Unstructured data are a promising new source of information that insurance companies may use to understand their risk portfolio better and improve the customer experience. However, these novel data sources are difficult to incorporate into existing ratemaking frameworks due to the size and format of the unstructured data. This paper proposes a framework to use street view imagery within a generalized linear model. To do so, we use representation learning to extract an embedding vector containing useful information from the image. This embedding is dense and low dimensional, making it appropriate to use within existing ratemaking models. We find that there is useful information included in street view imagery to predict the frequency of claims for certain types of perils. This model can be used as in a ratemaking framework but also opens the door to future empirical research on attempting to extract which characteristics within the image leads to increased or decreased predicted claim frequencies. Throughout, we discuss the practical difficulties (technical and social) of using this type of data for insurance pricing.

We show that for every countable group, any sequence of approximate homomorphisms with values in permutations can be realized as the restriction of a sofic approximation of an orbit equivalence relation. Moreover, this orbit equivalence relation is uniquely determined by the invariant random subgroup of the approximate homomorphisms. We record applications of this result to recover various known stability and conjugacy characterizations for almost homomorphisms of amenable groups.

Most people working in the field of linguistics in the US and Canada have an intuitive sense of who the “major players” are among PhD-granting linguistics departments. Our analysis demonstrates that the frequently-perceived hierarchy of linguistics programs is indeed correct. Drawing on publicly available information from Winter/Spring, 2019 on faculty at all PhD-granting linguistics programs across the US and Canada, we use social network and heat map visualizations to demonstrate the existence of an extraordinarily strong and relatively stable hierarchy of programs whose graduates dominate the linguistics academic job market. A secondary finding is that many of the top programs are characterized by gender imbalances. We argue that the top programs’ tremendous influence on the job market as a whole affords these programs the ability – indeed, the responsibility – to take the lead in effecting positive change in the field's hiring patterns more broadly.

This paper explores and experimentally compares the effectiveness of robot-stopping approaches based on the speed and separation monitoring for improving fluency in collaborative robotics. In the compared approaches, a supervisory controller checks the distance between the bounding volumes enclosing human operator and robot and prevents potential collisions by determining the robot’s stop time and triggering a stop trajectory if necessary. The methods are tested on a Franka Emika robot with 7 degrees of freedom, involving 27 volunteer participants, who are asked to walk along assigned paths to cyclically intrude the robot workspace, while the manipulator is working. The experimental results show that scaling online the dynamic safety zones is beneficial for improving fluency of human-robot collaboration, showing significant statistical differences with respect to alternative approaches.

We consider spectral projectors associated to the Euclidean Laplacian on the two-dimensional torus, in the case where the spectral window is narrow. Bounds for their L2 to Lp operator norm are derived, extending the classical result of Sogge; a new question on the convolution kernel of the projector is introduced. The methods employed include $\ell^2$ decoupling, small cap decoupling and estimates of exponential sums.

As part of ongoing efforts to characterize the extent to which tasks and interaction-driven language learning are influenced by individual differences (IDs), task-based researchers have thus far examined variables like learners’ levels of L2 anxiety, motivation, cognitive creativity, working memory capacity, and aptitude. Building on a tradition of prior syntheses in task-based language teaching (TBLT, e.g., Plonsky & Kim, 2016), we carried out a methodological review of the practices used by researchers who have examined learners’ IDs in task-based language learning. We searched journal articles published between 2000 and 2023 and identified 135 unique samples for analysis. Each empirical study was coded for relevant contextual and demographic variables as well as for methodological features related to the investigation of individual differences. We observed that of 30 individual differences investigated in TBLT research over the last two decades, the top five most common were motivation, working memory, L2 proficiency, anxiety, and aptitude. Interesting patterns related to operationalizations, instruments, coding, analyses, and reporting practices. In this paper, we report these results and summarize the most and least common methodological practices, also pointing out gaps and possibilities for future directions. We conclude with recommendations for researchers interested in embarking on empirical investigations of individual differences and TBLT based on best practices.

Two separate sightings, two years apart, of the mimic octopus Thaumoctopus mimicus Norman & Hochberg, 2005 are reported from the Inhambane Province of southern Mozambique within the protected waters of the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary. Individuals were encountered in May 2020 and 2022 in shallow waters, at a depth of less than 30 cm. Both individuals were fully exposed moving along a sandy substrate at the water's edge in a tidal flat. These represent the first documented sightings of T. mimicus in Mozambique, confirming the occurrence of the species along the eastern coast of Africa and extending this species' known range west from the Arabian Sea and south from the Red Sea.

Natural calamities are affecting many parts of the world. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, wildfires, floods and all unpredicted phenomena. Disasters cause emergency conditions, so imperative to coordinate the prompt delivery of essential services to the sufferers. Often, disasters lead many people to perish by becoming trapped inside, but many more also perish as a result of individuals receiving rescue either too late or not at all. The implementation and design of a Receiver module utilizing Davinci code processor DVM6437, Wireless camera receiver, Zigbee Transceiver and Global Positioning System (GPS) is proposed in this manuscript for Wireless Vision-based Semi-Autonomous rescue robots that are employed in rough terrain. The receiver side’s Zigbee transceiver module eliminates the limitations of tele-operating rescue robots by enabling the control station to receive GPS data signals and aids in robot management by sending control signals wirelessly. Half and full-duplex communication are supported by the Davinci processor DVM6437, a digital media fixed-point DSP processor that relies on Very Long Instruction Words. It includes an extensive instruction set that is ideal for real-time salvage operations. DVM processor is coded utilizing MATLAB Simulink. MATLAB codes and Simulink blocks are employed under Embedded IDE link.

This article begins by discussing some of the main approaches that have emerged to gender and family policy, before proceeding to discuss more modern trends. It begins by discussing institutional approaches, such as the male-breadwinner model, defamilialisation, degenderisation. Then it discusses cultural approaches, such as the national ideals of care, gendered moral rationalities, and Hakim’s preference theory. Then this article continues by briefly discussing attempts to broaden the discussion by bringing in children (including through the capabilities approach) and by adding an intersectional perspective.

In the derived category of a commutative noetherian ring, we explicitly construct a silting object associated with each sp-filtration of the Zariski spectrum satisfying the “slice” condition. Our new construction is based on local cohomology and it allows us to study when the silting object is tilting. For a ring admitting a dualizing complex, this occurs precisely when the sp-filtration arises from a codimension function on the spectrum. In the absence of a dualizing complex, the situation is more delicate and the tilting property is closely related to the condition that the ring is a homomorphic image of a Cohen–Macaulay ring. We also provide dual versions of our results in the cosilting case.

Recently, Luis R. G. Oliveira has developed the ‘symmetry challenge’ as follows:

1. (1) If God exists, then for all actual instances of evil e, God has justifying moral reasons for allowing e (the ‘reasons’ thesis).

2. (2) If God has justifying moral reasons for allowing e, then we have justifying moral reasons for allowing e as well (symmetry thesis).

3. (3) So, if God exists, then for all actual instances of e, we have justifying moral reasons for allowing e (Oliveira, 2023).

Thus, per Oliveira, given God’s sovereignty over evil, there is no ethical asymmetry which would compel a moral agent to prevent rather than permit a preventable evil. In this paper, I will defend the asymmetry claim and argue that Oliveira’s argument ultimately fails. First, I will sketch Oliveira’s argument. Then, I will briefly articulate a broadly Reformed-Thomistic model of providence which I will deploy in this article. Third, I will argue that this model of providence and the ethical aim of the Christian life generate two distinct yet inter-related reasons to hold to the asymmetry claim. Finally, I will canvas several theodicies my model rules out and anticipate several objections.