Decision Making Effectiveness in Wildfire Incident Management Teams

During large scale wildfires, suppression activities are carried out under the direction of an Incident Management Team (IMT). The aim of the research was to increase understanding of decision processes potentially related to IMT effectiveness. An IMT comprises four major functions: Command, Operations, Planning, and Logistics. Four methodologies were used to study IMT processes: computer simulation experiments; analyses of wildfire reports; interviews with IMT members; and cognitive ethnographic studies of IMTs. Three processes were important determinants of IMT effectiveness: information management and cognitive overload; matching component function goals to overall goals; and team metacognition to detect and counter task‐disruptive developments. These processes appear to be complex multi‐person analogues of individual Incident Command processes identified previously. The findings have implications for issues such as: creating IMTs; training IMTs; managing IMTs; and providing decision support to IMTs.     

Perspective:Societally connected multimedia across cultures

The advance of the Internet in the past decade has radically changed the way people communicate and col- laborate with each other. Physical distance is no more a barrier in online social networks, but cultural differences (at the individual, community, as well as societal levels) still govern human-human interactions and must be con- sidered and leveraged in the online world. The rapid de-ployment of high-speed Internet allows humans to interact using a rich set of multimedia data such as texts, pictures, and videos. This position paper proposes to define a new research area called ’connected multimedia’, which is the study of a collection of research issues of the super-area social media that receive little attention in the literature. By connected multimedia, we mean the study of the social and technical interactions among users, multimedia data, and devices across cultures and explicitly exploiting the cultural differences. We justify why it is necessary to bring attention to this new research area and what benefits of this new research area may bring to the broader scientific research community and the humanity.     

Novel (Phenothiazinyl)Vinyl-Pyridinium Dyes and Their Potential Applications as Cellular Staining Agents

We report here the synthesis and structural characterization of novel cationic (phenothiazinyl)vinyl-pyridinium (PVP) dyes, together with optical (absorption/emission) properties and their potential applicability as fluorescent labels. Convective heating, ultrasound irradiation and mechanochemical synthesis were considered as alternative synthetic methodologies proficient for overcoming drawbacks such as long reaction time, nonsatisfactory yields or solvent requirements in the synthesis of novel dye (E)-1-(3-chloropropyl)-4-(2-(10-methyl-10H-phenothiazin-3-yl)vinyl)pyridin-1-ium bromide 3d and its N-alkyl-2-methylpyridinium precursor 1c. The trans geometry of the newly synthesized (E)-4-(2-(7-bromo-10-ethyl-10H-phenothiazin-3-yl)vinyl)-1-methylpyridin-1-ium iodide 3b and (E)-1-methyl-4-(2-(10-methyl-10H-phenothiazin-3-yl)vinyl)pyridin-1-ium tetrafluoroborate 3a′ was confirmed by single crystal X-ray diffraction. A negative solvatochromism of the dyes in polar solvents was highlighted by UV-Vis spectroscopy and explanatory insights were supported by molecular modeling which suggested a better stabilization of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (LUMO). The photostability of the dye 3b was investigated by irradiation at 365 nm in different solvents, while the steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence properties of dye 3b and 3a′ in solid state were evaluated under one-photon excitation at 485 nm. The in vitro cytotoxicity of the new PVP dyes on B16-F10 melanoma cells was evaluated by WST-1 assay, while their intracellular localization was assessed by epi-fluorescence conventional microscopy imaging as well as one- and two-photon excited confocal fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM). PVP dyes displayed low cytotoxicity, good internalization inside melanoma cells and intense fluorescence emission inside the B16-F10 murine melanoma cells, making them suitable staining agents for imaging applications.     

Well-Known and Novel Serum Biomarkers for Risk Stratification of Patients with Non-ischemic Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy encompasses a wide spectrum of myocardial disorders, characterized by left ventricular dilatation with systolic impairment and increased risk of sudden cardiac death. In spite of all the therapeutic progress that has been made in recent years, dilated cardiomyopathy continues to be an important cause of cardiac transplant, being associated with an enormous cost burden for health care systems worldwide. Predicting the prognosis of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy is essential to individualize treatment. Late gadolinium enhancement-cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, microvolt T-wave alternans, and genetic testing have emerged as powerful tools in predicting sudden cardiac death occurrence and maximizing patient’s selection. Despite all these new diagnostic modalities, additional tests to complement or replace current tools are required for better risk stratification. Therefore, biomarkers are an easy and important tool that can help to detect patients at risk of adverse cardiovascular events. Additionally, identifying potential biomarkers involved in dilated cardiomyopathy can provide us important information regarding the diagnostic, prognostic, risk stratification, and response to treatment for these patients. Many potential biomarkers have been studied in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy, but only a few have been adopted in current practice. Therefore, the aim of our review is to provide the clinicians with an update on the well-known and novel biomarkers that can be useful for risk stratification of patients with non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy.     

Straightforward modeling of dynamic I–V characteristics for microwave FETs

This work presents a straightforward approach aimed at modeling the dynamic I–V characteristics of microwave active solid‐state devices. The drain‐source current generator represents the most significant source of nonlinearity in a transistor and, therefore, its correct modeling is fundamental to predict accurately the current and voltage waveforms under large‐signal operation. The proposed approach relies on using a small set of low‐frequency time‐domain waveform measurements combined with numerical optimization‐based estimation of the nonlinear model parameters. The procedure is applied to a gallium nitride HEMT and silicon FinFET. The effectiveness of the modeling procedure in terms of prediction accuracy and generalization capability is demonstrated by validation of the extracted models under operating conditions different than the ones used for the parameters estimation. Good agreement between measurements and model simulations is achieved for both technologies and in both low‐ and high‐frequency range. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:109–116, 2014.     

Computational Aspects of Uncertainty Profiles and Angel-Daemon Games

We analyze the complexity of equilibria problems for a class of strategic zero-sum games, called angel-daemon games. Those games were introduced to asses the performance of the execution of a web orchestration on a moderate faulty or under stress environment. Angel-daemon games are a natural example of zero-sum games whose representation is naturally succinct. We show that the problems of deciding the existence of a pure Nash equilibrium or of a dominant strategy for a given player are ${\Sigma}^{p}_{2}$ -complete. Furthermore, computing the value of an angel-daemon game is EXP-complete. Thus, our results match the already known classification of the corresponding problems for the generic families of succinctly represented games with exponential number of actions.     

A theoretical study of solvent effects on Kolbe-Schmitt reaction kinetics

A theoretical DFT study was employed to confirm the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction mechanism and investigate solvent effects on this reaction. The use of a solvent in the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction is desirable to facilitate a homogeneous reaction mixture and potentially improve the reaction rate. The candidate solvents were designed using computer aided molecular design (CAMD) and tested using DFT solvation calculations. The results from the quantum mechanical calculations were then used to determine the rate constants for each elementary step, the overall reaction yields and the corresponding residence time. The methodology was tested on the reaction without solvent, with solvents reported in the literature, and with the designed solvents. The study revealed that in the presence of solvents with high dielectric constant the reaction becomes reversible, leading to low product yields.     

Classification of honeys by principal component analysis on the basis of chemical and physical parameters

Summary Eighteen chemical and physical parameters of nectar and honeydew honeys were determined and the results were analysed statistically by the method of principal component analysis. On the plots of principal component loadings, the honeys were divided into the following groups: (1) acacia honey; (2) rape honey; (3) linden, floral (nectar coming from various plants) and heather honeys; (4) honeydew honey. The samples which were a blend of nectar and honeydew honeys may be considered as a separate group between 3 and 4. The most important first principal component was strongly associated with the value of electrical conductivity, the contents of ash, free acids and proline, as well as with the pH and the diastase number. The principal component loadings and linear correlation suggested that these parameters contributed much more to the classification of honeys than apparent reducing sugars, apparent sucrose, mono-, di-, and trisaccharides, glucose and fructose. The classification of honeys by the method of principal component analysis may serve as an additional tool in specifying samples on the basis of their chemical composition.

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Klassifizierung von Honigen durch chemische und physikalische Parameter mit Hilfe der Hauptkomponentenanalyse

Zusammenfassung 18 chemische und physikalische Parameter der Nektar- und Honigtauhonige wurden bestimmt und die Ergebnisse statistisch mit Hilfe der Hauptkomponentenanalyse ausgewertet. Danach konnten die Honige in folgende Gruppen unterteilt werden: 1) Akazienhonige, 2) Rapshonige, 3) Linden-, Blüten-und Heidehonige, 4) Honigtauhonige. Zwischen dem Nektarhonig und Honigtauhonig lagen wahrscheinlich die Proben von Mischhonigen aus Blüten- und Waldtracht. Die bedeutendste erste Hauptkomponente war mit folgenden Parametern verbunden: elektrischer Leitfähigkeitswert und Aschegehalt, Gehalt an freien Säuren und Prolin sowie der pH-Wert und Diastasezahl. Aufgrund der Hauptkomponentenladungen und der linearen Korrelation kann angenommen werden, daß diese Parameter für die Honigklassifizierung von größerer Bedeutung sind als der Gehalt an reduzierenden Zuckern, scheinbarer Saccharose, Mono-, Di- und Trisaccharide, Glucose und Fructose. Die Klassifizierung der Honige mit Hilfe der Hauptkomponentenanalyse kann bei der Spezifikation einer Honigprobe aufgrund ihrer chemischen Zusammensetzung von Nutzen sein.

     

Distance learning for similarity estimation

In this paper, we present a general guideline to find a better distance measure for similarity estimation based on statistical analysis of distribution models and distance functions. A new set of distance measures are derived from the harmonic distance, the geometric distance, and their generalized variants according to the Maximum Likelihood theory. These measures can provide a more accurate feature model than the classical Euclidean and Manhattan distances. We also find that the feature elements are often from heterogeneous sources that may have different influence on similarity estimation. Therefore, the assumption of single isotropic distribution model is often inappropriate. To alleviate this problem, we use a boosted distance measure framework that finds multiple distance measures which fit the distribution of selected feature elements best for accurate similarity estimation. The new distance measures for similarity estimation are tested on two applications: stereo matching and motion tracking in video sequences. The performance of boosted distance measure is further evaluated on several benchmark data sets from the UCI repository and two image retrieval applications. In all the experiments, robust results are obtained based on the proposed methods.