Prioritizing high-contact occupations raises effectiveness of vaccination campaigns

A twenty-year-old idea from network science is that vaccination campaigns would be more effective if high-contact individuals were preferentially targeted. Implementation is impeded by the ethical and practical problem of differentiating vaccine access based on a personal characteristic that is hard-to-measure and private. Here, we propose the use of occupational category as a proxy for connectedness in a contact network. Using survey data on occupation-specific contact frequencies, we calibrate a model of disease propagation in populations undergoing varying vaccination campaigns. We find that vaccination campaigns that prioritize high-contact occupational groups achieve similar infection levels with half the number of vaccines, while also reducing and delaying peaks. The paper thus identifies a concrete, operational strategy for dramatically improving vaccination efficiency in ongoing pandemics.

Evolution of cooperation with asymmetric social interactions

How cooperation emerges in human societies is both an evolutionary enigma and a practical problem with tangible implications for societal health. Population structure has long been recognized as a catalyst for cooperation because local interactions facilitate reciprocity. Analysis of population structure typically assumes bidirectional social interactions. But human social interactions are often unidirectional—where one individual has the opportunity to contribute altruistically to another, but not conversely—as the result of organizational hierarchies, social stratification, popularity effects, and endogenous mechanisms of network growth. Here we expand the theory of cooperation in structured populations to account for both uni- and bidirectional social interactions. Even though unidirectional interactions remove the opportunity for reciprocity, we find that cooperation can nonetheless be favored in directed social networks and that cooperation is provably maximized for networks with an intermediate proportion of unidirectional interactions, as observed in many empirical settings. We also identify two simple structural motifs that allow efficient modification of interaction directions to promote cooperation by orders of magnitude. We discuss how our results relate to the concepts of generalized and indirect reciprocity.

Proposition for LMS Integration for Share, Exchange, and Spread of Online Lectures under Covid-19 Environment

There has been a movement to share and spread online lectures through OCW and MOOC systems. This movement would have been spread widely and adopted widely if those courses could be easily exchangeable with other platforms or services. If this function is available, learning activities, resources, learning outcomes can be accessed between different platforms and services. With this function, the credit exchange between different platforms or services will be easier. It also facilitates course sharing and circulation. Because the LMS is the basic platform for online classes, providing sharable and reusable learning activities, resources, and learning outcomes across the different LMSs is very demanding for online education. Analyzing LMS use in Korean universities, Moodle, Canvas, and domestic LMSs are founded to be the significant three kinds that are widely used in Korea. In this paper, a method of integrating Moodle, Canvas, and domestic LMS services is proposed. A central Moodle server is installed as the main LMS server, and the method to connect or complement with a central Moodle server is proposed for each different kind of LMS. LMS users can easily access a different kind of LMS as a form of imported course, tightly connected service, or log in as SSO. This proposition can be applied to various service fields such as KMOOC, KOCW, credit exchange, lecture exchange between universities, regional unification of online educational centers as a practical problem-solver.

“Don’t let me be misunderstood”

Research and development as well as societal debates on the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) often focus on crucial but impractical ethical issues or on technocratic approaches to managing societal and ethical risks with technology. To overcome this, more practical, problem-oriented analytical perspectives on the risks of AI are needed. This article proposes an approach that focuses on a meta-risk inherent in AI systems: deep automation bias. It is assumed that the mismatch between system behavior and user practice in specific application contexts due to AI‑based automation is a key trigger for bias and other societal risks. The article presents the main factors of (deep) automation bias and outlines a framework providing indicators for the detection of deep automation bias ultimately triggered by such a mismatch. This approach intends to strengthen problem awareness and critical AI literacy and thereby create some practial use.

Administrative and criminal penalties for a failure to register a vehicle in due time

A determination of amounts of administrative monetary penalties and criminal sanctions resulting from a lack of fulfilment of some of registration obligations imposed on an owner of a vehicle is a practical problem related to the activity of the authorities keeping the vehicle register. Particular doubts are raised not by a necessity to impose a penalty, but by its amount, as well as by a possibility of waiving the penalty. Further doubts are raised by a possibility of applying a criminal liability to entities that have not fulfilled with their obligations. In the present study, the authors, using a dogmatic and legal method, analyse circumstances affecting the amount of the penalty, the possibility of abrogating the penalty, as well as the potential possibility of applying criminal liability.

An Analysis of Subject Competencies Applied in the Activity Tasks of the ‘Home Life and Safety’ area in Middle School Technology-Home Economics Textbooks based on the 2015 Revised National Curriculum

The purpose of this study was to analyze two subject competencies (practical problem-solving capability and independent life capability) reflected in the activity tasks included in the ‘home life and safety’ area of 12 middle school technology-home economics textbooks in accordance with the 2015 revised curriculum. The analysis criteria were sub-elements of two subject competencies. Seven sub-elements were derived from each competency. Frequency analysis was performed to determine how often the sub-elements were reflected in the activity tasks. The results were as follows. First, with regard to the sub-elements of ‘practical problem-solving capability’, ‘value judgment’ was reflected most frequently in the activity tasks followed by ‘exemplification of solution’, ‘logical thinking’, ‘critical thinking’, ‘decision-making’, ‘practical reasoning’, and ‘evaluation of solutions’. Secondly, the sub-elements of ‘independent life capability’ were unevenly distributed in the activity tasks. The ‘capability to perform conscious living’ was reflected most frequently followed by ‘development and self-identity’, ‘time, money, and leisure management’, and ‘reasonable consumption and resource utilization’. For teachers wanting to teach activity-oriented classes and student participatory classes, the results pinpoint the materials necessary to develop learners’ subject competencies by using textbooks from different publishing companies.

Development of a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of financial policies of companies

Subject. This article presents an analysis of the essence of financial policy as a factor of effective development of companies. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the implemented financial policy of companies is a significant scientific and practical problem. It determines the choice of the main criteria used to calculate the financial policy effectiveness. Objectives. The article aims to develop a comprehensive methodology for assessing the effectiveness of financial policy of companies in modern conditions, and define criteria for its evaluation. Methods. The Due Diligence approach is the basis for solving the research tasks: comparing the current standards and methods for assessing the financial policy of companies and simplifying its implementation through the proposed method of multivariate coefficient analysis. Results. The article offers a comprehensive approach to assessing the effectiveness of financial policy, considering electric power companies as a case study. The practical significance of the results obtained lies in the use to increase the investment attractiveness of companies that are considered as potential investment objects. Conclusions. The research proposes a methodology for assessing the financial policy of companies based on a multivariate, customizable system of financial coefficients. An indicator of the effectiveness of financial policy of companies was calculated. It can be recommended for practical application. The obtained results of evaluating the effectiveness of financial policy can be used by the companies’ management to make management decisions, investors to choose the best investment option, market participants to rank companies by efficiency, and determine industry benchmarks.

Increase of Technical Condition Control Efficiency of Marine Railways

The paper presents the result of solving a relevant scientific and practical problem, which consists in the development of methods and diagnostic tools and improving the efficiency of monitoring the technical condition of transport equipment, in particular elements and units of marine railways, through the introduction of an automated system for diagnostics and monitoring of technical condition, which provides an increase in the reliability of diagnosis, reducing the time and cost of diagnostics. The analysis showed that the existing methods for determining the main parameters of the technical condition of elements and units of slips, which are the basis for reliable diagnostics of the technical condition, need to be improved. A method has been developed for monitoring the integrity of the main elements of marine railways based on the analysis of the temperature and natural vibration frequency of the main elements, which, in contrast to the existing methods, gives an error in measuring the signal frequency of less than 0.05%, which makes it possible to determine defects at early stages of their development.

UAS Safety Operation – Legal Issues on Reporting UAS Incidents

Introduction. This paper examines regulations which govern procedures for reporting incidents other than accidents or serious incidents related to unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operations. The regulations are discussed in the context of available data and the paper included an analysis of them from both a European and national perspective. The goal of the paper is to provide a series of recommendations with regard to the procedures for reporting and analyzing UAS incidents in order to improve the safe integration of unmanned and manned aviation. This article also explores the legal consequences that arise from the midair collision between a UAS and a manned aircraft. Material and methods: The method of study comprises a content analysis of existing legislations. The current doctrine was confronted with existing regulations, documents and materials. Results: The results of the study show that there is a practical problem of objectively identifying operators of a UAS as well as in defining what exactly constitutes an “incident”. It can be reasonably concluded that reporting and analyzing UAS-related incidents allows for the assessment and development of strategies for integrating manned and unmanned aviation. It is worth mentioning that drones and UAS technology requires refinement, especially in technological terms. It is reasonable to take action aimed at raising awareness amongst UAS users of the need to report incidents, as well as engaging UAS users in the investigative process which follows such occurrences.

Computing Large Market Equilibria Using Abstractions

Computing market equilibria is an important practical problem for market design, for example, in fair division of items. However, computing equilibria requires large amounts of information, often the valuation of every buyer for every item, and computing power. In “Computing Large Market Equilibria Using Abstractions,” the authors study abstraction methods for ameliorating these issues. The basic abstraction idea is as follows. First, construct a coarsened abstraction of a given market, then solve for the equilibrium in the abstraction, and finally, lift the prices and allocations back to the original market. The authors show theoretical guarantees on the solution quality obtained via this approach. Then, two abstraction methods of interest for practitioners are introduced: (1) filling in unknown valuations using techniques from matrix completion and (2) reducing the problem size by aggregating groups of buyers/items into smaller numbers of representative buyers/items and solving for equilibrium in this coarsened market.