bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: APPLIED LINGUISTICS AT THE JUNCTURE OF MILLENNIA
Authors: Tucker G. Richard
Published: April 2008

I am personally delighted to have an opportunity to contribute ‘Concluding Thoughts’ to this volume, prepared as it is at the juncture of millennia, since it provides a similar opportunity for reflection and prediction, and since for one reason or another I have been an active participant in, and observer of, developments in the field of applied linguistics for more than three decades. Indeed my own career path reflects clearly the permeability of traditional departmental or disciplinary boundaries that has at once contributed to the sense of excitement and potential in the field and simultaneously to its lack of rootedness (e.g., I have at various times held academic appointments in departments of psychology, linguistics, and modern languages as well as worked for a private philanthropic foundation and a mission-oriented non-profit organization).
ARAL XIX RATIONALE
Authors: Grabe William
Published: April 2008

This nineteenth volume of ARAL returns to a general overview of Applied Linguistics. While a wide range of topics could be covered in an overview volume, three major topics are addressed in some depth: second language acquisition, language use in professional contexts, and language assessment. These chapters complement and extend the chapters that appeared in ARAL 15, which used a similar organizing framework.
PRAGMATICS AND SLA
Authors: Kasper Gabriele , Rose Kenneth R.
Published: April 2008

Pragmatics has two roles in SLA: It acts as a constraint on linguistic forms and their acquisition, and it represents a type of communicative knowledge and object of L2 learning in its own right. The first role of pragmatics is evident in functionalist (Tomlin 1990) and interactionist (Long 1996) views of SLA. The second role puts pragmatics on a par with morphosyntax, lexis, and phonology in that inquiry focuses on learners' knowledge, use, and acquisition of L2 pragmatics. It is the latter sense of “pragmatics and SLA” that is the focus of this paper. In analogy with other areas of specialization within SLA—interlanguage syntax, interlanguage lexis, and so forth—the study of nonnative speakers' use and acquisition of L2 pragmatic knowledge is referred to as interlanguage pragmatics.
SOCIOLINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO SLA
Authors: Young Richard
Published: April 2008

The study of second language acquisition involves understanding what bilinguals know about their second language and how they acquire and use it. Because acquisition and use occur in a social context, it is important for second–language acquisition researchers to understand the ways in which social context and the acquisition and use of a second language are related. In recent years, our understanding of language as a social phenomenon has increased greatly. In a recent survey of sociolinguistics and language teaching, McKay and Hornberger (1996) divide the field into four related areas: 1) studies of language and society–how large–scale social and political issues affect language use in a particular society, 2) studies of language variation—how the “same” language varies from speaker to speaker, from place to place, and from situation to situation, 3) studies of language and interaction—how language is used in face–to–face communication, and 4) studies of language and culture—how particular cultures privilege some kinds of language over others.
LANGUAGE AND THE LAW
Authors: Gibbons John
Published: April 2008

Law is language. It is not solely language, since it is a social institution manifested also in non-linguistic ways, but it is a profoundly linguistic institution. Laws are coded in language, and the processes of the law are mediated through language. The legal system puts into action a society's beliefs and values, and it permeates many areas of life, from a teacher's responsibilities to a credit card agreement. The language of the law is therefore of genuine importance, particularly for people concerned with addressing language issues and problems in the real world—that is, Applied Linguists.
LANGUAGE AND SCIENCE
Authors: Atkinson Dwight
Published: April 2008

In looking back at the last review of research on the language-science connection to appear in ARAL (van Naerssen and Kaplan 1987), one is struck by the great changes in this relationship that have taken place over the past dozen or so years. On a general level, such changes are perhaps inevitable given the youthfulness of this area as a research domain, but more specifically, they can be traced in large part to two related trends: 1) a shift away from research with direct pedagogical aims and motivations, and 2) the powerful influence of the interdisciplinary field known as social studies of science. Both trends will be recurrent themes of this review.
Producing, Controlling, and Stabilizing Pasteur's Anthrax Vaccine: Creating a New Industry and a Health Market
Authors: Cassier Maurice
Published: April 2008

Argument

When Pasteur and Chamberland hastily set up their small biological industry to meet the agricultural demand for the anthrax vaccine, their methods for preparation and production had not yet been stabilized. The process of learning how to standardize biological products was accelerated in 1882 when vaccination accidents required the revision of production norms as the first hypotheses on fixity, inalterability, and transportability of vaccines were invalidated and replaced by procedures for continuous monitoring of the calibration of vaccines and the renewal of vaccine strains. Initially, the incompleteness and ongoing development of production standards justified Pasteur's monopoly on the production of the anthrax vaccine under his immediate supervision. Later on, the Pasteur Institute maintained control of these standards in the framework of a commercial monopoly that it established on the veterinary vaccines first sent and then cultivated abroad by the Société de Vulgarisation du Vaccin Charbonneux Pasteur, founded in 1886.
JOIN MINIMUM COST QUEUE FOR MULTICLASS CUSTOMERS: STABILITY AND
PERFORMANCE BOUNDS
Authors: Tandra Rahul , Hemachandra N. , Manjunath D.
Published: April 2008

We consider a system of K parallel queues providing
different grades of service through each of the queues and serving a
multiclass customer population. Service differentiation is achieved by
specifying different join prices to the queues. Customers of class
j define a cost function
ψij(ci,xi)
for taking service from queue i when the join price for queue
i is ci and congestion in queue
i is xi and join the queue that
minimizes ψij(·,·). Such a
queuing system will be called the “join minimum cost queue”
(JMCQ) and is a generalization of the join shortest queue (JSQ) system.
Non-work-conserving (called Paris Metro pricing system) and
work-conserving (called the Tirupati system) versions of the JMCQ are
analyzed when the cost to an arrival of joining a queue is a convex
combination of the join price for that queue and the expected waiting
time in that queue at the arrival epoch. Our main results are for a
two-queue system.

We obtain stability conditions and performance bounds. To obtain the
lower and upper performance bounds, we propose two quasi-birth–death
(QBD) processes that are derived from the original systems by suitably
truncating the state space. The state space truncation in the
non-work-conserving JMCQ follows the method of van Houtum and colleagues.
We then show that this method is not applicable to the work-conserving
JMCQ and provide sample-path-based proofs to show that the number in each
queue is bounded by the number in the corresponding queues of these QBD
processes. These sample-path proof techniques might also be of independent
interest. We then show that the performance measures like mean queue length
and revenue rate of the system are also bounded by the corresponding
quantities of these QBD processes. Numerical examples show that these bounds
are fairly tight. Finally, we generalize some of these results to systems with
more queues.
MONOTONICITY IN LAG FOR NONMONOTONE MARKOV CHAINS
Authors: Kulik Rafał
Published: April 2008

It is well known that for a stochastically monotone Markov chain
{Jn}n≥1 a function
γ(n) = Cov[f
(J1),g(Jn)]
is decreasing if f and g are increasing. We prove
this property for a special subclass of nonmonotone double stochastic
Markov chains.
ROUTING OF AIRPLANES TO TWO RUNWAYS: MONOTONICITY OF OPTIMAL
CONTROLS
Authors: Bäuerle N. , Engelhardt-Funke O. , Kolonko M.
Published: April 2008

We consider the problem of routing incoming airplanes to two runways
of an airport. Due to air turbulence, the necessary separation time
between two successive landing operations depends on the type of
airplane. When viewed as a queuing problem, this means that we have
dependent service times. The aim is to minimize the waiting times of
aircrafts. We consider here a model in which arrivals form a stochastic
process and the decision-maker does not know anything about future
arrivals. We formulate this as a problem of stochastic dynamic
programming and investigate the monotonicity of optimal routing
strategies with respect to the workload of the runways, for example. We
show that an optimal strategy is monotone (i.e., of switching type)
only in a restricted case where decisions depend on the state of the
runways only and not on the type of the arriving aircraft.
Surprisingly, in the more realistic case where this type is also known
to the decision-maker, monotonicity need not hold.
A NOTE ON BOUNDS AND MONOTONICITY OF SPATIAL STATIONARY COX SHOT
NOISES
Authors: Miyoshi Naoto
Published: April 2008

We consider shot-noise and max-shot-noise processes driven by spatial
stationary Cox (doubly stochastic Poisson) processes. We derive their
upper and lower bounds in terms of the increasing convex order, which
is known as the order relation to compare the variability of random
variables. Furthermore, under some regularity assumption of the random
intensity fields of Cox processes, we show the monotonicity result
which implies that more variable shot patterns lead to more variable
shot noises. These are direct applications of the results obtained for
so-called Ross-type conjectures in queuing theory.
SIZE-BIASED PERMUTATION OF DIRICHLET PARTITIONS AND SEARCH-COST
DISTRIBUTION
Authors: Barrera Javiera , Huillet Thierry , Paroissin Christian
Published: April 2008

Consider the random Dirichlet partition of the interval into
n fragments at temperature θ > 0. Explicit results on
the law of its size-biased permutation are first supplied. Using these,
new results on the comparative search cost distributions from Dirichlet
partition and from its size-biased permutation are obtained.
EXTREMES: A CONTINUOUS-TIME PERSPECTIVE
Authors: Eliazar Iddo
Published: April 2008

We consider a generic continuous-time system in which events of random magnitudes occur stochastically and study the system's extreme-value statistics. An event is described by a pair (t,x) of coordinates, wheretis the time at which the event took place andxis the magnitude of the event. The stochastic occurrence of the events is assumed to be governed by a Poisson point process.

We study various issues regarding the system's extreme-value statistics, including (i) the distribution of the largest-magnitude event, the distribution of thenth “runner-up” event, and the multidimensional distribution of the “topn” extreme events, (ii) the internal hierarchy of the extreme-value events—how large are their magnitudes when measured relative to each other, and (iii) the occurrence of record times and record values. Furthermore, we unveil a hidden Poissonian structure underlying the system's sequence of order statistics (the largest-magnitude event, the second largest event, etc.). This structure provides us with a markedly simple simulation algorithm for the entire sequence of order statistics.
FURTHER RESULTS INVOLVING THE MIT ORDER AND THE IMIT CLASS
Authors: Ahmad I. A. , Kayid M. , Pellerey F.
Published: April 2008

The purpose of this article is to study several preservation
properties of the mean inactivity time order under the reliability
operations of convolution, mixture, and shock models. In that context, the
increasing mean inactivity time class of lifetime distributions is
characterized by means of right spread order and increasing convex order.
Some applications in reliability theory are described. Finally, a new test
of such a class is discussed.
ON THE UPPER FIRST-EXIT TIMES OF COMPOUND G/M
PROCESSES
Authors: Stadje W. , Zacks S.
Published: April 2008

For a compound process with exponential jumps at renewal times, we
determine, in closed form, the density of the first time an upper linear
boundary is crossed. It is shown how simple formulas for the Laplace
transform and the first two moments can be directly derived from this
density.
CORRECTION TO “A NOTE ON BOUNDS AND MONOTONICITY OF SPATIAL
STATIONARY COX SHOT NOISES”
Authors: Miyoshi Naoto
Published: April 2008

In the Note published last year [1], bounds and monotonicity of shot-noise and
max-shot-noise processes driven by spatial stationary Cox point processes
are discussed in terms of some stochastic order. Although all the
statements concerning the shot-noise processes remain valid, those
concerning the max-shot-noise processes have to be corrected.
MAKING SIMULATIONS MORE EFFICIENT WHEN ANALYZING POISSON ARRIVAL
SYSTEMS AND MEANS OF MONOTONE FUNCTIONS
Authors: Ross Sheldon M.
Published: April 2008

For a system in which arrivals occur according to a Poisson process,
we give a new approach for using simulation to estimate the expected value
of a random variable that is independent of the arrival process after some
specified time t. We also give a new approach for using
simulation to estimate the expected value of an increasing function of
independent uniform random variables. Stratified sampling is a key
technique in both cases.
ON THE STRUCTURE OF OPTIMAL ORDERING POLICIES FOR STOCHASTIC
INVENTORY SYSTEMS WITH MINIMUM ORDER QUANTITY
Authors: Zhao Yao , Katehakis Michael N.
Published: April 2008

We study a single-product periodic-review inventory model in which the
ordering quantity is either zero or at least a minimum order size. The
ordering cost is a linear function of the ordering quantity, and the
demand in different time periods are independent random variables. The
objective is to characterize the inventory policies that minimize the
total discounted ordering, holding, and backorder penalty costs over a
finite time horizon. We introduce the concept of an M-increasing
function. These functions allow us to characterize the optimal inventory
policies everywhere in the state space outside of an interval for each
time period. Furthermore, we identify easily computable upper bounds and
asymptotic lower bounds for these intervals. Finally, examples are given
to demonstrate the complex structure of the optimal inventory
policies.
A FLUID EOQ MODEL WITH A TWO-STATE RANDOM ENVIRONMENT
Authors: Berman Oded , Perry David , Stadje Wolfgang
Published: April 2008

We study a stochastic fluid EOQ-type model operating in a Markovian
random environment of alternating good and bad periods determining the
demand rate. We deal with the classical problem of “when to place an
order” and “how big it should be,” leading to the
trade-off between the setup cost and the holding cost. The key functionals
are the steady-state mean of the content level, the expected cycle length
(which is the time between two large orders), and the expected number of
orders in a cycle. These performance measures are derived in closed form
by using the level crossing approach in an intricate way. We also present
numerical examples and carry out a sensitivity analysis.
STOCHASTIC MODEL FOR THE NUMBER OF ATOMS IN A MAGNETO-OPTICAL
TRAP
Authors: Rukhin Andrew L. , Bebu Ionut
Published: April 2008

In this article a Markov chain for the distribution of single atoms is
suggested and studied. We explore a recursive model for the number of
atoms present in a magneto-optical trap under a feedback regime with a
Poisson-distributed load. Formulas for the stationary distribution of this
process are derived. They can be used to adjust the loading rate of atoms
to maximize the proportion of time that a single atom spends in the trap.
The (approximate) optimal regime for the Poisson loading and loss
processes is found.
THE SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF MILTON SOBEL
Authors: Olkin Ingram , Santner Thomas , Tong Y. L.
Published: April 2008

This article describes the scientific contributions of Milton Sobel.
It motivates his research by considering his family background, his war
experiences, and his mentors and fellow students at Columbia University.
His research in sequential analysis, selection, ranking, group testing,
and probabilistic combinatorics are highlighted.
SOJOURN TIME TAILS IN THE M/D/1 PROCESSOR
SHARING QUEUE
Authors: Egorova Regina , Zwart Bert , Boxma Onno
Published: April 2008

We consider the sojourn time V in the
M/D/1 processor sharing (PS) queue and show that
P(V > x) is of the form
Ce−γx as x becomes large.
The proof involves a geometric random sum representation of V and
a connection with Yule processes, which also enables us to simplify
Ott's [21] derivation of the
Laplace transform of V. Numerical experiments show that the
approximation P(V > x) ≈
Ce−γx is excellent even for
moderate values of x.
SOME RESULTS ABOUT MIT ORDER AND IMIT CLASS OF LIFE
DISTRIBUTIONS
Authors: Li Xiaohu , Xu Maochao
Published: April 2008

We investigate some new properties of mean inactivity time (MIT) order
and increasing MIT (IMIT) class of life distributions. The preservation
property of MIT order under increasing and concave transformations,
reversed preservation properties of MIT order, and IMIT class of life
distributions under the taking of maximum are developed. Based on the
residual life at a random time and the excess lifetime in a renewal
process, stochastic comparisons of both IMIT and decreasing mean residual
life distributions are conducted as well.
FUNDING A WARRANTY RESERVE WITH CONTRIBUTIONS AFTER EACH SALE
Authors: Buczkowski Peter S. , Kulkarni Vidyadhar G.
Published: April 2008

We consider funding an interest-bearing warranty reserve with
contributions after each sale. The problem for the manufacturer is to
determine the initial level of the reserve fund and the amount to be put
in after each sale, so as to ensure that the reserve fund covers all of
the warranty liabilities with a prespecified probability over a fixed
period of time. We assume a nonhomogeneous Poisson sales process, random
warranty periods, and a constant failure rate for items under warranty. We
derive the mean and variance of the reserve level as a function of time
and provide a robust heuristic to aid the manufacturer in its
decision.
UPPER BOUNDS FOR RUIN PROBABILITY UNDER TIME SERIES MODELS
Authors: Chan Gary K. C. , Yang Hailiang
Published: April 2008

In this article, we consider an insurance risk model where the claim
and premium processes follow some time series models. We first consider
the model proposed in Gerber [2,3]; then a model with dependent structure between
premium and claim processes modeled by using Granger's causal model
is considered. By using some martingale arguments, Lundberg-type upper
bounds for the ruin probabilities under both models are obtained. Some
special cases are discussed.
A REAL-WORLD STOCHASTIC TWO-PERSON GAME
Authors: Tijms Henk , van der Wal Jan
Published: April 2008

This article discusses a real-world application of a terminating
two-person stochastic game. The problem comes from a Dutch television game
show in which two finalists play a dice game. Each player chooses a number
of dice to be rolled. The score of the roll is added to the player's
total provided that none of the dice showed the outcome one. The first
player reaching a prespecified number of points is the winner. This
article discusses the computation and the structure of an optimal
strategy.
STOCHASTIC SCHEDULING WITH ASYMMETRIC EARLINESS AND TARDINESS
PENALTIES UNDER RANDOM MACHINE BREAKDOWNS
Authors: Cai Xiaoqiang , Zhou Xian
Published: April 2008

We study a stochastic scheduling problem of processing a set of jobs
on a single machine. Each job has a random processing time
Pi and a random due date
Di, which are independently and exponentially
distributed. The machine is subject to stochastic breakdowns in either
preempt-resume or preempt-repeat patterns, with the
uptimes following an exponential distribution and the downtimes (repair
times) following a general distribution. The problem is to determine an
optimal sequence for the machine to process all jobs so as to minimize the
expected total cost comprising asymmetric earliness and tardiness
penalties, in the form of E[[sum ]αi
max{0,Di −
Ci} + βi
max{0,Ci −
Di}]. We find sufficient conditions for
the optimal sequences to be V-shaped with respect to
{E(Pi)/αi} and
{E(Pi)/βi},
respectively, which cover previous results in the literature as special
cases. We also find conditions under which optimal sequences can be
derived analytically. An algorithm is provided that can compute the best
V-shaped sequence.
PRESERVATION OF STOCHASTIC ORDERS UNDER MIXTURES OF EXPONENTIAL
DISTRIBUTIONS
Authors: Bartoszewicz Jarosław , Skolimowska Magdalena
Published: April 2008

Recently, Bartoszewicz [5,6] considered mixtures of exponential
distributions treated as the Laplace transforms of mixing distributions
and established some stochastic order relations between them: star order,
dispersive order, dilation. In this article the preservation of the
likelihood ratio, hazard rate, reversed hazard rate, mean residual life,
and excess wealth orders under exponential mixtures is studied. Some new
preservation results for the dispersive order are given, as well as the
preservation of the convex transform order, and the star one is
discussed.
Restitution of Lost Property in the Tannaitic and Amoraic Halakhah: A Preliminary Philosophical Study of the Forming of a Conception
Authors: Furstenberg Ariel
Published: April 2008

Please open the PDF to read the abstract.
Ethnicity and Institution BuildingAmong Jews in Early Modern Rome
Authors: Cooperman Bernard D.
Published: April 2008

The Cinquecento was marked by the emergence of expanded and more formalized structures of self-government in Italy's Jewish communities. It is from this century that we begin to have written capitoli (constitutional agreements) and pinkasim (record books).2 By the middle of the century, as Robert Bonfil has demonstrated, the office of community-appointed rabbi had been created and regularized.3 Intense internecine struggles broke out for control over the new institutions, and contemporary rabbinic responsa attest to the slow and sometimes tortuous manner in which early modern Jews felt their way toward new working arrangements, procedures, and understandings.4
Authors: Lawee Eric
Published: April 2008

In this elegantly produced volume, Mark Meyerson traces the life of a single Jewish community in Spain, Morvedre (he uses the Catalan name for the Valencian town generally known to medievalists as Murviedro and to modern Spaniards as Sagunto), from the anti-Jewish riots of 1391 through the Spanish Jewry's expulsion in 1492. Behind this exercise in local history, however, lies a broader intention: to revise the master narrative of Hispano-Jewish historiography according to which Jewish life in Spain after 1391 was a tale of almost unmitigated woe. By demonstrating that the century between 1391 and 1492 was not simply “a gloom-filled parenthesis” for Morvedre's Jews but instead “an era of remarkable resurgence” (3)—nay, “a Jewish Renaissance,” as the book's title provocatively proclaims—Meyerson challenges the regnant vision of Spain's Jewish communities as sliding almost inexorably toward expulsion after 1391. In making his case, he weds an awareness of the historical aerial view with a fluency in older and more recent historiographic trends and an extraordinary mastery of events on the ground. The result is a copiously documented, lucidly written exploration of a treasure trove of hitherto mostly unknown archival sources that dazzles with its wealth of detail and enlivens through regular recourse to vivid vignettes.
Authors: Hartman Harriet
Published: April 2008

Tamar El-Or has given us a book that could benefit from the layout of the Talmudic pages that provide the text for the women's studies she has researched. Using her observations as base, she develops multiple perspectives that go well beyond the usual anthropological ethnography, adding layer upon layer of interpretation and perspective. The book begins with a survey and description of the institutes of religious higher learning for women in Israel at the time of her data collection (late 1990s); continues with the presentation and analysis of her interviews with 40 (out of 1,300) female students at Bar-Ilan University's Midrasha (women's institute of religious higher learning) about their development as religious “learners”; presents the results of her three years of participant observation in classrooms at the Midrasha; and concludes with an interpretation of the data from the perspective of “literacy,” which is seen in the anthropological literature as a central facet of societal participation, and its implied meanings for gender relations among Jews (at least among the Orthodox).
Authors: Koltun-Fromm Ken
Published: April 2008

David Ellenson has written numerous important essays in the field of modern Jewish thought, and he has gathered here an impressive collection of some of his more important articles. After working through twenty-three essays ranging from interreligious disputes about organs in synagogues to Marcia Falk's Book of Blessings, a reader gains a deeper appreciation for both the significance of Jewish thought in Germany and Israel and the academic range and intellectual candor that Ellenson brings to his studies. Although Ellenson writes for a liberal Jewish audience, these essays, which date back to 1995, bear witness to his sympathetic concern for Orthodoxy and the ways in which the non-Orthodox can expand their religious horizons through a sensitive engagement with other denominations. There is much to be gleaned in these texts for specialists and novices alike—perhaps even more for those who understand religious traditions as firmly embedded within social and cultural forces.
Authors: Whitfield Stephen J
Published: April 2008

By the end of the nineteenth century, the pressures of modern civilization had become so exigent that alienists were decrying the prevalence of “neurasthenia,” and William James would soon diagnose the “sick souls” whose anguished quest for relief from existential despair marked not only an enduring religious archetype but also the widening incompatibility between the demands of industrial and urban society and the needs of the psyche. One proposed remedy was Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1875), whose author claimed divine revelation for herself. By 1911, Mary Baker Eddy's movement had attracted so many Jews that the B'nai B'rith had to prohibit its members from subscribing to Christian Science, which Isaac Mayer Wise felt compelled to denounce as “pure quackery” that risked becoming “an epidemic delusion” (27). Another Reform rabbi, Max Heller, blasted Jews for joining a sect that was marred by the “unintelligible twaddle which [their] female savior has managed to spin around the simplest utterances” (28).
Authors: Prell Riv-Ellen
Published: April 2008

Chaim Waxman's study of American Jewish baby boomers is one in a series of books whose data are derived from the 1990 National Jewish Population Study. This rich data set draws on a large sample of American Jews and provides a benchmark for understanding many of the critical issues in American Jewish life.
An approach to a feature-based comparison of solid models
of machined parts
Authors: CICIRELLO VINCENT A. , REGLI WILLIAM C.
Published: April 2008

Solid models are the critical data elements in modern
computer-aided design environments, because they describe the
shape and form of manufactured artifacts. Their growing ubiquity
has created new problems in how to effectively manage the many
models that are now stored in the digital libraries for large
design and manufacturing enterprises. Existing techniques from
the engineering literature and industrial practice, such as
group technology, rely on human-supervised encodings and
classification; techniques from the multimedia database and
computer graphics/vision communities often ignore the
manufacturing attributes that are most significant in the
classification of models. This paper presents our approach to
comparing the manufacturing similarity assessments of solid
models of mechanical parts based on machining features. Our
technical approach is threefold: perform machining feature
extraction, construct a model dependency graph (MDG) from the
set of machining features, and partition the models in a database
using a measure of similarity based on the MDGs. We introduce
two heuristic search techniques for comparing MDGs and present
empirical experiments to validate our approach using our testbed,
the National Design Repository.
An integrated agent-oriented approach to real-time operational
design coordination
Authors: COATES GRAHAM , DUFFY ALEX H.B. , WHITFIELD IAN , HILLS WILLIAM
Published: April 2008

Within the engineering design community there is support for further
research into the development of improved approaches to design
management. Such research has lead to coordination being identified as
an important and pervasive characteristic of many existing approaches
(e.g., concurrent engineering and work-flow management). In this
article, operational design coordination is proposed as the basis for
an improved approach. This article also presents a novel integrated
approach that incorporates the key elements of operational design
coordination: coherence, communication, task management, resource
management, schedule management, and real-time support. Through
unifying these key elements, this approach provides an integrated means
of managing design in a controlled and harmonious fashion. The approach
also provides knowledge of the constituent techniques involved in
operational design coordination, the interrelationships and dynamic
interactions between them, and the knowledge used and maintained within
and between them. The approach has been realized within an
agent-oriented system called the Design Coordination System, which
provides a systematic means of simultaneously coordinating operational
management tasks and technical design tasks. To evaluate the approach,
the system has been applied to an industrial case study involving the
computational process of turbine blade design. This application has
been shown to enable the structured undertaking of interrelated tasks
by allocating and using resources of varying performance efficiency in
an optimized fashion in accordance with dynamically derived schedules
in a coherent, appropriate, and timely manner. This is achieved by
managing tasks, their dependencies, and the information required to
undertake them. In addition, the approach enables and sustains the
continuous optimized use of resources by monitoring, forecasting, and
disseminating resource performance efficiency. The approach facilitates
dynamic scheduling and the subsequent enactment of the resulting
schedules. Decision making for rescheduling is also incorporated within
the approach such that it is only performed as and when appropriate. If
rescheduling is performed, it is done so in parallel with task
enactment such that resources continue to be utilized in an optimized
manner.
Iterative genetic algorithm for learning efficient fuzzy rule set
Authors: LIM MENG HIOT , NG WILLIE
Published: April 2008

We present a methodology of learning fuzzy rules using an iterative
genetic algorithm (GA). The approach incorporates a scheme of
partitioning the entire solution space into individual subspaces. It
then employs a mechanism to progressively relax or tighten the
constraint. The relaxation or tightening of constraint guides the GA to
the subspace for further iteration. The system referred to as the
iterative GA learning module is useful for learning an efficient fuzzy
control algorithm based on a predefined linguistic terms set. The
overall approach was applied to learn a fuzzy algorithm for a water
bath temperature control. The simulation results demonstrate the
effectiveness of the approach in automating an industrial process.
Rediscovering the analysis of interconnected decision areas
Authors: WEAS ABRAM , CAMPBELL MATTHEW
Published: April 2008

The method known as the analysis of interconnected decision areas (AIDA) has been in use for nearly 40 years, but has made little headway into engineering design. This paper describes an implementation of AIDA that is useful to engineering designers wishing to combine the solution principles of various subfunctions within a product in new ways. Traditionally, the method is used to understand how one decision affects the options available to other decisions in a large-scale project. The method is to be used interactively with designers participating in a brainstorming session so that ideas are added to AIDA and immediately combined with other compatible ideas. The existing implementation has been tested in a classroom setting in which upper level undergraduates have successfully used the AIDA method along with numerous of design methods to solve conceptual design problems.
Atoms of EVE′: A Bayesian basis for esthetic analysis of style in sketching
Authors: BURNS KEVIN
Published: April 2008

At its root level, style is actually an esthetic agreement between people. The question is, how can esthetic agreements be modeled and measured in artificial intelligence? This paper offers a formal theory called EVE′ and applies it to a novel test bed of dynamic drawings that combine features of music and sketching. The theory provides mathematical measures of expectations, violations, and explanations, which are argued to be the atomic components of the esthetic experience. The approach employs Bayesian methods to extend information measures proposed in other research. In particular, it is shown that information theory is useful at an entropic level to measure expectations (E) of signals and violations (V) of expectations, but that Bayesian theory is needed at a semantic level to measure explanations (E′) of meaning for the signals. The entropic and semantic measures are then combined in further measures of tension and pleasure at an esthetic level that is actually style.
Shape exploration of designs in a style: Toward generation of product designs
Authors: PRATS M. , EARL C. , GARNER S. , JOWERS I.
Published: April 2008

Generative specifications have been used to systematically codify established styles in several design fields including architecture and product design. We examine how designers explore new designs in the early stages of product development as they manipulate and interpret shape representations. A model of exploration is proposed with four types of shape descriptions (contour, decomposition, structure, and design) and the results of the exploration are presented. Generative rules are used to provide consistent stylistic changes first within a given decomposition and second through changing the structure. Style expresses both the analytical order of explanation and the synthetic complexity of exploration. The model of exploration is consistent with observations of design practice. The application of generative design methods demonstrates a logical pattern for early stage design exploration. The model provides the basis for tools to assist designers in exploring families of designs in a style and for following new interpretations that move the exploration from one family to another.
Creating cross-over vehicles: Defining and combining vehicle classes
using shape grammars
Authors: ORSBORN SETH , CAGAN JONATHAN , PAWLICKI RICHARD , SMITH RANDALL C.
Published: April 2008

In the push for new vehicle designs, the distinctions between vehicle
classes are quickly becoming blurred. We use shape grammars to quantify
the differences between vehicle classes through the application of
class-specific rules and the constraint of rule applications to within
parametric ranges determined for each class. This allows for the
development of new vehicle forms that clearly fall within a class or
purposefully cross over the boundaries of classes and mix rules and ranges
to create unique and interesting cross-over vehicles.
FEMA and the Prospects for Reputation-Based Autonomy
Authors: Roberts Patrick S.
Published: April 2008

Following its 1992 reorganization, the once scandal-ridden and sclerotic Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) experienced a dramatic turnaround. The agency morphed from a caricature of the ills of bureaucracy into a model of effective federal administration. Politicians who previously blamed the agency for its slow and inefficient response to disasters came to depend on the agency to lend credibility to their own efforts. After the agency’s reorganization, politicians at all levels of government purposefully appeared beside FEMA workers. As recently as 2002, FEMA’s reputation was so strong that the designers of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) included FEMA in it to lend prestige to the nascent department. Unlike other agencies so included, FEMA was allowed to keep its name, confirming the cachet of its brand.
Kidnapping and State Development in the United States
Authors: Frydl Kathleen J.
Published: April 2008

A nation-state defending against threats may, in the process, alter itself: some threats cannot be handled by existing political and institutional arrangements. Of course, the dynamic response undertaken to answer external, state-issued threats has been widely noted. Many students of government—if not history—understand wars between nations to be a great catalyst for state development. Interestingly, even non-state and vastly weaker threats can elicit transformative responses.
Intellectuals, Rhetoric, and Context: The Move to Economic Arguments by Conservative Writers
Authors: Smith Mark A.
Published: April 2008

On 7 December 1998, National Review published a short piece by Stephen Moore—one in a continuing stream of articles, reports, and books emerging from the network of conservative media outlets and think tanks. The article ostensibly addressed a then-raging public debate regarding what the Federal Reserve Board could do to keep America’s economy growing, but Moore quickly seized the opportunity to shift attention toward the actions available to Congress and the president. “If there is any single enduring economic lesson of the past twenty years,” Moore observed, “it is that loose monetary policy cannot offset the negative effects of a punitive tax and regulatory regime.” In Moore’s judgment, growing levels of taxation were quickly approaching the danger zone that historically had triggered recessions. A large tax cut “would not just stimulate the U.S. economy, but would serve as an antidote to the global economic crisis.” Those actions should be paired with relieving the domestic regulatory burden on business, for environmental, consumer, and workplace regulations have “a vise grip around the economy.”
Site management at Giza Plateau: master plan for the conservation of the site
Authors: Hawass Z
Published: April 2008

The Giza pyramids, one of the world's most important archaeological sites, are threatened by urban expansion, pollution, conservation challenges, and the pressures of tourism. A critical need exists for effective site management to protect the archaeological riches of this important site. The author describes the implementation of a four-phase management plan initiated in 1988. In the first phase, an organization scheme for the site was prepared. Phase II defined a conservation and archaeological plan for the east side of the Great Pyramid and for the queens' pyramids. Phase III, which is ongoing, will define conservation of the three main pyramids, includes a tourism management plan, and will complete development of a site master plan. Phase IV will outline a program for ongoing archaeological research and conservation. The site management plan for the Giza Plateau provides a model for addressing a wide spectrum of environmental issues affecting archaeological sites.
The poverty of documentary heritage management in Nigeria
Authors: Shyllon F
Published: April 2008

Summary: Nigeria's national archival institution has been an object of neglect since its reluctant establishment in the colonial era to the present time. It was initially headed by a non-archivist on a part time and ad hoc basis, which blighted its prospects. The uniqueness of the National Archives of Nigeria as the nation's unfailing memory and one of the embodiments of its cultural heritage is not appreciated. There is an urgent need to improve radically the infrastructures of the institution, taking advantage of new technologies offered by the information revolution. Lack of democracy and accountability has been the bane of independent Nigeria. There is obviously a link between this state of affairs and the perilous state of the national and other archival institutions in the country. A sound records-management practice is urgently needed to ensure the managerial accountability so vital to good governance.
The Elgin Marbles: matters of fact and opinion
Authors: Boardman J
Published: April 2008

William St. Clair's article in 8 International Journal of Cultural Property 391-521 (1999) raised questions about the cleaning of the Parthenon marbles in London in the 1930s and about Elgin's so-called bribery of Turkish officials. The latter is here dismissed as normal practice. An account is given of the building and purpose of the Parthenon, its history to the end of the eighteenth century, then of the marbles taken to London and of those left in Athens. The cleaning is judged to have been no more than the comparable treatment of marbles in other museums, though vigorous in places, the intention being to make them intelligible to the visiting public, but resulting in no serious loss of detail or academic value. Finally, a personal viewpoint is given of the purposes for which ancient art is conserved, along with criteria for the optimum place of display for collections of cultural property of more than local importance in human history.
War and Cultural Property: The 1954 Hague Convention and the Status of U.S. Ratification
Authors: Colwell–Chanthaphonh Chip , Piper John
Published: April 2008

In May of 1954, the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (Hague Convention) was adopted in an attempt to curb the destruction of movable and immovable cultural property during war. Recent conflicts, such as the continuing war in the Balkans, remind us that the Hague Convention is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. Although this Convention is the most comprehensive and internationally recognized treaty to protect cultural property in time of war, the United States remains one of the few signatories that has yet to ratify it. In January 1999, former President William J. Clinton forwarded the Hague Convention to the Senate with the recommendation that it ratify the Convention and part of Protocol I. Although this presented perhaps the first real opportunity in nearly half a century for the United States to join one hundred countries and ratify the Hague Convention, its fate remains uncertain. Generally oriented towards the United States' policy and practice, this article broadly discusses the Hague Convention, its history, its weaknesses and strengths, and the current status of U.S. ratification.
The Illicit Movement of Underwater Cultural Heritage: The Case of the Dodington Coins
Authors: Forrest Craig J. S. , Gribble John
Published: April 2008

In October 1997 the Times of London announced the sale by
auction of fourteen hundred gold coins that formed part of the hoard
lost by Clive of India when the East Indiaman Dodington was
wrecked in Algoa Bay on July 17, 1755. The wreck and its contents lie
within South African territorial waters and are protected by South
African heritage legislation. Very little gold has ever been reported
recovered, despite ongoing excavations, and only a single permit has
been issued for the export and sale of twenty–one gold coins. This article will consider the legal steps taken to repatriate the coins, and the difficulties encountered when taking such steps before a foreign court. It evaluates the extent to which existing international conventions, including the recently adopted UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, are able to assist states in repatriating stolen or illegally exported underwater cultural heritage.
“For the Greater Glory of Indian Art”: The Life of an Endangered Art Treasure in Modern India
Authors: Guha–Thakurta Tapati
Published: April 2008

The essay narrates the biography of a single art object—acclaimed in recent history as a “masterpiece” of ancient Indian sculpture—to invoke the larger spectrum of practices and discourses that came to constitute the field of art history in modern India. It explores the shifting locations and aesthetic trajectories that marked the transformation of this artifact from a curious archaeological “antiquity” into a national “art-treasure” and icon of Indian femininity, and later even into “a travelling emissary of ancient Indian art and culture.” On the one hand, the spectrum of travels of this object provides an ideal instance for mapping over the twentieth century the changing colonial, national and international stature of Indian art. On the other hand, its career also pointedly reveals the clash of contending claims and the politics of “return” and “restitution” that have attended the nationalization and artistic consecration of many such objects.
Lisanne Gibson and Joanna Besley, Monumental Queensland:
Signposts on a Cultural Landscape
Authors: Lennon Jane L.
Published: April 2008

Lisanne Gibson and Joanna Besley, Monumental Queensland:
Signposts on a Cultural Landscape. Pp. 268. $49.95. St Lucia,
Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2004.

By surveying and documenting outdoor cultural objects, the authors of
this book seek to inform communities about the significance of their
public art objects and to provide a starting point for people to value
such artworks as expressing what is unique about their experience and
understanding of Queensland, Australia (p. 7). However, this begs the
question of public value. People in colonial times (nineteenth century)
gave private subscriptions to have public monuments and memorials erected,
and currently, Queensland has a Public Art Agency whose enabling
legislation makes it mandatory for all public works projects to fund
public art works associated with and integral to new construction, as part
of the “Art Built-In” program. Queenslanders clearly like
monuments!