A Conceptual Frame for Evaluation of High Level Decision Support

This Collaborative Paper presents research performed under the auspices of the Interactive Decision Analysis (IDA) Project in the Systems and Decision Sciences Program. The work reported here extends previous methodological studies of the IDA Project on decision support systems to encompass considerations of problem structuring and knowledge representation, which are typically important for strategic planning and support of high level decision makers

Methods for Analyzing the Effects of Application of Decision Support Systems in R & D Decisions

This series of papers are a product of collaborative research coordinated through IIASA's Management and Technology Area. The collaborating institutions are Hungarian State Office of Technical Development (Personnel: Anna Vari, Janos Vecsenyi, Laszlo David); Decision Analysis Unit, Brunel University, England (Personnel: Patrick Humphreys, Lawrence D. Phillips); All-Union Research Institute of Systems Studies, USSR (Personnel: Oleg. I Larichev). The papers report case studies prepared by the personnel from the collaborating institutions based on their own, and their colleagues' work in their own institutions. They worked together as a team in developing the methods for the analysis of these case studies which are described in the first paper in the series. IIASA provided support for this work through its telecenter for communication between the investigations, and provided facilities for short term meetings between the investigations at IIASA for development of case studies and their comparative analysis. Particular MMT staff were Ronald M. Lee, Nora Avedisians, and Miyoko Yamada, who is the editor of this series. A summary of this comparative analysis, based on the first four case studies in this series was presented at the IFIP/IIASA Conference on "Processes and Tools for Decision Support", Laxenburg, Austria, July, 1982. The paper presented at the IFIP/IIASA conference will be published as Humphreys, P.C., O.I. Larichev, A. Vari, and J. Vecsenyi, Comparative analysis of decision support systems in R&D decisions, in H.G. Sol (ed.), "Processes and Tools for Decision Support", Amsterdam: North Holland, 1982. Another study in this series was published separately as L.D. Phillips: Requisite decision modeling: a case study. "Journal of the Operations Research Society, 1982, 33:303-311

K(E10), Supergravity and Fermions

We study the fermionic extension of the E10/K(E10) coset model and its relation to eleven-dimensional supergravity. Finite-dimensional spinor representations of the compact subgroup K(E10) of E(10,R) are studied and the supergravity equations are rewritten using the resulting algebraic variables. The canonical bosonic and fermionic constraints are also analysed in this way, and the compatibility of supersymmetry with local K(E10) is investigated. We find that all structures involving A9 levels 0,1 and 2 nicely agree with expectations, and provide many non-trivial consistency checks of the existence of a supersymmetric extension of the E10/K(E10) coset model, as well as a new derivation of the `bosonic dictionary' between supergravity and coset variables. However, there are also definite discrepancies in some terms involving level 3, which suggest the need for an extension of the model to infinite-dimensional faithful representations of the fermionic degrees of freedom.Comment: 50 page

Agr quorum sensing influences the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway in Clostridium autoethanogenum

Acetogenic bacteria are capable of fermenting CO2 and carbon monoxide containing waste-gases into a range of platform chemicals and fuels. Despite major advances in genetic engineering and improving these biocatalysts, several important physiological functions remain elusive. Among these is quorum sensing, a bacterial communication mechanism known to coordinate gene expression in response to cell population density. Two putative agr systems have been identified in the genome of Clostridium autoethanogenum suggesting bacterial communication via autoinducing signal molecules. Signal molecule-encoding agrD1 and agrD2 genes were targeted for in-frame deletion. During heterotrophic growth on fructose as a carbon and energy source, single deletions of either gene did not produce an observable phenotype. However, when both genes were simultaneously inactivated, final product concentrations in the double mutant shifted to a 1.5:1 ratio of ethanol:acetate, compared to a 0.2:1 ratio observed in the wild type control, making ethanol the dominant fermentation product. Moreover, CO2 re-assimilation was also notably reduced in both hetero- and autotrophic growth conditions. These findings were supported through comparative proteomics, which showed lower expression of carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, formate dehydrogenase A and hydrogenases in the ∆agrD1∆agrD2 double mutant, but higher levels of putative alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenases and bacterial micro-compartment proteins. These findings suggest that Agr quorum sensing, and by inference, cell density play a role in carbon resource management and use of the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway as an electron sink

High-efficiency Bragg grating enhanced on-chip photon-number-resolving detectors

The recent trend towards integration of quantum optics experiments has produced a demand for on-chip single photon detectors with high quantum efficiencies. In previous work we demonstrated integrated photon number resolving detectors for use at telecommunications wavelengths [1], here we outline developments of this design which have enabled improvements in the quantum efficiency, permitting an on-chip detection efficiency of 92% to be obtained in the device of Fig. 1. ..

The 2014 ALMA Long Baseline Campaign: First Results from High Angular Resolution Observations toward the HL Tau Region

Interstellar matter and star formatio

Editorial Statement About JCCAP’s 2023 Special Issue on Informant Discrepancies in Youth Mental Health Assessments: Observations, Guidelines, and Future Directions Grounded in 60 Years of Research

Issue 1 of the 2011 Volume of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (JCCAP) included a Special Section about the use of multi-informant approaches to measure child and adolescent (i.e., hereafter referred to collectively as “youth”) mental health (De Los Reyes, 2011). Researchers collect reports from multiple informants or sources (e.g., parent and peer, youth and teacher) to estimate a given youth’s mental health. The 2011 JCCAP Special Section focused on the most common outcome of these approaches, namely the significant discrepancies that arise when comparing estimates from any two informant’s reports (i.e., informant discrepancies). These discrepancies appear in assessments conducted across the lifespan (Achenbach, 2020). That said, JCCAP dedicated space to understanding informant discrepancies, because they have been a focus of scholarship in youth mental health for over 60 years (e.g., Achenbach et al., 1987; De Los Reyes & Kazdin, 2005; Glennon & Weisz, 1978; Kazdin et al., 1983; Kraemer et al., 2003; Lapouse & Monk, 1958; Quay et al., 1966; Richters, 1992; Rutter et al., 1970; van der Ende et al., 2012). Thus, we have a thorough understanding of the areas of research for which they reliably appear when clinically assessing youth. For instance, intervention researchers observe informant discrepancies in estimates of intervention effects within randomized controlled trials (e.g., Casey & Berman, 1985; Weisz et al., 2017). Service providers observe informant discrepancies when working with individual clients, most notably when making decisions about treatment planning (e.g., Hawley & Weisz, 2003; Hoffman & Chu, 2015). Scholars in developmental psychopathology observe these discrepancies when seeking to understand risk and protective factors linked to youth mental health concerns (e.g., Hawker & Boulton, 2000; Hou et al., 2020; Ivanova et al., 2022). Thus, the 2011 JCCAP Special Section posed a question: Might these informant discrepancies contain data relevant to understanding youth mental health? Suppose none of the work in youth mental health is immune from these discrepancies. In that case, the answer to this question strikes at the core of what we produce―from the interventions we develop and implement, to the developmental psychopathology research that informs intervention development