Discontinuous Leaps Research Articles

Grain size dependence of stress-assisted two-way memory effect in Ti-50.04 at.% Ni shape memory alloy

The grain size (GS) effects on stress-assisted two-way memory behavior of NiTi shape memory alloys (SMAs) were investigated by thermomechanical actuation tests over a wide GS range (from 10 nm to 230 nm). The actuation strain and transformation temperatures are observed to decrease monotonically as the GS is reduced, but the transition temperature window is enlarged. The irrecoverable strain decreases monotonically with GS reduction overall. The underlying mechanisms were investigated through microstructural and thermodynamic analysis. It is demonstrated that, as the GS is reduced, the increasing volume fraction of dislocations and grain boundaries (GB) occupying the space of austenite crystallite suppress the phase transition (PT) and lower the entropy change, leading to the decrease of transformation strain. GS reduction converts the PT from first-order type to a continuous one, and greatly expands the operating temperature range of actuation, tuning the discontinuous leap in strain changes into a continuous variation. When GS > 40 nm, transformation induced plasticity dominates the irrecoverable deformation and is monotonically affected by GS dependent hall-patch effect. Further modeling analysis reveals that, the increase in the volume of GB caused by GS reduction drastically modifies the free energy density convexity of the crystallite-GB composite system and leads to the monotonic decrease of transformation temperatures. The near-linear temperature dependency of actuation strain and wider transition temperature window of the nanostructured NiTi, compared to traditional coarse-grained NiTi, provide the opportunity of improved actuation control of SMA actuator and have the potential for some unique applications in the actuation area.

Continuous vs. Discrete Urban Ranks: Explaining the Evolution in the Italian Urban Hierarchy over Five Decades

The reasons for changes in ranking within urban systems are a matter of a wide and long debate. Some focus on a continuous and smooth ordering of cities by their size within the urban system, in the tradition of Zipf’s law. Others focus on discrete, discontinuous ordering, as cities take on functions at different levels, such as specialized market places or high-level education, in the tradition of Christaller. We enter the debate by empirically evaluating whether the same determinants explain continuous or discrete changes in urban ranks in the evolution of the Italian urban hierarchy over the years 1971 to 2011. We empirically show that small, continuous changes of cities’ ranks have different drivers than large, discontinuous leaps. The presence of high-level functions in a city predicts major leaps across discrete ranks. Results are robust to the use of an instrumental variable strategy based on a shift–share argument.

Leaps in innovation and the Bannister effect in contests

This paper explores how innovation breakthroughs can stimulate future progress in individual innovation. It does this by introducing a new contest mechanism—one that shows signals of performance can yield information about the solution space. Simply put, observing another's high performance is a clue that can lead solvers to devise ways of achieving their own breakthroughs. Using a unique dataset of predictive modeling contests from Kaggle, we use 25,898 distinct attempts at innovation to highlight this new learning effect in contests and show how discontinuous leaps in innovation (as opposed to incremental steps) result in different outcomes. We achieve this by exploiting differences in the problem complexity. First, we find that leaps increase rates of entry and improve overall contest performance in complex problems. This effect applies not only to the best‐performing solvers but also to trailing solvers. Second, we provide evidence that suggests solvers actually change their approach and tackle innovation problems differently after a leap. This adds a new understanding about innovation contests and their incentives and has implications for contest design.

Phase transitions of bosonic fractional quantum Hall effect in topological flat bands

We study the phase transitions of bosonic $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/2$ fractional quantum Hall (FQH) effect in different topological lattice models under the interplay of onsite periodic potential and Hubbard repulsion. Through exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group methods, we demonstrate that the many-body ground state undergoes a continuous phase transition between bosonic FQH liquid and a trivial (Mott) insulator induced by the periodic potential, characterized by the smooth crossover of energy and entanglement entropy. When the Hubbard repulsion decreases, we claim that this bosonic FQH liquid would turn into a superfluid state with a direct energy level crossing and a discontinuous leap of off-diagonal long-range order.

Unsustainability reduction in enterprises by incremental innovations implementation and management

The concept and the word “sustainability” in relation to industrial processes and products have been so heavily overused, with too many different meanings applied to it (Aras and Crowther, 2009). Sustainability takes much more than simple problem-solving or some improvements in the existing consumption and production system. It needs a discontinuous leap from the existing level of actions leading to transformations where the reality changes its form. Even though reducing unsustainability is not the same as creating sustainability, it still makes great sense to prevent and remove the causes and sources of unsustainability; however, at the same time it should be recognised that this is just attacking the symptoms. In this context, reduction of unsustainability of industrial development may be considered as a process of continuous improvement of environmental, economic and social performance in industry. Such approach allows the specialists to identify particular process performance parameters that could be controlled and managed. Integration of sustainability management into the overall business planning is a very important aspect to be tackled because the efficiency of management systems largely depends on connections between the management systems and strategic/financial decision-making. Enterprises often lack explicit information about their activities, particularly reliable quantitative information on technological processes and various sustainability aspects. Moreover, the existing information is seldom systemised in a form suitable for effective decision-making. The main research goal was the evaluation and analysis of the performance of incremental innovations and their introduction in two types of management system (single-loop and cascade), providing continuous reduction of industrial enterprise unsustainability. The innovations developed and implemented by authors together with financing facility and companies' experts by using modified resource efficient and cleaner production (RECP) approach. The research method based on the performance analysis of 177 resource efficient and cleaner production incremental innovations implemented by the authors’ team in industrial companies in the period 1995–2015. To ensure effective decision-making aimed at reduction of performance unsustainability, a cascade management system based on three hierarchical levels (process, activity and strategic decision-making) recommended for use in the enterprises because it introduces the social component of sustainability, ensures involvement of decision-makers at all management levels and enables effective decision-making at different managerial and operational levels. The procedure for unsustainability management involves the compliance of enterprise's processes, activities, and strategic decision-making with legal and other requirements (life quality, etc.), new scientific knowledge, and stakeholder expectations, which all together constitute the system's input information. Decision-makers at different management levels were provided with feedback information based on the indicators of enterprise's sustainability performance. The material presented in this paper based on the authors' theoretical and practical research conducted in the course of different national and international projects.

Curvelet transform based adaptive image deblocking method

Blocking effect caused by coefficient quantification during image compression is an annoying problem. The main effect of quantification is to eliminate high frequency component in the image. Therefore, it will lead to noticeable discontinuous leaps which causes block effect and degrade the image. A deblocking method based on Curvelet transform is proposed in this paper. Based on the fact that the Curvelet coefficients in different scale layers correspond to different block effect of the degraded image, our method adaptively process the coefficients in each layer to recover the degraded images. As proved by the experiments, our method can retain more details and get better recovery results under both subjective and objective criterions than traditional spatial domain and wavelet deblocking methods.

Leaps in Innovation: The Effect of Discontinuous Progress in Algorithmic Tournaments

This paper explores whether innovation breakthroughs stimulate or impede future progress in individual innovation. On the one hand, one could argue that substantial improvements to the status quo might inspire advances through competition. On the other hand, one could claim such improvements might have the opposite effect, stifling motivation or creativity in rivals. Using a unique data set of predictive modeling contests from Kaggle we analyze 25,898 distinct attempts at innovation. We address two related questions to frame our central theme: (1) What effect do discontinuous leaps (as opposed to incremental steps) in innovation contests have on future progress? (2) What predicts such discontinuous leaps in innovation contests? The answers to these questions are as follows. Behavior after discontinuous leaps differs from behavior after continuous steps in innovation tournaments. We find that leaps result in increased rates of entry submission early in contests and improved scores going forward. For the second question, the characteristics that predict leaps turn out to be somewhat different than those that predict steps. Leaps are more likely with lower prior scores, while incremental steps are more likely with bigger teams and bigger prizes. This paper contributes new understanding to the literature on innovation tournaments and offers managers guidance about how to foster leaps in innovation.

Image Compression using Digital Curvelet Transform and HWT as MCA

different transform at a different bit rate. Experiment results show that the proposed multi-layered image coding technique outperforms single curvelet transform with SPIHT in both PSNR and visual quality, with the improvement up to 0.71 dB on images with rich texture and edges. As per Jing Jin Renshu Gu Jie Yuan [2] It has been studied that the Image block effect is due to the quantification process using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to compression coding, which dumps some frequency, and leads to noticeable discontinuous leaps. A deblocking algorithm based on curvelet transform is proposed in this paper. This algorithm processes the curvelet coefficients separately which obtained by curvelet transform of the degraded images to recovery the images. The coefficients corresponding to block effect of the original image can be found for every layer and different

Collaborative Chronic Care Networks (C3Ns) to Transform Chronic Illness Care

Despite significant gains by pediatric collaborative improvement networks, the overall US system of chronic illness care does not work well. A new paradigm is needed: a Collaborative Chronic Care Network (C3N). A C3N is a network-based production system that harnesses the collective intelligence of patients, clinicians, and researchers and distributes the production of knowledge, information, and know-how over large groups of people, dramatically accelerating the discovery process. A C3N is a platform of "operating systems" on which interconnected processes and interventions are designed, tested, and implemented. The social operating system is facilitated by community building, engaging all stakeholders and their expertise, and providing multiple ways to participate. Standard progress measures and a robust information technology infrastructure enable the technical operating system to reduce unwanted variation and adopt advances more rapidly. A structured approach to innovation design provides a scientific operating system or "laboratory" for what works and how to make it work. Data support testing and research on multiple levels: comparative effectiveness research for populations, evaluating care delivery processes at the care center level, and N-of-1 trials and other methods to select the best treatment of individual patient circumstances. Methods to reduce transactional costs to participate include a Federated IRB Model in which centers rely on a protocol approved at 1 central institutional review board and a "commons framework" for organizational copyright and intellectual property concerns. A fully realized C3N represents a discontinuous leap to a self-developing learning health system capable of producing a qualitatively different approach to improving health.

Evolution is Viral: The Theory of Collective Discontinuous Evolution

AbstractHerein will be discussed the problems associated with the origin of species according to Darwinist processes of individual mutations. We will argue that individual mutations cannot be the driving force of species origination. A far more probable explanation is a process of collective mutation that affects numerous individuals near simultaneously akin to an infectious disease. These types of mutations might be precipitated by viruses which would create a discontinuous leap into another species. Such a mechanism also sheds light on the increased rate of evolution observed currently.

Philosophy of Nothingness and Process Theology

AbstractThis paper discusses the two representative philosophers of the Kyoto School, Kitaro Nishida and Hajime Tanabe from the perspective of process theology and the Buddhist-Christian dialogue in Japan.The first chapter explicates Nishida’s concept of “pure experience” in comparison with William James’ radical empiricism and with Kant’s dualism of sense and reason. Pure experience in Nishida’s sense is neither a passive reception of objective sense-data given before subjective mental operations, nor the raw material of experience which must be given “form” by experiencing subject. It is nothing but metaphysically ultimate activity from which both the experiencing subject and the whole range of the experienced objects from sense-perception to intellectual intuition emerge as its self-unfolding.The second and third chapters discuss the two key concepts of process theology, “concrescence” and “the extensive continuum” with a special reference to the Mahayana Buddhist concept of “emptiness (sunyata)” and “dependent arising (pratityasamutpada)”. Nishida’s tripartite concept of topos, i.e. a topos of relative being, a topos of relative nothingness, and the topos of absolute nothingness will be applied to process theology in order to explicate the relation of two ultimates in Whitehead’s metaphysics, i.e. the relation of God as the religious ultimate to creativity as the metaphysical ultimate.The fourth and fifth chapters discuss Hajime Tanabe as a critical successor of Nishida’s philosophy of Nothingness. Tanabe is more akin to Whitehead than to Nishida in that Tanabe reformulates Nishida’s concept of Nothingness from the temporal perspective of a finite human existence related essentially to “species” or “society” in the historical world. Tanabe transforms the unity of contradictories in the logic of topos into the contrasted opposites in the historical process of becoming, which involves novelty and discontinuous leaps at points of historical crisis. For him history has become “the overall Koan” in which the metaphysical topology of static being is to be superseded by the innovative principle of nothingness in the historical world.

Buster Keaton and the South: The First Things and the Last

Of all the great silent film comedians, it is Buster Keaton who most completely inhabits and exemplifies the machine age, perhaps because, unlike other performers, Keaton repeatedly foregrounds the notion that the movie camera itself is a machine, one more device in an automated jungle of sprockets, cranks and motors. Certainly, no other comedian of the period seems so aware of the essentially mechanical nature of the medium, its specifically machine-made possibilities and absurdities; with its flattened space, accelerated tempo and discontinuous leaps in time and space, film acts as a kind of technological synonym for modernity, a modernity in which Keaton's poetic engineering and ingenuous modes of transport appear wholly, indivisibly, at home.

Accuracy of scale conceptions in science: Mental maneuverings across many orders of spatial magnitude

The use of unifying themes that span the various branches of science is recommended to enhance curricular coherence in science instruction. Conceptions of spatial scale are one such unifying theme. This research explored the accuracy of spatial scale conceptions of science phenomena across a spectrum of 215 participants: fifth grade, seventh grade, ninth grade, twelfth grade, and doctoral students in science. Conceptions spanning sizes from one nanometer to one billion meters were investigated through use of written assessments and individual interviews. Results showed that accuracy of conceptions at small scale were not symmetrical with respect to conceptions at large scale. Large scale accuracy tended to decline in a smooth, uniform fashion as the scale increased, whereas small scale accuracy displayed a discontinuity at the microscopic level. To conceptually interact with scales far removed from human scale, experts used strategies of mentally jumping to a new scale-world. Experts tended not to transition smoothly between the differently scaled worlds but rather to make a discontinuous leap, maintaining abstract linkages between the worlds via mathematics. Implications of these findings for curriculum development and classroom instruction are discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 1061–1085, 2006

Mass customization – needs to go beyond technology

In recent time, mass customization strategy is considered in some industries as those trends, if not taken up, that might make firms lose their markets to the competitors. Thus, managers concerned with strategic issues might adopt new technology as the only means of implementing this strategy. Often they might make an error in doing so. Mass customization is a completely discontinuous leap from mass production and requires a major paradigm shift and breakthrough thinking. Understanding customers is the starting point, not the dizzying possibilities of technology to produce variety that nobody wants. Mass customization requires careful preparation in every stage of the supply chain and also enriching buying experience of customers. Innovation, quality improvement, time, flexibility, and cost management in every stage are essential pre-requisite of mass customization program. This paper critically analyses some of the issues of mass customization program and suggests measures for successful implementation of a mass customization strategy.

The Child and the Daemon: Mozart and Deep Play

Mozart9s contemporaries often noted his childlike qualities, though later writers felt this denigrated his seriousness. The Romantics exalted the gloomy or daemonic Mozart, yet the spirit of is an important element in many of his works and calls for deeper examination. Accordingly, this article examines Mozart9s compositional practices to delineate the various modes of musical he used and their significance. These considerations also apply to Haydn, although his characteristic wit may be more fine-grained than Mozart9s play-impulse. Plato considered as fundamental to art, and the leap as the primoridal form of Among Mozart9s near contemporaries, the philosophers Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Christian Gottfried Koorner, and Hans-Georg Naageli reflected on the importance of in art. Though he does not mention Mozart explicitly, Schiller9s description of the play-impulse is particularly important and has not before been fully mined for the insights it can give into musical practice. The concept of deep play discussed by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz in the context of Balinese gambling is also helpful in this musical context. Play is dynamic and must deepen itself or cease. These insights are the starting point of a close discussion of the finale of Mozart9s Piano Sonata in B-, K. 570. This apparently innocent work is a kind of compendium that saturates the possibilities of Careful attention to these variants allow a new kind of analysis, neither limited to abstract manipulation of motifs nor to rhetorical exposition of topics. Consideration of what one might call the phenomenology of play avoids the trap of reducing music to a text and also aids consideration of the discontinuous leaps that are so important in Mozart, along with his more continuous musical rhetoric. These dimensions of are felt most immediately in the texture of scale and step, the of the hand. Considerations of also illuminate Mozart9s Don Giovanni and the vexed questions of music and eros. Though Giovanni is a vicious character, Mozart9s musical seduction is blameless and indeed glorious. Ultimately, eros and must be kept alive even within the confines of marriage and law, so that Zerlina and Masetto may emerge enriched by their encounters with Giovanni. As Schiller points out, purges a certain grossness from sensuality and thereby discloses a new kind of beauty. Mozart accomplishes this in his ombra music through the ultimate leap, the salto mortale of Giovanni9s deadly game with God. Giovanni9s fall is Mozart9s triumph, incorporating morality in its musical deep play.

Visioning the future of social systems: evolutionary and discontinuous leap approaches

Designing a system begins with creating a vision of it to guide the efforts that bring it to life. User-design of social systems involves the stakeholders or users of an enterprise in the collaborative visioning of their enterprise as a purposeful system. Such a process is called idealized systems design when user-designers are guided by deeply meaningful and inspiring shared values to create the most attractive and ideal vision of which they are capable. Two approaches to visioning will be compared and contrasted: evolutionary and discontinuous-leap approaches. In evolutionary approaches, such as appreciative inquiry, users explore ‘the best of what is’ in order to vision ‘what could be’. By contrast, discontinuous-leap approaches ask users to suspend or transcend existing reality to free their creative imaginations from the constraints of ‘what is’ in order to dream of ‘what could be’. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Visioning the future of social systems: evolutionary and discontinuous leap approaches

Designing a system begins with creating a vision of it to guide the efforts that bring it to life. User-design of social systems involves the stakeholders or users of an enterprise in the collaborative visioning of their enterprise as a purposeful system. Such a process is called idealized systems design when user-designers are guided by deeply meaningful and inspiring shared values to create the most attractive and ideal vision of which they are capable. Two approaches to visioning will be compared and contrasted: evolutionary and discontinuous-leap approaches. In evolutionary approaches, such as appreciative inquiry, users explore ‘the best of what is’ in order to vision ‘what could be’. By contrast, discontinuous-leap approaches ask users to suspend or transcend existing reality to free their creative imaginations from the constraints of ‘what is’ in order to dream of ‘what could be’. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Business re-engineering—a strategy-driven approach

Organizations across a wide range of industries are recognizing the potential of re-engineering to deliver discontinuous leaps in performance. The competitive climate, and the pace of change within and outside the firm are also encouraging a more co-ordinated and fundamental approach to the planning and design of business activity. Two main approaches to re- engineering have emerged. The first—known as Process Re- engineering—offers the opportunity to rethink and streamline individual processes. The second—termed Business Re- engineering—provides an approach to rethinking and redesigning the entire business behind a more focused, competence based competitive strategy. The central challenge in re-engineering is to understand where and how we can create value for both customers and shareholders. This requires us to ask fundamental questions about what we do, how we do it, whether it is necessary and how it can be improved. Achieving the benefits of re-engineering demands active commitment and participation from the chief executive downwards. The re-engineering process itself needs careful planning around a clear vision of longer term goals. There are also risks inherent in undertaking these far reaching and fundamental changes. To address the risks, manage the fears, uncertainties and doubts and yet maintain motivation in the organization, demands a commitment to change management on a scale which few executives will have experienced.