The 'place' of multi-level governance? Defining the policy agenda for regional development in Western Flanders

The policy-making function of the principal agency for regional development is examined. Are institutional and governance forms for Regional Development as much a product of specific local and regional conditions (the 'place' of multi-level governance) as they are a part of the mechanisms that facilitate their reproduction- such as the state, economy, society and the widely interpreted term ‘globalization’? Following on from this, are multi-level policy priorities for regional development influenced more by the ‘business-led agenda’ and its ‘positional elites’ than the regional- local institutional capacities and by the local actors ‘outside of the game’

Cuspidal ℓ\ell-modular representations of pp-adic classical groups

For a classical group over a non-archimedean local field of odd residual characteristic p, we construct all cuspidal representations over an arbitrary algebraically closed field of characteristic different from p, as representations induced from a cuspidal type. We also give a fundamental step towards the classification of cuspidal representations, identifying when certain cuspidal types induce to equivalent representations; this result is new even in the case of complex representations. Finally, we prove that the representations induced from more general types are quasi-projective, a crucial tool for extending the results here to arbitrary irreducible representations

Facets, Tiers and Gems: Ontology Patterns for Hypernormalisation

There are many methodologies and techniques for easing the task of ontology building. Here we describe the intersection of two of these: ontology normalisation and fully programmatic ontology development. The first of these describes a standardized organisation for an ontology, with singly inherited self-standing entities, and a number of small taxonomies of refining entities. The former are described and defined in terms of the latter and used to manage the polyhierarchy of the self-standing entities. Fully programmatic development is a technique where an ontology is developed using a domain-specific language within a programming language, meaning that as well defining ontological entities, it is possible to add arbitrary patterns or new syntax within the same environment. We describe how new patterns can be used to enable a new style of ontology development that we call hypernormalisation

Resources available in the Quincy, South Shore, and Boston areas for enrichment of the curriculum in the intermediate grades of the Quincy, Massachusetts public school system,

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Optimum Physical-Layer Frame Size for Maximising the Application-Layer Rateless Code’s Effective Throughput

The tolerable packet-loss ratio of an Internet Protocol (IP) based wireless networks varies according to the specific services considered. File transfer for example must be error free but tolerates higher delays, whereas maintaining a low delay is typically more important in interactive Voice Over IP (VOIP) or video services. Classic Forward Error Correction (FEC) may be applied to the data to provide resilience against bit errors. A wireless IP network provides the opportunity for the inclusion of FEC at the physical, transport and application layers. The demarcation between the analogue and digital domain imposed at the Physical layer (PHY) predetermines the nature of the FEC scheme implemented at the various layers. At the PHY individual packets may be offered FEC protection, which increases the likelihood of their error-free insertion into the protocol stack. Higher layers receive packets that are error free and the purpose of a FEC scheme implemented here is to regenerate any missing packets obliterated for example by the Binary Erasure Channel (BEC) of the IP network’s routers. A rateless code may be beneficially employed at a higher Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layer for replenishing the obliterated packets, but unless the characteristics of the channel are considered, the ultimate rate achieved by such a code may be compromised, as shown in this contribution

Transforming the Axiomisation of Ontologies: The Ontology Pre-Processor Language

As ontologies are developed there is a common need to transform them, especially from those that are axiomatically lean to those that are axiomatically rich. Such transformations often require large numbers of axioms to be generated that affect many different parts of the ontology. This paper describes the Ontology Pre-Processor Language (OPPL), a domain-specific macro language, based in the Manchester OWL Syntax, for manipulating ontologies written in OWL. OPPL instructions can add/remove entities, and add/remove axioms (semantics or annotations) to/from entities in an OWL ontology. OPPL is suitable for applying the same change to different ontologies or at different development stages, and for keeping track of the changes made (e.g. in pipelines). It is also suitable for defining independent modelling macros (e.g. Ontology Design Patterns) that can be applied at will and systematically across an ontology. The presented OPPL Instruction Manager is a Java library that processes OPPL instructions making the changes to an OWL ontology. A reference implementation that uses the OPPL Instruction Manager is also presented. The use of OPPL has been demonstrated in the Cell Cycle Ontolog

Do Health Care Providers Quality Discriminate? Empirical Evidence from Primary Care Outpatient Clinics

There has been minimal attention paid to the mechanisms of hospital quality oversight that are currently in place. Accordingly this study will analyze the system of hospital quality regulation in the US. The Social Security Act as amended in 1965 gave the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) "deeming" power for Medicare quality requirements. There are numerous reasons why JCAHO's oversight strategy may be ineffective. The primary reason is the dual role of JCAHO as a regulator and advocate. In conclusion, JCAHO surveys do provide an incentive to hospitals to improve processes of care for the period leading up to an inspection and that incentive gets eliminated after the inspection occurs. JCAHO has announced a change from the scheduled survey to an unannounced strategy. The objective of this change is to provide an incentive to maintain a level of readiness. This may not occur if hospitals are motivated to minimize the overall cost of JCAHO compliance.