Hierarchical Decomposition and Multidomain Formulation for the Design of Complex Sustainable Systems

2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anas Alfaris ◽  
Afreen Siddiqi ◽  
Charbel Rizk ◽  
Olivier de Weck ◽  
Davor Svetinovic
Keyword(s):  
Design Parameter ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Integrated Design ◽  
Hierarchical Decomposition ◽  
Transportation Energy ◽  
Sustainable Systems ◽  
The One ◽  
Parameter Dependency ◽  
And Behavior

Designing a large-scale complex system, such as a city of the future, with a focus on sustainability requires a systematic approach toward integrated design of all subsystems. Domains such as buildings, transportation, energy, and water are all coupled. Designing each one in isolation can lead to suboptimality where sustainability is achieved in one aspect but at the expense of other aspects. Traditional ad hoc allocations of design parameter precedence and dependence cannot be used for cases where new (instead of only mature) architectures are to be explored. A methodology is introduced for addressing design problems of complex sustainable systems that is comprised of, on the one hand, a hierarchical decomposition that includes multilevel abstraction and design parameter identification, and on the other hand, a multidomain formulation, which includes parameter dependency identification, design cycle identification and decision structuring, and scoping. The application of the methodology for the design of a new urban development, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, with over 220 different form and behavior parameter sets is shown.

First grammar books in the Habsburg Monarchy: individual initiative and regulatory interference by the state (1760s–1770s)

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 (2 (11)) ◽  
pp. 137-157
Author(s):  
Olga V. Khavanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
German Language ◽  
Habsburg Monarchy ◽  
Private Initiative ◽  
The One

The second half of the eighteenth century in the lands under the sceptre of the House of Austria was a period of development of a language policy addressing the ethno-linguistic diversity of the monarchy’s subjects. On the one hand, the sphere of use of the German language was becoming wider, embracing more and more segments of administration, education, and culture. On the other hand, the authorities were perfectly aware of the fact that communication in the languages and vernaculars of the nationalities living in the Austrian Monarchy was one of the principal instruments of spreading decrees and announcements from the central and local authorities to the less-educated strata of the population. Consequently, a large-scale reform of primary education was launched, aimed at making the whole population literate, regardless of social status, nationality (mother tongue), or confession. In parallel with the centrally coordinated state policy of education and language-use, subjects-both language experts and amateur polyglots-joined the process of writing grammar books, which were intended to ease communication between the different nationalities of the Habsburg lands. This article considers some examples of such editions with primary attention given to the correlation between private initiative and governmental policies, mechanisms of verifying the textbooks to be published, their content, and their potential readers. This paper demonstrates that for grammar-book authors, it was very important to be integrated into the patronage networks at the court and in administrative bodies and stresses that the Vienna court controlled the process of selection and financing of grammar books to be published depending on their quality and ability to satisfy the aims and goals of state policy.

The Green New Deal

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Hockett
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Good News ◽  
Carbon Neutrality ◽  
The One ◽  
In Virtue Of

This white paper lays out the guiding vision behind the Green New Deal Resolution proposed to the U.S. Congress by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bill Markey in February of 2019. It explains the senses in which the Green New Deal is 'green' on the one hand, and a new 'New Deal' on the other hand. It also 'makes the case' for a shamelessly ambitious, not a low-ball or slow-walked, Green New Deal agenda. At the core of the paper's argument lies the observation that only a true national mobilization on the scale of those associated with the original New Deal and the Second World War will be up to the task of comprehensively revitalizing the nation's economy, justly growing our middle class, and expeditiously achieving carbon-neutrality within the twelve-year time-frame that climate science tells us we have before reaching an environmental 'tipping point.' But this is actually good news, the paper argues. For, paradoxically, an ambitious Green New Deal also will be the most 'affordable' Green New Deal, in virtue of the enormous productivity, widespread prosperity, and attendant public revenue benefits that large-scale public investment will bring. In effect, the Green New Deal will amount to that very transformative stimulus which the nation has awaited since the crash of 2008 and its debt-deflationary sequel.

INNOVATIVE SOCIETY: A SOCIAL CREDIT SYSTEM IN CHINA

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-59
Author(s):  
Weichzhen` Gao
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Educational Mission ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
Social Credit ◽  
Road Project ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
The One ◽  
And Behavior

The basic principles of SCS implementation are as follows: Formation of sustainable social structure and its operational management; Monitoring and correction of social transformations and behavior of the general population: transparency as a major factor in the life of an innovative society; Stimulating competition as a motivation for success. Due to the transparency of social life, different patterns of behavior in different conditions are published in the information space of the society. Accordingly, actionable life scenarios are made available to the general public, which is fulfilling an educational mission regarding adaptation mechanisms in an innovative society; the SCS system is a significant component of the national strategy of integration and consolidation of the Chinese innovation society; carrying out softpolicy foreign policy: The positive experience of the Chinese innovation society in implementing SCS is a prerequisite for expanding its area of application in Asian, African and Latin American countries, especially the countries participating in the One Belt One Road project. SCS covers all spheres of social life of the modern Chinese citizen, forms a sustainable form of accountability to the society for the content and flow of their daily activities, aspirations and preferences.

Avenues to Precision Oncology

2020 ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
Alexander Meisel
Keyword(s):  
Precision Medicine ◽  
Trial Design ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Molecular Targets ◽  
Clinical Trial Design ◽  
Predictive Biomarkers ◽  
Precision Oncology ◽  
Companion Diagnostics ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
The One

Until recently, the clinical management of cancer heavily relied on anatomical and histopathological criteria, with ad hoc guidelines directing the therapeutic choices in specific indications. In the last years, the development and therapeutic implementation of novel anticancer therapies significantly improved the clinical outcome of cancer patients. Nonetheless, such cutting-edge approaches revealed the limitation of the one-size-fits-all paradigm. The newly discovered molecular targets can be exploited either as bona fide targets for subsequent drug development, or as tools to precision medicine, in the form of prognostic and/or predictive biomarkers. This article provides an overview of some of the most recent advances in precision medicine in oncology, with a focus on novel tissue-agnostic anticancer therapies. The definition and implementation of biomarkers and companion diagnostics in clinical trials and clinical practice are also discussed, as well as the changing landscape in clinical trial design.

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its Sulphate (DHEAS) in Alzheimer’s Disease

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dubravka S. Strac ◽  
Marcela Konjevod ◽  
Matea N. Perkovic ◽  
Lucija Tudor ◽  
Gordana N. Erjavec ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Therapeutic Potential ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
And Behavior

Background: Neurosteroids Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulphate (DHEAS) are involved in many important brain functions, including neuronal plasticity and survival, cognition and behavior, demonstrating preventive and therapeutic potential in different neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. Objective: The aim of the article was to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature on the involvement of DHEA and DHEAS in Alzheimer’s disease. Method: PubMed and MEDLINE databases were searched for relevant literature. The articles were selected considering their titles and abstracts. In the selected full texts, lists of references were searched manually for additional articles. Results: We performed a systematic review of the studies investigating the role of DHEA and DHEAS in various in vitro and animal models, as well as in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, and provided a comprehensive discussion on their potential preventive and therapeutic applications. Conclusion: Despite mixed results, the findings of various preclinical studies are generally supportive of the involvement of DHEA and DHEAS in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease, showing some promise for potential benefits of these neurosteroids in the prevention and treatment. However, so far small clinical trials brought little evidence to support their therapy in AD. Therefore, large-scale human studies are needed to elucidate the specific effects of DHEA and DHEAS and their mechanisms of action, prior to their applications in clinical practice.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Colm Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sexual Identities ◽  
The Third ◽  
Sexuality And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Sexual Part ◽  
The One ◽  
And Behavior

The introduction first sets out some preliminary definitions of sex, sexuality, and gender. It then turns from the sexual part of Sexual Identities to the identity part. A great deal of confusion results from failing to distinguish between identity in the sense of a category with which one identifies (categorial identity) and identity in the sense of a set of patterns that characterize one’s cognition, emotion, and behavior (practical identity). The second section gives a brief summary of this difference. The third and fourth sections sketch the relation of the book to social constructionism and queer theory, on the one hand, and evolutionary-cognitive approaches to sex, sexuality, and gender, on the other. The fifth section outlines the value of literature in not only illustrating, but advancing a research program in sex, sexuality, and gender identity. Finally, the introduction provides an overview of the chapters in this volume.

“Community Interests” and the Role of International Law in the Creation of a Global Market for Agricultural Land

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jochen von Bernstorff
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Food Sovereignty ◽  
Global Market ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
Land Grab ◽  
Large Scale Land ◽  
The One

The chapter explores the notion of “community interests” with regard to the global “land-grab” phenomenon. Over the last decade, a dramatic increase of foreign investment in agricultural land could be observed. Bilateral investment treaties protect around 75 per cent of these large-scale land acquisitions, many of which came with associated social problems, such as displaced local populations and negative consequences for food security in Third World countries receiving these large-scale foreign investments. Hence, two potentially conflicting areas of international law are relevant in this context: Economic, social, and cultural rights and the principles of permanent sovereignty over natural resources and “food sovereignty” challenging large-scale investments on the one hand, and specific norms of international economic law stabilizing them on the other. The contribution discusses the usefulness of the concept of “community interests” in cases where the two colliding sets of norms are both considered to protect such interests.

PP469 From Theory To Practice: Which Value Framework Is Applied For Onco-Hematology Therapies In Italy? A 5-year Retrospective Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (S1) ◽  
pp. 37-37
Author(s):  
Americo Cicchetti ◽  
Rossella Di Bidino ◽  
Entela Xoxi ◽  
Irene Luccarini ◽  
Alessia Brigido
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
National Level ◽  
Pharmaceutical Products ◽  
European Medicines Agency ◽  
The Real ◽  
R Process ◽  
The One ◽  
The Impact

IntroductionDifferent value frameworks (VFs) have been proposed in order to translate available evidence on risk-benefit profiles of new treatments into Pricing & Reimbursement (P&R) decisions. However limited evidence is available on the impact of their implementation. It's relevant to distinguish among VFs proposed by scientific societies and providers, which usually are applicable to all treatments, and VFs elaborated by regulatory agencies and health technology assessment (HTA), which focused on specific therapeutic areas. Such heterogeneity in VFs has significant implications in terms of value dimension considered and criteria adopted to define or support a price decision.MethodsA literature research was conducted to identify already proposed or adopted VF for onco-hematology treatments. Both scientific and grey literature were investigated. Then, an ad hoc data collection was conducted for multiple myeloma; breast, prostate and urothelial cancer; and Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) therapies. Pharmaceutical products authorized by European Medicines Agency from January 2014 till December 2019 were identified. Primary sources of data were European Public Assessment Reports and P&R decision taken by the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) till September 2019.ResultsThe analysis allowed to define a taxonomy to distinguish categories of VF relevant to onco-hematological treatments. We identified the “real-world” VF that emerged given past P&R decisions taken at the Italian level. Data was collected both for clinical and economical outcomes/indicators, as well as decisions taken on innovativeness of therapies. Relevant differences emerge between the real world value framework and the one that should be applied given the normative framework of the Italian Health System.ConclusionsThe value framework that emerged from the analysis addressed issues of specific aspects of onco-hematological treatments which emerged during an ad hoc analysis conducted on treatment authorized in the last 5 years. The perspective adopted to elaborate the VF was the one of an HTA agency responsible for P&R decisions at a national level. Furthermore, comparing a real-world value framework with the one based on the general criteria defined by the national legislation, our analysis allowed identification of the most critical point of the current national P&R process in terms ofsustainability of current and future therapies as advance therapies and agnostic-tumor therapies.

scholarly journals State Management for Cloud-Native Applications

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 423
Author(s):  
Márk Szalay ◽  
Péter Mátray ◽  
László Toka
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Distributed Databases ◽  
Access Time ◽  
Replica Placement ◽  
State Management ◽  
Placement Decisions ◽  
Dynamic Replication ◽  
Cloud Databases ◽  
Placement Algorithm ◽  
The One

The stateless cloud-native design improves the elasticity and reliability of applications running in the cloud. The design decouples the life-cycle of application states from that of application instances; states are written to and read from cloud databases, and deployed close to the application code to ensure low latency bounds on state access. However, the scalability of applications brings the well-known limitations of distributed databases, in which the states are stored. In this paper, we propose a full-fledged state layer that supports the stateless cloud application design. In order to minimize the inter-host communication due to state externalization, we propose, on the one hand, a system design jointly with a data placement algorithm that places functions’ states across the hosts of a data center. On the other hand, we design a dynamic replication module that decides the proper number of copies for each state to ensure a sweet spot in short state-access time and low network traffic. We evaluate the proposed methods across realistic scenarios. We show that our solution yields state-access delays close to the optimal, and ensures fast replica placement decisions in large-scale settings.

scholarly journals Allometric Equations for Estimating Biomass and Carbon Stocks in Afforested Open Woodlands with Black Spruce and Jack Pine, in the Eastern Canadian Boreal Forest

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Olivier Fradette ◽  
Charles Marty ◽  
Pascal Tremblay ◽  
Daniel Lord ◽  
Jean-François Boucher
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Black Spruce ◽  
Tree Height ◽  
Jack Pine ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Allometric Equations ◽  
C Stocks ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Canadian Boreal Forest

Allometric equations use easily measurable biometric variables to determine the aboveground and belowground biomasses of trees. Equations produced for estimating the biomass within Canadian forests at a large scale have not yet been validated for eastern Canadian boreal open woodlands (OWs), where trees experience particular environmental conditions. In this study, we harvested 167 trees from seven boreal OWs in Quebec, Canada for biomass and allometric measurements. These data show that Canadian national equations accurately predict the whole aboveground biomass for both black spruce and jack pine trees, but underestimated branches biomass, possibly owing to a particular tree morphology in OWs relative to closed-canopy stands. We therefore developed ad hoc allometric equations based on three power models including diameter at breast height (DBH) alone or in combination with tree height (H) as allometric variables. Our results show that although the inclusion of H in the model yields better fits for most tree compartments in both species, the difference is minor and does not markedly affect biomass C stocks at the stand level. Using these newly developed equations, we found that carbon stocks in afforested OWs varied markedly among sites owing to differences in tree growth and species. Nine years after afforestation, jack pine plantations had accumulated about five times more carbon than black spruce plantations (0.14 vs. 0.80 t C·ha−1), highlighting the much larger potential of jack pine for OW afforestation projects in this environment.

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