Stochastic robustness

To carry out stochastic robustness analysis, an expected probability distribution is assigned to each uncertain parameter in the system. The Monte Carlo analysis proceeds by repeatedly assigning shaped random values to each plant parameter, evaluating the stability of performance metric, and performing the binary classification (stable/unstable, etc.). If the system is stable, the state response to a unit disturbance impulse can be propagated to establish whether the response would violate settling time envelopes and whether peak actuator use would violate predetermined maximums. The final estimates of the probability of each form of unacceptable behavior are found by dividing the number of cases in which the overall system had that form of unacceptability by the number of cases run. Stability robustness can be portrayed graphically using the stochastic root locus and by using histograms of parameter values found in the unacceptable cases

Solve a Complex Issue with The BRIDGE

Complex issues in work, school, community or life can significantly impact productivity, performance, and goal attainment. Collective brainpower can many times be the best way to creatively solve the issues. The BRIDGE is a tool that communities, businesses, educators, staff, volunteers, and youth can use to structure the collection of those creative ideas and streamline the process for developing an implementation plan. The BRIDGE fluidly incorporates adaptations of several organization analysis tools designed by business scholars arranged in a logical flow: Covey's Circle of Control/Influence, Lewin's Force Field Analysis, SWOT, and Kotter's Change Model. The BRIDGE model supports the research of Welsh scholar David Snowden and his Cynefin Decision Making Framework. Snowden contends that different situations require different responses to successfully navigate them. His framework interprets complexity theory with four domains of decision making: obvious, complicated, complex and chaotic. Decisions in the complex domain require experimentation and creativity to come up with a new approach. The BRIDGE model lends itself well to solving those complex decisions. The BRIDGE has been used to solve complex issues with a variety of groups: 1) a nonprofit start-up created structure, policies and procedures to run their new organization; 2) a 4-H group identified a new training program; 3) a focus group of leaders in the long-term services and supports industry identified talent development as a critical concern, which led to the creation of two new non-credit curricula to improve workforce skills; 4) a training department for a for-profit company developed a plan for management approval to implement a new initiative; 5) an FFA chapter developed several service learning projects for their school and community and at the same time learned valuable critical-thinking skills; and 6) a trucking company created a strategic plan to lead the company into a new phase of services. The BRIDGE model actively engages groups of diverse people. The structure of the process allows for dynamic exchange of ideas that are captured on idea cards and ultimately churn and meld into synthesized solutions supported by the entire group.AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Myra Wilson, program director, Ohio State Alber Enterprise Center, [email protected] (Corresponding Author); Cynthia Bond, assistant professor and OSU Extension educator, community development; David Marrison, associate professor and OSU Extension educator, agriculture and natural resources; Emily Marrison, OSU Extension educator, family and consumer sciences; Amanda Woods, Healthy Finances program specialist, OSU Extension family and consumer sciences; Kyle White, OSU Extension area leader and educator, community developmentComplex issues in work, school, community, or life can significantly impact productivity, performance, and goal attainment. Collective brainpower can many times be the best way to creatively solve issues. The BRIDGE is a tool that communities, businesses, educators, staff, volunteers, and youth can use to structure the collection of those creative ideas and streamline the process for developing an implementation plan. The BRIDGE model actively engages groups of diverse people. The structure of the process allows for dynamic exchange of ideas that are captured on idea cards and ultimately churn and meld into synthesized solutions supported by the entire group. Learn how you can become a certified facilitator of The BRIDGE

Phase Transitions in Operational Risk

In this paper we explore the functional correlation approach to operational risk. We consider networks with heterogeneous a-priori conditional and unconditional failure probability. In the limit of sparse connectivity, self-consistent expressions for the dynamical evolution of order parameters are obtained. Under equilibrium conditions, expressions for the stationary states are also obtained. The consequences of the analytical theory developed are analyzed using phase diagrams. We find co-existence of operational and non-operational phases, much as in liquid-gas systems. Such systems are susceptible to discontinuous phase transitions from the operational to non-operational phase via catastrophic breakdown. We find this feature to be robust against variation of the microscopic modelling assumptions.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures. Accepted in Physical Review

Growth, profits and technological choice: The case of the Lancashire cotton textile industry

Using Lancashire textile industry company case studies and financial records, mainly from the period just before the First World War, the processes of growth and decline are re-examined. These are considered by reference to the nature of Lancashire entrepreneurship and the impact on technological choice. Capital accumulation, associated wealth distributions and the character of Lancashire business organisation were sybiotically linked to the success of the industry before 1914. However, the legacy of that accumulation in later decades, chronic overcapacity, formed a barrier to reconstruction and enhanced the preciptious decline of a once great industry

Recommendations for digitally recording, recirculating, and remixing holocaust testimony

Testimony has always raised ethical issues, especially in relation to questions of provenance, integrity, ownership, and authenticity. Nevertheless, it has become one of the most powerful sources for Holocaust education. Meeting a Holocaust survivor in-person has been a particular tenet of educational experiences. Looking forward, we face dual challenges: (1) the decline in numbers of living witnesses to the Holocaust, (2) the increasing prevalence of digital technologies. It has been somewhat taken for granted that the latter offers solutions for dealing with the former. Media technologies have been integral to the dissemination of Holocaust testimony since the 1940s. From the attempts to smuggle out material evidence of witnessing atrocities on photographic film to the scraps of paper and writing implements used to document experiences and wishes for the future, from the Oneg Shabbat archives of the Warsaw Ghetto to the 'Scrolls of Auschwitz'. It is however in the immediate post-war period with Boder's wire recordings that spoken testimony of events after the fact began to be recorded at scale. Some survivors later chose to publish their testimonies in memoir form. Then, in 1979, the Holocaust Survivors Film Project launched which developed into the Fortunoff Archives at Yale University. At Yale, audio-video testimonies were captured on tape, which not only preserved the speech patterns alongside narrative content of testimonies, but gestures and body language also. In moments of silence, viewers of testimony could now see the testimony-giver's body, any emotional reaction, and their gaze. There was a range of academic writing (from Lawrence Langer to Georges Agamben and Jean-François Lyotard) that addressed the significance of these 'silences', in different ways. With video then digital interventions in testimony recording, there has been increasingly attention given to the visual elements of testimonial narratives. This has been particularly demonstrated by the projects of the USC Shoah Foundation. Starting in a similar vein to Fortunoff, with audio-visual testimonies, the Foundation (initially established by the profits for Schindler's List (1994)), has since turned its attention to interactive interfaces (IWitness) use of machine learning (Dimensions in Testimony) and virtual reality ('Lola' and 'The Last Goodbye') and 360-degree on-location testimonies to explore the affordances that emerging technologies can offer for the sustainability of testimony into the future. Whilst of course, historical concerns about testimony will always remain, digital technologies introduce new possibilities and challenges, which needs to be better understood across the sector. This report serves as an important first step in this work. It was created as part of the research project 'Participatory Workshops - Co-Designing Standards for Digital Interventions in Holocaust Memory and Education', which is one thread of the larger Digital Holocaust Memory Project at the University of Sussex. The participatory workshops have focused on six themes, each of which brought together a different range of expertise to discuss current challenges and consider possible recommendations for the future. The themes were: • AI and machine learning • Digitising material evidence • Recording, recirculating and remixing testimony • Social media • Virtual memoryscapes • Computer games In this report, you will find the recommendations and a suggestion of who could bear responsibility to take each of these on; a summary of the workshop discussions; and a list of the participants who contributed to this work. There will also be a complementary action plan published alongside this report. The recommendations and discussion presented here summarise participant opinions, which might not reflect the opinions of project leads or any individual participant in full, or all participants in consensus. Whilst we have offered participants the opportunity to review and discuss the development of these guidelines, we have tried to retain differing perspectives rather than suggest there was homogeneity in opinion. The discussion presented is an aggregation of professional opinions informed by a diverse range of experiences and expertise. We present ideas collectively, rather than attributing specific points to participants. All participants are, however, acknowledged as contributors to this report. This document does not claim to be the last word on digitally recording, recirculating, and remixing Holocaust testimony, rather we recognise that this is very much the beginning of a longer conversation. We hope that the immediate recommendations suggested in these guidelines will help organisations and individuals to prioritise the work needed to work effectively with Holocaust testimony in digital spaces

Chemically-induced Neurite-like Outgrowth Reveals Multicellular Network Function in Patient-derived Glioblastoma Cells

Tumor stem cells and malignant multicellular networks have been separately implicated in the therapeutic resistance of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), the most aggressive type of brain cancer in adults. We show that small molecule inhibition of RHO-associated serine/threonine kinase (ROCKi) significantly promoted the outgrowth of neurite-like cell projections in cultures of heterogeneous patient-derived GBM stem-like cells. These projections formed de novo -induced cellular network (iNet) ‘webs’, which regressed after withdrawal of ROCKi. Connected cells within the iNet web exhibited long range calcium signal transmission, and significant lysosomal and mitochondrial trafficking. In contrast to their less-connected vehicle control counterparts, iNet cells remained viable and proliferative after high-dose radiation. These findings demonstrate a link between ROCKi-regulated cell projection dynamics and the formation of radiation-resistant multicellular networks. Our study identifies means to reversibly induce iNet webs ex vivo , and may thereby accelerate future studies into the biology of GBM cellular networks

Expanding the repertoire of low‐molecular‐weight pentafluorosulfanyl‐substituted scaffolds

The pentafluorosulfanyl (-SF5) functional group is of increasing interest as a bioisostere in medicinal chemistry. A library of SF5-containing compounds, including amide, isoxazole, and oxindole derivatives, was synthesised using a range of solution-based and solventless methods, including microwave and ball-mill techniques. The library was tested against targets including human dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (HDHODH). A subsequent focused approach led to synthesis of analogues of the clinically used disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), Teriflunomide and Leflunomide, considered for potential COVID-19 use, where SF5 bioisostere deployment led to improved inhibition of HDHODH compared with the parent drugs. The results demonstrate the utility of the SF5 group in medicinal chemistry

Assessing the Advantages, Limitations and Potential of Human Primary Prostate Epithelial Cells as a Pre-clinical Model for Prostate Cancer Research

Choosing an appropriate cell model(s) is the first decision to be made before starting a new project or programme of study. Here, we address the rationale that can be behind this decision and we summarize the current cell models that are used to study prostate cancer. Researchers face the challenge of choosing a model that recapitulates the complexity and heterogeneity of prostate cancer. The use of primary prostate epithelial cells cultured from patient tissue is discussed, and the necessity for close clinical-academic collaboration in order to do this is highlighted. Finally, a novel quantitative phase imaging technique is described, along with the potential for cell characterization to not only include gene expression and protein markers but also morphological features, cell behaviour and kinetic activity