bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An Architecture for Autonomy
Authors: Alami R. , Chatila R. , Fleury S. , Ghallab M. , Ingrand F. 
Published: March 2007

An autonomous robot offers a challenging and ideal field for the study of intelligent architectures. Autonomy within a rational be havior could be evaluated by the robot's effectiveness and robust ness in carrying out tasks in different and ill-known environments. It raises major requirements on the control architecture. Further more, a robot as a programmable machine brings up other archi tectural needs, such as the ease and quality of its specification and programming. This article describes an integrated architecture that allows a mobile robot to plan its tasks—taking into account temporal and domain constraints, to perform corresponding actions and to con trol their execution in real-time—while being reactive to possible events. The general architecture is composed of three levels: a de cision level, an execution level, and a functional level. The latter is composed of modules that embed the functions achieving sensor- data processing and effector control. The decision level is goal and event driven, and it may have several layers, according to the application; their basic structure is a planner/supervisor pair that enables the architecture to integrate deliberation and reaction. The proposed architecture relies naturally on several representa tions, programming paradigms, and processing approaches, which meet the precise requirements that are specified for each level. The authors have developed proper tools to meet these specifications and implement each level of the architecture: a temporal planner, IxTeT; a procedural system for task refinement and supervision, PRS; Kheops for the reactive control of the functional level, and GenoM for the specification and integration of modules at that level Validation of the temporal and logical properties of the reactive parts of the system, through these tools, are presented. Instances of the proposed architecture have been integrated into several indoor and outdoor robots. Examples from real-world ex perimentations are provided and analyzed.
Field-Dependence/Independence, Movement-Based Instruction and Fourth Graders' Achievement in Selected Musical Tasks
Authors: Schmidt Charles P. , Lewis Barbara E. 
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this study was 1) to examine the effect of psychomotor activities on achievement in temporal discrimination tasks; and, 2) to examine the interaction of this treatment with the cognitive style variable of field dependence/independence (FDI). A one-group pre-test-posttest design was utilized in the study. An intact class (n = 29) of normal fourth graders received eighteen class sessions in which musical concepts pertaining to tempo, meter and rhythm were reinforced through activities involving a psychomotor response. FDI was measured by means of the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT); subjects were classified as field dependent (FD) or field independent (FI) on the basis of a median split of the GEFT. The following standardized tests were used as both pre- and posttests; 1) Music Aptitude Profile (MAP)-Meter; 2) MAP-Tempo; and 3) Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation (IMMA)-Rhythm. Data were analyzed through repeated measures ANOVA procedures. Results indicated that pre- to posttest differences for IMMA-Rhythm and MAP-Meter and interactions with FDI were non-significant. For MAP-Tempo, the pre- to posttest difference and the interaction effect for FDI were statistically significant, with the interaction effect accounting for 15% of the variance.
Private and Public Prisons: A Comparison of Costs, Programs and Facilities
Authors: Sellers Martin P. 
Published: March 2007

This article compares three privately operated prisons with three publicly operated prisons in an effort to learn which is run more efficiently. Through a comparative cost analysis of private and public prisons the author found that the private prisons provided more services at lower cost than their public counterparts. Factors that may have contributed to this include: increased economies when purchasing goods; less bureaucratic red tape; better control over resources; more flexible manpower usage; and the ability to build prisons quickly. The author concluded from the findings of this study that comparative cost analyses and possible future research on the privatization of prisons will support the argument by proponents of prison privatization that private operation ofprisons is a worthwhile endeavor.
Monopoly, Inflation, and Economic Crisis
Authors: Kotz David M. 
Published: March 2007

This paper presents a Marxian theory of inflation under conditions of stagnation in a monopoly capitalist economy. The inadequacy of monetarist and Keynesian explanations of the 1970s inflation is discussed briefly. A more extended critique is offered of two influential non-mainstream theories of inflation, the mark-up pricing theory of inflation and the conflict theory of inflation. Current versions of those theories are shown to rest on the implicit assumption that capital does not pursue the maximum possible profits. A theory of monopoly pricing is developed which rests on the assumption that monopoly capital pursues the highest rate of profit that can be sustained over the long-run. On the basis of this theory of monopoly pricing, it is shown that in a period of prolonged stagnation (such as the 1970s) monopoly sector pricing will set off an inflation process, which is then perpetuated through the interaction of monopoly capital, competitive capital, and the working class. The theory of "crisis inflation" presented in the paper incorporates class conflict and mark-up pricing in a manner that is consistent with profit maximization by capital, thus overcoming a major problem with current inflation theories based on conflict or mark-up pricing. The role played in the inflation process by state interventions, such as corporate bailouts, Keynesian demand management, and central bank monetary expansion, is considered. Possible methods of ending crisis inflation are discussed.
Direct and Indirect ('Reversed') Mirror Phenomena in Group Supervision
Authors: Kutter Peter 
Published: March 2007

Mirror phenomena occur in supervision groups and Balint groups as much as in therapy groups (Behr et al., 1982; Brown, 1988; Zinkin, 1983). They help towards a better understanding of what is revealed verbally in groups and of what takes place on the various unconscious levels of the group process. In addition to direct mirror phenomena, which reflect the unconscious relationship between patient and reporter, there are alienating processes of unresolved conflicts which may be called indirect or `reversed' mirror phenomena. It is necessary to distinguish between the two types of mirror phenomena, since indirect or `reversed' mirror phenomena often interfere with the main goal of the supervision group, namely the understanding of the relationship under supervision.
Forecasting Models for Managing a Changing Inmate Population: Implications for Public Policy
Authors: Heard Chinita A. 
Published: March 2007

Among the most critical public policy issues confronting local, state, and federal officials is the rapid increase in the correctional population. By the end of 1989, a record-breaking 710,054 men and women were imprisoned. Unfortunately, overcrowded institutional conditions have caused an increase in inmate violence, inadequate staffing, and inadequate medical care, especially for the aging prison population. Should these trends continue without appropriate intervention, the economic, social, and medical impacts of managing and operating correctional facilities may be devastating. A secondary analysis of a national data base was conducted in order to make population projections and to determine movement within age groups over time. Discussions of the application of a difference equation model and of subsequent implications for managing correctional facilities are also presented.
Capacity Planning for an Integrated Waste Management System Under Uncertainty: a North American Case Study
Authors: Huang G.H. , Baetz B.W. , Patry G.G. , Terluk V. 
Published: March 2007

In this paper, a grey integer-programming (GIP) formulation for the capacity planning of an integrated waste management system under uncertainty is applied to a North American case study. The GIP model is formulated by introducing concepts of grey systems and grey decisions into a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) framework. The approach has an advantage in that uncertain information (presented as interval numbers) can be effectively communicated into the optimization processes and resulting solutions, such that feasible decision alternatives can be generated through interpretation and analysis of the grey solutions according to projected applicable system conditions. Moreover, the GIP solution algorithm does not lead to more complicated intermediate models, and thus has lower computational re quirements than other integer-programming methods that deal with uncertainties. The proposed model is used for the long-term planning of waste management facility expansion/utilization in the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth (RMHW), Ontario, Canada. The binary decision variables in the model represent the ranges of facility expansion/development alternatives within a multi-period, multi-facility and multi-scale context, and the grey continuous variables represent waste flows along the routes connecting the municipalities and the waste management facilities. The results indicate that reasonable solutions have been generated through this grey mathematical programming approach. The case study results are potentially useful for MSW decision-makers in the RMHW for the long-term planning of the Region's waste management activities and for formulating related local policies/ regulations regarding waste generation and management, and may stimulate the interest of waste management professionals in other jurisdictions on the use of this type of modelling approach for their specific long-range planning applications. © 1997 ISWA
Precise Annual Changes in the Numbers of "Synaptic" Ribbons and Spherules in the Rat Pineal Gland
Authors: Karasek M. , Lewinski A. , Vollrath L. 
Published: March 2007

Although pineal "synaptic" ribbons (SR) are frequently examined by means of quantitative electron microscopy, their functional significance remains unclear. The same is true for related structures—"synaptic" spherules (SPH). In the course of such studies, it has been noted that SR counts may differ from laboratory to laboratory. Because seasonal changes may play a role, a 2-year study was performed on male rats kept under routine laboratory conditions and killed at monthly intervals during daytime or nighttime. Both structures examined showed distinct day-night differences throughout the year, with higher numbers at night than during the day. There were significant annual changes in both SR and SPH during both daytime and nighttime. The comparison of the curves from the 2 years showed that they were virtually identical both during daytime and nighttime. The numbers of SR were the highest in October and the lowest in April; the numbers of SPH had two plateaus, one with lower values from November to April, and the other with higher values from May to October. It appears from the present study that SR and SPH numbers in the rat pineal gland show statistically significant and precisely timed seasonal changes that may well account for the variations of SR numbers in the different publications.
Hemodynamic Predictors for Weaning Patients from Ventricular Assist Devices (VADs)
Authors: Termuhlen David F. , Swartz Marc T. , Ruzevich Shelly A. , Reedy Jane E. , Pennington D. Glenn 
Published: March 2007

In order to find hemodynamic parameters that can accurately predict whether patients can be successfully weaned from ventricular assist de vices (VADs), we studied data from 17 patients supported with Pierce-Donachy VADs [11 left VAD (LVAD); 6 right VAD (RVAD)] following cardiogenic shock for periods from 1.3 to 22 days (mean 5.4). Myocardial recovery was determined by daily measurements of "pump on pump off" parameters, and the data from the 8 LVAD patients and 3 RVAD patients whose hearts recovered were compared to the data from those whose did not. In this study, daily pump on pump off hemodynamic measurements were found to be predictive of success for weaning patients from VADs. In particular, the most significant predictors were: increases in mixed venous oxygen satura tion, cardiac index, mean arterial pressure and ventricular ejection fraction, as well as decreases in atrial pressures. An index for measuring hemodynamic function with the VAD off is proposed, as are models of recovery. Seventy per cent of the patients weaned from VADs survived, indicating that patients ap propriately weaned from VAD support have a reasonable chance for survival.
Engineering in the Age of Innocence: a Genealogy of Discourse Inside the Czechoslovak Writers' Union, 1949-67
Authors: Shore Marci 
Published: March 2007

And so it happened that in February 1948 the Communists took power not in bloodshed and violence, but to the cheers of about half the population. And please note: the half that cheered was the more dynamic, the more intelligent, the better half. Milan Kundera
Dependency by Way of Rejection
Authors: Földényi László 
Published: March 2007

Let us not speak ill of Nationalism. Without the nationalist virulence, a technical, rational, uniform imperium would rule over Europe and the world... Nationalism was the final tension of the individual in the face of the gray death, which awaited his own. And yet: The rise of nationalism in every nation points to the fact that its originality is about to expire. Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Working Women, Maternity Entitlements, and Breastfeeding: A Report from Bangladesh
Authors: Haider Rukhsana , Begum Syeeda 
Published: March 2007

Early infant feeding practices and facilities available for supporting breastfeeding in workplaces in Dhaka, Bangladesh were studied through interviews with working women (n=238) with children younger than 30 months of age. Of the women interviewed, 20 percent were aware of the benefits of, and had exclusively breastfed in the first month, 13 percent in the second month, and two percent in the fifth month of employment. The median age of starting complementary feeds was 41 days (range, 1210) preparatory to resuming work. Total duration of breastfeeding was significantly shorter in mothers who had started these feeds before 41 days of age as compared to those who started later (meanSD) 275 216 days versus 361 223 days (p=0.003). Ninetynine percent of the mothers were unaware of their maternity entitlements, and only 20 percent had taken breaks for breastfeeding, those breaks being treated as "unofficial." Working women should be informed through health personnel and communication media, about the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding and about maternity entitlements. Provision of facilities to support breastfeeding in the workplace must also be encouraged so that maternal employment does not hamper breastfeeding.
LDF™ Thermoplastic Composites Technology
Authors: Chang Ike Y. , Pratte James F. 
Published: March 2007

Recent developments of the innovative LDF™ thermoplastic composites technology are reviewed with emphasis on discussion of the technology's fundamental basis and composites' property performance. The proprietary technology employs reinforce ment of long, aligned discontinuous fibers including carbon, Kevlar® or glass. Fabrication processes such as stretch forming and press forming can be employed in fabrication of LDF™ composite parts. The LDF™ composites technology is cost effective for manu facturing complex-shaped parts of aerospace structures. LDF™ composites show ex cellent mechanical properties comparable to that of the continuous fiber reinforced counterpart, since the reinforcing long fibers with thermoplastic matrix are well aligned. Mechanical test results with various LDF™ composites confirm the fundamental theory for non-continuous fiber reinforcement describing critical fiber length necessary to achieve efficient average stress transfer in a composite. The mechanical and other relevant property data are discussed for performance compar ison of LDF™ AS-4/PEKK or Kevlar®/PEKK composite material systems relative to the matched continuous fiber reinforced composites. Potential application of LDF™ ther moplastic composites technology for high performance aerospace structural parts are discussed with demonstration of thermoplastic wing ribs fabricated for V-22 tiltrotor air craft.
Media and Information Technology: The Day Kennedy Died... and After
Authors: Tresilian Nicholas 
Published: March 2007

First the industrial revolution mechanized work, then it mechanized leisure. Even more than the factory regime by day, which cast people as the analogues of machines, analogue TV in the home every evening and at weekends synchronized and massified personal time. The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 registered this phenomenon on a global scale. Still, even as we have been adapting our sense of shared time to the time-compactness of the global village, fissiparous forces have been at work to undermine this new community. Digital technology is the splitting factor, the implications of which are the central concern of this paper. Digital technology has already changed media production and distribution, prompting the emergence of multinational corporations seeking global market share in both hardware and software, but also allowing a greater diversity of smaller creative organizations into the world marketplace to service the media giants. Digital distribution is now radically altering the nature of media consumption: multiplying the available channels to the consumer, facilitating the targeting of niche markets, and combining video and computer technology in multimedia so as to introduce interactivity. For the consumer, the first effect of the incoming digital technology has been to multiply passive choice - fragmenting the mediasphere, but not yet undermining its mechanistic character. In the longer term, digital technology has the potential to return to the viewer the capability to construct his or her own personal time, primarily through the planning and execution of programmes of personal activity using the same video screen (now with keyboard attached), once the altar of passive media consumption in the home. In the shift from analogue to digital technology in media, we may be seeing a paradigm for a more general shift from the division of labour characteristic of the industrial phase of work to its re-integration in the work of the post-industrial world.
The Uruguayan Basic Scientists' Migrations and Their Academic Articulation around the PEDECIBA
Authors: Barreiro Adriana , Velho Léa 
Published: March 2007

The so-called 'Programa de Desarrollo de las Ciencias Basicas-PEDECIBA' (Basic Science Development Programme) was launched in Uruguay at the end of the 1980s in order to make possible the rearticulation of the local basic scientists' academic community. The whole system of science and technology was highly affected by thirteen years of military dictatorship. One of the main objectives of the basic science community, during the redemocratisation process, was to create the conditions for the consolidation of a permanent infrastructure for the development of basic sciences, namely, Biology, Chemistry, Information and Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics. One of the basic conditions in order to attain that goal was the repatriation of a great number of the Uruguayan scientists who had left the country during the 1970s. It is important to point out that Uruguayan scientists who lived abroad had expressed a desire to return to their country, and to collaborate with their peers who had remained in Uruguay to develop a collective and self-managed effort. In this paper migration waves observed within the Latin American scientific community and those related to the exodus and return of Uruguayan basic scientists are discussed; exploring the reasons, motives and assumptions underlying the return of scientists. Furthermore, some data are presented to help understand PEDECIBA's significance both in terms of the rearticulation of the knowledge generation system and in the reconstruction of the basic sciences' environment.
Bringing in the Strategy
Authors: Ollikainen Aaro 
Published: March 2007

Since 1996 the European Union's Socrates/Erasmus programme has employed a new administrative system based on the Institutional Contract (IC). The application of the IC includes a three-page European Policy Statement, the purpose of which is to make the actual application of the IC intelligible and to serve as a "brochure", that sketches out the strengths and areas of special expertise of the higher education institution. In this article, the European Policy Statements of the 93 Finnish Socrates IC applications on the first application round based on the Institutional Contract (deadline 1st July 1996) are examined. Answers to the following research questions are sought: What are the underlying rationales for the internationalisation of higher education institutions within the framework of their Socrates strategies? What combination of international activities do these institutions wish to exercise? Do they advance internationalism on all fields of study, or are there certain prioritisations? How much institutional support is given to internationalisation? How much emphasis is given to certain topical and potentially sensitive issues (gender equality and disabled students)? How is internationalisation monitored and evaluated? Most of the higher education institutions had succeeded in compiling a coherent European Policy Statement - although they had employed different strategies of self-profiling. The universities operating in the metropolitan area underlined their national significance for Finnish science, culture and industry and for their recognition abroad. Universities, polytechnics and vocational colleges operating in peripheral regions underlined their importance for the local export industry, local economy and the community in general. Throughout the field of Finnish higher education institutions, the most important rationale for internationalisation was the enhancement of the quality of education. The second most prominent rationale was economic: improving the professional abilities and the labour market prospects of the students and thus supporting the regional or national economy. The third most prominent rationale made reference to developing the cultural communication capabilities and the personal profile of students. The political rationale of supporting peaceful international relations and a deeper integration of Finland into the European Union was mentioned only occasionally. There was also a clear order of priorities among the measures to be developed. Student exchange is the cornerstone of international cooperation and is pursued by practically all institutions. Teacher exchange is also very popular and seems to benefit from contacts initially established for student exchange. Implementation of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) forms a natural and necessary supplement to exchanges. Curriculum development and intensive programmes, on the other hand, were present in fewer strategies.