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Exploring Ancient Architectural Designs with Cellular Automata\ud
No full textThe paper discusses the utilization of three-dimensional cellular automata employing the two-dimensional totalistic cellular automata to simulate how simple rules could emerge a highly complex architectural designs of some Indonesian heritages. A detailed discussion is brought to see the simple rules applied in Borobudur Temple, the largest ancient Buddhist temple in the country with very complex detailed designs within. The simulation confirms some previous findings related to measurement of the temple as well as some other ancient buildings in Indonesia. This happens to open further exploitation of the explanatory power presented by cellular automata for complex architectural designs built by civilization not having any supporting sophisticated tools, even standard measurement systems
Uterine Papillary Serous Carcinoma with Mature Cystic Teratoma of Left Ovary
No full textUterine papillary serous carcinoma (UPSC) is an uncommon histologic variant of endometrial carcinoma that typically arises in post menopausal women, that may present with extrauterine spread, resulting in high relapse rate and poor prognosis. Mature cystic teratomas (MCT) are common tumors that occur during the reproductive years. We report a case of a 60 years old female with UPSC with MCT of left ovary. To our knowledge, this is the second report of UPSC combined with ovarian MCT
Estia Centre 10 Years
No full textIn 2009, the Estia Centre celebrates a decade of working \ud
towards making sure the mental health needs of people \ud
with learning disabilities are met – through specialist \ud
clinical services, research, and a programme of training \ud
and education for both support workers and mental \ud
health professionals. \ud
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Despite government efforts of recent years, people \ud
with learning disabilities are still marginalised. Those \ud
with mental health problems and more complex needs \ud
are even more socially excluded: they are much less likely \ud
to be given the chance to speak for themselves and much \ud
less likely to be given choices. Many people with learning \ud
disabilities and mental health problems are placed in \ud
residential or specialist treatment centres far from their \ud
local community: historical lack of state investment has \ud
led to a growth of independent providers of services \ud
and a dearth of specialist public sector alternatives. \ud
Based on Guy’s Hospital campus at London Bridge, the \ud
Estia Centre is part of South London and Maudsley NHS \ud
Foundation Trust (SLaM). Members of the Estia team work \ud
in SLaM’s clinical services and at the Institute of Psychiatry \ud
(IoP),King’s College London, SLaM’s academic partner. \ud
There is also a dedicated team at the Centre responsible \ud
for organising a large portfolio of training, offered \ud
routinely to staff in social care and mental health services \ud
in south London, and also available on request to staff \ud
working in services around the UKand in other countries. \ud
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The work of the Estia Centre has been inspirational to \ud
clinicians and policy makers around the world. Over the \ud
years, the Estia team has shared skills and experience \ud
through long-standing collaborations and consultancy \ud
work, helping to shape and develop specialist mental \ud
health services for the benefit of people with learning \ud
disabilities and their families
Life is an Adventure! An agent-based reconciliation of narrative and scientific worldviews\ud
No full textThe scientific worldview is based on laws, which are supposed to be certain, objective, and independent of time and context. The narrative worldview found in literature, myth and religion, is based on stories, which relate the events experienced by a subject in a particular context with an uncertain outcome. This paper argues that the concept of “agent”, supported by the theories of evolution, cybernetics and complex adaptive systems, allows us to reconcile scientific and narrative perspectives. An agent follows a course of action through its environment with the aim of maximizing its fitness. Navigation along that course combines the strategies of regulation, exploitation and exploration, but needs to cope with often-unforeseen diversions. These can be positive (affordances, opportunities), negative (disturbances, dangers) or neutral (surprises). The resulting sequence of encounters and actions can be conceptualized as an adventure. Thus, the agent appears to play the role of the hero in a tale of challenge and mystery that is very similar to the "monomyth", the basic storyline that underlies all myths and fairy tales according to Campbell [1949]. This narrative dynamics is driven forward in particular by the alternation between prospect (the ability to foresee diversions) and mystery (the possibility of achieving an as yet absent prospect), two aspects of the environment that are particularly attractive to agents. This dynamics generalizes the scientific notion of a deterministic trajectory by introducing a variable “horizon of knowability”: the agent is never fully certain of its further course, but can anticipate depending on its degree of prospect
Injury Rates in Iranian Taekwondo Athletes; a Prospective Study
No full textPurpose: Taekwondo, as the most popular martial art among Iranian sportsmen, might lead to injury for the athletes of this sport during competitions. We decided to report the incidence rate of injuries sustained by the athletes of this sport during national competitions. \ud
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Methods: All competitions of Iran national championship taekwondo league in 2006-2007 with 204 athletes were observed prospectively to detect the occurrence of injuries. The severity of injuries was classified into four groups (mild, moderate, severe, and critical) according to the involvement of medical care team in the contest, ability of the athletes to resume and duration of probable absence of injured athletes from future competitions and training sessions. Athlete-Exposure (A-E) was defined as the number of competitions multiplied by two. On this base, the rate of injury incidence per 1000 A-Es, the rate of injuries per time unit and the rate of injury occurred for each 100 athletes were considered as the major outcomes of this study.\ud
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Results: Of totally 1,338 A-Es, 93 injuries were recorded during the competitions. The rate of injury incidence was found to be 69.5 injuries per 1000 A-Es and the rate of injuries per minute of competitions was 0.023 which corresponded to 23.3 injuries per 1000 minutes of competitions. 45.6 injuries were occurred for each 100 athletes during the course of competitions. The most frequent injuries were mild (68.8%) and critical injuries (24.7%), followed by moderate and severe injuries; 4.3% and 2.1%, respectively.\ud
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Conclusion: The rate of injury we found was lower than that of western countries. In spite of finding the lower limbs as the most frequent place of injuries in other studies, we found the upper limbs as the most predisposed place of injuries which might be due to difference in the method of combat of Iranian athletes with other athletes.\u
Exploitation of Memetics for Melodic Sequences Generation
No full textMusic, or in narrower sense, melodic contours of the aesthetically arranged pitches and the respective durations attracts our cognition since the beginning and now shaping the way we think in the complex life of culture. From evolutionary school of thoughts we could learn our perspective of seeing the musical diversity of folk songs in Indonesian archipelago by hypothesizing the aligning memes throughout the data sets. By regarding the memeplexes constructed from the the Zipf-Mandelbrot Law in melodic sequences and some mathematical characteristics of songs e.g.: gyration and spiraling effect, we construct evolutionary steps i.e.: genetic algorithm as tools for generating melodic sequences as an alternating computational methods to model the cognitive processes creating songs. While we build a melodic-contour generator, we present the enrichment on seeing the roles of limitless landscape of creativity and innovation guided by particular inspirations in the creation of work of art in general
Evolution of Consumers’ Preferences due to Innovation
No full textThe integration process between evolutionary approach and conventional economic analysis is very essential for the next development of economic studies, especially in the fundamental concepts of modern economics: supply and demand analysis. In this presentation, we use the concept of meme to explore evolution of demand. This study offers an evolutionary model of demand, which views utility as a function of the distance between the two types of sequences of memes (memeplex), which represent economic product and consumer preference. It is very different from the conventional approach of demand, which only views utility as a function of quantity. This modification provides an opportunity to see innovation and transformation of consumer preferences in the demand perspective. Innovation is seen as a change in sequence of memes in economic products, while the transformation of consumer behavior is defined as a change in the aligning memes of consumer preference. Demand quantity is the result of the selection process. This model produces some interesting characteristics, such as: (i) quantitative and qualitative properties of evolution of demand, (ii) relationship between consumer behavior and properties of evolution of demand that occurred and (iii) power law on the distribution of product lifetime. At the end we show the improvement of utility function, in the concept of meme, might create a new landscape for the further development of economics
From “Oh, OK” to “Ah, yes” to “Aha!”: Hyper-systemizing and the rewards of insight\ud
No full textHyper-systemizers are individuals displaying an unusually strong bias toward systemizing, i.e. toward explaining events and solving problems by appeal to mechanisms that do not involve intentions or agency. Hyper-systemizing in combination with deficit mentalizing ability typically presents clinically as an autistic spectrum disorder; however, the development of hyper-systemizing in combination with normal-range mentalizing ability is not well characterized. A review of anecdotal reports, survey-based measurements, and experimental studies of systemizing suggests the hypothesis that hyper-systemizing in the presence of normal-range mentalizing develops as an addiction syndrome driven by the positive affect associated with insight solutions. A neurocognitive model of hypersystemizing as an outcome of insight addiction is constructed based on the incentive-sensitization model of addiction. If this model is correct, assaying subjects for bias on the systemizing – mentalizing spectrum would be expected to reveal significant activity differentials in temporal-parietal-frontal networks on cognitive tasks with systemizing or mentalizing components within the neurotypical population. Predictions of the model accessible to survey-based instruments and standard cognitive measures are outlined, and evidence pertaining to them considered.\u
From Domains Towards a Logic of Universals: A Small Calculus for the Continuous Determination of Worlds
No full textAt the end of the 19th century, 'logic' moved from the discipline of philosophy to that of mathematics. One hundred years later, we have a plethora of formal logics. Looking at the situation form informatics, the mathematical discipline proved only a temporary shelter for `logic'. For there is Domain Theory, a constructive mathematical theory which extends the notion of computability into the continuum and spans the field of all possible deductive systems. Domain Theory describes the space of data-types which computers can ideally compute -- and computation in terms of these types. Domain Theory is constructive but only potentially operational. Here one particular operational model is derived from Domain Theory which consists of `universals', that is, model independent operands and operators. With these universals, Domains (logical models) can be approximated and continuously determined. The universal data-types and rules derived from Domain Theory relate strongly to the first formal logic conceived on philosophical grounds, Aristotelian (categorical) logic. This is no accident. For Aristotle, deduction was type-dependent and he too thought in term of type independent universal `essences'. This paper initiates the next `logical' step `beyond' Domain Theory by reconnecting `formal logic' with its origin
Impact of Maternal Helicobacter pylori Infection on Trace Elements (Copper, Iron and Zinc) and Pregnancy Outcomes
No full textBackground: H. pylori infection has been suggested to interfere with micronutrient metabolism and influence pregnancy outcomes. Objectives: This study therefore seeks to document the prevalence of H. pylori seroposivity among pregnant women and to determine its impact on some trace element status and pregnancy outcomes. Materials and methods: Three hundred and forty nine consenting pregnant women aged 15-40 years (mean; 27. 04 ± 4. 75 years) and gestational age ≤ 25 weeks (mean 21.77 ± 3.14 wks) attending antenatal clinic at Federal Medical Centre, Abakaliki, between July 2007 and September 2008 participated in the study. H. Pylori antibody (IgG) was determined by a new generation ELISA method. Plasma copper, iron and zinc were analysed using flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (Bulk Scientific AVG 210 Model) while haemoglobin and albumin were analysed using standard haematological and biochemical techniques. Both maternal sociodemographic and anthropometric parameters were recorded at recruitment. The women were followed-up till delivery after which neonatal anthropometrics and other birth outcomes were recorded. Results: H. pylori seroprevalence of 24.1% (84/349) was recorded with higher prevalence in multiparous and older women. H. pylori infected women had significantly higher BMI (29.00 ± 3.89 vs. 26.86 ± 4.10, p = 0.020) and lower (p > 0.05) plasma levels of Cu, Fe, Zn, albumin, and haemoglobin when compared to non-infected women. Also H. pylori infected women had significantly (p < 0.05) higher rates of convulsion and concomitant illnesses than their non-infected counterparts, although there was no difference in the two groups for other pregnancy outcomes. Conclusion: H. pylori infection during pregnancy seems to interfere with trace element metabolism and contribute significantly to increased maternal morbidity. Prior to confirmation of these findings in a well controlled randomised trial, it is suggested that pregnant women be screened for H. pylori infection to reduce H. pylori associated morbidities during pregnancy