The First Four Themes of Klong chen pa's Tshig don bcu gcig pa

Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines Number 16, April 200

Lamps in the Leaping Over

Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines Number 8, October 200

Closing the mineral construction material cycle – An endogenous perspective on barriers in transition

Construction and demolition waste (CDW) constitutes a highly voluminous urban waste stream with significant potential for circular mineral construction material usage. This paper uses participatory system dynamics modeling with relevant actors from different public policy and industry sectors to a) to identify structural barriers to the uptake of secondary resource utilization; b) design and test policies administrative (spatial planning, ownership), fiscal (extraction levy, disposal fee) and soft (lighthouse projects) policies and c) discuss the feasibility of implementing these with policies in the political and legislative context of Switzerland. We find practice relevant policy insights, such as the role of distributed control of land use policies resulting in a co-evolutionary lock-in to primary resources consumptions. Policy interventions need to establish new forms of collaboration between regional actors, as hinterland are specializing as resource suppliers for urban regions. Without coordinated interventions that address structural imbalances of material flow, arbitrage effects with other regions render policies ineffective. From a methodological perspective we find that simulation and participatory modeling improves the efficacy of transition interventions as we provide a structural problem analysis as a tool for Stakeholder reflexivity.publishedVersio

Distributed Learning with Biogeography-Based Optimization

We present hardware testing of an evolutionary algorithm known as biogeography-based optimization (BBO) and extend it to distributed learning. BBO is an evolutionary algorithm based on the theory of biogeography, which describes how nature geographically distributes organisms. We introduce a new BBO algorithm that does not use a centralized computer, and which we call distributed BBO. BBO and distributed BBO have been developed by mimicking nature to obtain an algorithm that optimizes solutions for different situations and problems. We use fourteen common benchmark functions to obtain results from BBO and distributed BBO, and we also use both algorithms to optimize robot control algorithms. We present not only simulation results, but also experimental results using BBO to optimize the control algorithms of mobile robots. The results show that centralized BBO generally gives better optimization results and would generally be a better choice than any of the newly proposed forms of distributed BBO. However, distributed BBO allows the user to find a less optimal solution to a problem while avoiding the need for centralized, coordinated control

Lights and visions in Rdzogs chen thinking

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A Vector Field Design Approach to Animated Transitions

Animated transitions can be effective in explaining and exploring a small number of visualizations where there are drastic changes in the scene over a short interval of time. This is especially true if data elements cannot be visually distinguished by other means. Current research in animated transitions has mainly focused on linear transitions (all elements follow straight line paths) or enhancing coordinated motion through bundling of linear trajectories. In this paper, we introduce animated transition design, a technique to build smooth, non-linear transitions for clustered data with either minimal or no user involvement. The technique is flexible and simple to implement, and has the additional advantage that it explicitly enhances coordinated motion and can avoid crowding, which are both important factors to support object tracking in a scene. We investigate its usability, provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of this technique through metric evaluations and user study and discuss limitations and future directions

Use of potentially abusive psychotropic substances in psychiatric inpatients

A series of 417 consecutively admitted psychiatric inpatients were studied with regard to their use of potentially abusive psychotropic substances in the last 3 months preceding admission. In all patients face-to-face interviews were performed; in 354 of them urine specimens could also be tested. Alcohol and benzodiazepines belonged to the most frequently used substances followed by cannabis, opiates and cocaine. Barbiturates, hallucinogens and amphetamine derivatives were only exceptionally reported. The most important finding of the study is that every fifth patient regularly used "hard” drugs (opiates and/or cocaine), every fourth patient illegal drugs and every third patient alcohol. Substances were found in 54% of all urine specimens; methadone, opiates and cocaine were hardly found alone. For the latter substances excellent agreement was found between interview reports and urine exams. Excluding patients diagnosed as substanceuse disorders, there were no statistically significant differences between schizophrenic, affective, neurotic/stress/ somatoform and other disorders with regard to the use of "hard” drugs and illegal drugs. Regular substance use correlated with much worse psychosocial adjustment. Substance use has to be explored and considered in every individual psychiatric inpatien

Role of Gastric Colonization in Nosocomial Infections and Endotoxemia: A Prospective Study in Neurosurgical Patients on Mechanical Ventilation

The role of gastric microbial colonization in nosocomial infections and endotoxemia was investigated prospectively in 40 neurosurgical patients requiring mechanical ventilation for >48 h. Each was studied up to 7 d. Swabs from the nose and oropharynx were cultured at admission, and aspirates from the stomach and trachea were cultured daily until enteral alimentation was started. Patients were evaluated every second day for endotoxemia and coagulation activation. Of 153 gastric aspirates, 66.7% contained microorganisms at a mean quantity of 107 cfu/ml, Nosocomial pneumonia occurred in 15 patients, septicemia in 5, and meningitis in 1. The stomach was the evident source of infection in only 1 patient with pneumonia. Of 140 plasma samples, 12 (8.6%) from 10 patients showed detectable endotoxin levels, but there was no association between endotoxemia or coagulation activation and the presence of microorganisms in the stomach. The stomach was not an important source for nosocomial infections or endotoxemia, even in patients with high gastric p