A New Kind of Relevance for Archaeology

How to foster Sustainable Continuous Improvement: A cause-effect relations map of Lean soft practices

Introduction: PID regulators are an important industrial automation tool. However, the traditional ways of their customization involve experiments with the plant, reducing the control system efficiency when the operating conditions change. To solve this problem, you have to use an adaptation loop which automatically changes the regulator parameters when the quality indicators deteriorate. Purpose: Developing a structure and an algorithm for a fuzzy supervisor of a PID controller in order to improve the operation quality in the context of uncontrolled changes in the plant parameters. Results: We propose two options for organizing a fuzzy supervisor. The first option involves continuous changing of the controller parameters based on the information about the current control error. The supervisor is trained offline with the help of a genetic algorithm. This approach makes the application universal, but the resulting structure is a black box. The second option is using transient process quality estimates; it can be used when the input signal periodically changes. The controller parameters are changed using fuzzy rules with clear semantics. It is shown that systems with a fuzzy supervisor can reduce the overshoot or static error which both can occur when the control object parameters change. The system operation was simulated using MatLab Simulink. Practical relevance: The use of PID controllers with fuzzy supervisors can be useful in the design of control systems for a wide range of dynamic plants.

The Coming of Age for Qualitative Research: Embracing the Diversity of Qualitative Methods

The contemporary relevance of archaeology would be greatly enhanced if archaeologists could develop theory that frames human societies of all scales in the same terms. We present evidence that an approach known as settlement scaling theory can contribute to such a framework. The theory proposes that a variety of aggregate socioeconomic properties of human networks emerge from individuals arranging themselves in space so as to balance the costs of movement with the benefits of social interactions. This balancing leads to settlements that concentrate human interactions and their products in space and time in an open-ended way. The parameters and processes embedded in settlement scaling models are very basic, and this suggests that scaling phenomena should be observable in the archaeological record of middle-range societies just as readily as they have been observed in contemporary first-world nations. In this paper, we show that quantitative scaling relationships observed for modern urban systems, and more recently for early civilizations, are also apparent in settlement data from the Central Mesa Verde and northern Middle Missouri regions of North America. These findings suggest that settlement scaling theory may help increase the practical relevance of archaeology for present-day concerns.

This column presents information about traditional Chinese values and of thinking and how such values and understandings may affect or hinder a Western approach to social work practice. We suggest approaches that practitioners can use to adjust their practice to acknowledge and build on cultural values in ways that are therapeutic in health and mental health settings. We examine primarily relevance of traditional Chinese culture and practices to effective therapeutic techniques among Chinese population in Hong Kong that is imbued with this culture. (We acknowledge that not all Hong Kong Chinese, who constitute 95 percent of Hong Kong's population follow this traditional way of life.) USING TRADITIONAL CHINESE CULTURE TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SOCIAL WORK INTERVENTIONS The following examples describe some of cultural and behavioral characteristics of traditional patients and their families and indicate how these characteristics can be used to facilitate successful social work practice in health and mental health settings (Chan, 2001). Value Placed on Learning Because many Chinese people put considerable emphasis on academic achievement, social workers can design courses or programs that are educational in nature. Traditional Chinese come to classes more readily than to less formal groups because they are more willing to learn in a formally structured environment (Ho, 1986). Instructions using a cognitive--behavioral training approach have been found to generate good responses (Leung, 1997). In counseling groups for cancer patients, as well as anxious or depressed single parents and divorcees, programs were packaged in form of training classes (Chan et al., 1996; Law et al., 1998). The participants were active in doing their home-work assignment and participated actively in learning breathing exercises and acupressure points during classes (Chan & Chow, 1998). Such psychosocial-educational intervention may be more facilitative for a traditional Chinese population than an emotion-focused intervention (Chan & Chow). Use of Culture and Tradition To prevent clients from feeling a loss of face, social workers may use a consultation approach, which involves older family members and parents as consultants instead of clients (Bond & Hwang, 1986). Chinese people, who are pragmatic, willingly participate in collective problem solving if they are not seen as the client but as helpers. A bereavement center in Hong Kong invited bereaved husbands to share their experiences as men with focused goal of helping a female social worker understand men in grief. These widowers were then more willing to share their feelings because they felt that they were contributing to social worker's ability to help other bereaved men. If social worker can show a sincere appreciation of individual's pride in Chinese ethnicity and respect for Chinese cultural norms, clients often show a beneficial therapeutic effect. Respect for Rituals Traditional Chinese families continue to participate in family rituals and celebrate major Chinese festivals. Such practices enhance family interactions that legitimize showing of concern for one another during such events as illness or death of a family member. Families may go as a group to sweep graveyard of ancestors twice a year and make wishes in public for good health for all family members. Death rituals can be used also to reduce pain of bereavement and hasten recovery (Chan, 1998a, 1998b; Chow, 1995; Yang, 1995a, 1995b). During major festivals such as full moon dinner, dragon boat festival, end of year gatherings, and Chinese New Year, there are family meals and social exchanges of gifts and good wishes. Such gatherings may be an important source of information for social work diagnosis involving health and mental health problems. …

This paper presents four projects where design practice is applied to address the challenges of engaging communities in the maintenance of Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI). The design projects were initiated by the Royal College of Art in partnership with Enfield council, UK. The aim was to develop service propositions that encourage shared ownership of Broomfield Park between local communities and the council. These projects demonstrate the relevance of design practice in developing urban resilience through BGI. When considering BGI as a ‘wicked problem’, design practice demonstrations its potential in fundamentally transforming the traditional way in which public services are designed and implemented.

Purpose – The aim of this research is to reveal the opinions of consumers towards various pricing policies that performed by companies. Accordingly, unethical pricing practices which are shelf and cash register price mismatch, excessive pricing, discounted pricing, bait and switch pricing, odd-ending pricing and price differentiation were examined. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative and quantitative methods were used together in this research. In the qualitative context, 6 scenarios were generated to cover the relevant unethical pricing practices; the respondents' thoughts about these scenarios were tried to be obtained and coding method was used in the analysis of the obtained thoughts. In the quantitative context, a questionnaire was structured and used as a data collection tool. Additionally, some questions were utilized as well to measure the awareness of consumers about their rights in such cases. The questionnaire was performed in May 2019; 529 of 548 questionnaires were found to be suitable for analysis. Findings: According to the findings, it is seen that consumers find the pricing practices unethical, deceptive, and cause negative attitudes towards companies and decrease their loyalty. When consumers are exposed to unethical pricing practices they generally tend to react and complain, but mostly from a traditional way. At the point of complaining, consumer awareness about what legal channels are and how to use them is very low. Discussion – Consumers believe that they are deceived by unethical pricing practices performed by companies in general. Negative perceptions lead to negative attitudes towards firms, to overlook the retention of customers which are very important in today's competitive market, and to never reach potential customers.

This article is a theoretical statement on the significance of human meaning both in a context of adaptation to extreme situations, cultural change and to early intervention into caregiver-child relationships, and child rearing practices. In the first part of this article, I argue that human beings need a conceptual framework of meaning into which they can project their life so that it makes sense. These life-theories or -narratives are crucial for psychological adaptation and survival under difficult life conditions—something that makes suffering meaningful and worth enduring, a moral framework. This applies also to condi tion of cultural change, when the link towards established meaning resources are destroyed or inhibited—when there is loss of meaning-a situation of demoralisation may be the conse quence. In the second part of this article, I argue against the widespread tendency in psychology to detach psychological skills from content and meaning, as exemplified in the widespread tendency to develop cognitive intervention programmes directed towards children and their caregivers detached from a framework and context of cultural and social meaning. This argument is pursued further by requesting a new strategy of intervention where reactivation of relevant cultural practices may be the issue, not intervention in the sense of enforcing/ instructing universal skills, which are very often camouflaged as Western cultural practices that are taken for granted. In the last part of the article, I go more explicitly through some facilitative procedures and examples of how Feuerstein and Klein's criteria of mediation can be used, not in an instruc tive and imposive way, but to facilitate traditional cultural ways of communicating and relating between caregiver and child. Finally I go through different cultural modes of mediation that are more in line with the communicative practices which are common in traditional societies of the majority world

Introduction: The use of educational technologies on biosafety can be an innovative and interactive strategy to provide knowledge concerning specific issues and work processes. Objective: To develop an educational quiz game on biosafety in Dentistry; to construct and validate, in a pedagogical and technical way, the 60 evaluation items to be incorporated into the system. Method: The study was organized in several stages: elaboration of the didactic-pedagogical project; development of the game; elaboration of 60 evaluative items; and validation of content by two professionals in the field of pedagogy and five experts in the field of biosafety. Results: The pedagogical evaluation results allowed us to adjust the game questions according to pedagogical criteria. The technical evaluation results were obtained by using the Content Validation Index (CVI), which exceeded 80% in the textual clarity criteria, practical relevance, adequacy to the public and response time of the questions. Conclusions: An open and free access instrument, the educational game can be used as a knowledge tool in biosafety, responding to the continuous demand of students and professionals in search of democratization of information.

An adaptive authentication and authorization model for service oriented enterprise computing

Рresents a patent review of technologies for the prevention and extinguishing of wildfires in the Russian Federation and the world over the last 30 years. The analysis of patent documents shows that there have been around 300 patent applications per year throughout the study period. The patent offices of China and the United States possess the largest number of patent families. In addition, China has a large number of patents with little legal protection, i.e. to protect specific technical solutions. In the Russian Federation, research organizations in the regions with extensive forest resources and a complex fire situation focus on developments in the field of prevention and extinguishing of wildfires. Technical solutions of Russian developers are relevant since they correspond to global patenting trends and have the thoroughly studied application materials. However, Russian patent holders experience difficulties when their developments enter into civil circulation, which decreases the number of valid protective documents. Thus, the transfer of technologies for the prevention and extinguishing of forest fires needs to be developed. The main technological areas of application are Environmental Technologies, Control, Transport, Measurement, and Computer and Telecommunication Technologies. The distribution shows that traditional ways of fighting fires are being improved, mainly fire-fighting equipment with the most active development of technologies for detecting, monitoring and controlling forest fires. Additional analysis of records has identified software products, registered in the Russian Federation, which are designed to prevent and extinguish wildfires. The prospects of patenting have been assessed and the features of conducting a patent search on this subject have been indicated.

Dynamic stiffness matrix for free vibration analysis of flexure hinges based on non-uniform Timoshenko beam

As digital, internet protocol and multi-media device technology develops, a view which distinguishes hard between communication infrastructure for individual communications and broadcasting infrastructure for mass communication that could be done clearly at analog era showed up. This means communication infrastructures are becoming less and less service specific, and can provide a range of services. In addition, new type of services are emerging which are difficult to classify in existing services and regulatory categories. In other words, there are issues which area this type of communication should be involved between broadcasting and communication area, or whether we have to create a third area that can adapt with economical relations. Such infrastructure convergence requires a fundamental review of regulatory regimes for broadcasting and telecommunications to ensure the constitutional value of guaranteeing mass communication function.BR The current debates, however, make me have a critical mind because they are just limited at the old way of technology and the definition itself of broadcasting as the standard for determining what is a broadcasting within the statutory meaning. but any legislative effort for defining or characterizing the new type of digital communication services should be directed toward an analysis of constitutional Perspective. Because the legislative effort should be within the limit of constitutional value order.BR With the point that can distinguish between individual communication and mass communication and with respect to way of use or function of electric wave-media infrastructures, I try to explain the constitutional value and each regulation system of individual communication based on telecommunication services and mass communication transmitted by broadcasting infrastructures. In other words, I want to confirm constitutional concept of way of future communication services with the developed technology and suppose to standard of constitutional protection area for new types of communication services like VOD.BR Therefore, the legislative efforts for digital based new type of communication in South Korea should reflect the concept of the actual and potential objects of electronic mass communication activities as opposed to the definition itself of broadcasting as the standard for determining which is a broadcasting within the traditional way of technology. In other words, the key to the legislative effort for defining the concept of new type of communication services based on electronic facilities or infrastructures will lie in how to have respective statutory conform to the nature of broadcasting as a mechanism for effective flow of information.BR The digitalisation, IP and the development of multimedia devices result in more competition between infrastructures. This raises questions regarding existing markets regulation with its ownership rules and requires regulatory reform. To answer these questions, I think, analysis specific and practical solutions based on the constitutional law about how to maintain diversity and form opinions required in broadcasting using frequency waves and also try to provide alternative plans to solve the problem of diversity for forming opinion in the field of mass communications.

The aim of our study was to explain how tele-orthodontics represents the only way to perform orthodontics during a period of restriction as the one subsequent to COVID-19 emergencies: To do this, we report a case study and explore the proposal of a model of tele-orthodontics, considering the advantages of this modality in the immediate post-emergency phase and in the future daily practice. Study design: Our study involves 30 patients, who had undergone different orthodontic therapies in a traditional way, and that the clinician continued to follow by means of tele-orthodontics. Given the obvious limitations of tele-practice, a comparison with patients who did not undergo any follow-up or underwent only in-office follow-ups could not be possible. The communication tools used in our study and proposed in our model of tele-orthodontics are videocalls, dedicated applications, intraoral and extraoral photos taken by the patients and instant messaging. Tele-orthodontics allowed to perform some orthodontic follow-ups with less chairside time, reduced time spent by the patients in the dental office from up to 45 min, less risk of infection, fewer to no missed appointments, specific troubleshooting solutions, and more follow-ups with odontophobic patients. Overall, tele-orthodontics balanced the disadvantages of less personal contacts and in-office visits. The need to respect safety distance and the fears patients have about the risk of infection make tele-orthodontics a fundamental tool during a pandemic lockdown and in its immediate post-emergency phase. Tele-orthodontics demonstrated to be a viable tool to continue at least some orthodontic care in times of emergency, but it may be considered an appropriate solution and addition even in normal times to ease therapy demands for both the orthodontist and the patient, while reducing time and money spent, without an excessive decrease in orthodontic quality.

South Asia is at a turning point. The region is benefiting from a confluence of positive internal and external forces. South Asian countries are starting to receive the competitiveness dividends from the economic reforms and public investments in infrastructure and education carried over the last 25 years. Rising labor costs in East Asia are steering global investors towards South Asia as a possible cheaper alternative. This report looks in detail at the drivers and constraints impacting South Asia’s competitiveness. It outlines the four policy levers which will help the region become more globally competitive across a broader spectrum of industries,accelerating growth and reducing poverty, especially for women. The report combines a critical mass of quantitative analysis, using the latest data and tools available, with a rich set of industry and company case studies to draw new insights on what South Asia needs to do to boost competitiveness. And it proposes a number of specific policy solutions drawn from relevant international good practices (including from within the region). The authors very much hope that this report will help the countries of South Asia, individually as well as collectively, take a turn toward realizing their great competitiveness potential. The full report together with the extended versions of the four industry case studies are freely available online at: www.worldbank.org/SouthAsiaCompetes.