Academic literature on the topic 'Calculator usage'

Background Clinical scores are frequently used in the diagnosis and management of stroke. While medical calculators are increasingly important support tools for clinical decisions, the uptake and use of common medical calculators for stroke remain poorly characterized. Objective We aimed to describe use patterns in frequently used stroke-related medical calculators for clinical decisions from a web-based support system. Methods We conducted a retrospective study of calculators from MDCalc, a web-based and mobile app–based medical calculator platform based in the United States. We analyzed metadata tags from MDCalc’s calculator use data to identify all calculators related to stroke. Using relative page views as a measure of calculator use, we determined the 5 most frequently used stroke-related calculators between January 2016 and December 2018. For all 5 calculators, we determined cumulative and quarterly use, mode of access (eg, app or web browser), and both US and international distributions of use. We compared cumulative use in the 2016-2018 period with use from January 2011 to December 2015. Results Over the study period, we identified 454 MDCalc calculators, of which 48 (10.6%) were related to stroke. Of these, the 5 most frequently used calculators were the CHA2DS2-VASc score for atrial fibrillation stroke risk calculator (5.5% of total and 32% of stroke-related page views), the Mean Arterial Pressure calculator (2.4% of total and 14.0% of stroke-related page views), the HAS-BLED score for major bleeding risk (1.9% of total and 11.4% of stroke-related page views), the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score calculator (1.7% of total and 10.1% of stroke-related page views), and the CHADS2 score for atrial fibrillation stroke risk calculator (1.4% of total and 8.1% of stroke-related page views). Web browser was the most common mode of access, accounting for 82.7%-91.2% of individual stroke calculator page views. Access originated most frequently from the most populated regions within the United States. Internationally, use originated mostly from English-language countries. The NIHSS score calculator demonstrated the greatest increase in page views (238.1% increase) between the first and last quarters of the study period. Conclusions The most frequently used stroke calculators were the CHA2DS2-VASc, Mean Arterial Pressure, HAS-BLED, NIHSS, and CHADS2. These were mainly accessed by web browser, from English-speaking countries, and from highly populated areas. Further studies should investigate barriers to stroke calculator adoption and the effect of calculator use on the application of best practices in cerebrovascular disease.

A survey was conducted to assess the impact of mobile applications developed by theKrishiVigyan Kendra Banavasi with 150 farmers in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh inthe year 2020. KVK Banavasi developed three mobile applications namely ANGRAU-ATARI CFLD, ANGRAU Pashu Poshan and Fertilizer Calculator for benefiting farmingcommunity. Majority (64.67%) of the respondents were found in medium usage of mobileapplications, in agriculture. Fertilizer Calculator mobile application was found highest usage(74.50%) among the farmers when compared with other two applications. ANGRAUATATRI CFLD application was used by an average of 46.83 per cent farmers forinformation on new improved varieties, 75 % for control measures of pest and diseasesand 29 per cent for market related information. ANGRAU Pashu Poshan application wasused by 75 per cent livestock farmers for sheep management, 56 per cent for cattlemanagement and 45 per cent for poultry related information. Fertilizer calculator applicationwas used by 80 per cent farmers for recommended dose of fertilizers and 10 per cent forsoil test based fertilizer application.

Abstract Background Venous thromboembolism (VTE) causes preventable in-hospital morbidity. Pharmacologic prophylaxis reduces VTE in at-risk patients but also increases bleeding. To increase appropriate prescribing, a risk calculator to guide prophylaxis decisions was developed. Despite efforts to promote its use, providers accessed it infrequently. Objective This study aimed to understand provider perspectives on VTE prophylaxis and facilitators and barriers to using the risk calculator. Design This is a qualitative study exploring provider perspectives on VTE prophylaxis and the VTE risk calculator. Participants We interviewed attending physicians and advanced practice providers who used the calculator, and site champions who promoted calculator use. Providers were categorized by real-world usage over a 3-month period: low (<20% of the time), moderate (20–50%), or high (>50%). Approach During semistructured interviews, we asked about experiences with VTE, calculator use, perspectives on its implementation, and experiences with other risk assessment tools. Once thematic saturation was reached, transcripts were analyzed using content analysis to identify themes. Results Fourteen providers participated. Five were high utilizers, three were moderate utilizers, and six were low utilizers. Three site champions participated. Eight major themes were identified as follows: (1) ease of use, (2) perception of VTE risk, (3) harms of thromboprophylaxis, (4) overestimation of calculator use, (5) confidence in own ability, (6) underestimation of risk by calculator, (7) variability of trust in calculator, and (8) validation to withhold prophylaxis from low-risk patients. Conclusions While providers found the calculator is easy to use, routine use may be hindered by distrust of its recommendations. Inaccurate perception of VTE and bleeding risk may prevent calculator use.

The aim of the study is to determine the extent to which secondary school learners are dependent on using calculators for performing basic calculations and operations. The purpose of the study is to obtain findings and conclusions that can be used to inform educators on the impact of learners' use of calculators on their possible tertiary studies. The study also aims to add to the body of knowledge regarding the use of calculators on secondary school level, in the South African situation in particular. The study took place in Mpumalanga Province of South Africa. Three of the rural schools in Thulamahashe circuit of Bohlabela district namely Orhovelani High School, Bombani High School and Godide High School were selected to take part in the study. Grade 12 learners of these schools, a total of 183 learners, were involved in the study. A questionnaire was compiled from typical questions in Grade 8 to 10 school textbooks, chosen to cover a broad spectrum of basic calculations. These questions were arranged in ten categories of four questions each, later reduced to three questions each after the pilot study. The categories are: Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication, Fractions, Division, Mixed calculations, Square roots, Substitution, Exponents, Trigonometry, and Powers of Primes. Two groups of learners were selected at each school, one group allowed to use calculators (Group WC) and the group (Group WO) not. The questionnaires were issued to both groups simultaneously during the afternoon study period at each school to avoid disturbance of the normal running of the schools. Data collected from the three schools were combined. The analysis of the data is based on quantitative research methods. Student responses to the questionnaire are analysed quantitatively using standard statistical techniques. Results of the two groups are compared. Results show that learners are dependent on calculators with respect to basic mathematical calculations, and particularly so in the categories of Fractions, Division, Square Roots, Exponents and Trigonometry. In the category of Addition and Subtraction and in the category of Multiplication traces of dependency is evident in calculations with larger numbers. Learners lack knowledge and skills in the categories of Exponents, Substitution and Powers of Primes. Even with calculators learners experience problems in the categories of Fractions, Substitution, Exponents and Powers of Primes.
Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2016.
Mathematics and Applied Mathematics
MSc
Unrestricted

Cable harness is an integral part of a modern-day automobile. The design of many mechanical components is based on the cable harness and hence it is important to accurately calculate the space occupied by cable harness. In this thesis, a theoretical model representing n arbitrarily sized cables was used to generate a packing of the cable harness, and the space occupied by them was calculated. The model was used to develop an algorithm that generated a feasible configuration and a container around that packing. The optimisation toolbox in MATLAB was also used to calculate the space and optimise the container size. A customised standalone tool was developed in MATLAB by utilising the established methods, that enables calculation of space occupied by cables at various points of interest along the truck chassis for Scania CV.

L'apparition des limitations au niveau des interconnxions et, en particulier dans les supercalculateurs parallèles où les échanges de données deviennent prohibitifs, constitue une réelle butée aux performances globales des machines. Notre objectif est d'étuider une architecture de calculateur massivement parallèle sur la base d'un mariage idéal entre l'électronique et l'optique. L'architecture proposée se compose de processus électroniques (PEs) et utilise les atouts de l'optique pour les communications entre les PEs. Les applications visées conduisent au développement d'un réseau d'interconnexionx de type réseau multi-étage "shuffle-exchange" enrichi par des connxions de voisinage. Le réseau est validé par l'exécution s'applications telles que le produit matrice-vecteur et la transformée de Fourier à une et deux dimensions. Les possibilités d'intégration de la technologie électronique à moyen terme permet d'envisager un parallélisme de 128 x 128 PEs d'une complexité fonctionnelle équivalente à des microprocesseurs 8 bits (~5000 transistors). Une fréquence d'horloge acceptable pour les PEs pourrait être comprise entre 10 et 100 MHz. Le procédé de réalisation du réseau de communications inter-PEs proposé utilise des matrices de microlentilles et de microprismes. Son principe, validé expérimentalement, autorise un parallélisme 128 x 128.

Nous vivons dans un monde où une grande quantité de données est généré en continu. Par exemple, quand on fait une recherche sur Google, quand on achète quelque chose sur Amazon, quand on clique en ‘Aimer’ sur Facebook, quand on upload une image sur Instagram, et quand un capteur est activé, etc., de nouvelles données vont être généré. Les données sont différentes d’une simple information numérique, mais viennent dans de nombreux format. Cependant, les données prisent isolément n’ont aucun sens. Mais quand ces données sont reliées ensemble on peut en extraire de nouvelles informations. De plus, les données sont sensibles au temps. La façon la plus précise et efficace de représenter les données est de les exprimer en tant que flux de données. Si les données les plus récentes ne sont pas traitées rapidement, les résultats obtenus ne sont pas aussi utiles. Ainsi, un système parallèle et distribué pour traiter de grandes quantités de flux de données en temps réel est un problème de recherche important. Il offre aussi de bonne perspective d’application. Dans cette thèse nous étudions l’opération de jointure sur des flux de données, de manière parallèle et continue. Nous séparons ce problème en deux catégories. La première est la jointure en parallèle et continue guidée par les données. La second est la jointure en parallèle et continue guidée par les requêtes
We live in a world where a vast amount of data is being continuously generated. Data is coming in a variety of ways. For example, every time we do a search on Google, every time we purchase something on Amazon, every time we click a ‘like’ on Facebook, every time we upload an image on Instagram, every time a sensor is activated, etc., it will generate new data. Data is different than simple numerical information, it now comes in a variety of forms. However, isolated data is valueless. But when this huge amount of data is connected, it is very valuable to look for new insights. At the same time, data is time sensitive. The most accurate and effective way of describing data is to express it as a data stream. If the latest data is not promptly processed, the opportunity of having the most useful results will be missed.So a parallel and distributed system for processing large amount of data streams in real time has an important research value and a good application prospect. This thesis focuses on the study of parallel and continuous data stream Joins. We divide this problem into two categories. The first one is Data Driven Parallel and Continuous Join, and the second one is Query Driven Parallel and Continuous Join

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Risk Analysis and Management
Accurate risk estimation with proportionate fees is the cornerstone of insurance activity, a billion-dollar service industry. Due to progressive technological development, insurance companies are now able to improve their risk assessment in the underwriting process of automobile insurance. Through the installation of Onboard-diagnostic devices or with an application in the customers’ smartphones, insurance companies may measure behavioral and situational risk factors such as distance covered and driving habits. These new risk factors provide further information that helps the client’s risk evaluation beyond the traditional risk factors of customer and car specific. The objective of this research is to measure the increased prediction capacity of the claim predicting model by including driver behavior variables. A Generalized Linear model was applied, that includes not only the traditional risk factors, but also additional risk factors measured by telematics, and a new model-based ensemble predictor to a dataset with more than 3 million drivers. Results show that the incorporation of driver’s behavior variables increases the overall capacity of the model. By adding these behavioral risk factors, the actuarial accuracy is increased, leading to a more tailored approach of risk assessment and also awarding the clients that have safer conduct on the road and penalizing those with a more hazardous behavior prone to incurring in car accidents.

Economy and mankind are inextricably interlinked. Just as the economy or the production of material wealth is unimaginable without a man, so human existence and development are impossible without the wealth created in the economy. Shortly, both the goal and the means of achieving and realization of the economy are still the human resources. People have long ago noticed that it was the economy that created livelihoods, and the delays in their production led to the catastrophic events such as hunger, poverty, civil wars, social upheavals, revolutions, moral degeneration, and more. Therefore, the special interest of people in understanding the regulatory framework of the functioning of the economy has existed and exists in all historical epochs [A. Sisvadze. Economic theory. Part One. 2006y. p. 22]. The system of economic disciplines studies economy or economic activities of a society. All of them are based on science, which is currently called economic theory in the post-socialist space (the science of economics, the principles of economics or modern economics), and in most countries of the world - predominantly in the Greek-Latin manner - economics. The title of the present book is also Modern Economics. Economics (economic theory) is the science that studies the efficient use of limited resources to produce and distribute goods and services in order to satisfy as much as possible the unlimited needs and demands of the society. More simply, economics is the science of choice and how society manages its limited resources. Moreover, it should be emphasized that economics (economic theory) studies only the distribution, exchange and consumption of the economic wealth (food, beverages, clothing, housing, machine tools, computers, services, etc.), the production of which is possible and limited. And the wealth that exists indefinitely: no economic relations are formed in the production and distribution of solar energy, air, and the like. This current book is the second complete updated edition of the challenges of the modern global economy in the context of the coronary crisis, taking into account some of the priority directions of the country's development. Its purpose is to help students and interested readers gain a thorough knowledge of economics and show them how this knowledge can be applied pragmatically (professionally) in professional activities or in everyday life. To achieve this goal, this textbook, which consists of two parts and tests, discusses in simple and clear language issues such as: the essence of economics as a science, reasons for origin, purpose, tasks, usefulness and functions; Basic principles, problems and peculiarities of economics in different economic systems; Needs and demand, the essence of economic resources, types and limitations; Interaction, mobility, interchangeability and efficient use of economic resources. The essence and types of wealth; The essence, types and models of the economic system; The interaction of households and firms in the market of resources and products; Market mechanism and its elements - demand, supply and price; Demand and supply elasticity; Production costs and the ways to reduce them; Forms of the market - perfect and incomplete competition markets and their peculiarities; Markets for Production Factors and factor incomes; The essence of macroeconomics, causes and importance of origin; The essence and calculation of key macroeconomic indicators (gross national product, gross domestic product, net national product, national income, etc.); Macroeconomic stability and instability, unemployment, inflation and anti-inflationary policies; State regulation of the economy and economic policy; Monetary and fiscal policy; Income and standard of living; Economic Growth; The Corona Pandemic as a Defect and Effect of Globalization; National Economic Problems and New Opportunities for Development in the conditions of the Coronary Crisis; The Socio-economic problems of moral obsolescence in digital technologies; Education and creativity are the main solution way to overcome the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus; Positive and negative effects of tourism in Georgia; Formation of the middle class as a contributing factor to the development of tourism in Georgia; Corporate culture in Georgian travel companies, etc. The axiomatic truth is that economics is the union of people in constant interaction. Given that the behavior of the economy reflects the behavior of the people who make up the economy, after clarifying the essence of the economy, we move on to the analysis of the four principles of individual decision-making. Furtermore, the book describes how people make independent decisions. The key to making an individual decision is that people have to choose from alternative options, that the value of any action is measured by the value of what must be given or what must be given up to get something, that the rational, smart people make decisions based on the comparison of the marginal costs and marginal returns (benefits), and that people behave accordingly to stimuli. Afterwards, the need for human interaction is then analyzed and substantiated. If a person is isolated, he will have to take care of his own food, clothes, shoes, his own house and so on. In the case of such a closed economy and universalization of labor, firstly, its productivity will be low and, secondly, it will be able to consume only what it produces. It is clear that human productivity will be higher and more profitable as a result of labor specialization and the opportunity to trade with others. Indeed, trade allows each person to specialize, to engage in the activities that are most successful, be it agriculture, sewing or construction, and to buy more diverse goods and services from others at a relatively lower price. The key to such human interactions is that trade is mutually beneficial; That markets are usually the good means of coordination between people and that the government can improve the results of market functioning if the market reveals weakness or the results of market functioning are not fair. Moroever, it also shows how the economy works as a whole. In particular, it is argued that productivity is a key determinant of living standards, that an increase in the money supply is a major source of inflation, and that one of the main impediments to avoiding inflation is the existence of an alternative between inflation and unemployment in the short term, that the inflation decrease causes the temporary decline in unemployement and vice versa. The Understanding creatively of all above mentioned issues, we think, will help the reader to develop market economy-appropriate thinking and rational economic-commercial-financial behaviors, to be more competitive in the domestic and international labor markets, and thus to ensure both their own prosperity and the functioning of the country's economy. How he/she copes with the tasks, it is up to the individual reader to decide. At the same time, we will receive all the smart useful advices with a sense of gratitude and will take it into account in the further work. We also would like to thank the editor and reviewers of the books. Finally, there are many things changing, so it is very important to realize that the XXI century has come: 1. The century of the new economy; 2. Age of Knowledge; 3. Age of Information and economic activities are changing in term of innovations. 1. Why is the 21st century the century of the new economy? Because for this period the economic resources, especially non-productive, non-recoverable ones (oil, natural gas, coal, etc.) are becoming increasingly limited. According to the World Energy Council, there are currently 43 years of gas and oil reserves left in the world (see “New Commersant 2007 # 2, p. 16). Under such conditions, sustainable growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) and maximum satisfaction of uncertain needs should be achieved not through the use of more land, labor and capital (extensification), but through more efficient use of available resources (intensification) or innovative economy. And economics, as it was said, is the science of finding the ways about the more effective usage of the limited resources. At the same time, with the sustainable growth and development of the economy, the present needs must be met in a way that does not deprive future generations of the opportunity to meet their needs; 2. Why is the 21st century the age of knowledge? Because in a modern economy, it is not land (natural resources), labor and capital that is crucial, but knowledge. Modern production, its factors and products are not time-consuming and capital-intensive, but science-intensive, knowledge-intensive. The good example of this is a Japanese enterprise (firm) where the production process is going on but people are almost invisible, also, the result of such production (Japanese product) is a miniature or a sample of how to get the maximum result at the lowest cost; 3. Why is the 21st century the age of information? Because the efficient functioning of the modern economy, the effective organization of the material and personal factors of production largely depend on the right governance decision. The right governance decision requires prompt and accurate information. Gone are the days when the main means of transport was a sailing ship, the main form of data processing was pencil and paper, and the main means of transmitting information was sending letters through a postman on horseback. By the modern transport infrastructure (highways, railways, ships, regular domestic and international flights, oil and gas pipelines, etc.), the movement of goods, services and labor resoucres has been significantly accelerated, while through the modern means of communication (mobile phone, internet, other) the information is spreading rapidly globally, which seems to have "shrunk" the world and made it a single large country. The Authors of the book: Ushangi Samadashvili, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University - Introduction, Chapters - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11,12, 15,16, 17.1,18 , Tests, Revaz Shengelia, Doctor of Economics, Professor of Georgian Technical University, Chapters_7, 8, 13. 14, 17.2, 17.4; Zhuzhuna Tsiklauri - Doctor of Economics, Professor of Georgian Technical University - Chapters 13.6, 13.7,17.2, 17.3, 18. We also thank the editor and reviewers of the book.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

Abstract This chapter focuses on climate countermeasures in the Japanese transport sector. We introduce the Japanese complexed automobile tax system and then calculate the Japanese effective carbon rate (ECR) on automobiles. In addition to the discussion of the ECR, this chapter offers a simple examination of the efficiency of electric vehicles (EVs) from the viewpoint of cost-benefit because it is expected that EVs will become the most popular eco-friendly vehicle in the future. Two remarks are found in our analysis. First, although the carbon tax rate on fuel consumption is small in Japan, compared to the European countries, the ECR is rather high. For further improvement of climate policy, the Japanese government should shift its attention to vehicle usage from vehicle purchase and possession. Second, under the basic assumption (i.e., representative owners do not recharge their EVs at home but at outdoor fast chargers), the diffusion of EVs is not an efficient measure for reducing GHG emissions. If owners recharge their EVs at home once of every two charges, the net benefit becomes positive Therefore, the opportunity cost of waiting for recharges is a key factor in whether EVs can play a role in mitigating climate change.

Nano, micro, small, and medium enterprises (NMSMEs) are still heavily reliant on the “brick-and-mortar” system or traditional street-side business methodology, which is no longer as efficient as it once was. In contrast to the foregoing, this study examined the effect of new media on nano and micro enterprises (MSSBs) in Nigeria. Hinged on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and theory of digital divide, the research employed a survey method to generate responses from micro business owners within 36 business categories in Bauchi Metropolis by deploying 100 questionnaires to a random sample size. Chi-Square test calculator and sample median test were used to examine the various hypotheses at a 5% level of significance. The analysis revealed that there was no significant positive relationship between new media products' usage and increased business performance in Bauchi. This is because the majority of NME owners were still unaware of what new media products could offer them. As such, NME owners need to be trained to adopt the new media tools in order to boost NMEs in this region.

This chapter aims to show how costs can be planned and their usage controlled through ‘standard costing’. In Chapter 4 we looked at the monitoring of costs and in Chapter 5 at pricing. Here we will consider how to plan spending the correct amount on raw materials. This can be fairly complex in terms of recipes, and a loss of standards can easily cause significant cost variances. We will then look at identifying deviations from these standards – what is due to variances in price, and what is due to variances in quantity used. We will also consider the specific problems of food and beverage materials, which can cause them to be so difficult to manage. Standard costing techniques can also be used in other areas. We discussed the management of labour cost earlier, but you can also use the technique to monitor labour cost where a flexible workforce is employed and where productivity is important to the profitability of the business. A further use for the technique is in identifying variations in revenue and considering whether these differences are due to volume or price (or both). By the end of this chapter you will, therefore, be able to: - Identify the features of food and beverage raw materials that affect their controllability - Discuss briefly the process for costing recipes - Calculate variances according to volume and price - Use the procedure for labour and other cost variances - Identify differences in revenues, also due to volume and price.

One of the most important IT sectors that requires big data management is mobile data communication systems (MDCS) of GSM companies. In the charging mechanism of current MDCS, a subscriber “surfs” on the internet that creates data traffic and a counter subtracts the amount of data used by the user from the subscriber's quota. In other words, instant constant quota values are assigned to subscribers without concern for their previous amount of internet usage in current MDCS. Moreover, constant quota values cause constant charge calls in control traffic that are repeated for all new quota requests. Thus, performance degradation occurs because of the repetition of quota request calls and allocations. In this chapter, a dynamic quota calculation system (DQCS) is proposed for dynamic quota allocations and charging in MDCS using data mining approaches as two cascaded blocks. The first block is self-organizing map (SOM) clustering based on a sliding window (SW) methodology followed by the second block, which is the markov chain (MC); the overall system is denoted as “SOM/SW and MC.”

Most replication methods either monitor the popularity of files or use complicated functions to calculate the overall cost of whether or not a replication decision or a deletion decision should be issued. However, once the replication decision is issued, the popularity of the files is changed and may have already impacted access latency and resource usage. This article proposes a decision-tree-based predictive file replication strategy that forecasts files’ future popularity based on their characteristics on the Grids. The proposed strategy has shown superb performance in terms of mean job time and effective network usage compared with the other two replication strategies, LRU and Economic under OptorSim simulation environment.

In an attempt to develop fatigue monitoring system, two improved fatigue evaluation schemes have been proposed to monitor fatigue degradation in major components and piping of the pressurized water reactor. Proposed methods are both aimed to obtain realistic fatigue usage factors for given plant transients. Developed schemes utilize plant operating signals such as coolant temperature, pressure and flow rate. Finite element method and an improved Green’s function approach were used to calculate stresses and fatigue usage. Case studies were performed to validate effectiveness of each proposed scheme. It has been confirmed that proposed schemes can effectively reduce excessive conservatism in estimating fatigue usage and improve accuracy in stress calculation.

The modular High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) is one of the six generation IV advanced nuclear reactors. With the final purpose of operator training and licensing, the engineering simulation system (ESS) has been studied to model the pebble-bed type reactor core and has been successfully implemented into the full scope simulator of HTR-PM. As stated in corresponding industrial standards, one important feature of the nuclear power plant simulator is real-time calculation, and the other one is simulation results with high fidelity (compared to design parameters or operational data in different stages). In ESS, each macro cross-section was in the form of polynomial by function of several variables (like burn-up, buckling, temperatures), the expression of which was finalized by multivariate regression analysis from large scattered database generated by the VSOP. Since the polynomial is explicit and prepared in advance, the macro cross-sections are quickly calculated in running ESS. However, some variables (such as temperature) in HTGR are in larger scope so that the polynomial is not easy to meet full range accuracy. One normal idea is to optimize the expression of polynomial, while another means was proposed and tested in present paper. Other than focusing on the polynomials, a new method, called the fast searching, was described to significantly improve the accuracy of macro cross-section calculation while it was also fast to maintain the real-time feature. Instead of setting up a regression polynomial from the large cross-section database, the fast searching method treated the database as scatted points in the multi-dimension space, and aimed to locate the target position of unknown macro cross-section by fast searching and interpolating. Searching was to find the neighbouring database points around the target point in the multi-dimension space, which naturally improved the accuracy. While interpolating was to predict the macro cross-section of target point based on those neighbouring database points. To keep the searching and interpolating fast, the original database of macro cross-sections was analysed. A series of searching and interpolating methods have been described, programmed, tested and compared to find appropriate methods to calculate all the macro cross-sections in limited time cost. Finally, the fast searching method and its program was implemented into ESS to show better performances.

The environmental fatigue evaluation for piping is performed based on conservative formulas and environmental correction factors (Fen) calculation because of the difficulty of finding transient strain history and to reduce the cost of the analysis. Therefore, more sophisticated analyses using a finite element model of piping would be required to meet Code requirement (cumulative fatigue usage factor including the environmental effects, CUFen < 1). The environmental fatigue evaluation was performed considering the transient stress history for pressurizer surge and spray piping. The stress histories due to the thermal moment and thermal gradient through the wall thickness were evaluated using a three-dimensional piping system model. The strain rate for Fen calculation was calculated in accordance with draft Code Case 10-293 and 14-1177. For the purpose of comparison, environmental fatigue usage factors and Fen are calculated based on the ASME Code NB-3600 rules. The differences of Fen, CUF, and CUFen are reviewed between the methods using NB-3200 rule and NB-3600 rule. Finally, this paper shows that environmental fatigue evaluation considering transient history is an effective method in lowering the environmental CUF value of the piping.

The assessment for adequacy in managing the effects of fatigue in the ASME Code Class-1 (pressure boundary) components is based on a calculated measure of the projected fatigue damage. This measure is the highest cumulative usage factor (CUF) in a given component under a specified set of cyclic loadings and their expected number of repetitions. The Code-based calculation of CUF and its adjustments for potential environmentally-assisted fatigue (EAF) damage accumulation utilize a multitude of inputs, and conservative assumptions and applied margins. To support the extended service life beyond the original design, or longer life of new designs, changes in inputs and/or conservative assumptions used in these deterministically calculated CUFs are often made to meet a deterministic performance criterion. This makes the impact of uncertainty in the inputs and/or changes in the conservative adjustments difficult to assess. This paper presents a generic, engineering approach for estimation of the uncertainty distribution of CUF based on the expected statistical characteristics of input variables used in the calculation of EAF-based CUF. The approach does not involve Monte Carlo sampling. The proposed statistical approach analytically combines variances of the inputs leading to an acceptable estimation of the total variance of the CUF. The approach does not require specification of full probability distribution(s) for the input variables, nor is the dependence between variables a critical issue from the analytical point of view. Feasibility and limitations of the approach are discussed in relation to the NB-3200 and NB-3600 procedures of the ASME Code and the current Fen-based augmentation for environmental effects. This approach is further examined in the framework of stress–strength interference methodology to account for the uncertainty in the fatigue performance criterion, that can lead to a rational deterministic safety factor interpretation and its relation to a quantifiable measure of the probability of exceeding the fatigue performance criterion.

The purpose of the study is improving the methodology of teaching Mathematics using cloud technologies and augmented reality, analyzing the peculiarities of the augmented reality technology implementing in the educational process. Attention is paid to the study of adaptation of Augmented Reality technology implementing in teaching mathematical disciplines for students. The task of the study is to identify the problems requiring theoretical and experimental solutions. The object of the study is the process of teaching Mathematics in higher and secondary education institutions. The subject of the study is augmented reality technology in STEM-based Mathematics learning. In the result of the study an overview of modern augmented reality tools and their application practices was carried out. The peculiarities of the mobile application 3D Calculator with Augmented reality of Dynamic Mathematics GeoGebra system usage in Mathematics teaching are revealed.

In this report, we describe how aspects of existing freshwater mussel indices of biological integrity can be modified to fit within the planning paradigm established for developing and certifying ecological models for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ planning purposes. Herein, we present examples of using freshwater mussels for biological monitoring, how to calculate their associated IBIs specific to their region of origin and their potential use in ecosystem restoration planning. Additionally, we present general conceptual models that may be used in ecological model development and environmental benefits analysis for projects that focus on freshwater mussel habitat restoration.