The stochastic interdependence of dynamic risk-sensitive decision rules

Certainty-equivalent decisions are risk neutral with respect to the uncertainty about outcomes. This paper examines risk-sensitive decisions which optimize a combination of the first two moments of a stochastic objective. These decisions are shown to be stochastically inseparable with respect to time, and cannot be fully optimized by recursive techniques such as dynamic programming. An example in economic planning shows that this inseparability property can have considerable significance in practice     

Functional organisation of the endomembrane network in the digestive gland of the Venus flytrap: revisiting an old story with a new microscopy toolbox

Up-to-date imaging approaches were used to address the spatiotemporal organisation of the endomembrane system in secretory cells of Dionaea muscipula. Different ‘slice and view’ methodologies were performed on resin-embedded samples to finally achieve a 3D reconstruction of the cell architecture, using ultrastructural tomography, array tomography, serial block face-scanning electron microscopy (SBF-SEM), correlation, and volume rendering at the light microscopy level. Observations of cryo-fixed samples by high-pressure freezing revealed changes of the endomembrane system that occur after trap activation and prey digestion. They provide evidence for an original strategy that adapts the secretory machinery to a specific and unique case of stimulated exocytosis in plant cells. A first secretion peak is part of a rapid response to deliver digestive fluids to the cell surface, which delivers the needed stock of digestive materials ‘on site’. The second peak of activity could then be associated with the reconstruction of the Golgi apparatus (GA), endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and vacuolar machinery, in order to prepare for a subsequent round of prey capture. Tubular continuum between ER and Golgi stacks observed on ZIO-impregnated tissues may correspond to an efficient transfer mechanism for lipids and/or proteins, especially for use in rapidly resetting the molecular GA machinery. The occurrence of one vacuolar continuum may permit continuous adjustment of cell homeostasy. The subcellular features of the secretory cells of Dionaea muscipula outline key innovations in the organisation of plant cell compartmentalisation that are used to cope with specific cell needs such as the full use of the GA as a protein factory, and the ability to create protein reservoirs in the periplasmic space. Shape-derived forces of the pleiomorphic vacuole may act as signals to accompany the sorting and entering flows of the cell.     

Electrostatic emulsification of domestic and personal care products

A technique is described for producing high quality emulsions in a controllable and reproducible way. The dispersed liquid phase is atomized electrostatically, thus enabling particle size to be well below 10μm for wax solutions while at the same time maintaining a very narrow particle size distribution. The energy saving over conventional emulsification methods is considerable, amounting to up to 85% for one typical domestic care product.
Emulsification is achieved in a one-step process in a machine which essentially has no moving parts and requires no auxiliary air supply. In addition to the ability to create high quality emulsions, electrostatic atomization of the dispersed phase itself introduces a new and useful parameter, electrical conductivity, enabling greater flexibility in terms of ensuring emulsion stability. Even in conventional emulsifier systems, electrically charging the dispersed phase may have important implications which have not to date been fully appreciated.
Emulsification de produits de soins de la peau et de produits de ménage par une méthode électrostatique     

General adaptive scheme

In recent years, many different adaptive schemes have been developed. In addition to the development of specific algorithms, much work has also been done in developing a general complex algorithm for which other algorithms developed by specific approaches are special cases. This paper discusses one such algorithm and shows how it can be further generalized.     

Wheat Hardness: Time Required to Grind Wheat with the Brabender Automatic. Micro Hardness Tester

The Brabender automatic micro hardness tester was used to measure the time required to grind 4g of wheat. Effects of temperature and moisture were determined. Increasing temperature from 15 to 40°C generally decreased grinding time, but differentiation among samples was better at 15°C than at higher temperatures. Increasing moisture content increased the grinding time of soft wheat much more than it increased the grinding time of hard wheat. The tester can detect differences related to milling properties of hard wheats, hardness among some wheat classes and among some varieties representing a single class of wheat. The instrument can also be used to evaluate hardness of plant-breeders' samples, so that selections with extreme hardness or softness can be discarded, and to distinguish between hard and soft wheats in marketing channels.     

Tectonic Gardens

The Tectonic Gardens initiative focuses on small, unremarkable, and often forgotten places adjacent to the lives of underserved people. Located in the boundary between architecture and landscape, these projects seek to create experiential delight out of small-scale design opportunities. Through the adaptive reuse and recycling of leftover urban space, Tectonic Gardens augment and enhance existing building infrastructures with new, primarily outdoor spaces that provide pragmatic functions, promote play, and exhibit a social and environmental conscience.     

Event Handling in the Lego System

An event is an action that alters a program's normal flow of execution. Events can be classified into asynchronous (such as the expiration of a timer or a request to terminate a process) and synchronous (for example, arithmetic and protection faults). When an event occurs during the execution of a process, specialized software is required, either in the kernel, the process, or both. This paper describes the experiences gained in the design, implementation and operation of the event handling mechanism developed for the message-based Lego kernel and distributed system running on the iAPx86 platform. The resulting implementation is a uniform communication interface, treating all events as messages, thereby maintaining Lego's send-receive paradigm. This implementation ensures that event messages follow processes that have migrated and permit the implementation of group event software. Several applications of the event handling software are presented, as is a discussion of the design tradeoffs. The paper concludes that although the basic concept of message-based event handling is well understood, a system's process naming technique can influence how events are handled in a migration and with process groups. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.