Data representation and synthesis

This research concerns the problem of specifying the information relationships and their transformations included, explicitly and implicitly, in any problem-solving procedure. Our view of data representation is that problem representations (in a problem domain) are mapped to a machine representation (in an implementation domain) through various modelling representations (in modelling domains). Modelling domain representations make easier the discovery of acceptable implementation representations. We propose to focus on the study of mappings of data representations and their transformations from the modelling to implementation domains. Specifically, our goal is to answer four questions:1) what are appropriate formalisms for describing modelling domains and implenentation domains,2) what knowledge exists of each of these domains and how can this knowledge be represented in our formalisms,3) how do we map specific representations from one domain to the other, and4) how can we test the completeness of our formalisms and mapping process.In answering the fourth question, we propose to construct an interactive system for generating alternative implementation domain representations from a modelling domain representation and selecting that which comes closest to the user's desired program performance criteria in an actual programming context

The place attachment of visitors to Ningaloo Marine Park, north-western Australia

Place attachment has been the subject of a rich, growing body of research in natural resource management, with a particular emphasis on visitors to national parks and forests. Understanding how such attachments are formed as well as their strength has been of central interest. Most of this work has been terrestrially based, with little attention to marine settings. The question of whether the same predominant elements of place attachment – physical environment, activities, social ties and emotional connection – apply to marine national parks remains to be answered. Ningaloo Marine Park in north-western Australia provided the focus for this study. Place attachment is of great interest in this Marine Park because the results of a recent visitor survey showed that 55% of respondents had visited previously and of this, 44% stayed at the same location, suggesting strong place attachment. Photo-elicitation, where photographs are taken by visitors and provide the basis for a subsequent interview, was used to explore this phenomenon. A total of 30 visitors agreed to participate, with up to eight photographs taken by each. Fieldwork was undertaken in July 2009 with preliminary results suggesting that place attachment at the Marine Park has the same four elements as those found in terrestrial-based studies. There were, however, distinct marine components for each element. For the physical environment, coastal vistas were enjoyed because of the feelings of remoteness and isolation they promoted as well as their majestic beauty. Activities centred on those that were uniquely marine, such as snorkelling, diving and fishing. Social ties were evidenced in the bonding of visitors with others who shared similar marine-based past-times such as boating. Regarding emotional connection, families enjoyed being able to visit a location where everybody was happy because all members were able to do their own activities and have a pleasurable experience. Participants were also asked about place-specific behaviours. Place-protective behaviours were obvious from the responses provided and included picking up rubbish and telling others if they were doing the ‘wrong’ thing. Place protection was also evident in the responses regarding perceptions of management. The dominant response related to increasing the presence of management to enforce rules and regulations, particularly for fishing

Types and correlates of school non-attendance in students with autism spectrum disorders

School non-attendance in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has received very little attention to date. The study aimed to provide a comprehensive description of school non-attendance in students with ASD. Through an online survey, parents of 486 children (mean age 11 years) reported on school attendance over one month, and reasons for instances of non-attendance. On average, students missed five days of school of a possible 23 days. Persistent non-attendance (absent on 10%+ of available sessions) occurred among 43% of students. School non-attendance was associated with child older age, not living in a two-parent household, parental unemployment and, especially, attending a mainstream school. School refusal accounted for 43% of non-attendance. School exclusion and school withdrawal each accounted for 9% of absences. Truancy was almost non-existent. Non-problematic absenteeism (mostly related to medical appointments and illness) accounted for 32% of absences. Non-problematic absenteeism was more likely among those with intellectual disability, school refusal was more likely among older students, and school exclusion was more likely among students from single-parent, unemployed, and well educated households. Findings suggest school non-attendance in ASD is a significant issue, and that it is important to capture detail about attendance patterns and reasons for school non-attendance

Group-Based Parent Training Interventions for Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: a Literature Review

© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders should have access to interventions to help them understand and support their child. This literature review examines the existing evidence for group-based parent training interventions that support parents of children with autism. From the literature, core intervention processes and outcomes are identified and include parenting and parent behaviour, parent health, child behaviour and peer and social support. Results show a positive trend for intervention effectiveness, but findings are limited by low-quality studies and heterogeneity of intervention content, outcomes and outcome measurement. Future research should focus on specifying effective intervention ingredients and modes of delivery, consistent and reliable outcome measurement, and improving methodological rigour to build a more robust evidence base

Polynomials on Banach Spaces: Zeros and Maximal Points

AbstractA maximal point of a polynomial on a Banach space is a point in the unit ball at which the polynomial attains its norm. Lower bounds are given for the distances between zeros and maximal points

Computer science and computer engineering research equipment

This grant supported acquisition of a minicomputer system for departmental research. The equipment selected is a DEC VAX-11/750 system, installed in remodeled space in the Computer Science (formerly Farm Crops) Building. Grant funds for equipment acquisition were supplemented by support from the Tektronix Foundation. After completion of the physical facilities for housing the equipment, installation of the VAX-11/750 began in early November 1982. Professor Douglas Moran took responsibility for coordinating the preparation of physical facilities and the installation itself. A number of researchers were making productive use of the system by January 1983. Beginning Spring term of 1983, the VAX system was also used for several graduate courses and graduate student projects. Research projects involving ten faculty members and over twenty graduate students are currently active on the system. These projects are in the areas of software complexity, computer graphics, database management, database system architecture, database reliability and consistency, expert systems, natural language processing, language implementation, intelligent interfaces, and decision support systems. The following sections list the equipment configuration as of the end of the grant period, the major software systems installed, and descriptions of ongoing research projects

A global simulation for laser driven MeV electrons in 50μm50\mu m-diameter fast ignition targets

The results from 2.5-dimensional Particle-in-Cell simulations for the interaction of a picosecond-long ignition laser pulse with a plasma pellet of 50-$\mu m$ diameter and 40 critical density are presented. The high density pellet is surrounded by an underdense corona and is isolated by a vacuum region from the simulation box boundary. The laser pulse is shown to filament and create density channels on the laser-plasma interface. The density channels increase the laser absorption efficiency and help generate an energetic electron distribution with a large angular spread. The combined distribution of the forward-going energetic electrons and the induced return electrons is marginally unstable to the current filament instability. The ions play an important role in neutralizing the space charges induced by the the temperature disparity between different electron groups. No global coalescing of the current filaments resulted from the instability is observed, consistent with the observed large angular spread of the energetic electrons.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Physics of Plasmas (May 2006

Pipelining performance of structured dataflow networks

System architectures for interconnecting large numbers of processors are being widely studied [AG82,TH75,TR82]. Of particular interest in such architectures is the exploitation of concurrency among processors. This concurrency can be parallelism, in which different parts of a single data case are processed at the same time, or pipelining, in which different processes are carried out simultaneously on successive data cases. Many problems involving file and vector processing can be viewed as pipelining problems. Both structured and arbitrarily interconnected networks of processors have been proposed. The asserted advantage of structured networks is that they are easier to comprehend, control, and so utilize effectively (arguments analogous to those made for structured programming [DA72,KO74]). The arguments for arbitrary networks are that they allow greater flexibility of interconnection and so can be more efficient in many cases. Also, network architectures are being studied incorporating processor activation through data flow [AC82,AG82,DA82,TR82,WA82] and through flow of control [AN75,GA82,TH75]. In all of these cases, attention must be given to developing languages for expressing procedure interconnections and rules for allocating procedures to processors so as to obtain maximum concurrency. This paper presents a particular approach to specifying procedure interconnection and allocation. The major result is that, within stated assumptions: networks constructed using a small set of structured process connectives can achieve at least as good throughput (pipelining performance) as arbitrarily interconnected networks

Validating 3D two-parameter fracture mechanics models for structural integrity assessments

In-situ fracture tests were carried out on the I12 beamline at the Diamond Light Source. Four Al-Ti metal-matrix composites (MMCs), with two crack lengths, were studied to assess for the impact of in-plane constraint. Synchrotron X-ray computed tomography and synchrotron X-ray diffraction were used to measure total strain and elastic strain respectively. In this work, the measured elastic strains in the samples are detailed as a function of applied load and compared against those predicted from a 3D elastic-plastic finite element model. The modelled strains increased asymptotically towards the tip of the electro discharge machined notch. The experimental results do not highlight the same response, which is due to a combination of blunting and low experimental spatial resolution. Far field experimental and measured strain fields converged, notably in the test piece containing a long notch (a/W = 0.5) and higher levels of constraint