Local Preferences and Place of Death in Regions within England 2010

This report shows public preferences for place of death in the nine English Government Office Regions (GORs), obtained from a population-based telephone survey in 2010. It compares the results with a similar survey carried out in 2003 to understand how preferences are evolving over time. It goes on to contrast these preferences with actual place of death (as reported for that region) in order to shed light on how people's wishes relate to reality and to aid care planning so that preferences are more frequently met

Entanglement from density measurements: analytical density-functional for the entanglement of strongly correlated fermions

We derive an analytical density functional for the single-site entanglement of the one-dimensional homogeneous Hubbard model, by means of an approximation to the linear entropy. We show that this very simple density functional reproduces quantitatively the exact results. We then use this functional as input for a local density approximation to the single-site entanglement of inhomogeneous systems. We illustrate the power of this approach in a harmonically confined system, which could simulate recent experiments with ultracold atoms in optical lattices as well as in a superlattice and in an impurity system. The impressive quantitative agreement with numerical calculations -- which includes reproducing subtle signatures of the particle density stages -- shows that our density-functional can provide entanglement calculations for actual experiments via density measurements. Next we use our functional to calculate the entanglement in disordered systems. We find that, at contrast with the expectation that disorder destroys the entanglement, there exist regimes for which the entanglement remains almost unaffected by the presence of disordered impurities.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Why using a general model in Solvency II is not a good idea : an explanation from a Bayesian point of view

The passing of Directive 2009/138/CE (Solvency II) has opened a new era in the European insurance market. According to this new regulatory environment, the volume of own resources will be determined depending on the risks that any insurer would be holding. So, nowadays, the model to estimate the amount of economic capital is one of the most important elements. The Directive establishes that the European entities can use a general model to perform these tasks. However, this situation is far from being optimal because the calibration of the general model has been made using figures that reflects and average behaviour. This paper shows that not all the companies operating in a specific market has the same risk profile. For this reason, it is unsatisfactory to use a general model for all of them. We use the PAM clustering method and afterwards some Bayesian tools to check the results previously obtained. Analysed data (public information belonging to Spanish insurance companies about balance sheets and income statements from 1998 to 2007) comes from the DGSFP (Spanish insurance regulator).Solvency II, PAM, Longitudinal multinomial model

First-principles study of crystallographic slip modes in ω-Zr.

We use first-principles density functional theory to study the preferred modes of slip in the high-pressure ω phase of Zr. The generalized stacking fault energy surfaces associated with shearing on nine distinct crystallographic slip modes in the hexagonal ω-Zr crystal are calculated, from which characteristics such as ideal shear stress, the dislocation Burgers vector, and possible accompanying atomic shuffles, are extracted. Comparison of energy barriers and ideal shear stresses suggests that the favorable modes are prismatic 〈c〉, prismatic-II [Formula: see text] and pyramidal-II 〈c + a〉, which are distinct from the ground state hexagonal close packed α phase of Zr. Operation of these three modes can accommodate any deformation state. The relative preferences among the identified slip modes are examined using a mean-field crystal plasticity model and comparing the calculated deformation texture with the measurement. Knowledge of the basic crystallographic modes of slip is critical to understanding and analyzing the plastic deformation behavior of ω-Zr or mixed α-ω phase-Zr

More bits - more bucks? Measuring the impact of broadband internet on firm performance

The paper provides empirical evidence for the causal impact of broadband Internet on the economic performance of German firms. Performance is measured in terms of labour productivity and realised process and product innovations. The analysis refers to the early phase of DSL expansion in Germany from 2001 to 2003, when roughly 60 percent of the German firms already used broadband Internet. Identification relies on instrumental variable estimation taking advantage of information on the availability of DSL broadband at the postal code level. The results show that broadband Internet has no impact on firms' labour productivity whereas it exhibits a positive and significant impact on their innovation activity. --labour productivity,innovation,broadband Internet

An Sp1 Modulated Regulatory Region Unique to Higher Primates Regulates Human Androgen Receptor Promoter Activity in Prostate Cancer Cells

Funding: This work was supported by the Chief Scientist’s Office (CSO) of the Scottish Government (http://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/): CWH (CZB-4-477) and IH (ETM/382).Peer reviewedPublisher PD