769 research outputs found
Tracking decision-making during architectural design
There is a powerful cocktail of circumstances governing the way decisions are made during the architectural design process of a building project. There is considerable potential for misunderstandings, inappropriate changes, change which give rise to unforeseen difficulties, decisions which are not notified to all interested parties, and many other similar problems. The paper presents research conducted within the frame of the EPSRC funded ADS project aiming at addressing the problems linked with the evolution and changing environment of project information to support better decision-making. The paper presents the conceptual framework as well as the software environment that has been developed to support decision-making during building projects, and reports on work carried out on the application of the approach to the architectural design stage. This decision-tracking environment has been evaluated and validated by professionals and practitioners from industry using several instruments as described in the paper
Common correlates of suicidal ideation and physical assault among male and female university students in Hong Kong
This study examined prevalence and correlates of suicidal ideation and dating partner violence in a cohort of 651 university students in social sciences classes at three universities in Hong Kong. A standard questionnaire was completed within one class period to examine the rates of occurrence of physical assault perpetration and suicidal ideation. Separate rates are presented for male and female perpetrators and for severe and overall levels of violence. The differences between subjects having suicidal ideation are compared using t tests. Logistic regression is used to predict the presence or absence of physical assault in the preceding year of reporting and suicidal ideation based on the variables such as Personal Relationship Profile, age, relationship length, and socioeconomic status. Results showed that 55% of suicidal persons had a history of violence, whereas 39% of violent people had a history of suicidal ideation. Logistic regression showed that physical assault shared a total of seven associated factors with suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation seems to have no direct relation to physical and sexual assault, but they do share some common associated factors that are essential for the development of suicide prevention. © 2007 Springer Publishing Company.postprin
Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization for the minimum labelling Steiner tree problem
Particle Swarm Optimization is an evolutionary method inspired by the
social behaviour of individuals inside swarms in nature. Solutions of the problem are
modelled as members of the swarm which fly in the solution space. The evolution is
obtained from the continuous movement of the particles that constitute the swarm
submitted to the effect of the inertia and the attraction of the members who lead the
swarm. This work focuses on a recent Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization for combinatorial optimization, called Jumping Particle Swarm Optimization. Its effectiveness is
illustrated on the minimum labelling Steiner tree problem: given an undirected labelled
connected graph, the aim is to find a spanning tree covering a given subset of nodes,
whose edges have the smallest number of distinct labels
Reducing the clique and chromatic number via edge contractions and vertex deletions
We consider the following problem: can a certain graph parameter of some given graph G be reduced by at least d, for some integer d, via at most k graph operations from some specified set S, for some given integer k? As graph parameters we take the chromatic number and the clique number. We let the set S consist of either an edge contraction or a vertex deletion. As all these problems are NP-complete for general graphs even if d is fixed, we restrict the input graph G to some special graph class. We continue a line of research that considers these problems for subclasses of perfect graphs, but our main results are full classifications, from a computational complexity point of view, for graph classes characterized by forbidding a single induced connected subgraph H
DAMA/NaI results
The DAMA/NaI set-up of the DAMA experiment has been operative during seven
annual cycles and has investigated several rare processes. In particular, it
has been realised in order to investigate the model independent annual
modulation signature for Dark Matter particles in the galactic halo. With the
total exposure collected in the seven annual cycles (107731 kg day) a model
independent evidence for the presence of a Dark Matter particle component in
the galactic halo has been pointed out at 6.3 sigma C.L.. Some of the many
possible corollary model dependent quests for the candidate particle have been
presented as well.Comment: Contributed paper to the Rencontres de Moriond "Electroweak
Interactions and Unified Theories", La Thuile, Aosta Valley, Italy, March
200
DAMA/LIBRA results and perspectives
The DAMA/LIBRA experiment, running at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of
the I.N.F.N. in Italy, has a sensitive mass of about 250 kg highly radiopure
NaI(Tl). It is mainly devoted to the investigation of Dark Matter (DM)
particles in the Galactic halo by exploiting the model independent DM annual
modulation signature. The present DAMA/LIBRA experiment and the former DAMA/NaI
one (the first generation experiment having an exposed mass of about 100 kg)
have released so far results corresponding to a total exposure of 1.17 ton yr
over 13 annual cycles. They provide a model independent evidence of the
presence of DM particles in the galactic halo at 8.9 sigma C.L.. A short
summary of the obtained results is presented and future perspectives of the
experiment mentioned.Comment: 12 pages, Proceed. of the 15th Bled Workshop "What Comes Beyond
Standard Models" (December 2012), Vol. 13, No.
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