Making grammars: From computing with shapes to computing with things

Recent interest in making and materiality spans from the humanities and social sciences to engineering, science, and design. Here, we consider making through the lens of a unique computational theory of design: shape grammars. We propose a computational theory of making based on the improvisational, perception and action approach of shape grammars and the shape algebras that support them. We modify algebras for the materials (basic elements) of shapes to define algebras for the materials of objects, or things. Then we adapt shape grammars for computing shapes to making grammars for computing things. We give examples of making grammars and their algebras. We conclude by reframing designing and making in light of our computational theory of making

EXTENSION EDUCATORS' SUPPLY OF RISK MANAGEMENT TRAINING TO FARMERS

A univariate Tobit model of extension educators' provision of risk management educational training was conducted in Mississippi, Texas, Indiana, and Nebraska. A complementary relationship exists between percent of time devoted to agricultural responsibilities and the provision of risk management training courses. The results indicate that, as extension educators perceive farmers to be more knowledgeable of risk management tools, their provision of risk management education decreases. On the other hand, the provision of risk management courses increase as extension educators perceive themselves as being more knowledgeable on the use of risk management tools.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Extension Educators\u27 Perceptions of Risk Management Training Needs

Risk management is a key issue for farmers and also receives significant national and local political attention. Because much of the outreach in this area is delivered through the Cooperative Extension Service, research on how Extension educators perceive their clients\u27 needs and their own demand for additional training is important for educational programming. The Risk Management Agency (RMA) and the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiated a risk management education competitive grants program during 1998. The information reported here is partial output from one of the surveys conducted by the Understanding Farmer Risk Management Decision Making and Educational Needs project (Coble, Knight, Patrick, & Baquet, 1999; Patrick, Coble, Knight, & Baquet, 2000; Vergara, Coble, Knight, Patrick, & Baquet, 2001). Institutions participating in the project are Mississippi State University, Purdue University, University of Nebraska, and Texas A&M University

Chronicles of Oklahoma

Notes and Documents, Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume 44, Number 3, Fall 1966. It includes correspondence, biographical sketches, a report from the Oklahoma State University Department of History, and an announcement about the sale of rare books

Dose-dependent effects of Allopurinol on human foreskin fibroblast cell and human umbilical vein endothelial cell under hypoxia

Allopurinol, an inhibitor of xanthine oxidase, has been used in clinical trials of patients with cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease. These are two pathologies with extensive links to hypoxia and activation of the transcription factor hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) family. Here we analysed the effects of allopurinol treatment in two different cellular models, and their response to hypoxia. We explored the dose-dependent effect of allopurinol on Human Foreskin Fibroblasts (HFF) and Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVEC) under hypoxia and normoxia. Under normoxia and hypoxia, high dose allopurinol reduced the accumulation of HIF-1α protein in HFF and HUVEC cells. Allopurinol had only marginal effects on HIF-1α mRNA level in both cellular systems. Interestingly, allopurinol effects over the HIF system were independent of prolyl-hydroxylase activity. Finally, allopurinol treatment reduced angiogenesis traits in HUVEC cells in an in vitro model. Taken together these results indicate that high doses of allopurinol inhibits the HIF system and pro-angiogenic traits in cells

Compression of picosecond optical pulses in tapered hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber

International audienceWe demonstrate nonlinear compression of 2.5ps and 1.2ps laser pulses at 800nm wavelength using a 35m tapered hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber with continuously decreasing dispersio

Quantifying T2 relaxation time changes within lesions defined by apparent diffusion coefficient in grey and white matter in acute stroke patients

The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of cerebral water, as measured by diffusion MRI, rapidly decreases in ischaemia, highlighting a lesion in acute stroke patients. The MRI T 2 relaxation time changes in ischaemic brain such that T 2 in ADC lesions may be informative of the extent of tissue damage, potentially aiding in stratification for treatment. We have developed a novel user-unbiased method of determining the changes in T 2 in ADC lesions as a function of clinical symptom duration based on voxel-wise referencing to a contralateral brain volume. The spherical reference method calculates the most probable pre-ischaemic T 2 on a voxel-wise basis, making use of features of the contralateral hemisphere presumed to be largely unaffected. We studied whether T 2 changes in the two main cerebral tissue types, i.e. in grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM), would differ in stroke. Thirty-eight acute stroke patients were accrued within 9 h of symptom onset and scanned at 3 T for 3D T 1-weighted, multi b-value diffusion and multi-echo spin echo MRI for tissue type segmentation, quantitative ADC and absolute T 2 images, respectively. T 2 changes measured by the spherical reference method were 1.94  ±  0.61, 1.50  ±  0.52 and 1.40  ±  0.54 ms h−1 in the whole, GM, and WM lesions, respectively. Thus, T 2 time courses were comparable between GM and WM independent of brain tissue type involved. We demonstrate that T 2 changes in ADC-delineated lesions can be quantified in the clinical setting in a user unbiased manner and that T 2 change correlated with symptom onset time, opening the possibility of using the approach as a tool to assess severity of tissue damage in the clinical setting

Radio Astronomy

Contains reports on seven research projects.M. I. T. Sloan Fund for Basic ResearchNational Science Foundation (Grant GP-8415)Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, and U. S. Air Force) under Contract DA 28-043-AMC-02536(E)National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant NGL 22-009-016