1,371 research outputs found
Petros Polychronis and the epistemology of life
No full textIn living systems, the complex whole that emerges through the multi-level interactions and synergies among the individual constituent parts is able to interact with those parts the very moment they compose it. Depending on the dynamic interplay between them and being in constant dialogue with their wider environment, the whole and the parts are capable of modifying their behavior, adapting, and coevolving. The complex synergies that develop in a far from equilibrium state give rise to a particularly rich and often unexpected collective dynamic behavior. This article is an autoethnographic epistemological inquiry. Through the work and praxis of Petros Polychronis, child psychiatrist, systemic psychotherapist, and director of AKMA for twenty years, and through my relationship with him, I present the main pillars of an epistemology of living systems. The concepts of co-evolution, destabilization, crisis, dissipative structures, strange attractors, bifurcation point, entropy, and rhizome were, among others, for Petros Polychronis not just abstract theoretical conceptions but invaluable practical intervention tools for the empowerment and the sustainability of human systems at the personal and collective level
Forming parallel internets and enabling ultra-local economies
No full textThesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2008.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-109).Internet-based mobile communications have been increasing rapidly [5], yet there is little or no progress in platforms that enable applications for discovery, context-awareness and sharing of data and services in a peer-wise manner among collections of devices in the same physical area. This is important because proximate devices may need to communicate directly when no infrastructure is available, and because such local access may be an efficient alternative to connecting a large number of sensors, effectors, and people to a readily accessible, universal central system. This thesis presents the design, implementation and evaluation of Cerebro, a system that allows suitably equipped humans and objects in the same physical area to discover each other and share data and services. Cerebro offers two basic services: a presence service that propagates information about local devices through an automatically generated mesh network and an innovative data transport service to transfer data via this network. On top of these services, Cerebro offers an extensible Application Programming Interface (API). In a mobile mesh network with N devices, Cerebro offers an upper bound of O(N) on traffic overhead to maintain presence information at any part of the network and responsiveness to device arrival/departure events that take at most O(N) time to propagate throughout the network. This makes Cerebro a scalable and useful addition to mobile service delivery.by Polychronis Panagiotis Ypodimatopoulos.S.M
Carnet de J.D. CHAUPIN
No full textThis 199-page handbook is a monograph on Notre-Dame de Vaulx, a French village located in the Isère département of the Rhône-Alpes region, authored by J.D. CHAUPIN. It was completed in May 1958 and dedicated by the author to his grand-daughter Danielle Marthe CHAUPIN. The first fifty pages contain a glossary of more than 1500 words and the most popular expressions in matheysin patois.The version available here is a second-generation xerox copy of the manuscript collected by Jacqueline DUC, a specialist of matheysin patois.Ce carnet de 199 pages est une monographie sur le village de Notre-Dame de Vaulx, une commune française située dans le département de l'Isère et la région Rhône-Alpes, rédigée par M. J.D. CHAUPIN. Achevé en mai 1958, il est dédicacé à sa petite fille Danielle Marthe CHAUPIN. Il contient sur une cinquantaine de pages un glossaire de plus de 1500 mots ainsi que les expressions les plus courantes en patois matheysin.La version déposée ici est une photocopie de seconde génération du manuscrit réalisée par Jacqueline DUC, spécialiste des patois matheysins
Bayesian estimation of variance partition coefficients adjusted for imperfect test sensitivity and specificity
No full textThe variance partition coefficient (VPC) measures the clustering of infection/disease among individuals with a specific covariate pattern. Covariate-pattern-specific VPCs provide insight to the groups of individuals that exhibit great heterogeneity and should be targeted for intervention. VPCs should be taken into consideration when planning study designs, modeling data and estimating sample sizes. We present a Bayesian discrete mixed model for the estimation of covariate-pattern-specific VPCs when measurement of the infection/disease is based on an imperfect test. The utility of the presented model is demonstrated with three applications. In all cases, imperfect tests biased VPC estimates towards the null but corrected estimates could be obtained by modeling the sensitivity and specificity of the test procedure with beta distributions. The comparison of adjusted VPCs between the intercept only and the fitted models with higher level covariates explained the portion of heterogeneity in the data that was accounted for by the covariates
'Follow me': a web-based, location-sharing architecture for large, indoor environments
No full textWe leverage the ubiquity of bluetooth-enabled devices and propose a decentralized, web-based architecture that allows users to share their location by following each other in the style of Twitter. We demonstrate a prototype that operates in a large building which generates a dataset of detected bluetooth devices at a rate of ~30 new devices per day, including the respective location where they were last detected. Users then query the dataset using their unique bluetooth ID and share their current location with their followers by means of unique URIs that they control. Our separation between producers (the building) and consumers (the users) of bluetooth device location data allows us to create socially-aware applications that respect user's privacy while limiting the software necessary to run on mobile devices to just a web browser
Pollen profile IOAN249, Ioannina II, Greece
No full textThe EPD (http://www.europeanpollendatabase.net) accepted species name is given in the parameter comment. This dataset was archived on 2010-05-11 from the EPD database
Lithology of sediment core IOAN249, Ioannina II, Greece
No full textThis dataset was archived on 2010-05-11 from the EPD database
A PSEUDORCA-LIKE DOLPHIN FROM THE PLEISTOCENE OF RHODES (GREECE): TOWARD THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EXTANT DELPHINID STOCK (CETACEA, ODONTOCETI)
No full textOceanic dolphins (family Delphinidae) are the most speciose group of extant cetaceans, being represented by 19 genera and at least 37 species. Their high diversity correlates with a significant disparity that is clearly evident when considering their wide ranging in body size values (from 1.5 m up to 9 m total body length) and the shape of their skull and teeth. Variability of these characters is mainly due to the different trophic strategies carried out by dolphins, namely, suction, raptorial feeding, and grip-and-tear. Furthermore, dolphins are found throughout fluvial, coastal and open-sea environments, sometimes diving at great depths to feed. Molecular data suggest that the remarkable present-day diversity of delphinids is due to a very fast radiation that would have occurred in rather recent times, i.e., during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. The fossil record of delphinids supports these molecular inferences. Indeed, most of the Pliocene delphinids were referred to extinct genera, and consequently, the rise of the modern delphinid stock seems to have occurred during the Quaternary; the latter does unfortunately feature a much fragmentary global record of fossil cetaceans. Here we report on a partial delphinid skeleton from the early Pleistocene clays of the Lindos Formation of Rhodes (Greece). This specimen, kept in the Museum of Mineralogy & Paleontology, Ialisos, Rhodes, consists of an almost complete cranium including the ear bones, both the mandibles, several teeth, a portion of the vertebral column including the atlas, several ribs and the sternum. Pending a more detailed analysis of this significant skeleton, our preliminary observations support a close affinities between the Rhodes dolphin and the extant Pseudorca crassidens, the socalled false killer whale, a large delphinid today reported as a visitor in the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, the cranium of the Rhodes dolphin shares with P. crassidens i) a wide rostrum having most of its dorsal surface covered by the transversely wide premaxillae, ii) a dorsoventrally narrow supraorbital process, and iii) broadly similar ear bones. Moreover, similarly to P. crassidens, the Rhodes dolphin exhibits very large and cylindrical teeth and a small tooth count (nine teeth are present on each mandible). Interestingly, Pseudorca crassidens and the Orcinus orca (killer whale) are the two only extant cetaceans that feed via grip-and tear, and they have an important role as macropredators in the modern marine trophic chains. This new discovery represents a crucial step for better understanding the last phases of the explosive radiation of oceanic dolphins as well as the establishment of the present-day marine ecosystems
The Mice at play in the CALIFA survey : a case study of a gas-rich major merger between first passage and coalescence
No full textFunding: V. W. from the European Research Council Starting Grant (P.I. Wild SEDmorph), M. P. from the Marie Curie Career Reintegration Grant (P.I. Wild Phiz-ev).We present optical integral field spectroscopy (IFS) observations of the Mice, a major merger between two massive (>10^11Msol) gas-rich spirals NGC4676A and B, observed between first passage and final coalescence. The spectra provide stellar and gas kinematics, ionised gas properties and stellar population diagnostics, over the full optical extent of both galaxies. The Mice provide a perfect case study highlighting the importance of IFS data for improving our understanding of local galaxies. The impact of first passage on the kinematics of the stars and gas has been significant, with strong bars likely induced in both galaxies. The barred spiral NGC4676B exhibits a strong twist in both its stellar and ionised gas disk. On the other hand, the impact of the merger on the stellar populations has been minimal thus far: star formation induced by the recent close passage has not contributed significantly to the global star formation rate or stellar mass of the galaxies. Both galaxies show bicones of high ionisation gas extending along their minor axes. In NGC4676A the high gas velocity dispersion and Seyfert-like line ratios at large scaleheight indicate a powerful outflow. Fast shocks extend to ~6.6kpc above the disk plane. The measured ram pressure and mass outflow rate (~8-20Msol/yr) are similar to superwinds from local ULIRGs, although NGC4676A has only a moderate infrared luminosity of 3x10^10Lsol. Energy beyond that provided by the mechanical energy of the starburst appears to be required to drive the outflow. We compare the observations to mock kinematic and stellar population maps from a merger simulation. The models show little enhancement in star formation during and following first passage, in agreement with the observations. We highlight areas where IFS data could help further constrain the models.Peer reviewe
Can Everybody be Happy in the Cloud? Delay, Profit and Energy-Efficient Scheduling for Cloud Services
No full textThe rapid development of Cloud Computing provides consumers and service providers with a wide range of opportunities and challenges. Considering the substantial infrastructure investments being made by cloud providers, the reduction of operating expenses (OPEX) while maximizing the profit of the provided services is of great importance. One way to achieve this is by maximizing the efficiency of resource utilization. However, profit maximization does not necessarily coincide with the improvement of a user’s Quality of Service (QoS); users generating higher profit for the provider may be scheduled first, causing high delays to low-paying users. Further, the contradictory nature of users’ and providers’ needs also extends to the energy consumption problem, as the minimization of service delays could cause cloud resources to be constantly “on”, leading to high energy consumption, high costs for providers and undue environmental impact. The objective of our work is to analyze this multidimensional trade-off. We first investigate the problem of efficient resource allocation strategies for time-varying traffic, and propose a new algorithm, MinDelay, which aims at achieving the minimum service delay while taking into account provider’s profit. Then, we propose E-MinDelay, an energy-efficient approach for CPU-intensive tasks in cloud systems. Furthermore, we propose an improved version of the Energy Conscious Task Consolidation (ECTC) algorithm, which combines task consolidation and migration techniques with E-MinDelay. Our results demonstrate that energy consumption and service delays corresponding to profit loss can be simultaneously decreased using an efficient scheduling algorithm
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