Search results for "Cybernetics"
showing 10 items of 331 documents
The contested concept of vulnerability – a literature review
2018
The concept of vulnerability is widely used in the social sciences as well as in policy making, health and social care services and in social work, referring to a variety of groups or individuals, ...
Innovative Tools for Sound Sketching Combining Vocalizations and Gestures
2016
International audience; Designers are used to produce a variety of physical and digital representations at different stages of the design process. These intermediary objects (IOs) do support the externalization of ideas and the mediation with the different stakeholders. In the same manner, sound designers deliver several intermediate sounds to their clients, through iteration and refinement. In fact, these preliminary sounds are sound sketches representing the intermediate steps of an evolving creation. In this paper we reflect on the method of sketching sounds through vocalizations and gestures, and how a technological support, grounded in the understanding of the design practice, can fost…
Space‐time dynamical models
2008
Purpose – The purpose is to present a new formal approach based on a partial integro‐differential equation, the space‐time state transition equation (STSTE), and on a set of general equations with which space‐time dynamical models of complex systems, such as social systems and ecosystems, can be built.Design/methodology/approach – The STSTE provides the partial derivative of the density of a state‐variable with regard to time as a sum of time rates and space‐time rates. Time rates describe the dynamics of the system for each space‐point irrespectively of the other points, whilst space‐time rates describe this evolution as a consequence of the relation of each space‐point with a given set of…
The importance of standard operating procedures in physical fitness assessment: a brief review
2022
Abstract Background Physical fitness status is a key aspect of health and, consequently, it is important to create and adopt appropriate interventions to maintain or improve it, and assess it using valid measures. While in other testing contexts, standard operating procedures (SOPs) are commonly and widely adopted, in physical fitness testing, a variety of unstandardized testing protocols are proposed. Aims The topic of this review was to evaluate the existing literature on SOPs in physical fitness assessment and to provide guidelines on how SOPs could be created and adopted. Method The electronic databases PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus were screened and original, peer-reviewed studies …
Overall Objective Priors
2015
In multi-parameter models, reference priors typically depend on the parameter or quantity of interest, and it is well known that this is necessary to produce objective posterior distributions with optimal properties. There are, however, many situations where one is simultaneously interested in all the parameters of the model or, more realistically, in functions of them that include aspects such as prediction, and it would then be useful to have a single objective prior that could safely be used to produce reasonable posterior inferences for all the quantities of interest. In this paper, we consider three methods for selecting a single objective prior and study, in a variety of problems incl…
Test and power considerations for multiple endpoint analyses using sequentially rejective graphical procedures
2009
A variety of powerful test procedures are available for the analysis of clinical trials addressing multiple objectives, such as comparing several treatments with a control, assessing the benefit of a new drug for more than one endpoint, etc. However, some of these procedures have reached a level of complexity that makes it difficult to communicate the underlying test strategies to clinical teams. Graphical approaches have been proposed instead that facilitate the derivation and communication of Bonferroni-based closed test procedures. In this paper we give a coherent description of the methodology and illustrate it with a real clinical trial example. We further discuss suitable power measur…
The Structural Variety and Metabolism of Proteins
1994
Individual eukaryote cells contain in the order of 104 different proteins, and each animal species contains an even greater number due to differences between the tissues of an individual and between the individuals themselves; furthermore, the protein spectrum changes during the course of development. The number of different proteins to be found in extant organisms may be as high as 1012. The description of this variety, its origin and biological significance is the most extensive theme in comparative biochemistry. This chapter will concern itself with the possibilities for structural variation and the general metabolism of proteins; further chapters will deal with comparative studies of in…
Talking Blockchains: The Perspective of a Database Researcher
2021
There are few topics out there, that seem to create as much confusion and discussion as blockchains. This has a multitude of reasons: (1) A large number of drastically different concepts and systems are unified under the very broad term "blockchain". (2) The topic touches a variety of different fields, including databases, distributed processing, networks, cryptography, and even economics. (3) There exists a large number of different applications of the technology.The goal of this paper is to simplify and structure the discussion of blockchain technology. We first introduce a simple formalization of the basic components, that appear again and again in a variety of blockchain systems. Second…
The integration of information technologies in the knowledge based organizations
2016
Relations between the users' expertise, complexity of tasks to be solved by knowledge-based organizations and mission of smart information systems, is a multi-dimensional structure that should provide the necessary conceptual framework of sustainable integrated smart development. The users of smart information systems face a variety of problems, such as: system access, data recovery, identifying and retrieving a specific document and its contents, and difficulties associated with understanding and interpreting of the used system on stages and methods following to be used, respectively problems on understanding the meaning of information provided. Using smart information systems and smart da…
A Proposal to Model Ancient Silk Weaving Techniques and Extracting Information from Digital Imagery - Ongoing Results of the SILKNOW Project
2019
Three dimensional (3D) virtual representations of the internal structure of textiles are of interest for a variety of purposes related to fashion, industry, education or other areas. The modeling of ancient weaving techniques is relevant to understand and preserve our heritage, both tangible and intangible. However, ancient techniques cannot be reproduced with standard approaches, which usually are aligned with the characteristics of modern, mechanical looms. The aim of this paper is to propose a mathematical modelling of ancient weaving techniques by means of matrices in order to be easily mapped to a virtual 3D representation. The work focuses on ancient silk textiles, ranging from the 15…