Genus Ranges of Chord Diagrams

A chord diagram consists of a circle, called the backbone, with line segments, called chords, whose endpoints are attached to distinct points on the circle. The genus of a chord diagram is the genus of the orientable surface obtained by thickening the backbone to an annulus and attaching bands to the inner boundary circle at the ends of each chord. Variations of this construction are considered here, where bands are possibly attached to the outer boundary circle of the annulus. The genus range of a chord diagram is the genus values over all such variations of surfaces thus obtained from a given chord diagram. Genus ranges of chord diagrams for a fixed number of chords are studied. Integer intervals that can, and cannot, be realized as genus ranges are investigated. Computer calculations are presented, and play a key role in discovering and proving the properties of genus ranges.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

An Investigation into the Pedagogical Features of Documents

Characterizing the content of a technical document in terms of its learning utility can be useful for applications related to education, such as generating reading lists from large collections of documents. We refer to this learning utility as the "pedagogical value" of the document to the learner. While pedagogical value is an important concept that has been studied extensively within the education domain, there has been little work exploring it from a computational, i.e., natural language processing (NLP), perspective. To allow a computational exploration of this concept, we introduce the notion of "pedagogical roles" of documents (e.g., Tutorial and Survey) as an intermediary component for the study of pedagogical value. Given the lack of available corpora for our exploration, we create the first annotated corpus of pedagogical roles and use it to test baseline techniques for automatic prediction of such roles.Comment: 12th Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (BEA) at EMNLP 2017; 12 page

'Thin partitions'

No Abstrac

On the Limits of Culture: Why Biology is Important in the Study of Victorian Sexuality

Much recent scholarship in Victorian studies has viewed sexuality as historically contingent and constructed primarily within the realm of discourse or social organization. In contrast, the following study details species-typical and universal aspects of human sexuality that must be adequately theorized if an accurate model of the ideological forces impacting Victorian sexuality is to be fashioned. After a short survey of previous scholarly projects that examine literature through the lens of biology—much of it marred by an obvious antipathy toward all attempts to discover the involvement of ideology in human behavior—this study presents a lengthy primer to the modern study of evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, and human sexuality. Because the use of science is still relatively rare in literary studies, the first chapters are designed both to convince the reader of the necessity of considering biology and evolution in examining human sexuality, as well as to provide the general educated scholar in our field with the basic framework of knowledge necessary to follow the remainder of the text. Chapter three follows with a detailed examination of the sources of the political resistance to biological and genetic models of human behavior within liberal arts and social science departments, and chapter four presents an evolutionary and biochemical model for the apprehension of art that locates the origins of culture within the evolutionarily-fashioned brains of individuals and attempts to recuperate the concept of aesthetic emotion and foreground the special nature of erotica in its ability to produce immediate neurochemical effects in the brains of its consumers. Finally, the study examines works of Victorian literature, especially My Secret Life, to demonstrate the deficiencies in constructionist and interactionist theories of human sexuality while detailing the new readings that emerge when one is aware of the biological basis of human mate selection mechanisms

Development and characterisation of a fibre-optic acoustic emission sensor

A requirement for online monitoring has emerged owing to the susceptibility of fibre reinforced composite materials to sub-surface damage. Acoustic emission (AE) monitoring is understood to detect damage well before catastrophic failure; research in AE sensing therefore continues to attract significant attention. The research presented herein provides a review of a fibre-optic-based AE sensor design. Developmental work was performed to evaluate both sensor fabrication and packaging-related issues. The characteristics of the sensor were found to be influenced by: (i) the type of optical fibre used for fabrication; and (ii) preparation of optical fibres prior to sensor fabrication. The use of a small-diameter packaging substrate revealed improvements in sensor performance. The fibre-optic AE sensor was successfully embedded in a uni-directional composite laminate that was fabricated using autoclave processing. The embedded fibre-optic sensor was found to provide higher sensitivity to simulated AE compared with a surface-mounted sensor. Sensor characterisation trials were performed using simulated AE; a low directional sensitivity was observed. Modal analysis revealed a preferential sensitivity to the A0 wavemode; this sensor design may therefore be suited to the detection of delamination in FRCs. Finally, the sensor was shown to successfully detect interlaminar crack propagation under Mode-I loading

Social and ethical implications of psychiatric classification for low- and middle-income countries

With the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 5th edition, and the ongoing revision of the International Classification of Diseases, currently 10th edition, it is timely to consider the wider societal implications of evolving psychiatric classification, especially within low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).  The author reviewed developments in psychiatric classification, especially the move from categorical to dimensional approaches based on biobehavioural phenotypes. While research supports this move, there are several important associated ethical challenges. Dimensional classification runs the risk of ‘medicalising’ a range of normality; the broadening of some definitions and the introduction of new disorders means more people are likely to attract psychiatric diagnoses. Many LMICs do not have the political, social, legal and economic systems to protect individuals in society from the excesses of medicalisation, thus potentially rendering more citizens vulnerable to forms of stigma, exploitation and abuse, conducted in the name of medicine and psychiatry. Excessive medicalisation within such contexts is also likely to worsen existing disparities in healthcare and widen the treatment gap, as inappropriate diagnosis and treatment of mildly ill or essentially normal people has an impact on health budgets and resources, leading to relative neglect of those with genuine, severe psychiatric disorders.  In an era of evolving psychiatric classification, those concerned for, and involved in, global mental health should be critically self-reflective of all aspects of the modern psychiatric paradigm, especially changes in classification systems, and should alert the global profession to the sociopolitical, economic and cultural implications of changing nosology for LMIC regions of the world