 30 distinctive personality traits, which are grouped into Neuroticism, Extraversion, ...Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness domains. The mean self-rated NEO-PI-R scores for 30 subscales have been reported for 36 countries or cultures in 2002. As a follow-up, this study reports the mean scores of the NEO-PI-R/3 for 71,870 participants from 76 samples and 62 different countries or cultures and 37 different languages. Mean differences in personality traits across countries and cultures were about 8.5 times smaller than differences between any two individuals randomly selected from these samples. Nevertheless, a multidimensional scaling of similarities and differences in the mean profile shape showed a clear clustering into distinctive groups of countries or cultures. This study provides further evidence that country/culture mean scores in personality are replicable and can provide reliable information about personality dispositions.
Introduction:
Microcirculatory alterations characterize septic shock; increased blood lactate level has been described as markers of microcirculation alteration in patients with septic shock. ...Although useful, this serological analysis is not always feasible in all settings worldwide.
Objective:
To determine if a prolonged capillary refilling is a predictor of mortality in patients with septic shock.
Methodology:
A 10-months prospective cohort study was carried out on 175 patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with the diagnosis of septic shock. The capillary refilling time (CRT) was evaluated Immediately upon admission and after 6 hours post-resuscitation. Traditional tissue perfusion markers were also used to compare and analyze their predictive value on mortality at 28 days.
Results:
The area under the ROC curve (AUC) to estimate mortality in patients with septic shock with CRT at admission was 0.666 (0.584-0.748), while at 6 hours was 0.819 (0.753-0.885), with a cut-off point of 4.5 seconds at admission (PPV 52.87% NPV 72.73%) and 3.5 sec at 6 hours (PPV 95.56% NPV 79.23%). In those with CRT > 3.5 seconds at 6 hours, they had a RR of 4.60, while a CRT > 4.5 seconds at admission had a RR of 1.94, with a non-survivor proportion of 95.56% for a CRT > 3.5 sec at 6 hours vs 20.77% for CRT ≤ 3.5 sec (P value < 0.001). The CRT at 6 hours showed significant differences in the survival curves with P-value < 0.001, where for values > 3.5 sec, survival at 28 days was 4.44% vs 79.20% for values ≤ 3.5 sec.
Conclusion:
CRT is a strong predictor of mortality in patients with septic shock. Evaluating changes in CRT during resuscitation from septic shock might be used as an important clinical tool to predict mortality; especially in low-resources settings where using other biomarkers might be sometimes difficult.
Measurement invariance is a prerequisite for confident cross-cultural comparisons of personality profiles. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was used to detect differential item functioning ...(DIF) in factor loadings and intercepts for the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (P. T. Costa, Jr., & R. R. McCrae, 1992) in comparisons of college students in the United States (N = 261), Philippines (N = 268), and Mexico (N = 775). About 40%-50% of the items exhibited some form of DIF and item-level noninvariance often carried forward to the facet level at which scores are compared. After excluding DIF items, some facet scales were too short or unreliable for cross-cultural comparisons, and for some other facets, cultural mean differences were reduced or eliminated. The results indicate that considerable caution is warranted in cross-cultural comparisons of personality profiles.
Need Satisfaction and Well-Being Church, A. Timothy; Katigbak, Marcia S.; Locke, Kenneth D. ...
Journal of cross-cultural psychology,
05/2013, Volume:
44, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT), satisfaction of needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness is a universal requirement for psychological well-being. We tested this hypothesis with ...college students in the United States, Australia, Mexico, Venezuela, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, and Japan. Participants rated the extent to which these needs, plus needs for self-actualization and pleasure-stimulation, were satisfied in various roles and reported their general hedonic (i.e., positive and negative affect) and eudaimonic (e.g., meaning in life, personal growth) well-being. Asian participants averaged lower than non-Asian participants in perceived satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and self-actualization needs and in most aspects of eudaimonic well-being, and these differences were partially accounted for by differences in dialecticism and independent self-construals. Nonetheless, perceived need satisfaction predicted overall well-being to a similar degree in all cultures and in most cultures provided incremental prediction beyond the Big Five traits. Perceived imbalance in the satisfaction of different needs also modestly predicted well-being, particularly negative affect. The study extended support for the universal importance of SDT need satisfaction to several new cultures.
The entire skin surface of octopus embryos, hatchlings and juveniles bears scattered tufts of tiny chitinous setae within small pockets, from which they can be everted and retracted. Known as ...Kölliker’s organs (KO), they disappear before the subadult stage. The function of these structures during the early life of the octopus is unknown, despite having been first described nearly two centuries ago. To investigate these organs further, general trends in size of KO distribution and density were analyzed in hatchlings and juveniles of 17 octopod species from all oceans, representing holobenthic, holopelagic and meropelagic modes of life. The size of the KO is fairly constant across species, unrelated to mode of life or hatchling size. The density of KO is similar on ventral and dorsal body surfaces, but hatchlings of smaller size tend to have a higher density of KO on the aboral surface of the arms. Analysis of a series of post-hatching
Octopus vulgaris
shows KO size to be constant throughout ontogeny; it is therefore a consistent structure during the octopus early life from planktonic hatchling to benthic juvenile. New KO are generated on the skin of the arm tips during the planktonic period and initial benthic lives of juveniles. Their density, on both the mantle and arms, gradually decreases as the octopus grows. In older benthic juveniles, the KO degrades, losing its setae and the base of its follicle becomes exposed as a nearly circular stump of muscle. It is estimated that fully everted KO increase the body surface area by around two-thirds compared to when the KO are retracted. This modular mechanism of body surface extension and roughness probably influences flow-related forces such as drag and propulsion of the moving surface of the young octopus while it is of small size with a relatively large surface area. In addition, the distribution of these organs on the aboral surface of the arms of the octopus and their birefringent properties suggest a role in camouflage. Further research is needed to test these hypotheses of KO function in live animals.
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