Discriminants and Functional Equations for Polynomials Orthogonal on the Unit Circle

We derive raising and lowering operators for orthogonal polynomials on the unit circle and find second order differential and $q$-difference equations for these polynomials. A general functional equation is found which allows one to relate the zeros of the orthogonal polynomials to the stationary values of an explicit quasi-energy and implies recurrences on the orthogonal polynomial coefficients. We also evaluate the discriminants and quantized discriminants of polynomials orthogonal on the unit circle.Comment: 27 pages, Latex2e plus AMS packages Fix to Eqs. (2.72) and (2.74

Prediction of heat transfer from laminar boundary layers, with emphasis on large free- stream velocity gradients and highly cooled walls

Prediction of heat transfer and shear stress from laminar boundary laye

Toward a Group Facilitation Technique for Project Teams

This article presents the development of a group facilitation technique (PROMOD — Procedural Moderation). The author points toward the importance of integrating theoretical assumptions, theory testing and basic empirical research with practical application. The results are based on the observation of various three-member task groups faced with a complex non-heureka problem. These comprise naturally interacting groups, simple arithmetic assembled groups of individuals without any interaction (synthetic groups), and groups in which a group technique of reduced interaction which focuses on individual contribution through facilitated knowledge elicitation is applied.The task involves decisions on what to do after a plane crash and ranking objects with regard to their importance for survival in an alarming situation (Lafferty & Pond, 1974). The group decision quality is determined by relating to conclusions reached by an independent expert. Results indicate that the observed teams performed best when the PROMOD procedure was applied

Group performance: a confrontation of a proximate with an ultimate evaluation

"In this article, two scientific approaches are conjoined: Small group research and evolutionary theory. In the past 50 years, small group researchers have identified various deficits in group performance. Presently, how to improve group interaction is a focal point of their work. Meanwhile, social psychologists are paying more attention to evolutionary theory, and process losses in group performance may be evaluated differently from such a perspective. It appears that proximate performance losses could mean ultimate gains for the individual. A reduction in group performance should therefore be anticipated from a proximate perspective, because it represents an individual selection advantage from the ultimate view. As a means of intervention, group facilitation techniques are the key to proximate gains in group processes."[auathor´s abstract

Semantic Image Retrieval via Active Grounding of Visual Situations

We describe a novel architecture for semantic image retrieval---in particular, retrieval of instances of visual situations. Visual situations are concepts such as "a boxing match," "walking the dog," "a crowd waiting for a bus," or "a game of ping-pong," whose instantiations in images are linked more by their common spatial and semantic structure than by low-level visual similarity. Given a query situation description, our architecture---called Situate---learns models capturing the visual features of expected objects as well the expected spatial configuration of relationships among objects. Given a new image, Situate uses these models in an attempt to ground (i.e., to create a bounding box locating) each expected component of the situation in the image via an active search procedure. Situate uses the resulting grounding to compute a score indicating the degree to which the new image is judged to contain an instance of the situation. Such scores can be used to rank images in a collection as part of a retrieval system. In the preliminary study described here, we demonstrate the promise of this system by comparing Situate's performance with that of two baseline methods, as well as with a related semantic image-retrieval system based on "scene graphs.