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The development of effective risk sharing mechanisms is one of the main passages for the success and longevity of a monetary union. In this paper, we study risk sharing, measured as income and consumption smoothing, in the EMU. As we employ time-varying estimations, we are able to retrieve time patterns of risk sharing for each member country and to compare them with the degree of economic asymmetry within the EMU. Other than documenting the need for stronger risk sharing mechanisms in the EMU, our results also suggest that much more attention should be dedicated to fostering homogeneity in risk sharing across member countries. We document the existence of increasing heterogeneity in the risk sharing capacity between member countries that can potentially exacerbate and amplify the impact of asymmetric shocks and further destabilize the EMU.

There are different methods in hydrological approach for estimating the environmental flow and a comparative assessment is necessary. The low flow indexes (7Q2 and 7Q10), Smakhtin, Tennent and flow duration curve were used to estimate the environmental flow of Zohreh River in the southwest of Iran. The Smakhtin, 7Q2, 7Q10 and Tennant methods resulted in the estimation of constant values of 27.2, 12.7, 5.9 and (8 and 24) cms, so that, on average 52.8, 26.9 and 12.3, 36.7 percent of the monthly flow is allocated to the environmental flow. The monthly environmental flow pattern for these methods does not fit well with the monthly flow pattern, and thus it can be concluded that the Smakhtin, 7Q2, 7Q10 and Tennant methods cannot be used in the initial form. The application of the flow duration curve leads to an environmental flow assessment in the range of 6.8–38 cms in different months, whose time pattern completely matched with the monthly flow pattern. In this method, on average, 30.8% (range 18–48%) of the monthly flow allocated to the environmental flow, which is reasonable and acceptable amounts. Investigating the results of this study shows that the time pattern of the results should be analyzed in comparison with the observational flow pattern to estimate the environmental flow with a hydrological approach. The results also suggest that the methods that provide a constant amount of environmental flow in different months of the year should be interpreted cautiously along with other methods.

Background: Sit–stand desks have been suggested as an initiative to increase posture variation among office workers. However, there is limited evidence of what would be preferable combinations of time sitting and standing. The aim of this study was to determine and compare perceived pleasantness, acceptability, pain, and fatigue for 5 time patterns of sitting and standing at a sit–stand desk. Methods: Thirty postgraduate students were equally divided into a normal-weight (mean body mass index 22.8 kg/m2) and an overweight/obese (mean body mass index 28.1 kg/m2) group. They performed 3 hours of computer work at a sit–stand desk on 5 different days, each day with a different time pattern (A: 60-min sit/0-min stand; B: 50/10; C: 40/20; D: 30/30; E: 20/40). Pleasantness, acceptability, pain, and fatigue ratings were obtained at the beginning and at the end of the 3-hour period. Results: High ratings of pleasantness were observed for time patterns B, C, and D in both groups. All participants rated acceptability to be good for time patterns A to D. A minor increase in perceived fatigue and pain was observed in time pattern E. Conclusion: For new sit–stand desk users, regardless of body mass index, 10 to 30 minutes of standing per hour appears to be an amenable time pattern.

The hippocampal-entorhinal region supports memory for episodic details, such as temporal relations of sequential events, and mnemonic constructions combining experiences for inferential reasoning. However, it is unclear whether hippocampal event memories reflect temporal relations derived from mnemonic constructions, event order, or elapsing time, and whether these sequence representations generalize temporal relations across similar sequences. Here, participants mnemonically constructed times of events from multiple sequences using infrequent cues and their experience of passing time. After learning, event representations in the anterior hippocampus reflected temporal relations based on constructed times. Temporal relations were generalized across sequences, revealing distinct representational formats for events from the same or different sequences. Structural knowledge about time patterns, abstracted from different sequences, biased the construction of specific event times. These findings demonstrate that mnemonic construction and the generalization of relational knowledge combine in the hippocampus, consistent with the simulation of scenarios from episodic details and structural knowledge.

International audience; This paper presents a method for the diagnosis of time patterns in time Petri nets. This method uses a characterization of the pattern called Observable Simple Temporal Network, given in the form of a set of observable events with temporal constraints on their occurrence dates. The proposed diagnoser verifies if a part of an input timed sequence of observations is consistent with the characterization. If the pattern has not occurred, this consistency test will lead to the same conclusion. One the other hand, if the pattern has occurred, the consistency test will lead to an ambiguous diagnosis in the general case or to the conclusion that the pattern has definitely occurred if the underlying system is diagnosable.

To analyze missed rib fractures and proper time for evaluation on CT at different ages and to determine factors that favor missed fractures. One hundred patients with rib fractures who underwent CT were classified into three groups according to their age: young, middle-aged, and elderly. CT was performed within 1 to 6 weeks after trauma. The imaging features and temporal changes of rib fractures were analyzed. At the first CT during the initial week, 638 ribs were detected with one or several fractures, overall 838 fractures were confirmed, and 6 were suspected. In the next 2–6 weeks, 47 occult rib fractures were additionally detected. The number of additionally diagnosed fractures was the highest in respectively the 3rd week among younger, 4th week in the middle-aged, and 6th week in the elderly groups. The detection of occult rib fractures was significantly delayed in the middle-aged and elderly groups compared with the young group (p < 0.05). The time to form bony callus was also significantly (p < 0.05) delayed with age, with significantly (p < 0.05) more time needed to form bony callus in the middle-aged (23.8 ± 4.5 days) and elderly (28.48 ± 5.1 days) groups than in the young group (18.0 ± 2.2 days). Most rib fractures can be detected within the first week after trauma. Detection of occult rib fractures will be delayed with increase of age, and repeated CT scanning should be appropriately postponed in patients at different ages. Trabecula, inner and outer plates, costal angle, and cartilage are the primary locations for occult and subtle fractures which should be carefully evaluated. • More rib fractures can be detected on repeated CT scans, especially for subtle and occult rib fractures. • Detection of all rib fractures helps relieve the patient’s concerns and determine the degree of personal injury for appropriate evaluation.

Given the international interdependency of macroeconomic activities, this study attempts to examine three fundamental questions; (i) what is the time pattern of international interdependency?, (ii) what is the magnitude of international interdependency?, and (iii) which are the major channels through which international interdependency occur?. These questions are investigated among major economies viz. the US, Japan, Germany, China, India and Russia. Employing generalized impulse response of unrestricted VAR model, the Diebold and Yilmaz (Int J Forecast 28(1):57–66, 2012) spillover method and orthogonal impulse response of restricted VAR model, the study found that the global economies are highly interdependent. Therefore, we strongly argue that channels through which interdependency between countries occur are based on economic structure of respective economies. From the findings, it explicitly indicates that if there is rise or fall of macroeconomic activity in any specific economy, it may lead to rise or fall in economic activity of other individual economies. It shows a positive correlationship between the movement of economic actvities among the countries. Given the higher degree of international interdependency, it may sometimes lead to larger cost for the individual economies. Therefore, it suggests that the formulation and implementation of rigorous macroeconomic policies are the need of the hour for respective economies. Considering the gaps in the previous literature, this study tries to contribute to the literature by investigating cross-country time profile of interactions, magnitude of interactions and channels through which interactions occur.

The lockdown that Madrid has suffered during the months of March to June 2020 to try to control and minimize the spread of COVID-19 has significantly altered the acoustic environment of the city. The absence of vehicles and people on the streets has led to a noise reduction captured by the monitoring network of the City of Madrid. In this article, an analysis has been carried out to describe the reduction in noise pollution that has occurred and to analyze the changes in the temporal patterns of noise, which are strongly correlated with the adaptation of the population's activity and behavior to the new circumstances. The reduction in the sound level ranged from 4 to 6 dBA for the indicators Ld, Le, and Ln, and this is connected to a significant variation in the daily time patterns, especially during weekends, when the activity started earlier in the morning and lasted longer at midday, decreasing significantly in the afternoon.

Limb position is a factor that negatively affects myoelectric pattern recognition classification accuracy. However, prior studies evaluating impact on real-time control for upper-limb amputees have done so without a physical prosthesis on the residual limb. It remains unclear how limb position affects real-time pattern recognition control in amputees when their residual limb is supporting various weights. We used a virtual reality target achievement control test to evaluate the effects of limb position and external load on real-time pattern recognition control in fourteen intact limb subjects and six major upper limb amputee subjects. We also investigated how these effects changed based on different control system training methods. In a static training method, subjects kept their unloaded arm by their side with the elbow bent whereas in the dynamic training method, subjects moved their arm throughout a workspace while supporting a load. When static training was used, limb position significantly affected real-time control in all subjects. However, amputee subjects were still able to adequately complete tasks in all conditions, even in untrained limb positions. Moreover, increasing external loads decreased controller performance, albeit to a lesser extent in amputee subjects. The effects of limb position did not change as load increased, and vice versa. In intact limb subjects, dynamic training significantly reduced the limb position effect but did not completely remove them. In contrast, in amputee subjects, dynamic training eliminated the limb position effect in three out of four outcome measures. However, it did not reduce the effects of load for either subject population. These findings suggest that results obtained from intact limb subjects may not generalize to amputee subjects and that advanced training methods can substantially improve controller robustness to different limb positions regardless of limb loading.

The basal ganglia have been increasingly recognized as an important structure involved in decision making. Neurons in the basal ganglia were found to reflect the evidence accumulation process during decision making. However, it is not well understood how the direct and indirect pathways of the basal ganglia work together for decision making. Here, we create a recurrent neural network model that is composed of the direct and indirect pathways and test it with the classic random dot motion discrimination task. The direct pathway drives the outputs, which are modulated through a gating mechanism controlled by the indirect pathway. We train the network to learn the task and find that the network reproduces the accuracy and reaction time patterns of previous animal studies. Units in the model exhibit ramping activities that reflect evidence accumulation. Finally, we simulate manipulations of the direct and indirect pathways and find that the manipulations of the direct pathway mainly affect the choice while the manipulations of the indirect pathway affect the model’s reaction time. These results suggest a potential circuitry mechanism of the basal ganglia’s role in decision making with predictions that can be tested experimentally in the future.

We model network formation in a firm. Agents learn about the quality of their working relationships with each other. Their good relationships become their networks. Accumulating relationships becomes increasingly costly, however. Over time agents become less open to forming relationships with others unknown to them, leading their networks to be front-loaded with agents they met near the beginning of their careers. The interaction of this dynamic with turnover yields predictions about the time pattern of history dependence in an agent’s network as a function of his tenure. Mutual openness of newly arrived agents in a firm also leads to the cross-section prediction of “cohort attachment,” a tendency for members of an agent’s hiring cohort to be disproportionately represented in his network. When members of a network formed within a firm are subsequently split across many firms, the desire to renew their successful working relationships can lead to job referrals. Former co-workers who provide referrals will be drawn disproportionately from the referred workers’ hiring cohorts at their previous employers.

During tuberculosis (TB) treatment, the period of transmission will shorten and disease will be better controlled in the society if the drugs be more potent and the sputum conversion time from positive to negative be less. There are two drug regimens in the treatment of TB: fixed-dose combination drugs and separate-dose drugs. Our aim in the study was comparing the sputum conversion time pattern in TB smear-positive patients treated with the aforementioned regimens. This randomized clinical trial was done on 331 patients with smear-positive TB. Randomization was based on random numbers table. Intervention group was treated with fixed-dose combination, and nonintervention group was treated with separate drugs. Smear conversion time pattern at the end of second, third, fourth, and sixth months after beginning of the treatment was compared and analyzed by extended Cox regression test. Sputum smear conversion rate in the intervention and control group at the end of second, third, and fourth months of treatment was 70.23 versus 76.47%, 54 versus 67.24%, and 33.33 versus 68.75%, respectively (P>0.05). Variables such as smoking, drug addiction, and sputum bacillary load were effective on smear conversion time in two study groups. The study results showed no difference in efficacy of two-drug regimens in conversion time of sputum smears to negative in TB smear-positive patients.

With the rise of social networking and the awareness of privacy protection, the large-scale positioning data is getting harder to access while the clickstream data of social networking is accumulating. It is necessary to conduct a comprehensive study on the temporal property and spatial distribution of social network’s clickstream to determine the latent relationship between clickstream and location semantics which semantically annotate locations to help us understand the purpose of a social network user at a certain location and a particular time. In this paper, we first infer the location semantics from Internet logs as our baseline which is a large scale, imprecise positioning mobile dataset through combining the utilization of derived time pattern and speed pattern. Then we design a method to reconstruct location semantics through the social network. We are the first to our knowledge that define “click motif” of social network’s clickstream which is the combination of clicks in clickstream that occurs repeatedly and has significance. Click motif not only can help us to classify location semantics but also enhance the user experience of social networking. Besides, we propose a completed process to extract typical click motifs from a large-scale complicated clickstream data via embedding and clustering method. By extensive experiments and analysis, we demonstrate that different combination of click motifs can convey the users’ location semantics, therefore clickstream may disclose location privacy.

Background and Aim: Metaphor is a systematic relationship between two conceptual domains. In metaphor; an experimental or sensual domain called source domain, is related to another domain as target domain. The purpose of this study was to review understanding of metaphorical time pattern in the medical and paramedical students based on gender, age and academic status. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study included 120 medical and paramedical students of Tehran medical university with minimum undergraduate university degree. Time metaphorical pattern questionnaire which had been designed by Raiisi (2019) on the basis of time metaphor corpus analysis included 3 subscales of object, place and matter. Pearson correlation test, T test, analysis of one-way variance and post hoc test (least significant difference) were used for data analysis. Results: The results showed that there was no difference between gender and understanding of metaphorical time pattern. Higher educational levels (from undergraduate to postgraduate and specialty courses) led to better understanding of metaphorical time pattern in Persian speaker students. Students of higher age showed improved understanding of metaphorical time pattern in relation to the object subclass. Conclusion: Perception of the time is not dependent on gender but can be improved with increasing age and higher academic levels.

User behaviors and experiences are the fundamental parts of information retrieval systems, but are often difficult to collect, bringing challenges to both applications and research. Recently, researchers have been exploring more fine-grained user behavior than simple clicks, such as time patterns, mouse/scroll patterns, etc., with their own specific laboratory experimental platforms. However, the lack of public available toolkits for logging user behaviors and experiences leads to difficulties on field study of remote user experiments in real scenarios. In this work, we propose a Privacy-Aware Remote User Logging Tool for remotely collecting user behaviors and explicit experience feedback, with a special care for user privacy. With this tool, participants can conduct the user experiments remotely without time and location constraints, giving researchers the possibility to observe users' more natural behaviors and experiences.

The use of hypothermia for anesthesia and euthanasia in ectothermic individuals has promoted many discussions, especially in the last four decades, and yet it continues today as a method that is prohibited or restricted to certain procedures. Despite this, some studies have shown satisfactory results in obtaining anesthetic plans, raising questions about the real possibility of using this method in research. The aim of the present experiment was to determine the time patterns to generate anesthesia and low incipient lethal temperature in Phrynops geoffroanus through cooling and freezing. Turtles reached the anesthesia grade nine within 30 minutes, making ease handling due to muscle relaxation, and, in 80 minutes, they reached anesthesia grade 11, becoming insensitive. The low incipient lethal temperature (LILT) shows that 1°C is the limit freezing from where the turtle can recover its motor activities while lower temperatures cause death. The low incipient lethal temperature was determined in a 300-minute period independently of the individual's size or weight.

Using data from the COVID-19 questionnaire of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we investigate the time patterns of precautionary health behaviours of individuals aged 50 years and above during the summer of 2020, an easing phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. We also examine how these health behaviours differ by the presence of chronic conditions such as hypertension, high cholesterol level, heart disease, diabetes or chronic bronchitis, which can be considered as risk factors for COVID-19. Our results suggest that while on average, people became less precautious during the analysed time period, this is less so for those who are at higher risk. We also document large regional differences in precautionary health behaviours and show that higher-risk individuals are on average more cautious in all regions. We conclude that people adjusted their health behaviours in line with the generally understood risk of the COVID-19 disease. At the same time, our results also point out divergences in the level of willingness to take different precautionary steps.

Introduction Routine follow‐up after curative treatment of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is common practice considering the high risk of second primaries and recurrences (ie second events). Current guidelines advocate a follow‐up period of at least 5 years. The recommendations are not evidence‐based and benefits are unclear. This is even more so for follow‐up after a second event. To facilitate the development of an evidence‐ and personalized follow‐up program for OSCC, we investigated the course of time until the second and subsequent events and studied the risk factors related to these events. Materials and methods We retrospectively studied 594 OSCC patients treated with curative intent at the Head and Neck Cancer Unit of the Radboud University Medical Centre from 2000 to 2012. Risk of recurrence was calculated addressing death from intercurrent diseases as competing event. Results The 1‐, 5‐ and 10‐year cumulative risks of a second event were 17% (95% CI:14%;20%), 30% (95% CI:26%;33%), and 37% (95% CI:32%;41%). Almost all locoregional recurrences occurred in the first 2 years after treatment. The incidence of second primary tumors was relatively stable over the years. The time pattern of presentation of third events was similar. Discussion Our findings support a follow‐up time of 2 years after curative treatment for OSCC. Based on the risk of recurrence there is no indication for a different follow‐up protocol after first and second events. After 2 years, follow‐up should be tailored to the individual needs of patients for supportive care, and monitoring of late side‐effects of treatment., There is no rationale for a follow‐up of 5 years after treatment for oral cancer, as the great majority of recurrences occurs in the first 2 years and because the risk of second primary tumors is constant. Patients should receive a core follow‐up of 2 years which can be extended based on an individual patients needs.

Internet counseling can be a valuable resource for people who cannot seek mental health care due to various reasons. The aim of this study was to analyze the time patterns of first-time contacts ma...

We would like to thank to A. Bueno for all the support and useful discussions during the development of this work. The authors thank also for the financial support by OE Portugal, FCT, I. P., under project PTDC/FIS-PAR/29158/2017. R. C. is grateful for the financial support by OE-Portugal, FCT, I. P., under DL57/2016/cP1330/cT0002. B.S.G. is grateful for the financial support by Grant LIP/BI-14/2020, under project IC&DT, POCI-01-0145FEDER-029158., The muon tagging is an essential tool to distinguish between gamma and hadron-induced showers in wide field-of-view gamma-ray observatories. In this work, it is shown that an efficient muon tagging (and counting) can be achieved using a water Cherenkov detector with a reduced water volume and 4 PMTs, provided that the PMT signal spatial and time patterns are interpreted by an analysis based on machine learning (ML). The developed analysis has been tested for different shower and array configurations. The output of the ML analysis, the probability of having a muon in the WCD station, has been used to notably discriminate between gamma and hadron induced showers with S/ √ B ∼ 4 for shower with energies E0 ∼ 1 TeV. Finally, for proton-induced showers, an estimator of the number of muons was built by means of the sum of the probabilities of having a muon in the stations. Resolutions about 20% and a negligible bias are obtained for vertical showers with Nμ > 10., OE Portugal, FCT, I. P. PTDC/FIS-PAR/29158/2017 DL57/2016/cP1330/cT0002, ICDT LIP/BI-14/2020 POCI-01-0145FEDER-029158

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In February 2014, the government of New South Wales (NSW), Australia introduced new restrictions (known as the 'lockout laws') on the sale of alcohol in licensed premises in two of Sydney's most prominent entertainment districts, Kings Cross (KX) and the central business district (CBD). This study aimed to determine (1) whether the introduction of the lockout laws was the point at which the time pattern of the assault series in the KX and CBD entertainment precincts changed, (2) whether the apparent reduction in assault in these precincts persists when we control for common variations in assault across the entire state of NSW, (3) whether the reduction in assault in the KX and CBD entertainment precincts resulted in a displacement of the assault problem into other areas, and (4) whether there is a net reduction in assault after taking any spill-over or displacement effects into account. DESIGN Structural break analysis was used to determine the date at which the time pattern of assaults changed. Interrupted time series analysis with a rest-of-NSW comparator was used to assess the change in assault. SETTING, CASES, AND MEASUREMENTS The monthly totals of incidents of non-domestic assaults reported to the NSW Police between January 2009 and March 2019 (n = 123). FINDINGS The structural break in assaults occurred in January 2014 rather than in February 2014, when the lockout laws were introduced. The reduction in assault persists even when we control for common influences across NSW as a whole. In particular, from January 2014 onwards, assaults fell immediately by 22% (a downward step) in KX (90% confidence interval (CI) = 15%, 28%) and by 33% in CBD, (90% CI = 19%, 47%). Assaults continued declining in KX (trend-break coefficient = -0.094, 90% CI = -0.192, 0.005). The reduction in assault in the KX and CBD precincts is associated with a rise in assault in areas surrounding these precincts. The net effect, nonetheless, remains a lower level of assault. In particular, we estimate that the net reduction over the three areas combined was 1670 assaults (i.e., 27 per month). CONCLUSION Some of the initial reduction in assault in the Kings Cross and the central business district of Sydney, Australia previously attributed to the February 2014 introduction of lockout laws may have been a response to publicity surrounding recent deaths connected with alcohol-related violence.

In response to the beginnings of the COVID-19 pandemic, India's government instituted a severe nationwide lockdown in late March 2020. In this paper, we analyze household survey data on income from a representative Indian state, Punjab. We analyze the impacts of the pandemic and lockdown on total household income, as well as its components, including wages, business income and transfers. We examine the differences between rural and urban households, differential impacts on female-headed and laborer households, and the time pattern of impacts. We find that rural households experienced more persistent income declines than urban households, and their wages suffered relatively more. Households with daily laborers were most badly affected, andthis was especially true at the bottom of the income distribution.

Using intraday 2015-2019 short sale data from CBOE and FINRA, we examine the intraday time patterns and information content of on-exchange and off-exchange shorting. Midday short sales and those near the open strongly and negatively predict the cross-section of stock returns at daily horizons and up to 12 weeks ahead. Short sales near the close are only informative at next-day horizons. We also connect earnings/analyst news to shorting flows. Shorting near the open reacts strongly to and anticipates bad-news releases. Shorting near the close only anticipates post-close firm news. Our evidence supports both Kyle (1985) and Holden and Subrahmanyam (1992).

In this work, emissions of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from formulating pharmaceutical industries (FPIs) were investigated for the first time based on detailed production information and compared to overall API emissions in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents. At two municipal WWTPs, both receiving wastewater from several FPIs, two months’ daily effluent samples were collected and measured using liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS). Thirty-three APIs formulated during the sampling period as well as >120 organic contaminants commonly present in WWTP effluents were quantified. On the basis of their time patterns and manufacturing data, industrial contributions were found for 22 of 26 APIs (85%) detected in the samples and processed by the FPIs. API emissions from FPIs led to daily concentration increases of up to 300-fold, despite pretreatment of the industrial wastewater. However, emissions from FPIs seemed to depend on the type of formulating activity, with granulation and mixing being most prone to API losses. Losses from FPIs were responsible for the highest concentrations and for up to 60% of the daily total API emissions measured. Furthermore, screening for suspects in LC-HRMS data resulted in the detection of unexpected emissions from FPIs, demonstrating the value of these data to comprehensively assess industrial API losses. Overall, this study showed that FPIs were relevant contributors of APIs emitted in the WWTP effluents, although only a minor fraction (

This is the first of four chapters that explain and apply the dynamic simulation approach to health risk assessment modeling introduced in Chap. 2. The exposition in this chapter is motivated by an observation made by toxicologist Julie Goodman of Gradient, who coauthored the article on which this chapter is based (Cox Jr et al. 2020): most of the key ideas of the dynamic simulation approach can be explained through relatively simple diagrams, without going through the underlying equations. This chapter undertakes such a high-level diagrammatic exposition. It returns to two of the diagrams used in Chap. 2 to introduce simulation modeling, and adds further discussion and diagrams to help understand and visualize the dynamic responses of internal doses to different time patterns of exposure. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 and their appendices then cover the same material in much greater depth, providing the underlying systems of equations used to model biological responses to exposures to inhaled respirable crystalline silica (Chap. 4) and asbestos (Chap. 5) and highlighting the importance of nonlinearities in these responses for risk assessment and risk management (Chap. 6).