P-values combination procedure for multiple statistical tests is a common data analysis method in many applications including bioinformatics. However, this procedure is nontrivial when input P-values are dependent. For the Fisher€™s combination procedure, a classic method is the Brown€™s Strategy [1, Brown,1975], which is based empirical moment-matching of gamma distribution. In this project, we address a more general family of weighting-andtruncation p-value combination procedures called TFisher. We first study how to extend Brown€™s Strategy to this problem. Then we make further development in two directions. First, instead of using the empirical polynomial model-fitting strategy to find moments, we developed an analytical calculation strategy based on asymptotic approximation. Second, instead of using the gamma distribution to approximate the null distribution of TFisher, we propose to use a mixed gamma distribution or a shifted-mixed gamma distribution. We focus on calculating the one-sided p-value for TFisher, especially the soft-thresholding version of TFisher. Simulations show that our methods much improve the accuracy than the traditional strategy.

A indústria de cartões de pagamento é definida pela literatura acadêmica como um mercado de dois lados. Um dos lados é o mercado de emissão, que realiza a comercialização de cartões para os portadores. O outro lado é o mercado de credenciamento, que efetua a afiliação de estabelecimentos comerciais para que estes aceitem pagamentos com cartões. O foco deste trabalho é o mercado de credenciamento no Brasil. O objetivo do estudo foi analisar a concentração do mercado brasileiro de credenciamento no período entre 2010, quando houve o início da intervenção governamental na indústria de cartões, e 2016. Com a imposição do fim do monopólio no credenciamento das principais marcas mundiais, Visa e Mastercard, os órgãos reguladores buscavam estimular a entrada de novos concorrentes, a fim de obter uma melhor eficiência econômica e maior bem-estar social. Os resultados deste trabalho evidenciaram redução na concentração do mercado com a entrada de novos concorrentes, embora os índices permaneçam elevados. O trabalho buscou analisar, também, a variação das taxas cobradas dos estabelecimentos comerciais neste período. Neste aspecto, os resultados mostram que as taxas médias anunciadas pelas credenciadoras, cobradas normalmente de pequenos estabelecimentos, aumentaram para as transações de débito, ao contrário do que se esperava para um mercado com mais concorrentes, e se mantiveram estáveis para transações de crédito. As elevadas taxas de intercâmbio, a falta de interoperabilidade dos sistemas de captura das transações e a continuidade de contratos de exclusividade para aceitação de cartões entre emissores e credenciadores representaram dificuldades para que os objetivos dos órgãos reguladores fossem plenamente alcançados no período analisado. / The payment cards industry is a two-sided market, as defined by the academic literature. In one side there is the card issuing market that accomplishes the commercialization of cards for the cardholders. The other side is the acquiring market that makes the affiliation of merchants to accept payments with cards. The focus of this work is the acquiring market in Brazil. The objective of the study is to analyze the concentration of the Brazilian acquiring market in the period between 2010, when there was the beginning of the government intervention in the card industry, to 2016. With the mandate to end the acquiring monopoly of the main world brands, Visa and Mastercard, the regulatory agencies sought to stimulate the entrance of new competitors, in order to obtain a better economic efficiency and greater social welfare. The study results showed a reduction in market concentration with the entry of new competitors, although the concentration remains high. The work also aimed to analyze the variation of prices charged to merchants in this period. In this respect, the results show that the average rates announced by the acquirers, applied normally to small businesses, increased for debit transactions, contrary to what was expected for a market with more competitors and remained stable for credit transactions. The high interchange rates, the lack of interoperability of transaction capture systems and the continuation of exclusivity agreements for the acceptance of cards between issuers and acquirers represented difficul,ties for the objectives of the regulatory bodies to be fully achieved in the period under review.

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<p>Marknaden för betalningsmedel har de senaste 40 åren förändrats genom att det har tillkommit en rad alternativ till kontanter. Vissa menar att kontanter inte längre behövs och att samhället skulle tjäna på ett minskat kontantanvändande. Trots de substitut som finns används kontanter fortfarande i stor utsträckning. Vårt syfte med denna uppsats har varit att undersöka och analysera de faktorer som påverkar val av betalningsmedel för privatpersoner och handlare vid betalningstillfället. Vi ger också förslag på hur samhället skulle kunna minska mängden kontanter utifrån de faktorer som vi funnit påverkar.</p><p>Vårt underlag för studien utgörs av två enkätundersökningar genomförda i Vadstena, en riktad till privatpersoner och en riktad till handlare. Enkäterna har utformats utefter tidigare forskning, bakgrund och teori. Teorin i uppsatsen förklarar för- och nackdelar med kort och kontanter, hur prissättningen för betalningsmedel är utformat samt motstånd mot förändring och two-sided markets.</p><p>Vår data användes för att finna samband mellan kortbetalning och olika faktorer som påverkar valet av betalningsmedel. Genom statistisk analys i form av korrelation fann vi att ålder, utbildningsbakgrund och storleken på betalningsbeloppet påverkar privatpersoners val av betalningsmedel. Vidare fann vi att handlare föredrog kontantbetalning då det gällde småbelopp. Studien visade att handlares uppfattning kring betalningsmedel påverkar deras kunders val av kort eller kontanter vid betalningstillfället.</p><p>För att kontantbetalning ska ersättas av kortbetalning i större utsträckning än idag bör prissättningen av de båda betalningsmedlen ses över. Handlarnas motstånd mot kortbetalning kan ändras genom sänkta transaktionsavgifter vid småbelopp. För att få privatpersoner att använda mindre kontanter skulle avgiftsbelagda kontantuttag vara en väg att gå.</p>

Compared to conventional Steiner tree signal net routing, non-tree topology is often superior in many aspects including timing performance, tolerance to open faults and variations. In nano-scale VLSI designs, interconnect delay is a performance bottleneck and variation effects are increasingly problematic. Therefore the advantages of non-tree topology are particularly appealing for timing critical net routings in nano-scale VLSI designs. We propose Steiner network construction heuristics which can generate either tree or non-tree of signal net with different slack wirelength tradeoffs, and handle both long path and short path constraints. Extensive experiments in different scenarios show that our heuristics usually improve timing slack by hundreds of pico seconds compared to traditional tree approaches while increasing only slightly in wirelength. These results show that our algorithm is a very promising approach for timing critical net routings.

Marknaden för betalningsmedel har de senaste 40 åren förändrats genom att det har tillkommit en rad alternativ till kontanter. Vissa menar att kontanter inte längre behövs och att samhället skulle tjäna på ett minskat kontantanvändande. Trots de substitut som finns används kontanter fortfarande i stor utsträckning. Vårt syfte med denna uppsats har varit att undersöka och analysera de faktorer som påverkar val av betalningsmedel för privatpersoner och handlare vid betalningstillfället. Vi ger också förslag på hur samhället skulle kunna minska mängden kontanter utifrån de faktorer som vi funnit påverkar. Vårt underlag för studien utgörs av två enkätundersökningar genomförda i Vadstena, en riktad till privatpersoner och en riktad till handlare. Enkäterna har utformats utefter tidigare forskning, bakgrund och teori. Teorin i uppsatsen förklarar för- och nackdelar med kort och kontanter, hur prissättningen för betalningsmedel är utformat samt motstånd mot förändring och two-sided markets. Vår data användes för att finna samband mellan kortbetalning och olika faktorer som påverkar valet av betalningsmedel. Genom statistisk analys i form av korrelation fann vi att ålder, utbildningsbakgrund och storleken på betalningsbeloppet påverkar privatpersoners val av betalningsmedel. Vidare fann vi att handlare föredrog kontantbetalning då det gällde småbelopp. Studien visade att handlares uppfattning kring betalningsmedel påverkar deras kunders val av kort eller kontanter vid betalningstillfället. För att kontantbetalning ska ersättas av kortbetalning i större utsträckning än idag bör prissättningen av de båda betalningsmedlen ses över. Handlarnas motstånd mot kortbetalning kan ändras genom sänkta transaktionsavgifter vid småbelopp. För att få privatpersoner att använda mindre kontanter skulle avgiftsbelagda kontantuttag vara en väg att gå.

The physical properties of visible light and its interaction with matter create obstructions the human eye cannot explore. High energy radiation has been used as an alternative to visible light to penetrate these concealed regions and reveal their contents. However, traditional imaging techniques require a two-sided apparatus with a radiation source and a detector on opposite sides of the concealed object. One-sided imaging of concealed objects is made possible by a technique called backscatter imaging, utilizing high energy radiation. However, the signal produced by backscatter imaging is inherently weak, which makes in- terpretation di cult. One of the most promising techniques for recovering the weak signal is the coding and decoding provided by Coded Aperture Imaging (CAI). The purpose of this study was to create and test a coded aperture imaging system using backscattered x-rays. This would enable one-sided imaging of concealed objects and demonstrate whether a portable imaging system was feasible. The results obtained from conducting a computer simulation, visi- ble light experiments, and x-ray experiments proved that the process works, however, the x-ray ux levels required were too high for a portable system, based upon the current equipment available at UOIT. / UOIT

The University of Gotland has between the years 2006-2011 conducted seminar excavations in Västergarn parish, Gotland. During this time 167 comb fragments have been registered. Out of these are 51 of importance for this study, since they are defined as either a single-sided composite comb or a comb case. The purpose of this thesis is to enlighten the earliest period in the history of Västergarn by focusing on the earliest forms of combs and their cases. And as the title expresses do the combs date to the Viking Age or the Middle Ages? The combs from the excavations will be compared to different type schemes, both Viking Age and Middle Age and different places in Scandinavia such as Lund, Oslo, Lödöse and Gotland. The conclusion of the analysis is that the combs from Västergarn are from the late 11th century to the early 13th century, during the Early Middle Age.

We propose that the industry structure in Taiwan broadband market is a two-sided market. In this framework, the networks need to be completely interconnected in order to ensure unhindered (or smoothly) information flow. Based on a two-sided market model, we analyze the IP peering mechanism for Taiwan Internet market. We show that the IP peering access charges should be a very low constant amount to reflect the unique Taiwan broadband industry structure. Furthermore, in attracting more Internet content providers (ICP) and end users to provide more content services and Internet applications, the Internet service providers (ISP) should provide free broadband services to ICPs. Though these results are contradictory with the ¡§user-pays¡¨ principle, it ensures more profitable for ISPs and ICPs. Most importantly, the impacts on the whole social welfare are improved. Last, we examine a more efficacious framework for ensuring network neutrality is Efficient Component Pricing Rule (ECPR) in a vertically-integrated monopoly market, as in Taiwan Broadband industry.

This investigation examines a novel means of integrating high-performance AlN piezoelectric thin films with a flexible stainless steel substrate (SUS 304) to fabricate a double-sided piezoelectric transducer. Various sputtering parameters, such as sputtering pressure, substrate temperature, nitrogen concentration, and RF power, were investigated to improve the piezoelectric characteristics of AlN thin films. Scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction of AlN piezoelectric film reveal a rigid surface structure and highly c-axis-preferring orientation. The maximum output power per unit thickness was discussed, and the optimal sputtering parameters were determined. The double-sided piezoelectric transducer is constructed by depositing AlN piezoelectric thin films on both the front and the back sides of SUS 304 substrate. The titanium (Ti) and platinum(Pt) layers were deposited using a dual-gun DC sputtering system between the AlN piezoelectric thin film and the SUS 304 substrate. The optimal deposition parameters for AlN thin films are sputtering pressure of 5 mTorr, substrate temperature of 300 ¢J, nitrogen concentration of 40 %, and RF power of 250 W. The maximum open circuit voltage of the transducer under the vibrational frequency of 80 Hz, vibration amplitude of 4mm, and mass loading of 0.5g, is approximately 20 V, or 5.3 V/£gm. After full-wave rectification and filtering through a 33 nF capacitor, a specific output power of 1.462 £gW/cm2 is obtained from the transducer with a load resistance of 7 M£[.