In their Perspective in this issue of PLOS Biology, Blomqvist et al. [1] set out to demonstrate that ‘‘Ecological Footprint measurements, as currently constructed, are so misleading as to preclude their use in any serious science or policy context.’’ Should the reader be confident in this assessment or are Ecological Footprint methods and results adequate to guide sustainability policy? Their P...

Metrics on resource productivity currently used by governments suggest that some developed countries have increased the use of natural resources at a slower rate than economic growth (relative decoupling) or have even managed to use fewer resources over time (absolute decoupling). Using the material footprint (MF), a consumption-based indicator of resource use, we find the contrary: Achievement...

We study the minimum distance function of a complete intersection graded ideal in a polynomial ring with coefficients in a field. For graded ideals of dimension one, whose initial ideal is a complete intersection, we use the footprint function to give a sharp lower bound for the minimum distance function. Then we show some applications to coding theory.

Considering that excessive sample data points are needed in the probabilistic method, in this paper, two non-probabilistic methods are proposed for uncertainty quantification and propagation analysis based on the Gray mathematical theory and the information entropy theory. These two methods can give the interval estimation of true value from the framework of non-probabilistic theory under the c...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects all aspects of a person's life. Considering the unpredictable progress of MS, Patients suffer from uncertainty about their future health and wellbeing which causes psychological distress and social degradation and consequently it affects the development of the disease. This study aims to investigate the relationship between uncertainty in the disease with the fre...

We describe the design and calibration of an external cryogenic blackbody calibrator used for the first two flights of the Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission (ARCADE) instrument. The calibrator consists of a microwave absorber weakly coupled to a superfluid liquid helium bath. Half-wave corrugations viewed 30° off axis reduce the return loss below −35 dB withi...

The per capita Ecological Footprint (EF) is one of the most-widely recognized measures of environmental sustainability. It seeks to quantify the Earth’s biological capacity required to support human activity. This study uses gene expression programming and Self-organizing Maps (SOM) to predict, classify and cluster the EF of 140 nations. A Bayesian approach was used to formally test the researc...

t he relationship between the price of oil and the level of economic activity is a fundamental empirical issue in macroeconomics. in this research, by using a multivariate garch-in-mean var, we try to investigate direct effects of uncertainty of oil price on macroeconomics of iran by using annually data from 1965 to 2013.results show that uncertainty about oil prices had a negative and signific...

In the United States, surgeons perform an estimated 200,000 anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions (ACLRs) each year. Over the past decade, there has been a surge in interest in defining anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) anatomy to guide ACLR. With this renewed interest in the anatomical features of the ACL, particularly the insertion site, many authors have advocated an approach for complet...