Examination of accelerated first order methods for aircraft flight path optimization

Accelerated first order methods for aircraft flight path optimizatio

Recent Developments in Robocasting of Ceramics and Multimaterial Deposition

Robocasting is a freeform fabrication technique for dense ceramics and composites that is based on layer-wise deposition of highly loaded colloidalslurries. The process is essentially binderless with less than 1% organics and parts can be fabricated, dried, and completely sintered in less than 24 hours. This overview will highlight recent materials developments for structural applications and modelling of slurry flow. Fabrication of preforms for alumina/metal composites will be discussed as well as techniques for multimaterial deposition in both graded structures and discrete placement of fugitive materials.Mechanical Engineerin

Computerizing Social-Emotional Assessment for School Readiness: First Steps toward an Assessment Battery for Early Childhood Settings

The transition into formal schooling is a crucial foundation that can set children on a cycle of success or failure in both academic and social domains. A child’s abilities to express healthy emotions, understand emotions of self and others, regulate emotion, attention, and behavior, make good decisions regarding social problems, and engage in a range of prosocial behaviors, all work together to promote a successful school experience. However, many children have deficits in these skills by school entry, and educators lack the requisite tools to identify, track and assess skills these children need to learn. Thus, because social-emotional learning (SEL) is so crucial, assessment tools to pinpoint children’s skills and progress are vitally necessary. Previous work by the authors and other researchers has led to the development of strong assessment tools; however, these tools are often developed solely for research use, not practitioner application. In the following, using our assessment battery as an example, we will discuss the steps necessary to adapt SEL assessment for computer-based administration and optimal utility in early childhood education programs

Our gift to all of Us: GA(Y)AM: Preface

This special issue of AVANT is all about Cognitive Innovation. It is not about CogNovo, the interdisciplinary and international doctoral training programme that produced three different Off the Lip events. It is not about Off the Lip 2017, the novel symposium format we developed to collaboratively create a publication resulting in this special issue of AVANT. It is not about the seemingly heterogeneous collection of papers that follow this preface. Collaborative Approaches to Cognitive Innovation required something else, something we are starting to capture in the four GIFT principles. While this special issue is not solely about CogNovo, Off the Lip events, or the content of the following submissions, all these aforementioned elements were necessary to shape our current understanding of Cognitive Innovation, the very process which led to numerous publications, exhibitions, and events during the past three years. In a sense, all of our previous endeavours have culminated in this collection of 26 distinct pieces of work, yet we hope and believe that this special issue also marks a beginning. Let us explain. [...

Career-computer simulation increases perceived importance of learning about rare diseases

Background: Rare diseases may be defined as occurring in less than 1 in 2000 patients. Such conditions are, however, so numerous that up to 5.9% of the population is afflicted by a rare disease. The gambling industry attests that few people have native skill evaluating probabilities. We believe that both students and academics, under-estimate the likelihood of encountering rare diseases. This combines with pressure on curriculum time, to reduce both student interest in studying rare diseases, and academic content preparing students for clinical practice. Underestimation of rare diseases, may also contribute to unhelpful blindness to considering such conditions in the clinic. Methods: We first developed a computer simulation, modelling the number of cases of increasingly rare conditions encountered by a cohort of clinicians. The simulation captured results for each year of practice, and for each clinician throughout the entirety of their careers. Four hundred sixty-two theoretical conditions were considered, with prevalence ranging from 1 per million people through to 64.1% of the population. We then delivered a class with two in-class on-line surveys evaluating student perception of the importance of learning about rare diseases, one before and the other after an in-class real-time computer simulation. Key simulation variables were drawn from the student group, to help students project themselves into the simulation. Results: The in-class computer simulation revealed that all graduating clinicians from that class would frequently encounter rare conditions. Comparison of results of the in-class survey conducted before and after the computer simulation, revealed a significant increase in the perceived importance of learning about rare diseases (p < 0.005). Conclusions: The computer career simulation appeared to affect student perception. Because the computer simulation demonstrated clinicians frequently encounter patients with rare diseases, we further suggest this should be considered by academics during curriculum review and design

Choosing party leaders: Anglophone democracies, British parties and the limits of comparative politics

Since 1965, Britain’s major political parties have radically, and repeatedly, changed the ways in which they choose their leaders. Building on a recent comparative study of party leadership selection in the five principal Anglophone (‘Westminster’) parliamentary democracies (Cross and Blais, 2012a), this article first outlines a theoretical framework that purports to explain why the major parties in three of those countries, including Britain, have adopted such reform. It then examines why five major British parties have done so since 1965. It argues that, while Cross and Blais’ study makes a significant contribution to our knowledge and understanding of processes of party leadership selection reform in Anglophone parliamentary democracies, it has limited explanatory power when applied to changes enacted by the major parties in modern and contemporary Britain. Instead, the adoption of such reform in the British context is ultimately best understood and explained by examining both the internal politics and external circumstances of individual parties

Characterizing normal crossing hypersurfaces

The objective of this article is to give an effective algebraic characterization of normal crossing hypersurfaces in complex manifolds. It is shown that a hypersurface has normal crossings if and only if it is a free divisor, has a radical Jacobian ideal and a smooth normalization. Using K. Saito's theory of free divisors, also a characterization in terms of logarithmic differential forms and vector fields is found and and finally another one in terms of the logarithmic residue using recent results of M. Granger and M. Schulze.Comment: v2: typos fixed, final version to appear in Math. Ann.; 24 pages, 2 figure

Chamber basis of the Orlik-Solomon algebra and Aomoto complex

We introduce a basis of the Orlik-Solomon algebra labeled by chambers, so called chamber basis. We consider structure constants of the Orlik-Solomon algebra with respect to the chamber basis and prove that these structure constants recover D. Cohen's minimal complex from the Aomoto complex.Comment: 16 page

Around the tangent cone theorem

A cornerstone of the theory of cohomology jump loci is the Tangent Cone theorem, which relates the behavior around the origin of the characteristic and resonance varieties of a space. We revisit this theorem, in both the algebraic setting provided by cdga models, and in the topological setting provided by fundamental groups and cohomology rings. The general theory is illustrated with several classes of examples from geometry and topology: smooth quasi-projective varieties, complex hyperplane arrangements and their Milnor fibers, configuration spaces, and elliptic arrangements.Comment: 39 pages; to appear in the proceedings of the Configurations Spaces Conference (Cortona 2014), Springer INdAM serie