6,854 research outputs found
Confirmatory factor analysis of the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA LS-R) in individuals over 65
No full textGoals: The UCLA LS-R is the most extensively used scale to assess loneliness. However, few studies examine the scale's use on older individuals. The goal of the study is to analyse the suitability of the scale´s structure for assessing older individuals.
Method: The UCLA LS-R scale was administered to a random sample of 409 community-dwelling residents of Madrid (53% women) aged 65-84 years (obtained from the MentDis_ICF65+ study). Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the factor structure of the UCLA LS-R.
Results: The internal consistency of the scale obtained a Cronbach's alpha of .85. All the analysed models of factor structure of the UCLA LS-R achieved a fairly good fit and RMSEA values over .80. The models that best fit the empirical data are those of Hojat (1982) and Borges et al. (2008).
Conclusion: The data suggest an equivalent effectiveness of UCLA LS-R in adults under 65 and over 65, which may indicate a similar structure of the loneliness construct in both populations. This outcome is consistent with the idea that loneliness has two dimensions: emotional loneliness and social loneliness. The use of short measures that are easy to apply and interpret should help primary care professionals identify loneliness problems in older individuals sooner and more accurately.European Commission (Grant No: 223105)Depto. de Personalidad, Evaluación y Psicología ClínicaFac. de PsicologíaTRUEpu
Eumachia agustinae C. M. Taylor & Razafim. 2017, comb. nov.
No full text22. Eumachia agustinae (Acuña) C.M. Taylor & Razafim., comb. nov. Ξ Psychotria agustinae Acuña in Brittonia 14: 225. 1962. Ξ Margaritopsis agustinae (Acuña) C.M. Taylor in Syst. Geogr. Pl. 75: 168. 2005. Typus: CUBA: Oriente, prope Cayo de la Sabina, Sierra de Nipe, 17.VII.1960, Acuña E.E.A. 21379 (holo-: SV; iso-: LS). Note. – This species is found in eastern Cuba (LIOGIER, 1963).Published as part of Taylor, Charlotte M., Razafimandimbison, Sylvain G., Barrabé, Laure, Jardim, Jomar G. & Barbosa, Maria Regina V., 2017, Eumachia expanded, a pantropical genus distinct from Psychotria (Rubiaceae, Palicoureeae), pp. 289-318 in Candollea 72 (2) on page 301, DOI: 10.15553/c2017v722a6, http://zenodo.org/record/572199
Characteristics of liquids lugs in gas–liquid Taylor flow in microchannels
No full textThe hydrodynamics of liquid slugs in gas–liquid Taylor flow in straight and meandering microchannels have been studied using micro Particle Image Velocimetry. The results confirm a recirculation motion in the liquid slug, which is symmetrical about the center line of the channel for the straight geometry and more complex and three-dimensional in the meandering channel. An attempt has also been made to quantify and characterize this recirculation motion in these short liquid slugs (Ls/w<1.5) by evaluating the recirculation rate, velocity and time. The recirculation velocity was found to increase linearly with the two-phase superficial velocity UTP. The product of the liquid slug residence time and the recirculation rate is independent of UTP under the studied flow conditions. These results suggest that the amount of heat or mass transferred between a given liquid slug and its surroundings is independent of the total flow rate and determined principally by the characteristics of the liquid slug
Author Attributions in Medieval Text Collections: An Exploration
No full textThis article examines the role and function of author attributions in multi-text manuscripts containing Dutch, English, French or German short verse narratives. The findings represent one strand of the investigations undertaken by the cross-European project ‘The Dynamics of the Medieval Manuscript’, which analysed the dissemination of short verse narratives and the principles of organisation underlying the compilation of text collections. Whilst short verse narratives are more commonly disseminated anonymously, there are manuscripts in which authorship is repeatedly attributed to a text or corpus. Through six case studies, this article explores medieval concepts of authorship and how they relate to constructions of authority, whether regarding an empirical figure or a literary construction. In addition, it looks at how authorship plays a role in manuscript compilation, and at the effects of attributions (by author and/or compiler) on reception. The case studies include manuscripts from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, produced in a range of social and cultural contexts, and featuring some of the most important European authors of short verse narratives: Rutebeuf, Baudouin de Condé, Der Striker, Konrad von Würzberg, Willem of Hildegaersberch, and Geoffrey Chaucer. The preliminary findings contribute to our understanding of author attributions in text collections from across northern Europe and point towards future lines of enquiry into the role of authorship in medieval textual dissemination
Batch Bayesian Learning of Large-Scale LS-SVMs Based on Low-rank Tensor Networks
No full textLeast Squares Support Vector Machines (LS-SVMs) are state-of-the-art learning algorithms that have been widely used for pattern recognition. The solution for an LS-SVM is found by solving a system of linear equations, which involves the computational complexity of O(N^3). When datasets get larger, solving LS-SVM problems with standard methods becomes burdensome or even unfeasible. The Tensor Train (TT) decomposition provides an approach to representing data in highly compressed formats without loss of accuracy. By converting vectors and matrices in the TT format, the storage and computational requirements can be greatly reduced. In this thesis, we develop a Bayesian learning method in the TT format to solve large-scale LS-SVM problems, which involves the computation of a matrix inverse. This method allows us to include the information we know about the model parameters in the prior distribution. As a result, we are able to obtain a probability distribution of the parameters, which enables us to construct confidence levels of the predictions. In the numerical experiment, we show that the developed method performs competitively with the current methods.Mechanical Engineering | Systems and Contro
Additive Manufacturing: Polymers Applicable for Laser Sintering (LS)
No full textAbstractAdditive Manufacturing (AM) is close to become a production technique changing the way of part fabrication in future. Enhanced complexity and personalized features are aimed. The expectations in AM for the future are enormous and betimes it is considered as kind of the next industrial revolution. Laser Sintering (LS) of polymer powders is one component of the AM production techniques. However materials successfully applicable to Laser Sintering (LS) are very limited today. The presentation picks up this topic and gives a short introduction on the material available today. Important factors of polymer powders, their significance for effective LS processing and analytical approaches to access those values are presented in the main part. Concurrently the exceptional position of polyamide 12 powders is this connection is outlined
An innovative approach to replace bentonite in hematite ore pelletizing with organic binder
No full textThere is a continuous endeavor to replace bentonite with any other suitable inorganic or organic binders.Organic binders generally burn at around 300–350°C and lose their binding property and cause crumblingin most cases. This study aimed to develop a process to use a suitable organic binder for the developmentof blast furnace quality pellets using some additives which can overcome the strength loss pelletsduring induration. The wastes generated from pulp industries viz. Ca-lignosulphonate (Ca-LS) and Na-lignosulphonate (Na-LS) have been used as binders in hematite ore pellets. To alleviate the strength loss at300–350°C, lower iron oxide (FeO and Fe3O4) containing materials viz. Linz-Donawitz (LD) sludge and millscale have been added. FeO and Fe3O4 in these materials will be oxidized at the mild oxidizing atmo-sphere of the induration strand and initiate diffusion bonding at around 300°C. Therefore, the strengthloss due to burning will be compensated by the strength gain due to diffusion bonding. From theexperimental study, it has been found that Ca-LS is a better binder than Na-LS and LD-sludge (LDS) isa better additive than mill scale. A combination of 0.4% Ca-LS with 5% LDS addition can prevent strengthdeterioration at 300–350°C during drying and gives a good-quality pellet in terms of strength, thermalshock resistance, reducibility, reduction degradation, and swelling index, which is comparable withbentonite added pellet. Thus, 04% Ca-LS with 5% LDS shows its good application potential to replacebentonite in hematite ore pelletizing
The Social Cost-of-Living: Welfare Foundations and Estimation
No full textWe present a new class of social cost-of-living indices and a nonparametric framework for estimating these and other social cost-of- living indices. Common social cost-of-living indices can be understood as aggregator functions of approximations of individual cost-of-living indices. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the expenditure-weighted average of first-order approximations of each individual’s cost-of-living index. This is troubling for three reasons. First, it has not been shown to have a welfare economic foundation for the case where agents are heterogeneous (as they clearly are.) Second, it uses an expenditure-weighted average which downweights the experience of poor households relative to rich households. Finally, it uses only first-order approximations of each individual’s cost-of-living index, and thus ignores substitution effects. We propose a “common-scaling” social cost-of-living index, which is defined as the single scaling to everyone’s expenditure which holds social welfare constant across a price change. Our approach has an explicit social welfare foundation and allows us to choose the weights on the costs of rich and poor households. We also give a unique solution for the welfare function for the case where the weights are independent of household expenditure. A first order approximation of our social cost-of- living index nests as special cases commonly used indices such as the CPI. We also provide a nonparametric method for estimating second- order approximations (which account for substitution effects).Inflation, Social cost-of-living, Demand, Average Derivatives
An improved CS-LS hybrid algorithm on microseismic source location
No full textThis paper presents a hybrid global optimization algorithm for the localization of microseismic events, which is composed of the Least-Squares (LS) algorithm and the Cuckoo search (CS) algorithm. It significantly reduces the demand for the accuracy of the inversion velocity model. The positioning process is presented as follows: firstly, construct an objective function by utilizing time difference information of P-wave; then, find the final optimal value through iterations by embedding this objective function as the fitness function to the hybrid algorithm. Through simulation experiments, the hybrid algorithm can acquire more accurate locations and a faster convergence speed than the LS algorithm
The Social Cost-of-Living: Welfare Foundations and Estimation
No full textWe present a new class of social cost-of-living indices and a nonparametric framework for estimating these and other social cost-of-living indices. Common social cost-of-living indices can be understood as aggregator functions of approximations of individual cost-of-living indices. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the expenditure-weighted average of first-order approximations of each individual’s cost-of-living index. This is troubling for three reasons. First, it has not been shown to have a welfare economic foundation for the case where agents are heterogeneous (as they clearly are.) Second, it uses an expenditure-weighted average which downweights the experience of poor households relative to rich households. Finally, it uses only first-order approximations of each individual’s cost-of-living index, and thus ignores substitution effects. We propose a “common-scaling” social cost-of-living index, which is defined as the single scaling to everyone’s expenditure which holds social welfare constant across a price change. Our approach has an explicit social welfare foundation and allows us to choose the weights on the costs of rich and poor households. We also give a unique solution for the welfare function for the case where the weights are independent of household expenditure. A first order approximation of our social cost-of-living index nests as special cases commonly used indices such as the CPI. We also provide a nonparametric method for estimating second-order approximations (which account for substitution effects).Inflation, Social cost-of-living, Demand, Average derivatives
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