Vulnerability and Risks of Undeclared Work through the Eyes of Employees from Bulgarian Economy

The article presents recent empirical data from a national representative survey amongst Bulgarian employees, conducted within the framework of a project implementation by BICA studying undeclared work and the risks of its occurrence in enterprises. The study focuses on establishing, explaining and analyzing the relationships between the nature of employment and its duration and the propensity of undeclared work emergence, taking into account the growing spread of atypical forms of employment coupled with accelerated digitalization. The risks of inclusion in undeclared work practices of different categories of people, according to their basic characteristics, such as educational status, qualification and professional and specific experience in employment, have also been studied. The article presents new empirical data, which is valuable for allowing, based on their analysis, the formulation of relevant policies and measures for reducing and preventing undeclared work.

What differentiates angel investors in pre-seed versus seed-stage investments? Evidence from India

Purpose Angel investments are increasingly getting specialized. In recent years, start-ups are raising pre-seed funding before seed-stage funding. Investors in pre-seed and seed-stage companies commonly are angel investors. The purpose of this paper is to understand the differences between these two groups of angel investors. Design/methodology/approach Data for this study obtained from angel funding deals from the sources such as Venture Intelligence, VCCEdge, Keiretsu Forum, Dealcurry and The Chennai Angels. A total of 732 angel investments made by 405 investors during 2014–18 were used in the analysis. Non-parametric tests and regression estimations were used to identify the differences between angel investors investing in pre-seed and seed-stage ventures. An index was developed to measure the extent of syndication in angel investments and used as an independent variable in the regression. Findings There are significant differences between angel investors investing in pre-seed and seed-stage ventures. The results show that angels with more industry-specific experience make a higher proportion of investment in seed-stage ventures. Seed-stage ventures attract investors from Tier-1 cities, whereas the pre-seed stage has higher investors from smaller cities. Though the investment size is smaller, the extent of syndication is greater in pre-seed stage investments. Originality/value To differentiate the angel investments between pre-seed and seed-stage funding, this study uses data from Indian start-ups. Further, this study develops a composite syndication index to measure the extent of syndication in angel investments and assesses its impact on an angel investor’s choice of pre-seed stage investments.

Materials of Construction

The requirements for materials are covered in Chapter III of ASME B31.3. Selection of the appropriate material for a given service is not covered by the Code. As stated in para. 323.5, “Selection of materials to resist deterioration in service is not within the scope of this Code.” Practical considerations make it impossible for the Code to provide guidance relevant to the essentially unlimited process applications covered by the Code. Some precautionary considerations are included in Appendix F based on specific experience or interests of Code Committee members, but this is a very limited list of considerations.

Promoting the archives of the Alliance: a case study of outreach at the NATO Archives*

Following the institutionalization of the Policy on the Public Disclosure of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Information in 2008, the NATO Archives tasked itself to regularly exhibit publicly disclosed NATO documents, video, audio, photos, publications and artifacts to promote the increasing accessibility of its collection. The success of these exhibitions, which were all initially displayed at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, led not only to a boost in the visibility of the NATO Archives within the organization, but also resulted in their expansion as part of the promotional activities of the Alliance itself, leading up to its 70th anniversary celebrations in 2019. This paper presents an overview of the outreach activities of the NATO Archives, discussing its origins and evolution in an institutional context, highlighting its role in communicating the mission of the NATO Archives and, by extension, of NATO itself. While this case study illuminates a specific experience that is heavily determined by the political and security demands of its particular environment, the resulting narrative is intended to be broadly applicable and perhaps even inspirational for archivists who recognize similar challenges at their respective international organizations.

Exploring patients’ perceptions and experiences of treatments for the prevention of variceal bleeding: a qualitative study

BackgroundThe most common fatal complication of liver cirrhosis is haemorrhaging caused by variceal rupture. The prevention of the first variceal bleed is, therefore, an important clinical goal. Little is known about patients’ experience of treatments geared towards this, or of their perceptions of treatments prior to being exposed to them.AimsTo explore the factors impacting patient preference for, and actual experience of carvedilol and variceal band ligation.MethodsSemistructured interviews were conducted with 30 patients from across the UK at baseline, prior to random allocation to either carvedilol or variceal band ligation. Twenty patients were interviewed a second time at 6-month follow-up. Five patients who declined the trial were also interviewed. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.ResultsThere was no clear preference for either treatment pathway at baseline. Key factors reported by patients to influence their treatment preference included: negative experiences with key treatment processes; how long-term or short-term treatment was perceived to be; treatment misconceptions; concerns around polypharmacy and worries around treatment adherence. Patient treatment experience was influenced by their perceptions of treatment effectiveness; clinical surveillance; clinician interaction and communication, or lack thereof. Carvedilol-specific experience was also influenced by the manifestation of side effects and patient dosage routine. Variceal band ligation-specific experience was positively influenced by the use of sedation, and negatively influenced by the procedure recovery period.ConclusionsThese data do not support a view that the patient experience of beta-blockade for prevention of variceal bleeds is likely to be superior to variceal band ligation.

Confidence in complex risk judgments: the roles of uncertainty, experience, and affect

Disagreement persists about the origin of confidence and the internal signals that influence its formation. Using combined individual participant data from four studies (N = 181), we examined confidence in relation to the perceived source of uncertainty for a risk judgment and explored the roles of domain-specific experience and affective evaluations in the formation of confidence. In each study, participants with domain-specific experience (backcountry skiers) performed complex risk judgments (judging avalanche risk) for multiple highly uncertain contexts (hypothetical scenarios in avalanche terrain). We examined whether more experienced participants could better recognize the inherent uncertainty of the decision environment, and if they did so with greater confidence. For complex tasks such as judging avalanche risk, experience should increase a person’s understanding of the probabilistic, unpredictable nature of that environment. Yet our findings suggests that participants of all levels of experience attributed uncertainty to their own judgment process rather than to the limitations and inherent uncertainty of the environment. We also examined whether participants’ affective evaluations influenced confidence in their risk judgments. Affective evaluations are understood to play a crucial orienting role in the risk judgment process. We found evidence of an interplay between affective and cognitive judgments in the formation of confidence. Participants were more confident when their affective evaluation matched their risk judgment, and less confident when there was a mismatch between the two. Our research illustrates a troubling limitation in the development of confidence with experience and the potential (dis)advantageous effect of affective evaluations on confidence in certain contexts.

The Face Module Emerged in a Deep Convolutional Neural Network Selectively Deprived of Face Experience

Can we recognize faces with zero experience on faces? This question is critical because it examines the role of experiences in the formation of domain-specific modules in the brain. Investigation with humans and non-human animals on this issue cannot easily dissociate the effect of the visual experience from that of the hardwired domain-specificity. Therefore, the present study built a model of selective deprivation of the experience on faces with a representative deep convolutional neural network, AlexNet, by removing all images containing faces from its training stimuli. This model did not show significant deficits in face categorization and discrimination, and face-selective modules automatically emerged. However, the deprivation reduced the domain-specificity of the face module. In sum, our study provides empirical evidence on the role of nature vs. nurture in developing the domain-specific modules that domain-specificity may evolve from non-specific experience without genetic predisposition, and is further fine-tuned by domain-specific experience.

Finding a Sense of Gratitude and Purpose in Medicine Through Positive Role Models and a Diversity of Passions, Experiences, and Practices

As burnout is an issue facing our profession, developing and nurturing a greater purpose which promotes a sense of gratitude and purpose in medicine is important for physician wellness and resilience. We often develop our sense of purpose through the internalization of values and ideas of people we have met in life. Mentors play an important role in helping us realize and develop our skills and talents, which may not have been readily apparent to us. In this essay, I, as a physician pursuing dermatology, describe my experiences and what I’ve learned from inspirational teachers and mentors in my education and training that helped me realize the gifts and talents I have to offer the world as a dermatologist. Then, my mentors describe how a specific experience or hobby has helped them develop a greater sense of purpose and gratitude in their careers. These are a few of the infinite possibilities which can nurture a sense of gratitude and purpose in our lives, and our goal is for others to reflect on and to expand on these possibilities and share them with colleagues.

Emerged human-like facial expression representation in a deep convolutional neural network

Face identity and expression play critical roles in social communication. Recent research found that the deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) trained to recognize facial identities spontaneously learn features that support facial expression recognition, and vice versa, suggesting an integrated representation of facial identity and expression. In the present study, we found that the expression-selective units spontaneously emerged in a VGG-Face trained for facial identity recognition and tuned to distinct basic expressions. Importantly, they exhibited typical hallmarks of human expression perception, i.e., the facial expression confusion effect and categorical perception effect. We then investigated whether the emergence of expression-selective units is attributed to either face-specific experience or domain-general processing, by carrying out the same analysis on a VGG-16 trained for object classification and an untrained VGG-Face without any visual experience, both of them having the identical architecture with the pretrained VGG-Face. Although Similar expression-selective units were found in both DCNNs, they did not exhibit reliable human-like characteristics of facial expression perception. Taken together, our computational findings revealed the necessity of domain-specific visual experience of face identity for the development of facial expression perception, highlighting the contribution of nurture to form human-like facial expression perception. Beyond the weak equivalence between human and DCNNS at the input-output behavior, emerging simulated algorithms between models and humans could be established through domain-specific experience.