19 research outputs found
Transport investment and local and regional development: Perspectives on the emerging motorway system in Poland
No full textThe planned Polish motorway programme is widely expected to have beneficial spinoff effects on local and regional economies within Poland, and on the economy as a whole. Similar arguments were employed during the development of the British interurban road system (and other West European systems). The paper examines the likely relevance and viability of such arguments in the development of the Polish system. The results of current research in the UK are related to the analyses originally employed in the planning and implementation of the Polish network, along with analyses based on more recent data. The topic of the paper has started to assume particular importance in Poland as it becomes more obvious that the projected levels of interurban traffic within and through Poland are likely to be insufficient to finance more than limited sections of the proposed toll motorways. Pressure is building up in Poland for greater governmental support for the network, and possible "non traffic" justifications for construction have begun to assume greater importance. The situation is particularly controversial as environmental lobbies are vocal in opposing motorway developments. The paper will consider the extent to which current research supports, in the Polish context, the employment of such economic development arguments, or whether caution is advisable. The paper is based on work by the author currently in progress at the Department of International Transport of Warsaw School of Economics supported by a PHARE/ACE Research Fellowship.
Variations, characteristic classes, and the obstruction to mapping smooth to continuous cohomology
No full textIn a recent paper, the author gave an example of a singular foliation on
R
2
{{\mathbf {R}}^2}
for which it is impossible to map the de Rham cohomology
T
DR
{T_{{\text {DR}}}}
to the continuous singular cohomology
T
c
{T_{\text {c}}}
(in the sense of Bott and Haefliger’s continuous cohomology of spaces with two topologies) compatibly with evaluation of cohomology classes on homology classes. In this paper the obstruction to mapping
T
DR
{T_{{\text {DR}}}}
to
T
c
{T_{\text {c}}}
is pinpointed by defining a whole family of cohomology theories
T
k
,
m
,
n
{T_{k,m,n}}
, based on cochains which vary in a
C
k
{C^k}
manner, which mediate between the two. It is shown that the obstruction vanishes on nonsingularly foliated manifolds. The cohomology theories are extended to Haefliger’s classifying space
(
B
Γ
q
→
B
J
q
)
(B{\Gamma _q} \to B{J_q})
, with its germ and jet topologies, by using a notion of differentiable space similar to those of J. W. Smith and K. T. Chen. The author proposes that certain of the
T
k
m
n
{T_{kmn}}
be used instead of
T
c
{T_{\text {c}}}
to study Bott and Haefliger’s conjecture that the continuous cohomology of
(
B
Γ
q
→
B
J
q
)
(B{\Gamma _q} \to B{J_q})
equals the relative Gel’fand-Fuks cohomology
H
∗
(
a
q
,
O
q
)
{H^\ast }({\mathfrak {a}_q},{O_q})
. It is shown that
T
k
m
n
(
B
Γ
q
→
B
J
q
)
{T_{kmn}}(B{\Gamma _q} \to B{J_q})
may contain new characteristic classes for foliations which vary only in a
C
k
{C^k}
manner when a foliation is varied smoothly.</p
Inactivated vaccines. 1. Volunteer studies with very high doses of influenza vaccine purified by zonal ultracentrifugationPresented by the senior author before the symposium on Influenza Vaccines, London, 27 April 1972.
No full textBehavior of respiratory syncytial virus in piglet tracheal organ culture
No full textPiglet tracheal organ cultures were infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and observed for 21 days. Light and immunofluorescence microscopy demonstrated destruction of the ciliated epithelial cells and the presence of viral antigens in the epithelium. Virus was shed in high titer for 12-19 days. Ciliostasis could be quanti-tated, and it was shown that several strains of RSV grew and damaged tracheal organ cultures in a similar fashion. A temperature-sensitive mutant of RSV, Is-I, was exam-ined at permissive (33 C) and restrictive (37 C) temperatures. This mutant, al-though somewhat attenuated at 37 C, was still found to cause damage to the ciliated epithelium and to replicate at both temperatures. This behavior is similar to that af-ter inoculation of Is-I into volunteers. This in vitro model may prove useful in the study of RSV disease and in the evaluation of candidate live virus vaccines. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most important etiologic agent of lower respiratory tract disease in infancy [1]. Studies of human RSV using animal models have been of limite
Inactivated vaccines. 2. Laboratory indices of protectionPresented by the senior author before the symposium on Influenza Vaccines, London, 27 April 1972.
No full textComparison of Several Wild-Type Influenza Viruses in the Ferret Tracheal Organ Culture System
No full textData Mining Applications in Higher Education and Academic Intelligence Management
No full textHigher education institutions are nucleus of research and future development acting in a competitive environment, with the prerequisite mission to generate, accumulate and share knowledge. The chain of generating knowledge inside and among external organizations (such as companies, other universities, partners, community) is considered essential to reduce the limitations of internal resources and could be plainly improved with the use of data mining technologies. Data mining has proven to be in the recent years a pioneering field of research and investigation that faces a large variety of techniques applied in a multitude of areas, both in business and higher education, relating interdisciplinary studies and development and covering a large variety of practice. Universities require an important amount of significant knowledge mined from its past and current data sets using special methods and processes. The ways in which information and knowledge are represented and delivered to the university managers are in a continuous transformation due to the involvement of the information and communication technologies in all the academic processes. Higher education institutions have long been interested in predicting the paths of students and alumni (Luan, 2004), thus identifying which students will join particular course programs (Kalathur, 2006), and which students will require assistance in order to graduate. Another important preoccupation is the academic failure among students which has long fuelled a large number of debates. Researchers (Vandamme et al., 2007) attempted to classify students into different clusters with dissimilar risks in exam failure, but also to detect with realistic accuracy what and how much the students know, in order to deduce specific learning gaps (Piementel & Omar, 2005). The distance and on-line education, together with the intelligent tutoring systems and their capability to register its exchanges with students (Mostow et al., 2005) present various feasible information sources for the data mining processes. Studies based on collecting and interpreting the information from several courses could possibly assist teachers and students in the web-based learning setting (Myller et al., 2002). Scientists (Anjewierden et al., 2007) derived models for classifying chat messages using data mining techniques, in order to offer learners real-time adaptive feedback which could result in the improvement of learning environments. In scientific literature there are some studies which seek to classify students in order to predict their final grade based on features extracted from logged data ineducational web-based systems (Minaei-Bidgoli & Punch, 2003). A combination of multiple classifiers led to a significant improvement in classification performance through weighting the feature vectors. The author’s research directions through the data mining practices consist in finding feasible ways to offer the higher education institutions’ managers ample knowledge to prepare new hypothesis, in a short period of time, which was formerly rigid or unachievable, in view of large datasets and earlier methods. Therefore, the aim is to put forward a way to understand the students’ opinions, satisfactions and discontentment in the each element of the educational process, and to predict their preference in certain fields of study, the choice in continuing education, academic failure, and to offer accurate correlations between their knowledge and the requirements in the labor market. Some of the most interesting data mining processes in the educational field are illustrated in the present chapter, in which the author adds own ideas and applications in educational issues using specific data mining techniques. The organization of this chapter is as follows. Section 2 offers an insight of how data mining processes are being applied in the large spectrum of education, presenting recent applications and studies published in the scientific literature, significant to the development of this emerging science. In Section 3 the author introduces his work through a number of new proposed directions and applications conducted over data collected from the students of the Babes-Bolyai University, using specific data mining classification learning and clustering methods. Section 4 presents the integration of data mining processes and their particular role in higher education issues and management, for the conception of an Academic Intelligence Management. Interrelated future research and plans are discussed as a conclusion in Section 5.data mining,data clustering, higher education, decision trees, C4.5 algorithm, k-means, decision support, academic intelligence management
Unmaking the remake: Lacanian psychoanalysis, Deleuzian logic, and the problem of repetition in Hollywood cinema
No full textRepetition is inherent to cinema. From the complex interweaving of genre cycles andHollywood stars to the elementary mechanism of film projection (twenty-four times persecond): cinema is repetition. It is perhaps little wonder then that psychoanalysis is oftenthought of as one of the discourses with which to write about film in the 20th century.However, this thesis problematises both cinematic repetition and psychoanalytic film theory,stressing that each is haunted by a spectre: the remake, and the film-philosophy of GillesDeleuze, respectively. Despite its critical opprobrium, I explore the remake not only as aviable object of cinematic scholarship, but one necessary in moving past the impasse of filmstudies identified by Timothy Corrigan (1991) as ‘historical hysteria’. My research turns toDeleuzian film theory as a counterpart, rather than replacement, of the predominant Lacanianmodel. This is, however, neither a defence of the remake nor of psychoanalysis, but, rather, anattempt to submit both to a radical reassessment that, as Lacan says, aims at giving you a‘kick up the arse’ (1998:49).Eschewing the ‘example’ as a remnant of film theory’s current collapse in form, I suggest two‘case studies’ for consideration, augmented by a cache of film references: (1) Gus Van Sant’sshot-for-shot remake (1998) of Alfred Hitchcock’s original Psycho (1960) as a ‘symptom’ ofHollywood’s self-cannibalisation; and (2) George Sluizer’s The Vanishing (1993), aHollywood ‘auto-remake’ of his own Dutch original, Spoorloos (1988), as a ‘fetish’ ofHollywood’s desire in the European ‘Other’. Rather than expose Deleuze to a Lacanianframework I subject the one to a reading of the other in a möbius relation, turning theminside-out, so to speak. Mediating these two thinkers is Slavoj Žižek, a cultural theorist whoseown ‘filmosophy’ is revealed from amongst his often frenetic writings. In so doing, I expose adark underside to Hollywood repetition, one which provides some new tools forunderstanding the popularity of cinema’s most critically neglected discourse
