Instantaneous Normal Mode Analysis of Supercooled Water

We use the instantaneous normal mode approach to provide a description of the local curvature of the potential energy surface of a model for water. We focus on the region of the phase diagram in which the dynamics may be described by the mode-coupling theory. We find, surprisingly, that the diffusion constant depends mainly on the fraction of directions in configuration space connecting different local minima, supporting the conjecture that the dynamics are controlled by the geometric properties of configuration space. Furthermore, we find an unexpected relation between the number of basins accessed in equilibrium and the connectivity between them.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Auditing paediatric diabetes care and the impact of a specialist nurse trained in paediatric diabetes

AIMS To define outcome measures for auditing the clinical care of children and adolescents with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) and to assess the benefit of appointing a dedicated paediatric trained diabetes specialist nurse (PDSN). METHODS Retrospective analysis of medical notes and hospital records. Glycaemic control, growth, weight gain, microvascular complications, school absence, and the proportion of children undergoing an annual clinical review and diabetes education session were assessed. The effect of the appointment of a PDSN on the frequency of hospital admission, length of inpatient stay, and outpatient attendance was evaluated. RESULTS Children with IDDM were of normal height and grew well for three years after diagnosis, but grew suboptimally thereafter. Weight gain was above average every year after diagnosis. Glycaemic control was poor at all ages with only 16% of children having an acceptable glycated haemoglobin. Eighty five per cent of patients underwent a formal annual clinical review, of whom 16% had background retinopathy and 20% microalbuminuria in one or more samples. After appointing the PDSN the median length of hospital stay for newly diagnosed patients decreased from five days to one day, with 10 of 24 children not admitted. None of the latter was admitted during the next year. There was no evidence of the PDSN affecting the frequency of readmission or length of stay of children with established IDDM. Non-attendance at the outpatient clinic was reduced from a median of 19 to 10%. CONCLUSIONS Outcome measures for evaluating the care of children with IDDM can be defined and evaluated. Specialist nursing support markedly reduces the length of hospital stay of newly diagnosed patients without sacrificing the quality of care

Obtenção e caracterização de gelatina de pele de tilápia-do-nilo (Oreochromis niloticus) em escala piloto.

bitstream/item/164639/1/BPD17023.pd

Explaining Activities as Consistent Groups of Events: A Bayesian Framework Using Attribute Multiset Grammars

We propose a method for disambiguating uncertain detections of events by seeking global explanations for activities. Given a noisy visual input, and exploiting our knowledge of the activity and its constraints, one can provide a consistent set of events explaining all the detections. The paper presents a complete framework that starts with a general way to formalise the set of global explanations for a given activity using attribute multiset grammars (AMG). An AMG combines the event hierarchy with the necessary features for recognition and algebraic constraints defining allowable combinations of events and features. Parsing a set of detections by such a grammar finds a consistent set of events that satisfies the activity’s constraints. Each parse tree has a posterior probability in a Bayesian sense. To find the best parse tree, the grammar and a finite set of detections are mapped into a Bayesian network. The set of possible labellings of the Bayesian network corresponds to the set of all parse trees for a given set of detections.We compare greedy, multiple-hypotheses trees, reversible jump MCMC, and integer programming for finding the Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) solution over the space of explanations. The framework is tested for two applications; the activity in a bicycle rack and around a building entrance

Uncertainty in decision making An abductive perspective

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3597.88753(92-27) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Simulation of a trading multi-agent system.

In a trading scenario agents interact with each other, selling and buying resources. In order to control the behavior of the trading scenario, the interactions must be coordinated. We present a brief discussion of communication types and coordination models applicable in multi-agent systems. We find a programmable tuple space more appropriate to manage and rule the interactions between the trading agents. We discuss the advantages of a trading agent model that deals with the trading strategy, concentrating on what to buy or sell. This relieves the agent from the task of coordinating the negotiations and their revoking or acceptances. This is the task of the programmable tuple spac