A knowledge based system for valuing variations in civil engineering works: a user centred approach

There has been much evidence that valuing variations in construction projects can lead to conflicts and disputes leading to loss of time, efficiency, and productivity. One of the reasons for these conflicts and disputes concerns the subjectivity of the project stakeholders involved in the process. One way to minimise this is to capture and collate the knowledge and perceptions of the different parties involved in order to develop a robust mechanism for valuing variations. Focusing on the development of such a mechanism, the development of a Knowledge Based System (KBS) for valuing variations in civil engineering work is described. Evaluation of the KBS involved demonstration to practitioners in the construction industry to support the contents of the knowledge base and perceived usability and acceptance of the system. Results support the novelty, contents, usability, and acceptance of the system, and also identify further potential developments of the KBS

Balltracking: an highly efficient method for tracking flow fields

We present a method for tracking solar photospheric flows that is highly efficient, and demonstrate it using high resolution MDI continuum images. The method involves making a surface from the photospheric granulation data, and allowing many small floating tracers or balls to be moved around by the evolving granulation pattern. The results are tested against synthesised granulation with known flow fields and compared to the results produced by Local Correlation tracking (LCT). The results from this new method have similar accuracy to those produced by LCT. We also investigate the maximum spatial and temporal resolution of the velocity field that it is possible to extract, based on the statistical properties of the granulation data. We conclude that both methods produce results that are close to the maximum resolution possible from granulation data. The code runs very significantly faster than our similarly optimised LCT code, making real time applications on large data sets possible. The tracking method is not limited to photospheric flows, and will also work on any velocity field where there are visible moving features of known scale length

Venture Philanthropy: A Case Study of Three Nonprofit Organizations

Beginning in the 1990s, a new kind of philanthropy emerged that was formulated on the premise of merging philanthropy with investing. The concept of turning philanthropy into social investing was coined venture philanthropy and has received substantial attention since its inception. Generally speaking, if the business model of the organization shows promise, investors will narrow their focus to that organization for multiple years rather than committing to one-year grants (Community Health Ventures for the Morino Institute 2010). In view of this, investors will engage in long term relationships and partner with the organization to support capital needs. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research are three disease-focused foundations that practice venture philanthropy in order to proactively identify and fill key gaps in public funding. Each nonprofit has a different focus, but each has a mission that is focused on providing efficient, effective, and transparent services, such as drug development, to a patient population that requires assistance. Each of these nonprofits was founded by individuals affected by the disease they support and has experienced both success and challenges during its lifespan. Conducting an analysis of these foundations gives a concentrated snapshot of the benefits and shortcomings of venture philanthropy as a nonprofit business model

Digital transformation in government: Lessons for digital health?

Globally, there is a movement for outstanding digital services in government; in many countries, this extends to healthcare. And if digital health is to be delivered at scale, there needs to be involvement from multiple stakeholders, and government often has a central role. Understanding how governments are planning digital transformation generally, and in healthcare in particular, is important for other stakeholders. First, achieving sustainable change at scale will often involve working with government. Second, how governments are approaching these challenges can provide useful lessons for others in the field. In this paper, we describe some common trends in digital transformation in government and how they apply to the health sector, using NHS England as a leading exemplar. People expect their government transactions, like renewing a passport online or paying tax, to deliver the same calibre of service as they receive from online banking or online shopping. The processes by which successful corporations have transitioned towards digital maturity are being replicated in the public sector. The extent of governments’ adoption of contemporary product development methodologies can be seen when books such as that of Eric Reis, The lean startup,1 are found on the desks of senior leaders. The goal of digital transformation for companies is clear: save money by making digital services so good that people simply prefer to use them. Amazon and Netflix did not need to train people to use their service – they created a superior service that actively responded to the needs of users in a dynamic way, with an intuitive layout. These services became the de facto way of doing business; this is digital by default. However, digital governance and ownership is in its infancy in many organisations, both in the private and public sector. The transition to a mature digital governance model within a longstanding organisation is a complex and disruptive journey. It can be challenging when organisations conceptualise digital transformation as a clearly defined change management exercise, rather than a fundamental shift in how the organisation as a whole functions. Many organisations erroneously view digital transformation as primarily about the implementation of IT systems, rather than as a new of way working facilitated by advancements in technology, a mistake often seen in healthcare too.2,

Adoption and non-adoption of a shared electronic summary record in England: a mixed-method case study

Publisher version: http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c3111.full?sid=fcb22308-64fe-4070-9067-15a172b3aea

Mission planning for Shuttle Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) with a real-time interactive planning software

The Shuttle Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) mission will operate from the payload bay of the space shuttle for 8 days, gathering Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data over specific sites on the Earth. The short duration of the mission and the requirement for realtime planning offer challenges in mission planning and in the design of the Planning and Analysis Subsystem (PAS). The PAS generates shuttle ephemerides and mission planning data and provides an interactive real-time tool for quick mission replanning. It offers a multi-user and multiprocessing environment, and it is able to keep multiple versions of the mission timeline data while maintaining data integrity and security. Its flexible design allows one software to provide different menu options based on the user's operational function, and makes it easy to tailor the software for other Earth orbiting missions

Fundamental relation between longitudinal and transverse conductivities in the quantum Hall system

We investigate the relation between the diagonal ($\sigma_{xx}$) and off-diagonal ($\sigma_{xy}$) components of the conductivity tensor in the quantum Hall system. We calculate the conductivity components for a short-range impurity potential using the linear response theory, employing an approximation that simply replaces the self-energy by a constant value $-i \hbar /(2 \tau)$ with $\tau$ the scattering time. The approximation is equivalent to assuming that the broadening of a Landau level due to disorder is represented by a Lorentzian with the width $\Gamma = \hbar /(2 \tau)$. Analytic formulas are obtained for both $\sigma_{xx}$ and $\sigma_{xy}$ within the framework of this simple approximation at low temperatures. By examining the leading terms in $\sigma_{xx}$ and $\sigma_{xy}$, we find a proportional relation between $\mathrm{d}\sigma_{xy}/\mathrm{d}B$ and $B \sigma_{xx}^2$. The relation, after slight modification to account for the long-range nature of the impurity potential, is shown to be in quantitative agreement with experimental results obtained in the GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron system at the low magnetic-field regime where spin splitting is negligibly small.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

MHC signaling during social communication

Journal ArticleThe major histocompatibility complex (MHC) has been known to play a critical role in immune recognition since the 1950s. It was a surprise, then, in the 1970s when the first report appeared indicating MHC might also function in social signaling. Since this seminal discovery, MHC signaling has been found throughout vertebrates and its known functions have expanded beyond mate choice to include a suite of behaviors from kin‑biased cooperation, parent‑progeny recognition to pregnancy block. The widespread occurrence of MHC in social signaling has revealed conserved behavioral‑genetic mechanisms that span vertebrates and includes humans. The identity of the signal's chemical constituents and the receptors responsible for the perception of the signal have remained elusive, but recent advances have enabled the identification of the key components of the behavioral circuit. In this chapter we organize recent findings from the literature and discuss them in relation to four nonmutually exclusive models wherein MHC functions as a signal of (i) individuality, (ii) relatedness, (iii) genetic compatibility and (iv) quality. We also synthesize current mechanistic studies, showing how knowledge about the molecular basis of MHC signaling can lead to elegant and informative experimental manipulations. Finally, we discuss current evidence relating to the primordial functions of the MHC, including the possibility that its role in social signaling may be ancestral to its central role in adaptive immunity

Surprisingly uneven distribution of the T cell receptor Vβ repertoire in wild mice

Journal ArticleHeterodimeric TCRa/Bs are made up of combinations of V D, J, and C elements. The majority of laboratory inbred mouse strains are of the VBh haplotype and have at least 20 VB genes from which to construct TCRs (1, 2); however, a number of strains have been reported to have deletions of large portions of the VB locus on chromosome 6 (3-5), and these mice must survive with a considerably reduced potential TCR repertoire

Gong method for capturing shorebirds and other ground-roosting species

Journal ArticleIn many shorebird studies it is necessary to capture adult birds. While shorebirds can often be trapped on the nest, capturing them away from the nest is usually very difficult and may require expensive equipment. After weeks of failure in our attempts to capture migrant and resident shorebirds in northern Utah marshes using a variety of mist-netting schemes, we became convinced that nighttime techniques held the most promise for success. Standard nightlighting techniques [Labisky 1968] are not easily applied in these kinds of marshes because of the heavy equipment involved. When we learned of a nightlighting method used by natives of the East Indies to obtain roosting shorebirds for market [H.E. McClure pets. comm.; see Murphy 1955f or a related technique],we decided to try it. The original method involves the teamwork of persons carrying long-handled nets with others carrying torches and still others who chant as they continuously beat on a gong.T his paper reports on our attempts to modify this into a western-style operation involving two individuals