From Sultaniyeh to Tashkent Scrolls: Euclidean Constructions of Two Nine- and Twelve-Pointed Interlocking Star Polygon Designs

In this paper we will explore two nine- and twelvepointed Islamic star polygon patterns consisting of ??nearly regular?? nine-pointed, regular twelve-pointed and irregularly-shaped pentagonal star polygons. The two designs are similar in that they may both be classified mathematically as being p6m patterns with the major star polygons placed in identical locations within each layout; however, the structure of the major stars is quite different. Both of the patterns considered here are of Persian origin. The first design may be found as a repeat unit sketch of the Tashkent Scrolls, and exists as a Timurid-style stone inlay and mosaic tiling in India. The second pattern may be found as Plate 120 of Bourgoin??s Arabic Geometrical Pattern and Design and exists as a stucco/plasterwork ceiling in the Mausoleum of Sultan Oljaytu in Sultaniyeh, Iran, as well as numerous other locations across the Islamic world. Both patterns may be recreated via plausible Euclidean ??point-joining?? constructions (that is, using only the methods available to medieval artisans) in an attempt to ascertain how the original designers of these patterns may have determined the proportion and placement of the stars.     

Building brains for bodies

We describe a project to capitalize on newly available levels of computational resources in order to understand human cognition. We are building an integrated physical system including vision, sound input and output, and dextrous manipulation, all controlled by a continuously operating large scale parallel MIMD computer. The resulting system will learn to think by building on its bodily experiences to accomplish progressively more abstract tasks. Past experience suggests that in attempting to build such an integrated system we will have to fundamentally change the way artificial intelligence, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophy think about the organization of intelligence. We expect to be able to better reconcile the theories that will be developed with current work in neuroscience.     

Modeling the glucose regulatory system in extreme preterm infants

Background

Premature infants represent a significant proportion of the neonatal intensive care population. Blood glucose homeostasis in this group is often disturbed by immaturity of endogenous regulatory systems and the stress of their condition. Hypo- and hyperglycemia are frequently reported in very low birth weight infants, and more mature infants often experience low levels of glycemia. A model capturing the unique fundamental dynamics of the neonatal glucose regulatory system could be used to develop better blood glucose control methods.

Methods

A metabolic system model is adapted from adult critical care to the unique physiological case of the neonate. Integral-based fitting methods were used to identify time-varying insulin sensitivity and non-insulin mediated glucose uptake profiles. The clinically important predictive ability of the model was assessed by assuming insulin sensitivity was constant over prediction intervals of 1, 2 and 4 h forward and comparing model-simulated versus actual clinical glucose values for all recorded interventions. The clinical data included 1091 glucose measurements over 3567 total patient hours, along with all associated insulin and nutritional infusion data, for N = 25 total cases. Ethics approval was obtained from the Upper South A Regional Ethics Committee for this study.

Results

The identified model had a median absolute percentage error of 2.4% [IQR: 0.9-4.8%] between model-fitted and clinical glucose values. Median absolute prediction errors at 1-, 2- and 4-h intervals were 5.2% [IQR: 2.5-10.3%], 9.4% [IQR: 4.5-18.4%] and 13.6% [IQR: 6.3-27.6%] respectively.

Conclusions

The model accurately captures and predicts the fundamental dynamic behaviors of the neonatal metabolism well enough for effective clinical decision support in glycemic control. The adaptation from adult to a neonatal case is based on the data from the literature. Low prediction errors and very low fitting errors indicate that the fundamental dynamics of glucose metabolism in both premature neonates and critical care adults can be described by similar mathematical models.     

Innovations in Individual Feature History Management—The Significance of Feature-based Temporal Model

A feature relies on three dimensions (space, theme, and time) for its representation. Even though spatiotemporal models have been proposed, they have principally focused on the spatial changes of a feature. In this paper, a feature-based temporal model is proposed to represent the changes of both space and theme independently. The proposed model modifies the ISO’s temporal schema and adds new explicit temporal relationship structure that stores temporal topological relationship with the ISO’s temporal primitives of a feature in order to keep track feature history. The explicit temporal relationship can enhance query performance on feature history by removing topological comparison during query process. Further, a prototype system has been developed to test a proposed feature-based temporal model by querying land parcel history in Athens, Georgia. The result of temporal query on individual feature history shows the efficiency of the explicit temporal relationship structure.

Segmentation and range sensing using a moving-aperture lens

The use of a novel motorized lens to perform segmentation of image sequences is presented in this paper. The lens has the effect of introducing small, repeating movements of the camera center so that objects appear to translate in the image by an amount that depends on the distance from the plane of focus. For a stationary scene, optical flow magnitudes are therefore directly related to three-dimensional object distance from the observer. We describe a segmentation procedure that exploits these controlled observer movements and present experimental results that demonstrate the successful extraction of objects at different depths. Potential applications of our approach include image compositing, teleconferencing, and range estimation.Received: 4 July 2002, Accepted: 16 December 2002, Published online: 23 July 2003 Correspondence to: Amy E. Bell     

A Wireless Instructor System for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Requiring Immersive Presence (CSCLIP)

The Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Requiring Immersive Presence (CSCLIP) concept has been established with the objective of extending and enhancing thee-learning experience of distance education, especially for classes that involve laboratory (lab) experiments. The CSCLIP concept defines immersive presence as an inherent requirement that enables cognitive, affective, and most importantly psychomotor learning objectives to integrate into designs and concepts for next generation e-learning systems (Sharda et~al., 2003). Within the CSCLIP architectural framework, the Wireless Instructor (WI) system has been conceptualized and developed as an essential device to effectively support teaching while roaming instructional features for both local and distance students. The WI system provides cost effective means to establish a real-time immersive presence for the distance learning (DL) student and his/her lab group peers. The technical design and system architecture to create a WI system are introduced in this paper. The objective of the WI system is to make the learning experience more vivid and interactive by enabling the DL students, as well as the local students that are not in the same room with the instructor(s) at the same time, to be able to flexibly interact with the instructor(s) in real-time. With this system the students can experience real-time or non-real-time virtual tours with the instructor(s), enabling the students to visit places that may not be easily accessible due to distance, limited space and/or time, cost, or possible danger. The WI system consists of two major sub-components. First is a wireless audio and video (AV) system, which transfers real-time AV signals to and from the instructor(s) to all students. Second is the wireless instructor locator & data assistant system. These two systems can be combined into one WI unit, but as the applied development technologies are somewhat distinct, their features and architectural designs will be described separately throughout this paper. Integration of the two systems will enable further capabilities.This revised version was published online in March 2005 with corrections to the cover dateThis project was funded by the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) award no. P116Z020042 project titled Telecommunications Virtual Laboratory Development.     

A Study of Structure, Electric and Magnetic Properties of the New Layered Cobalt Oxides Sr2Y1-x Ca x Co2O7-z

The crystal structure of Sr ₂ Y _0.8 Ca _0.2 Co ₂ O ₆ is orthorhombic below 270 K (Immm, a = 3.84029(7) Å, b = 3.80691(6) Å and c = 19.4980(3) Å at 20 K), transformed from tetragonal (I4/mmm, a = 3.82765(6) Å and c = 19.5795(3) Å) at 295 K. The crystal structure distortion is accompanied by an anomalous temperature dependence of the degree of buckling of the CoO ₂ plane and is correlated with the development of anisotropic antiferromagnetic ordering of magnetic moments (2.93(2) _B per Co at 20 K). A magnetically glassy state below about 35 K and variable range hopping conduction below about 64 K for were found by magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistivity measurements.     

Development of a Cloud Trust Label: A Delphi Approach

The purpose of this research is to identify the potential information components of an online, real-time trust label, which is proposed as a communication mechanism to encourage trust in cloud service providers and cloud computing products. An online Delphi process was used with 28 cloud computing experts (including vendors, software providers, and legal and business representatives). The proposed label contains 81 information components, covering the cloud service provider (e.g. physical location, legal jurisdiction), the cloud service itself (e.g. data location, security, backup, certification), and a historical service-level summary (e.g. uptime data, support response times). The potential benefits of such a label to encourage trustworthiness perceptions and trust behaviors in the cloud computing environment are explored. Limitations of the study are highlighted, and further research studies are suggested to test the concept of the label and to refine the components of the label itself.     

Variance in faking across noncognitive measures.

There are discrepant findings in the literature regarding the effects of applicant faking on the validity of noncognitive measures. One explanation for these mixed results may be the failure of some studies to consider individual differences in faking. This study demonstrates that there is considerable variance across individuals in the extent of faking 3 types of noncognitive measures (i.e., personality test, biodata inventory, and integrity test). Participants completed measures honestly and with instructions to fake. Results indicated some measures were more difficult to fake than others. The authors found that integrity, conscientiousness, and neuroticism were related to faking. In addition, individuals faked fairly consistently across the measures. Implications of these results and a model of faking that includes factors that may influence faking behavior are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Brain mass estimation by head circumference and body mass methods in neonatal glycaemic modelling and control

Introduction

Hyperglycaemia is a common complication of stress and prematurity in extremely low-birth-weight infants. Model-based insulin therapy protocols have the ability to safely improve glycaemic control for this group. Estimating non-insulin-mediated brain glucose uptake by the central nervous system in these models is typically done using population-based body weight models, which may not be ideal.

Method

A head circumference-based model that separately treats small-for-gestational-age (SGA) and appropriate-for-gestational-age (AGA) infants is compared to a body weight model in a retrospective analysis of 48 patients with a median birth weight of 750 g and median gestational age of 25 weeks. Estimated brain mass, model-based insulin sensitivity (S_I) profiles, and projected glycaemic control outcomes are investigated. SGA infants (5) are also analyzed as a separate cohort.

Results

Across the entire cohort, estimated brain mass deviated by a median 10% between models, with a per-patient median difference in S_I of 3.5%. For the SGA group, brain mass deviation was 42%, and per-patient S_I deviation 13.7%. In virtual trials, 87–93% of recommended insulin rates were equal or slightly reduced (Δ < 0.16 mU/h) under the head circumference method, while glycaemic control outcomes showed little change.

Conclusion

The results suggest that body weight methods are not as accurate as head circumference methods. Head circumference-based estimates may offer improved modelling accuracy and a small reduction in insulin administration, particularly for SGA infants.