1,606 research outputs found
An Improved Bound for First-Fit on Posets Without Two Long Incomparable Chains
It is known that the First-Fit algorithm for partitioning a poset P into
chains uses relatively few chains when P does not have two incomparable chains
each of size k. In particular, if P has width w then Bosek, Krawczyk, and
Szczypka (SIAM J. Discrete Math., 23(4):1992--1999, 2010) proved an upper bound
of ckw^{2} on the number of chains used by First-Fit for some constant c, while
Joret and Milans (Order, 28(3):455--464, 2011) gave one of ck^{2}w. In this
paper we prove an upper bound of the form ckw. This is best possible up to the
value of c.Comment: v3: referees' comments incorporate
STS in management education: connecting theory and practice
This paper explores the value of science and technology studies (STS) to management education. The work draws on an ethnographic study of second year management undergraduates studying decision making. The nature and delivery of the decision making module is outlined and the value of STS is demonstrated in terms of both teaching method and module content. Three particular STS contributions are identified and described: the social construction of technological systems; actor network theory; and ontological politics. Affordances and sensibilities are identified for each contribution and a discussion is developed that illustrates how these versions of STS are put to use in management education. It is concluded that STS has a pivotal role to play in critical management (education) and in the process offers opportunities for new forms of managin
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Understanding the social inclusion needs of people living in mental health supported accommodation.
OBJECTIVES: To identify the social inclusion needs that were (i) most commonly identified and (ii) most and least commonly prioritised as support planning goals for mental health service users living in supported accommodation, using the online Social Inclusion Questionnaire User Experience (SInQUE). We qualitatively examined mental health supported accommodation staff and servicer users' views on barriers to offering support with two less commonly prioritised areas: help finding a partner and feeling less lonely. METHODS: Anonymous SInQUE data were collected during a completed study in which we developed and tested the online SInQUE. Four focus groups were conducted with mental health supported accommodation staff (N = 2) and service users (N = 2). RESULTS: The most common social inclusion needs identified by service users (N = 31) were leisure activities, finding transport options, and feeling less lonely. Of the needs identified, those that service users and staff least frequently prioritised as support planning goals were having company at mealtimes, getting one's own furniture, feeling less lonely, help with finances, and help finding a partner. In the focus groups, staff and service users identified barriers to helping with loneliness and finding a partner which related to staff and service users themselves, supported accommodation services, and wider societal factors
Vertex Cover Kernelization Revisited: Upper and Lower Bounds for a Refined Parameter
An important result in the study of polynomial-time preprocessing shows that
there is an algorithm which given an instance (G,k) of Vertex Cover outputs an
equivalent instance (G',k') in polynomial time with the guarantee that G' has
at most 2k' vertices (and thus O((k')^2) edges) with k' <= k. Using the
terminology of parameterized complexity we say that k-Vertex Cover has a kernel
with 2k vertices. There is complexity-theoretic evidence that both 2k vertices
and Theta(k^2) edges are optimal for the kernel size. In this paper we consider
the Vertex Cover problem with a different parameter, the size fvs(G) of a
minimum feedback vertex set for G. This refined parameter is structurally
smaller than the parameter k associated to the vertex covering number vc(G)
since fvs(G) <= vc(G) and the difference can be arbitrarily large. We give a
kernel for Vertex Cover with a number of vertices that is cubic in fvs(G): an
instance (G,X,k) of Vertex Cover, where X is a feedback vertex set for G, can
be transformed in polynomial time into an equivalent instance (G',X',k') such
that |V(G')| <= 2k and |V(G')| <= O(|X'|^3). A similar result holds when the
feedback vertex set X is not given along with the input. In sharp contrast we
show that the Weighted Vertex Cover problem does not have a polynomial kernel
when parameterized by the cardinality of a given vertex cover of the graph
unless NP is in coNP/poly and the polynomial hierarchy collapses to the third
level.Comment: Published in "Theory of Computing Systems" as an Open Access
publicatio
Parameterized Edge Hamiltonicity
We study the parameterized complexity of the classical Edge Hamiltonian Path
problem and give several fixed-parameter tractability results. First, we settle
an open question of Demaine et al. by showing that Edge Hamiltonian Path is FPT
parameterized by vertex cover, and that it also admits a cubic kernel. We then
show fixed-parameter tractability even for a generalization of the problem to
arbitrary hypergraphs, parameterized by the size of a (supplied) hitting set.
We also consider the problem parameterized by treewidth or clique-width.
Surprisingly, we show that the problem is FPT for both of these standard
parameters, in contrast to its vertex version, which is W-hard for
clique-width. Our technique, which may be of independent interest, relies on a
structural characterization of clique-width in terms of treewidth and complete
bipartite subgraphs due to Gurski and Wanke
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A Web-Based Tool to Assess Social Inclusion and Support Care Planning in Mental Health Supported Accommodation: Development and Preliminary Test Study.
BACKGROUND: Individuals with severe mental illness living in supported accommodation are often socially excluded. Social inclusion is an important aspect of recovery-based practice and quality of life. The Social Inclusion Questionnaire User Experience (SInQUE) is a measure of social inclusion that has been validated for use with people with mental health problems. Previous research has suggested that the SInQUE could also help support care planning focused on enabling social inclusion in routine mental health practice. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop a web-based version of the SInQUE for use in mental health supported accommodation services, examine its acceptability and perceived usefulness as a tool to support care planning with service users, determine the extent of uptake of the tool in supported accommodation settings, and develop a program theory and logic model for the online SInQUE. METHODS: This study involved a laboratory-testing stage to assess the acceptability of the SInQUE tool through "think-aloud" testing with 6 supported accommodation staff members and a field-testing stage to assess the acceptability, utility, and use of the SInQUE tool over a 5-month period. An implementation strategy was used in 1 London borough to encourage the use of the SInQUE. Qualitative interviews with 12 service users and 12 staff members who used the tool were conducted and analyzed using thematic analysis. The use of the SInQUE was compared with that in 2 other local authority areas, 1 urban and 1 rural, where the tool was made available for use but no implementation strategy was used. RESULTS: Overall, 17 staff members used the SInQUE with 28 different service users during the implementation period (approximately 10% of all service users living in supported accommodation in the study area). The staff and service users interviewed felt that the SInQUE was collaborative, comprehensive, user-friendly, and relevant. Although some staff were concerned that particular questions might be too personal, service users did not echo this view. Participants generally felt that the SInQUE could help identify individuals' priorities regarding different aspects of social inclusion by prompting in-depth conversations and tailoring specific support to address service users' inclusion goals. Some interviewees also suggested that the tool could highlight areas of unmet or unmeetable needs across the borough that could feed into service planning. The SInQUE was not used in the comparison areas that had no implementation strategy. CONCLUSIONS: The online SInQUE is an acceptable and potentially useful tool that can be recommended to assess and support care planning to enable social inclusion of people living in mental health supported accommodation services. Despite this, uptake rates were modest during the study period. A concerted implementation strategy is key to embedding its use in usual care, including proactive endorsement by senior leaders and service managers
Network Physiology reveals relations between network topology and physiological function
The human organism is an integrated network where complex physiologic
systems, each with its own regulatory mechanisms, continuously interact, and
where failure of one system can trigger a breakdown of the entire network.
Identifying and quantifying dynamical networks of diverse systems with
different types of interactions is a challenge. Here, we develop a framework to
probe interactions among diverse systems, and we identify a physiologic
network. We find that each physiologic state is characterized by a specific
network structure, demonstrating a robust interplay between network topology
and function. Across physiologic states the network undergoes topological
transitions associated with fast reorganization of physiologic interactions on
time scales of a few minutes, indicating high network flexibility in response
to perturbations. The proposed system-wide integrative approach may facilitate
the development of a new field, Network Physiology.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure
First-light LBT nulling interferometric observations: warm exozodiacal dust resolved within a few AU of eta Corvi
We report on the first nulling interferometric observations with the Large
Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI), resolving the N' band (9.81 - 12.41
um) emission around the nearby main-sequence star eta Crv (F2V, 1-2 Gyr). The
measured source null depth amounts to 4.40% +/- 0.35% over a field-of-view of
140 mas in radius (~2.6\,AU at the distance of eta Corvi) and shows no
significant variation over 35{\deg} of sky rotation. This relatively low null
is unexpected given the total disk to star flux ratio measured by Spitzer/IRS
(~23% across the N' band), suggesting that a significant fraction of the dust
lies within the central nulled response of the LBTI (79 mas or 1.4 AU).
Modeling of the warm disk shows that it cannot resemble a scaled version of the
Solar zodiacal cloud, unless it is almost perpendicular to the outer disk
imaged by Herschel. It is more likely that the inner and outer disks are
coplanar and the warm dust is located at a distance of 0.5-1.0 AU,
significantly closer than previously predicted by models of the IRS spectrum
(~3 AU). The predicted disk sizes can be reconciled if the warm disk is not
centrosymmetric, or if the dust particles are dominated by very small grains.
Both possibilities hint that a recent collision has produced much of the dust.
Finally, we discuss the implications for the presence of dust at the distance
where the insolation is the same as Earth's (2.3 AU).Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
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