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A smartphone magnetometer is used to record the magnetic field of a freely falling point dipole magnet. The recorded magnetic field vs. time data are analyzed in accordance with the spatial dependence of the magnetic field to calculate the acceleration due to gravity g. The experiment gives local g to be 9.79 ± 1.9% m/s[superscript 2].

Although the prices of cryptocurrencies remained volatile for the past decade, the factors that impact the price dynamics of the new type of investment instrument have not been fully identified yet. In this study, we recognize the dual nature of cryptocurrencies, that is, being a software program and a financial instrument, and examine the impact of software advancement on the price dynamics of cryptocurrencies. The open-source software (OSS) platform functionality enables social behaviors that we use as signals. Using data from the largest OSS platform, we establish the connection between open-source activities and the price movement of cryptocurrency. In particular, as project popularity (forks and watches) and users' feedback (issues) increase, the market price increases by 4.3 percent, 2.4 percent, and 4.4 percent per annum, respectively. On the contrary, the number of code corrections (pull requests) is negatively related to prices leading to a 5 percent annual price decrease. Our results suggest that OSS contributions create a perfect selection mechanism, where higher quality projects receive more developers' attention and user feedback, whereas lower quality projects do not, thus creating the separating equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A phone emitting sound of a fixed frequency is sliding on an inclined plane and approaching a second phone kept at the bottom of the plane. The detected frequency versus time data by the second phone are used to calculate the acceleration of the sliding phone. The primary objective of this paper is to calculate the sliding friction between the phone and the plane from the acceleration values. It demonstrates that the sliding friction is constant irrespective of the inclination of the plane. Results are in good agreement with the one obtained from the video analysis.

Background: Health is an inseparable part of life and central to all life supporting systems. The reproductive and child health shares a major portion of public health cases that is crucial for socio-economic development. Studies on reproductive and child health have traditionally been focused on demographic aspects using socio-economic parameters. Given the emphasis of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)-3 on health and well-being, it is imperative to understand the geo-spatial dimension with the visible transition of key health indicators of fertility, maternal and infant/child health in the high burdened districts within these high focus Empowered Action Group (EAG) states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that make up nearly 40% of India's population with relatively laggard health status. Methodology: This paper aims to understand the status and trend of key reproductive and child health indicators and vital statistics based on the recent representative demographic surveys. We intend to undertake a district level spatio-temporal analysis by developing District Composite Health Profile (DCHP) using Composite Index Method on selected 13 equally weighted key reproductive and child health indicators. The study has been carried out using data from National Family Health Survey-4 (2015–16) and National Family Health Survey-5 (2019–21) survey rounds. We employed geo-spatial techniques i.e. Moran's–I, and univariate LISA to comprehend the geographical clustering of high and low health burden districts and their heterogeneities at the district level. Results/Conclusions: The study highlights emerging inter-districts, and inter-state disparities over survey periods. With consistent improvement in the selected EAG states over time, the overall reproductive and child health status through DCHP along with each indicator was relatively better in the states of Rajasthan and worse in Bihar. Districts along the Terai belt in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar consistently performed sluggish during survey rounds. The geo-spatial clustering follows the political boundary of states, albeit with intra-state variations. Monitoring of key health indicators using composite index method provides a useful leverage for identifying priority districts/regions for universal health access that should also consider geographical space as an important policy dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objectives Recent evidence suggests nonconstant nature of dispersion in adult women's body mass index (BMI) across sociodemographic groups. The overall variances in BMI and height are also shown to have substantially changed over time. We modeled complex variation in adults' anthropometry--BMI and height--by wealth and education, and assessed their differences over time in India. Subjects/Methods Data from a total of 768,130 women and 180,691 men from the Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2006 and 2016 were used for the analysis. The average association between wealth and education with anthropometry was assessed from linear regression models assuming constant variance. Individual heterogeneity was modeled to obtain separate variances in anthropometry for each wealth quintile and education level. All analyses were stratified by survey year and sex. Results On average, the positive socioeconomic gradient in adult's BMI and height persisted over time with slight attenuation. The residual variance in BMI ranged from 10.1 to 14.9 (7.2-11.3) by education level and 6.1 to 17.4 (5.0-13.0) by household wealth for women (men) in 2006, and they increased over time for the lower socioeconomic groups but remained the same or decreased for the higher socioeconomic groups. No significant pattern was observed for variation in height for both genders. Conclusions We found potential reversal in the socioeconomic patterning in BMI variability in India as suggested by the increasing dispersion among the least educated and poorest populations. For a comprehensive understanding of nutrition transition in developing countries, it is necessary to assess the changes in means and variances of anthropometry in tandem., Author(s): Rockli Kim [sup.1], Praveen Kumar Pathak [sup.2], Niharika Tripathi [sup.3], S. V. Subramanian [sup.1] [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Cambridge, USA (2) Department [...]

In female cervical cancer is one of the top causes of death from cancer worldwide and its behavior epidemiologically likes a venereal disease of low infectiousness. Major risk of cervical cancer is early age at first intercourse and several sexual partners have been shown to exert strong effects. The wide differences in the prevalence amid different countries also influenced by the introduction of screening. While the common picture remains one of decreasing prevalence and death, there are signs of an increasing cervical cancer risk possibly due to changes in sexual behavior. Other important factors are smoking and human papilloma virus is currently important issues in a concept of multi factorial, stepwise carcinogenesis at the cervix uteri. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The one-dimensional finite well is a textbook problem. We propose approximate approaches to obtain the energy levels of the well. The finite well is also encountered in semiconductor heterostructures where the carrier mass inside the well (m[subscript i]) is taken to be distinct from mass outside (m[subscript o]). A relevant parameter is the mass discontinuity ratio beta = m[subscript i]/m[subscript o]. To correctly account for the mass discontinuity, we apply the BenDaniel-Duke boundary condition. We obtain approximate solutions for two cases: when the well is shallow and when the well is deep. We compare the approximate results with the exact results and find that higher-order approximations are quite robust. For the shallow case, the approximate solution can be expressed in terms of a dimensionless parameter sigma[subscript l] = 2m[subscript o]V[subscript 0]L[superscript 2]/h-bar [superscript 2] (or sigma = beta[superscript 2]sigma[subscript l] for the deep case). We show that the lowest-order results are related by a duality transform. We also discuss how the energy upscales with "L" (E is proportional to 1/L[superscript gamma]) and obtain the exponent gamma. Exponent gamma [right arrow] 2 when the well is sufficiently deep and beta [right arrow] 1. The ratio of the masses dictates the physics. Our presentation is pedagogical and should be useful to students on a first course on elementary quantum mechanics or low-dimensional semiconductors. (Contains 2 tables, 3 footnotes and 4 figures.)

Describes a study that examined the effectiveness of eight search engines for the World Wide Web. Calculated traditional information-retrieval measures of recall and precision at varying numbers of retrieved documents to use as the bases for statistical comparisons of retrieval effectiveness. Also examined the overlap between search engines. (Author/LRW)

Objective: There is a paucity of scientific analysis that has examined spatial heterogeneities in the socioeconomic vulnerabilities related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) risk and potential mitigation strategies at the sub-national level in India. The present study examined the demographic, socioeconomic, and health system-related vulnerabilities shaping COVID-19 risk across 36 states and union territories in India. Methods: Using secondary data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India; Census of India, 2011; National Family Health Survey, 2015-16; and various rounds of the National Sample Survey, we examined socioeconomic vulnerabilities associated with COVID-19 risk at the sub-national level in India from March 16, 2020, to May 3, 2020. Descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, and the negative binomial regression model were used to examine the predictors of COVID-19 risk in India. Results: There persist substantial heterogeneities in the COVID-19 risk across states and union territories in India. The underlying demographic, socioeconomic, and health infrastructure characteristics drive the vulnerabilities related to COVID-19 in India. Conclusions: This study emphasizes that concerted socially inclusive policy action and sustained livelihood/economic support for the most vulnerable population groups is critical to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study uses genetic programming to examine new ways for effective search and retrieval of information on the web.

Kinematic models are often very useful. The back and forth throw of a ball between two ice skaters may help us appreciate the meson exchange theory of Yukawa. If the skaters throw the balls at each other, they move backward, which is equivalent to a repulsive force between them. On the other hand, if they snatch the ball from each other, the result will be akin to an equivalent attractive force between them. Such illustrative models may help us understand advanced concepts.

The Internet and corporate Intranets have brought a lot of information. People usually resort to search engines to find required information. However, these systems tend to use only one fixed ranking strategy regardless of the contexts. This poses serious performance problems when characteristics of different users, queries, and text collections are taken into account. In this paper, we argue that the ranking strategy should be context specific and we propose a new systematic method that can automatically generate ranking strategies for different contexts based on Genetic Programming (GP). The new method was tested on TREC data and the results are very promising. Index Terms--Intelligent information retrieval, personalization, search engine, term weighting, ranking function, text mining, genetic programming, contextual information retrieval, information routing, information retrieval.

A phone emitting sound of a fixed frequency is sliding on an inclined plane and approaching a second phone kept at the bottom of the plane. The detected frequency versus time data by the second phone are used to calculate the acceleration of the sliding phone. The primary objective of this paper is to calculate the sliding friction between the phone and the plane from the acceleration values. It demonstrates that the sliding friction is constant irrespective of the inclination of the plane. Results are in good agreement with the one obtained from the video analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restrictive social norms and strategic constraints imposed by family members can limit women's access to and benefits from social networks, especially in patrilocal societies. We characterize young married women's social networks in rural India and analyze how inter‐generational power dynamics within the household affect their network formation. Using primary data from Uttar Pradesh, we show that co‐residence with the mother‐in‐law is negatively correlated with her daughter‐in‐law's mobility and ability to form social connections outside the household, especially those related to health, fertility, and family planning. Our findings suggest that the mother‐in‐law's restrictive behavior is potentially driven by the misalignment of fertility preferences between the mother‐in‐law and the daughter‐in‐law. The lack of peers outside the household lowers the daughter‐in‐law's likelihood of visiting a family planning clinic and of using modern contraception. We find suggestive evidence that this is because outside peers (a) positively influence daughter‐in‐law's beliefs about the social acceptability of family planning and (b) enable the daughter‐in‐law to overcome mobility constraints by accompanying her to health clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web search engines have become an integral part of the daily life of a knowledge worker, who depends on these search engines to retrieve relevant information from the Web or from the company's vast document databases. Current search engines are very fast in terms of their response time to a user query. But their usefulness to the user in terms of retrieval performance leaves a lot to be desired. Typically, the user has to sift through a lot of nonrelevant documents to get only a few relevant ones for the user's information needs. Ranking functions play a very important role in the search engine retrieval performance. In this paper, we describe a methodology using genetic programming to discover new ranking functions for the Web-based information-seeking task. We exploit the content as well as structural information in the Web documents in the discovery process. The discovery process is carried out for both the ad hoc task and the routing task in retrieval. For either of the retrieval tasks, the retrieval performance of these newly discovered ranking functions has been found to be superior to the performance obtained by well-known ranking strategies in the information retrieval literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]