Roaming Point Perspective: A Dynamic Interpretation of the Visual Refinements of the Greek Doric Temple

Writers, artists, and mathematicians since Vitruvius have attributed the use of the visual refinements as a means by which the Greek builders optically corrected the form of the Doric temple. This study proposes an interpretation in which the visual refinements of the Parthenon are considered from a non-stationary, or “roaming”, point of view. The mathematics of this type of visual space reveals a dynamic zone in which objects visually increase and decrease simultaneously, a behavior consistent with conditions addressed by the visual refinements of the Parthenon.     

Institutional Care for Older People in Developing Countries: The Case of Buenos Aires, Argentina

This paper examines the quality of care provided by old age homes in developing countries. It draws attention to the growing demand for such services and the emergence of a largely unregulated private sector. The paper reviews the findings of a survey of 101 private old age homes conducted in Buenos Aires, Argentina during 2004 and 2005. This reveals that the quality of care leaves much to be desired, and that the rights, autonomy and dignity of older people are often neglected. Particular issues of concern are the repressive managerial structures (including the use of restraints and medication), questionable processes of admission, and limited support for dependent residents. The paper calls for long-term care to be given a higher policy profile in developing countries than is currently the case.     

The Integration of Mathematics in Physics Problem Solving: A Case Study of Greek Upper Secondary School Students

This article presents a case study that examines the level of integration of mathematical knowledge in physics problem solving among first grade students of upper secondary school. We explore the ways in which two specific students utilize their knowledge and we attempt to identify the epistemological framings they refer to while solving a physics problem. Participant observation was used for data collection, and the students' verbal interactions were video-recorded. The analysis shows that they tend to use a wide spectrum of epistemological framings that entangle mathematics and physics but at the same time face significant practical difficulties in modulating the two subjects.     

Migration,Location and Provision of Support to Older Parents: The Case of Romania

Low fertility and rapid out-migration in Romania are consequential for the migrants that confront challenges of providing support to ageing parents. Systematic data allowing examination of intergenerational support are difficult to find for Eastern Europe, a region undergoing demographic and socio-economic transition. Using recently collected data from Romania this study models monetary and instrumental support from an adult child to an older parent as a function of location of residence and additional covariates that assume Romanian families operate following an integrative family framework wherein support obligations are considered to be shared across a family network and support probabilities depend upon characteristics of the provider and the older parent. Multilevel multinomial models with random intercepts indicate international migrants are likely to give money; within Romania migrants and those living in the same locality as parents are unlikely to give money but likely to provide instrumental support. But, specific probabilities vary depending having sibling and where siblings live. Support is more likely provided to rural parents and to parents with functional limitations. Results elucidate the degree to which and why support is being provided within a rapidly ageing environment.     

Increasing the Usability of Online Information for Older Users: A Case Study in Participatory Design

This article describes one of the first documented participatory design (PD) efforts specifically aimed at older users. The goal of the project was to make an existing World Wide Web (WWW) site more user-friendly for older users, specifically in terms of display format issues. A PD team was assembled from a group of community-dwelling older adults and developers from a university research lab. After the developers established the trust and confidence of the participants and developed a conceptual user model (based on a survey and previous literature), the PD team evaluated the original design. Prototypes were iteratively developed and tested by the PD team to improve problems found in the original design. Specific design improvements and general design guidelines for older WWW users are discussed.     

Informatics and municipalities: The Greek approach

The design philosophy of a project aimed at the introduction of data processing into Greek municipalities is described. The various factors that influence important decisions were selected and analysed so that the end product would gradually convert manual services in local administration to fully automated procedures. Environmental factors at the national and local level, communicational flows and interconnections, and experience gained in the field were carefully considered and combined with organizational constraints in making specific recommendations for the development of a coordinated and standardized national Local Authorities Information and Organizational System (LAIOS).     

Agricultural videotex in Europe: the Greek approach

Videotex services in agriculture are operational in many countries of Europe. Experience has highlighted the wide-ranging fields of application involved and the different levels of technology adopted by the farming community. The main factors affecting agricultural videotex development are the investment and support policies applied, linkages with information sources, access compatibility both through networks and terminals, and integration with existing information systems in agriculture. This paper outlines the videotex policy applied by the European Community. Emphasis is given to the less telematically advanced member states. The main factors affecting the new developments and promotion of agricultural videotex services, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, are described and discussed. Particular attention is given to the Greek agricultural videotex system AGROTEL, which emerged from the videotex pilot project DIMITRA. The design aspects of the current information content and the end-user/computer interface are discussed. The main obstacles AGROTEL faces are analysed with the aim of providing appropriate recommendations, so as to move successfully to a self-sustainable service. The videotex pilot project DIMITRA is also described and the latest developments are reported. The study shows that although Greece faces particular problems, DIMITRA has achieved most of the stated objectives.     

Physarum in silicon: the Greek motorways study

Physarum polycephalum has repeatedly, during the last decade, demonstrated that has unexpected computing abilities. While the plasmodium of P. polycephalum can effectively solve several geographical described problems, like evaluating human–made transport networks, a disadvantage of a biological computer, like the aforementioned is directly apparent; the great amount of time needed to provide results. Thus, the main focus of this paper is the enhancement of the time efficiency of the biological computer by using conventional computers or even digital circuitry. Cellular automata (CA) as a powerful computational tool has been selected to tackle with these difficulties and a software (Matlab) CA model is used to produce results in shorter time periods. While the duration of a laboratory experiment is occasionally from 3 to 5 days, the CA model, for a specific configuration, needs around 40 s. In order to achieve a further acceleration of the computation, a hardware implementation of the corresponding CA software based model is proposed here, taking full advantage of the CA inherent parallelism, uniformity and the locality of interconnections. Consequently, the digital circuit designed can be used as a massively parallel nature inspired computer for real–time applications. The hardware implementation of the model needs six orders of magnitude less time than the software representation. In this paper, in order to develop a proof of concept and depict the applicability of the proposed hardware oriented CA approach, the topology of Greece is used as an input of the biological computer. The network formed by the in vitro experiments, along with the one designed by the CA model and implemented in hardware are compared with the real motorways and the proximity graphs of the topology.     

Internationalization of Linked Data: The case of the Greek DBpedia edition

This paper describes the deployment of the Greek DBpedia and the contribution to the DBpedia information extraction framework with regard to internationalization (I18n) and multilingual support. I18n filters are proposed as pluggable components in order to address issues when extracting knowledge from non-English Wikipedia editions. We report on our strategy for supporting the International Resource Identifier (IRI) and introduce two new extractors to complement the I18n filters. Additionally, the paper discusses the definition of Transparent Content Negotiation (TCN) rules for IRIs to address de-referencing and IRI serialization problems. The aim of this research is to establish best practices (complemented by software) to allow the DBpedia community to easily generate, maintain and properly interlink language-specific DBpedia editions. Furthermore, these best practices can be applied for the publication of Linked Data in non-Latin languages in general.     

Simulation of the sea- and land-breezes in Athens

This paper deals with the application of a physically complete land–sea–air boundary layer model for the simulation of flow field and pollutant transport over the Athens basin. As a first approach, a two–dimensional simulation of the tidal air movements in Athens has been performed. Simulation results are presented, discussed and compared with available measurements.     

A Grid-enabled CPU Scavenging Architecture and a Case Study of its Use in the Greek School Network

In this paper we present a CPU scavenging architecture suitable for desktop resources, and we study its appropriateness in exploiting the PC Laboratory resources of the Greek School Network and their integration to the existing HellasGrid national infrastructure. School laboratories form an extensive network equipped with computational systems and fast Internet connections. As this infrastructure is utilized at most 8 h per day and 5 days per week, it could be made available during its remaining idle time for computational purposes through the use of Grid technology. The structure and organization of the school laboratories and backbone network enables the CPU scavenging service, as an independent and additional service, which will not violate the operational rules and policies of the school network, while it will add additional resources to the current HellasGrid infrastructure with low adaptation cost.     

Applying evolutionary computation to the school timetabling problem: The Greek case

In this contribution, an adaptive algorithm based on evolutionary computation techniques is designed, developed and applied to the timetabling problem of educational organizations. Specifically, the proposed algorithm has been used in order to create feasible and efficient timetables for high schools in Greece. The algorithm has been tested exhaustively with real-world input data coming from many different high schools and has been compared with several other effective techniques in order to demonstrate its efficiency and superior performance. Simulation results showed that the algorithm is able to construct a feasible and very efficient timetable more quickly and easily compared to other techniques, thus preventing disagreements and arguments among teachers and assisting each school to operate with its full resources from the beginning of the academic year. Except from that, due to its inherent adaptive behavior it can be used each time satisfying different specific constraints, in order to lead to timetables, thus meeting the different needs that each school may have.     

Route planning for a seaplane service: The case of the Greek Islands

Seaplanes offer a time and cost-efficient service for supporting transportation needs in island chains. This paper investigates the design of a seaplane network connecting the Greek islands with the mainland, a service currently accommodated by ferries. Design of seaplane routes is modeled as a multi-objective capacitated vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickups and deliveries and route length deadlines. A genetic algorithm coupled with a hybrid process is used to solve the model. Results show that a network of 11 routes with maximum flight duration of 5 h can adequately cover estimated daily transportation needs between the Greek mainland and the islands. Further, realistic increases in seaplane capacity and/or cruising speed will have only a moderate impact on reducing the number of required routes.     

Evaluating terminal management performances using SLAM: The case of Athens International Airport

Athens in Greece is the city selected to host the 2004 Olympic Games. Many simulations and analyses have been performed in order to properly approach the logistics problems arising from such an event. In this paper we address one of these problems. More precisely, we present a model for analyzing the terminal of Athens International Airport (AIA) under three different scenarios: (i) a historic scenario, based on a typical “busy day”, (ii) a foreseeable scenario with AIA becoming a hub and increasing its traffic volume, and (iii) a traffic intense scenario, as expected during the 2004 Olympic Games. The airport simulation is performed through the OPAL platform. While the airside analysis does not evidence any major cause of congestion, the landside, evaluated through an enhanced version of the simple landside aggregate model (SLAM), shows possible situations of congestion with a consequent degradation in the level of service provided. The use of SLAM allows signaling out the bottlenecks and the corresponding possible causes. A simple modification in the airport policies is sufficient to significantly improve the overall performance.     

论塔公寺壁画的审美特征

本文从塔公寺壁画的形式美方面论述了其独特的审美特征。详尽阐述了塔公寺壁画的和谐、对称与均衡、比例、节奏和韵律等特性。文章最后提出从现代设计的角度看,塔公寺的壁画十分符合现代设计的平面构成理念,是我们现代设计十分宝贵的财富。     

The Body, the Temple and the Newtonian Man Conundrum

From his early days at the University of Cambridge until his death, Isaac Newton had a long running interest in the Temple of Solomon, a topic which appeared in his works on prophecy, chronology and metrology. At the same time that Newton was working on the Principia, he reconstructed the Temple and commented on the reconstructions of others. An important part of his investigations concerned the measurements of the Temple, which were harmonic and were built “exactly as the proportion of architecture demands.” Newton considered these proportions to be in accordance with Book III and IV of De Architectura. However, while insisting on exact architectural proportions, Newton moved away from the traditional proportions of the Vitruvian man; he derived a Newtonian man. This poses an interesting conundrum: Newton accepted the Temple’s architectural proportions as outlined in Vitruvius’s Book III, yet he rejected the human model Vitruvius used as the foundation of these proportions. At the same time Newton accepted the human frame as the basis of all ancient measurements and attempted to estimate the length of the sacred cubit based on the lengths of the parts for the body and the measurements set out by the ancient writers such a Vitruvius.     

E-banking: challenges and opportunities in the Greek banking sector

Internet technologies have a great potential for changing fundamentally the banks and the banking industry. The opportunities, which the e-banking services and technologies offer to the banking sector in order to fulfil existing customer needs and to attract new prospective customers, are the driving forces for banks in order to design, develop and operate their own e-banking systems. This paper examines the challenges and opportunities of e-banking for the Greek banking sector, during the e-commerce era, and also presents the results of a survey of banking executives working at banks offering e-banking services. The main findings demonstrate that banks expand to e-banking services in order to remain competitive, to keep track with technological developments and to benefit from the lower cost of e-banking transactions. The major problems they face are the low response rate from customers and the implementation of security and data protection mechanisms. The relatively low Internet usage, the non-familiarity with technologically advanced devices and problems regarding security and privacy are the main factors that have a negative influence on the adoption of e-banking services by customers in Greece.     

The Ten Shades of Silver: Segmentation of Older Adults in the Mobile Phone Market

With the closing of the age-related gap in mobile phone uptake and the aging of the population, older adults have increasingly become a desirable target group for mobile phone providers. Although there is abundant literature describing the use of mobile phones among older adults, segmentation studies on this group of consumers remain scant and inconclusive. Drawing on the benefit and behavioral segmentation, this study presents a segmentation model of older adults in the mobile phone market that incorporates a wide variety of consumer behavior, attitudinal, and acceptance variables relevant for the understanding of mobile phone (non-)usage patterns among users of feature phones and smartphones, as well as among mobile phone nonusers. The model is based on a hybrid approach with a two-step cluster analysis using data collected by a telephone survey from a representative sample (n = 1,581) of adults aged 55 or older in Slovenia in 2015. The analysis yielded two uniquely profiled clusters within each of the five a priori-determined segments, summing to a total of 10 clusters. The results show that older adults still prefer feature phones. Nevertheless, the mobile phone market has become highly heterogeneous, with clusters of older adults having distinguishable feature phone- and smartphone-use patterns as well as socio-demographic and life-course profiles. Since many of these profiles undermine the notion of older adults as “basic” mobile phone users, our findings represent a solid foundation for scholars and marketers to further investigate their specific needs in relation to more advanced smartphone and mobile internet usage.     

The Cinema as Secular Temple: Ethos,Form and Symbolism of the Capitol Theatre

Since the tetraktys is the most important symbol of the Pythagorean school and system, its prominence in the form and decoration of the Capitol Theatre, Melbourne (Australia), suggests that this building was designed in the Pythagorean spirit. The tetraktys encodes the fundamental proportions or harmonies of the musical scale (1:2, 2:3, 3:4) and so one would expect to find these same proportions used in the form and decoration of the Capitol as well as evidence of relevant musical thought and inspiration in the writings of its designers, Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin. Graham Pont explains the significance of the tetraktys in the Pythagorean tradition, identifies the Capitol as a “secular temple” in form and ethos, and indicates possible contemporary influences on the theatre’s remarkable motif of the “Crystal Tetraktys” and other symbolism.