DOES THE CREATIVE ENGINE RUN? A CONSIDERATION OF THE EFFECT OF CREATIVE CLASS ON ECONOMIC STRENGTH AND GROWTH

ABSTRACT: Florida's book, The Rise of the Creative Class, ranks 276 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) according to a creativity index. This article explores whether the creativity index or its subcomponents are related to the economic strength or growth in MSAs. Economic strength is operationalized using Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP) per capita for the year 2000. Economic growth is operationalized by the percent change in GMP from 1993 to 2003 and from 2000 to 2004. The first time period is used to test these economic measures against the distribution of the creative class from 1990 as presented in the hardcover edition of The Rise of the Creative Class. The second is used to test the economic measures against the components of the creativity index as defined in the softcover edition of the same work. Our results raise questions as to the whether the concentration of the creative class in an MSA acts as an economic engine.     

The application of information systems for the design and operation of flexible machining cells

The use of information systems in manufacturing applications has dramatically changed over the last few years. The design and implementation of somewhat dated relational databases has been replaced by the generation of information models, that can be simultaneously used for the development of information systems and satisfy their integration requirements. Over the last ten years the authors have been involved in a series of research programmes focusing on the design and operation of flexible machining cells. The use of information systems has been a central theme and the enabling technology to achieve a number of novel design concepts and operational strategies for such cells. The initial research was based on the utilization of relational databases to integrate a variety of modelling and design tools. However, the additional effort required to integrate such databases to manufacturing software tools, in the form of developing file translators, information gateways and interfac es, has made the authors adopt a new approach. With this approach the information requirements are represented in a neutral format within a data model, using a formal data specification language developed by the Standards for the Exchange of Product (STEP) committee. This paper describes these changes in the design and implementation of information systems in manufacturing applications, and provides an initial view of future research requirements.     

Determination of molecular and free sulphur dioxide in foods by headspace gas chromatography

A study was made of the equilibria between SO2 in packaged liquid foods and gaseous SO2 in their headspace atmospheres as a basis for a new analytical method for the determination of molecular and free SO,. Using a gas-chromatographic method developed previously to determine SO2 at the 1 × 10⁻³ mg/l level in atmospheres saturated with water vapour, studies with aqueous solutions showed that headspace SO2 was directly proportional to molecular SOz in accordance with Henry's law.
Using the Henry's law constant for the S02/H20 system, determinations of molecular SOz were made on a white and a red wine and a fruit juice, each adjusted to five levels of pH to achieve different concentrations of molecular SO,. The results observed by the headspace method showed good agreement with those determined by a reference analytical method with white wine and fruit juice, but with red wine the reference method gave values which were more than 45% higher. Free SO2 was determined in a range of white wines by the headspace and reference methods, and the results showed high correlations.
The headspace method is rapid, precise and non-destructive. A major advantage is that, during the analysis, it does not change the complicated equilibria between SO, and its ionised species, hence complexes of SO2 and food constituents are not disturbed.     

Piezoelectric Biosensor for Detection of Salmonella typhimurium

A flow injection analysis (FIA) system was developed based on a piezoelectric biosensor for detection of Salmonella typhimurium. The anti-Salmonella spp antibody was immobilized onto the gold electrode coated quartz crystal surface through a polyethylenimine-glutaraldehyde (PEG) technique and dithiobis-succinimidyl propionate (DSP) coupling. The PEG technique proved more successful for FIA applications than the DSP coupling. The biosensor had responses of 23–7 Hz in 25 min when the PEG immobilization technique was employed, with R²0.94 for Salmonella typhimurium concentrations of 5.3.10⁵ to 1.2.10⁹ CFU/mL.     

Self-organization of Multiple Winner-take-all Neural Networks

In this paper, analysis of the information content of discretely firing neurons in unsupervised neural networks is presented, where information is measured according to the network's ability to reconstruct its input from its output with minimum mean square Euclidean error. It is shown how this type of network can self-organize into multiple winner-take-all subnetworks, each of which tackles only a low-dimensional subspace of the input vector. This is a rudimentary example of a neural network that effectively subdivides a task into manageable subtasks.     

Yield prediction from digital image analysis: A technique with potential for vineyard assessments prior to harvest

Digital photographs were taken of four 1 m × 1 m portions of canopy of Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines, as they were being progressively de-fruited close to harvest. The program EasyAccess version 6.3 was used to select 'fruit' pixels by visually setting red, green and blue threshold values and tolerances for the first image and applying these to all other images. The program was then used to automatically count 'fruit' pixels and the total number of pixels for each image. Even though two hours separated the first and last photographs, the ratio of 'fruit' pixels to total image pixels explained 85% of the variation in yield (kg per linear m of fruiting wire) for all 16 vine × de-fruiting combinations. This improved to between 94 and 99% for individual portions of canopy. Implications from our present digital image analysis for future development of both automated and spatially aware methods to predict vineyard yield are discussed.     

Supporting the programmer of a rule based language

Abstract: In this paper we take up the plight of the programmer of a rule based language. Our focus is on the type of development environment that is most supportive of such programmers. Our view will be that programming is programming, whether it be with a rule based, functional or imperative language. While it is true that rule based languages have strong links to the Expert Systems field, our discussion in this paper has less to do with 'expert systems' per se ¹ , and more to do with the view of rule based languages as yet another computational paradigm, often included under the same roof with non-rule-based languages. Just as programming environment research has progressed for non-rule-based languages, we would like to build more powerful environments in the rule based world as well. We report here on an attempt to build such an environment. ²     

SOME PROPERTIES of FISH GELS MADE FROM SEVERAL NORTHWEST ATLANTIC SPECIES IN the PRESENCE of HIGH and LOW SALT

The relative effect of NaCl on true strain and stress at failure varied considerably among unfrozen fish species. Values of true strain were always greater in samples with 3% salt in the absence of cryoprotectants. the effect of NaCl on stress varied more widely than on true strain; in a couple of cases, stress at failure was higher for fish gels without 3% sodium chloride. Three of four fatty species (Atlantic mackerel, Atlantic menhaden and bluefish) were among the samples that had the lowest values of both true strain and stress. For red hake, seasonal effects of salt on gelation properties were observed. True strain and stress values of red hake were higher without added salt than they were with 3% added salt when cryoprotectants were added to the samples and the samples were stored for one week at -20C.