Increasing sample size is not the only strategy to improve discovery in Genome Wide Association Studies (GWASs) and we propose here an approach that leverages published studies of related traits to improve inference. Our Bayesian GWAS method derives informative prior effects by leveraging GWASs of related risk factors and their causal effect estimates on the focal trait using multivariable Mendelian randomization. These prior effects are combined with the observed effects to yield Bayes Factors, posterior and direct effects. The approach not only increases power, but also has the potential to dissect direct and indirect biological mechanisms. bGWAS package is freely available under a GPL-2 License, and can be accessed, alongside with user guides and tutorials, from https://github.com/n-mounier/bGWAS. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
What increase in probability the Fukushima Dai-ichi event does entail? Many models and approaches can be used to answer these questions. Poisson regression as well as Bayesian updating are good candidates. However, they fail to address these issues properly because the independence assumption in which they are based on is violated. We propose a Poisson Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (PEWMA) based in a state-space time series approach to overcome this critical drawback. We find an increase in the risk of a core meltdown accident for the next year in the world by a factor of ten owing to the new major accident that took place in Japan in 2011.
BACKGROUND: Ageing in place has recently gained visibility in healthcare policies and services. Technology has the potential to facilitate independence at home. The objective of this systematic review is to identify technologies that have been rigorously evaluated for supporting the ageing in place of healthy older adults. As well we explored the methods in engagement with technology in healthy older adults. METHODS: Databases Pubmed, Scopus, PsycInfo and Cinahl were consulted for clinical controlled trials or randomised controlled trials between 2014 and 2019. Studies were included if they contained a technological intervention and focussed on supporting healthy older adults' independent living. PRISMA guidelines and the risk of bias tool of the Cochrane Collaboration were applied. RESULTS: The search identified 3662 articles of which only 7 made the final analysis. Through narrative analysis, technologies were categorised into three groups: accessible communication, emergency assistance and physical and mental well-being. Patient-centredness was extensively addressed by exploring how the participants engaged in the development and evaluation of the technology and how they were trained and monitored. CONCLUSIONS: Literature concerning technology to support ageing, based on controlled trials and research performed in authentic home situations, is scarce. Thus, there is a need to investigate the subject in depth. The use of a neurofeedback headband, an accessible computer system, a wristband with pedometer, a biofeedback device and an online video platform can bring added value to ageing in place for healthy older adults. A patient-centred approach for developing, implementing and evaluating technology benefits ageing in place.
The coronavirus epidemic is not the first virus outbreak that has threatened to disturb financial markets. But the world is now more interconnected since the 2003 SARS outbreak as global companies' revenues have become much more exposed to China. The purposes of this paper are threefold. The first is to address the timely question of whether Bitcoin exhibits a safe-haven property against heightened uncertainty over how the duration and spread of the coronavirus could hit the world economy. The second purpose is to assess if the initial news of the coronavirus outbreak have led to an increased volatility of Bitcoin. The third aim is to test if Bitcoin immediately react on publicly announced information (follows the hypothesis of efficient markets). We show that the current bullish sentiment is triggered by investors seeking Bitcoin as a safe haven in the uncertain times ahead. But we also find that the virus intensifies the volatility of Bitcoin due to a search by investors for alternative asset classes amid concerns about the coronavirus. The information regarding the coronavirus takes time to be reflected in the Bitcoin price, highlighting the associated inefficiencies it brings. Also, the risk to global markets may currently be masked owing to wide liquidity injections by Central Banks including the People's Bank of China and the U.S Federal Reserve.
57 69 ; SWORD ; [EN] Galicia is a region in NW Spain which is usually affected by a high number of forest fires, and it should meet the current regulations regarding the distance between forests and buildings. This paper aims to identify and characterize woodlands and classify buildings according to their fire risk, for a 36 km2 area in Forcarei (Pontevedra, Spain). We used LiDAR data to generate three spatial models (DTM: Digital Terrain Model, DSM: Digital Surface Model and nDSM: Normalized Digital Surface Model) and two statistics to characterize the forest stands (density of dominant trees per hectare and their average height). The identification of forested areas was performed using an object-based classification method using the intensity image, the height model and an orthophotograph of the area, and a kappa coefficient of 0.82 was obtained in the validation. The woodlands were reclassified according to the magnitude of a possible fire, based on the density and the average height of the woodlands. The forest stands were mapped according to the magnitude of a possible fire and it was found that 1.18 km2 would be susceptible to a low magnitude fire, 3.75 km2 to a medium magnitude fire and 2.25 km2 to a fire of a high magnitude. Afterwards, it was determined whether the buildings in the area complied with the legislation relating to minimum distance from the forested areas (30 meters). For those that did not meet this distance, the risk of damage in case of a wildfire was calculated. The result was that 43.01% of buildings in the area complied with the regulations, 9.95% were located in a very low risk area, 25.74% in a low risk location, 12.37% in a medium risk area and 8.93% were in a high or very high risk area. Robles, A.; Rodríguez-Garrido, MA.; Alvarez-Taboada, MF. (2016). Characterization of wildland-urban interfaces using LiDAR data to estimate the risk of wildfire damage. Revista de Teledetección. (Special Issue):57-69. doi:10.4995/raet.2016.3967. ; Revista oficial de la Asociación Española de ...
Achieving universal health coverage (UHC)—defined as access to needed health services to all and protection against financial risks arising from paying for health services —is among the top priorities of reform agendas across many countries. Provision of health services should be determined by individuals' need rather than their ability to pay and, at the same time, utilization of services by those seeking health care should not impose the risk of financial catastrophe. In addition, paying for health care should be administered in an equitable manner whereby individuals with a higher ability to pay contribute a relatively higher share of their income to health financing compared to those individuals with a lower ability to pay. Tanzania has been making efforts towards UHC starting with the abolition of user fees soon after independence in 1967, before their reintroduction in the early 1990s, and the introduction of health insurance schemes in early 2000.
The aim of this paper is to show how the paradigm of disaster resilience may help reorienting urban planning policies in order to mitigate various types of risks, thanks to carefully thought action on heritage and conservation practices. In spite of preserved traces of catastrophes and various warnings and heritage policies, there are countless examples of risk mismanagement and urban tragedies. Using resilience as a guiding concept might change the results of these failed risk mitigation policies and irrelevant disaster memory processes. Indeed, the concept of resilience deals with the complexity of temporal and spatial scales, and with partly emotional and qualitative processes, so that this approach fits the issues of urban memory management. Resilience might help underlining the complexity and the subtlety of remembrance messages, and lead to alternative paths better adapted to the diversity of risks, places and actors. However, when it is given territorial materiality, memory is almost always symbolically and politically framed and interpreted; resilience and the territorialization of memory are not ideologically neutral, but urban risk mitigation may come at that price. ; 13 pages
International audience The paper investigates a climate-economy model with an iso-elastic welfare function in which one parameter gamma measures relative risk-aversion and a distinct parameter rho measures resistance to intertemporal substitution. We show both theoretically and numerically that climate policy responds differently to variations in the two parameters. In particular, we show that higher gamma but lower rho leads to increase emissions control. We also argue that climate-economy models based on intertemporal expected utility maximization, i.e. models where gamma = rho, may misinterpret the sensitivity of the climate policy to risk-aversion. ; Ce papier examine un modèle économie-climat avec une fonction de bien être isoélastique dans laquelle un paramètre gamma mesure l'aversion relative au risque et un paramètre distinct rho mesure la résistance à la substitution intertemporelle. Nous montrons théoriquement et numériquement que la politique climatique optimale répond différement à ces deux paramètres. En particulier, nous montrons que c'est une augmentation de gamma ou une diminution de rho qui conduit à des réductions d'émissions plus strictes. Nous concluons que les modèles économie-climat basés sur la maximisation de la somme intertemporelle actualisée de l'utilité espérée, c'est à dire les modèles dans lesquels rho = gamma, sous-estiment la sensibilité de la politique climatique à l'aversion au risque.
This article discusses a new method for the sizing of operating reserves by electric power system operators. Operating reserves used by system operators to deal with unexpected variations of demand and generation, and maintain a secure operation of the system. This becomes increasingly challenging due to the increasing share of renewable generation based on variable resources. This paper revisits the current sizing method applied in Belgium, which is based on a static approach that determines the required capacity once a year. The presented dynamic sizing method determines the required capacity on a daily basis, using the estimated probability of facing a system imbalance during the next day. This risk is estimated based on historical observations of system conditions by means of machine learning algorithms. A proof of concept is presented for the Belgian system, and demonstrates that the proposed methodology improves reliability management while decreasing the average capacity to be contracted. The method is compliant with European market design, and the corresponding regulatory framework, and is of particular interest for systems with a high share of renewable generation. For these reasons a gradual implementation in Belgium towards 2020 has been decided based on the results of this study.
In this paper, I highlight a pressing issue facing current and future social policies in the EU: the articulation between social justice and environmental concerns. European social policies have only recently acknowledged the need to integrate the notions of environmental justice and environmental inequalities, which have been part of the US policy arsenal for almost two decades. Indeed, challenges to equality and fairness in the environmental domain are many and growing in Europe. After having defined environmental justice and environmental inequalities in the light of historical developments and recent literature, I address two dimensions of those challenges for the EU: vulnerability and exposure to environmental risk; social fairness in environmental taxation. I finally offer some thoughts on the importance of the justice approach to environmental issues in order to conceive legitimate "socio-ecological policies" able to change in the long run not only behaviours but attitudes of citizens towards the environment.
France is currently embarking on the path of personalized advertising on television. The idea is to give traditional media access to a financing model that is very common online and is considered much more lucrative than traditional "contextual" advertising. It requires a precise knowledge of the recipients' interests: it is a complete and individualized profile that is sold to the advertiser. At the same time, however, a number of decisions handed down by personal data protection authorities on the basis of the GDPR raise doubts as to whether this business model can continue. Although it is not expressly prohibited by European texts, it is caught in the vice by successive decisions rendered on the lawful basis of processing. It seems difficult to continue to base personalized advertising on the "consent" of Internet users or viewers. "Legitimate interest" also seems to be a dead end. What about "necessity for the performance of the contract"? The answer is complex and uncertain. Thus, in small steps, without much ado, we risk ending up with a de facto ban on a business model that is now titanic. Perhaps it would have been preferable to reach this result at the end of a frontal political and social debate, rather than as a result of a pile of apparently technical decisions.
International audience Hoffmann (2018) attempts to reconstruct a typology of risks deemed more accurate and useful to both economists and risk managers than currently received views on the subject within mainstream economics/finance and Austrian economics. This comment argues that his criticisms of the Misesian approach and his case for an alternative are unconvincing. We explain weaknesses in his criticisms of the Misesian approach and outline some problems with his constructive task of building up the alternative.
Recently, developed economies have witnessed an emerging dualism between the so-called labor market 'insiders and outsiders'—two groups facing divergent levels of employment security and prospects. Those on the 'inside' occupy stable jobs, while those on the 'outside' confront increased levels of social and economic risks. There are, however, various prominent, but divergent, operationalizations of the insider–outsider phenomenon. While some scholars opt for indicators rooted in current labor market status of individuals, others prefer to consider occupational class groups as bases of the insider–outsider divide. As these operationalizations of outsiderness capture different profiles of outsiders, we test the extent to which they lead to consistent or inconsistent conclusions about electoral behavior. The article yields two consistent findings that are robust across all the operationalizations: that outsiders are less likely to vote for major right parties than are insiders, and that outsiders are more likely to abstain from voting. Additionally, we find that occupation-based outsiders tend to support radical right parties, while status-based outsiders rather opt for radical left parties—a finding supported by the association between social risk and authoritarian preferences. We test our expectations using multinomial logit models estimating vote choice on the first five waves of the European Social Survey from 2002 to 2010 across western Europe.
In a hospital setting and among older patients, inactivity and bedrest are associated with a wide range of negative outcomes such as functional decline, increased risk of falls, longer hospitalization and institutionalization. Our aim was to assess the distribution, determinants and predictors of physical activity (PA) levels using wrist-worn accelerometers in older patients hospitalized with acute medical illness. Observational study conducted from February to November 2018 at an acute internal medicine unit in the University hospital of Lausanne, Switzerland. We enrolled 177 patients aged ≥65 years, able to walk prior to admission. PA during acute hospital stay was continuously recorded via a 3D wrist accelerometer. Clinical data was collected from medical records or by interview. Autonomy level prior to inclusion was assessed using Barthel Index score. PA levels were defined as < 30 mg for inactivity, 30-99 mg for light and ≥ 100 for moderate PA. Physically active patients were defined as 1) being in the highest quartile of time spent in light and moderate PA or 2) spending ≥20 min/day in moderate PA. Median [interquartile range - IQR] age was 83 [74-87] years and 60% of participants were male. The median [IQR] time spent inactive and in light PA was 613 [518-663] and 63 [30-97] minutes/day, respectively. PA peaked between 8 and 10 am, at 12 am and at 6 pm. Less than 10% of patients were considered physically active according to definition 2. For both definitions, active patients had a lower prevalence of walking aids and a lower dependency level according to Barthel Index score. For definition 1, use of medical equipment was associated with a 70% reduction in the likelihood of being active: odds ratio (OR) 0.30 [0.10-0.92] p = 0.034; for definition 2, use of walking aids was associated with a 75% reduction in the likelihood of being active: OR = 0.24 [0.06-0.89], p = 0.032. Older hospitalized patients are physically active only 10% of daily time and concentrate their PA around eating periods. Whether a ...
23 29 1 ; OJS ; [EN] This article presents a guide to designing a maintenance plan for any industrial system. As an example, it develops a maintenance plan for highly reliable equipment, such as a hydroelectric power plant, where instant availability and reliability are crucial in its operation. The development of the proposal serves as a basis for the transversal development of any industrial system that has the same operational objectives (manufacturing lines), transport (trains, aircraft) and also involves safety and environmental aspects in its proper functioning. Today's society requires that there are more and more industrial processes in which the maximum availability of the systems must be guaranteed, and at the same time there must be a minimum number of incidents that prevent the unavailability of the process. The methodology used has consisted firstly of dividing the complex industrial system into systems to be analysed on the basis of the functions they have to perform, then on the basis of the fault history a list of potential faults to be analysed has been determined, taking into account the risk of the system itself. From here, the systems of the hydroelectric plant have been classified to determine the priorities of actions. The different maintenance techniques to be applied have been carefully considered, focusing on the need to analyse condition-based maintenance techniques, such as predictive techniques, which allow us to define the point of potential failure based on parameters, and thus be able to plan maintenance actions in a justified manner. In the specific case of a hydroelectric generation plant, the fundamental objective is based on the commitment tooperate in the electricity market (high reliability and immediate availability), and the performance of maintenance actions imply in most cases the shutdown of the plant and therefore the loss of income from electricity production. Finally, a design of a justified maintenance plan for a hydroelectric power plant has been proposed based on ...
