Speculative Behaviour in Immature Real Estate Markets, Lessons of the 1997 Asia Financial Crisis

This article investigates speculative behaviour and focuses on developer and banker behaviour in Asian real estate markets at the time of the 1997 Asia financial crisis. Over-optimism and over-investment are exacerbated when the financial infrastructure is incomplete and real estate markets are immature. The article identifies improvements in the real estate market infrastructure needed to lower the amplitude and cost of future episodes of volatility.     

Pulmonary hypertension associated with portal hypertension. Apropos of 2 cases

The authors report the cases of two patients with pulmonary hypertension associated with portal hypertension. This is a rare association with a reported prevalence ranging from 0.25 to 0.73%. The diagnosis of portal hypertension preceded that of pulmonary hypertension by several years. The physiopathological mechanism of the latter is not well known although several hypotheses have been proposed. Treatment is only symptomatic. The prognosis is usually poor, the causes of death being related to complications of liver failure and/or portal hypertension or to those of pulmonary hypertension.     

Transparent optical packet switching: network architecture anddemonstrators in the KEOPS project

This paper reviews the work carried out in the ACTS KEOPS (Keys to Optical Packet Switching) project, describing the results obtained to date. The main objective of the project is the definition, development, and assessment of optical packet switching and routing networks, capable of providing transparency to the payload bit rate, using optical packets of fixed duration and low bit rate headers in order to enable easier processing at the network/node interfaces. The feasibility of the KEOPS concept is assessed by modeling, laboratory experiments, and testbed implementation of optical packet switching nodes and network/node interfacing blocks, including a fully equipped demonstrator. The demonstration relies on advanced optoelectronic components, developed within the project, which are described     

Enhanced Vertical Charge Transport in a Semiconducting P3HT Thin Film on Single Layer Graphene

The crystallization and electrical characterization of the semiconducting polymer poly(3‐hexylthiophene) (P3HT) on a single layer graphene sheet is reported. Grazing incidence X‐ray diffraction revealed that P3HT crystallizes with a mixture of face‐on and edge‐on lamellar orientations on graphene compared to mainly edge‐on on a silicon substrate. Moreover, whereas ultrathin (10 nm) P3HT films form well oriented face‐on and edge‐on lamellae, thicker (50 nm) films form a mosaic of lamellae oriented at different angles from the graphene substrate. This mosaic of crystallites with π–π stacking oriented homogeneously at various angles inside the film favors the creation of a continuous pathway of interconnected crystallites, and results in a strong enhancement in vertical charge transport and charge carrier mobility in the thicker P3HT film. These results provide a better understanding of polythiophene crystallization on graphene, and should help the design of more efficient graphene based organic devices by control of the crystallinity of the semiconducting film.     

On-line 3-D system for the inspection of deformable parts

In spite of the development of automated tolerance inspection systems for manufactured parts over the years, there are still processes that inevitably require manual intervention making full automation impossible in most cases; in particular when dealing with deformable parts. In most current industrial inspection systems, a deformable part under inspection must first be mechanically constrained on a rigid support or jig so as to be able to compare it with its nominal shape. This paper presents a new system to perform real-time surface inspection of deformable parts that does not require fixturing. Instead, the proposed system applies virtual forces to the part??s CAD model as if the part was installed in the fixturing device. Normally, a precise finite element method (FEM) simulation should be used to approximate the deformation that appends when the part is installed in the device. Even with a fast parallel computer, FEM is far from being real-time and cannot be used for on-line inspection. In the proposed system, a radial basis function approximation of the FEM simulation is trained off-line and used to speed-up the simulation by an order of magnitude. Experimental evaluation of the proposed system is presented for three plastic parts. Using the proposed scheme, an approximation of 0.25?mm compared with the real deformation was obtained. In this paper, statistical results are presented such as the average deviation, standard deviation, and processing time between the approximations obtained with the proposed method and with the finite element method applied to the full CAD model.     

Inter‐annual variability,risk and confidence intervals associated with propagation statistics. Part II: parameterization and applications

This set of two companion papers aims at providing a model for the inter‐annual variability of earth‐space propagation statistics and for the inherent risk and CIs. In part I, it was proposed to model the yearly variance σ² of empirical complementary CDFs so that where is the variance of estimation, the inter‐annual climatic variance and p the long‐term probability. Particularly, an analytical formulation of was derived and parameterized from synthetic rain attenuation data. Considering the statistical framework developed in part I, this part II is specifically devoted to the parameterization of the variance of estimation from experimental data of rain attenuation and rainfall rate. Then, a methodology to model and parameterize worldwide the inter‐annual climatic variance is presented. The model of yearly variance of the empirical complementary CDFs is finally compared against yearly experimental variances derived from data collected worldwide. The knowledge of this variability is very useful for system design as it allows the risk on a required availability and associated with a given propagation margin to be quantified. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From Voyeur to Witness: Recapturing Symbolic Function After Massive Psychic Trauma.

Survivors of massive psychic trauma frequently experience deficits in symbolic functioning affecting the capacity to dream and to think productively. Clinicians working with survivors also find themselves struck thoughtless, unable to reflect on the horrors their patients describe. The writer argues that experiencing an initial state of incoherence might be a necessary condition of the healing process when analysts work with this population. It is in the struggle to overcome this state and to become thinking professionals again that they can start to bear witness to the patient's experience. And it is through this work with the analyst's containing presence that the survivor ceases to be a mute observer to her own loss, starts to recapture her thinking self, and begins the process of witnessing her own survival. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Origins of adolescents' ideal self: An intergenerational perspective.

The present longitudinal study traced the ideal self of 120 adolescents to the ideals that parents hold for themselves and for their children. Ideals were assessed using Q sorts for personality attributes and life goals. After permutation analysis was used to control for random similarity, moderate parent-child ideal-self similarity was evident. Three intermediate transmission steps accounted for this intergenerational similarity: (a) transfer of parents' ideal self to ideals for their children, (b) children's perception, and (c) acceptance of these parental ideals. The last 2 processes related to parenting practices, with parental warmth augmenting parent-child concordance and restrictiveness reducing it. Compared with boys' ideal self, that of girls was more similar to the ideals that parents hold for their children and for themselves. Analyses of patterns over time suggested a growth of ideal-self stability across adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavioral avoidance dynamics in the presence of a virtual spider

Tracking behavior with a virtual spider and a neutral target is compared in fearful and nonfearful subjects. Head-tracking in virtual environments appears to be a scale-free behavior with long-range fractal-like patterns. Moreover, these fractal patterns change according to what the target affords the tracker and the level of behavioral avoidance manifested by the subjects. Results are interpreted in terms of ecological psychology and nonlinear dynamics, and implications for virtual reality (VR) psychology are outlined.