Generic Pieces Research Articles

THE NEED FOR A NEW APPROACH TO THE RADIOCARBON DATING OF HISTORIC MORTARS

ABSTRACTThis commentary aims at raising awareness and fostering a discussion on the need of a new approach to the radiocarbon (14C) dating of historic mortars. Over the last decades, important advancements have been made in the application of the 14C dating methods to lime mortar samples, including the use of lime lumps instead of generic pieces of mortar. However, a relevant number of results in disagreement with the chronological framework of the related archaeological cases are published every year without a clear understanding of the reasons for such results. This suggests that further developments to the methodology are needed. The commentary argues that to further develop this particular application of the 14C dating method, a new, more holistic approach is needed that moves away from the very “applied” approach that dominated the last decades and focuses more on the causes of contamination and the mechanism of the reactions involved. Two actions are suggested that can immediately improve our ability to critically assess the results obtained: the publication of a chemical and mineralogical characterization of the binding fraction for the dated mortars, and the publication of sampling depth for each dated sample.

Assessing Methods and Tools to Improve Reporting, Increase Transparency, and Reduce Failures in Machine Learning Applications in Health Care.

Artificial intelligence applications for health care have come a long way. Despite the remarkable progress, there are several examples of unfulfilled promises and outright failures. There is still a struggle to translate successful research into successful real-world applications. Machine learning (ML) products diverge from traditional software products in fundamental ways. Particularly, the main component of an ML solution is not a specific piece of code that is written for a specific purpose; rather, it is a generic piece of code, a model, customized by a training process driven by hyperparameters and a dataset. Datasets are usually large, and models are opaque. Therefore, datasets and models cannot be inspected in the same, direct way as traditional software products. Other methods are needed to detect failures in ML products. This report investigates recent advancements that promote auditing, supported by transparency, as a mechanism to detect potential failures in ML products for health care applications. It reviews practices that apply to the early stages of the ML lifecycle, when datasets and models are created; these stages are unique to ML products. Concretely, this report demonstrates how two recently proposed checklists, datasheets for datasets and model cards, can be adopted to increase the transparency of crucial stages of the ML lifecycle, using ChestX-ray8 and CheXNet as examples. The adoption of checklists to document the strengths, limitations, and applications of datasets and models in a structured format leads to increased transparency, allowing early detection of potential problems and opportunities for improvement. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Lifecycle, Auditing, Transparency, Failures, Datasheets, Datasets, Model Cards Supplemental material is available for this article. © RSNA, 2022.

La Planta de Equivalencias. Mat-rooming.

<p>Attention to the mechanisms by which certain architectural configurations are able to adapt to change defines a field of interest that has only been growing since the mid-twentieth century, after overcoming the exclusive dilemma between form and function. However, the influence of strategies based on the principle of free plan is still much greater than that of other proposals that are not based on the independence between supporting structure and distributive organization. The aim of this work is the definition of a genealogy for the idea of the plan of equivalents that is proposed as an alternative model of functional indifference, establishing a connection between the logics of pre-bourgeois domestic architecture and the most recent examples of programmatic experimentation in housing. The re-interpretation of some iteration techniques of elements developed in the 60s by the most critical generation with canonical modernity, together with the analysis of their associated operative vocabulary, will allow an outline to an approach of the inhabiting patterns based on the systematic proliferation of the room as a generic piece.</p>

Some new qualitative insights into quality of fuzzy rule-based models

Rules in fuzzy rule-based models convey essential knowledge about the system under discussion. As such, they capture the essence of relationships occurring among input and output variables. While the quality of such fuzzy models is predominantly related with the accuracy and eventual interpretability of rules (although to a limited extent), the quality of rules being regarded as generic pieces of knowledge has not been studied so far. In this study, we formulate and investigate this problem by looking at the quality of rules, including aspects of (a) stability, (b) generalizability, and (c) conflict. We identify a concept of rule multiplicity, conflict, and study an emergence of rule generalization. A number of pertinent performance indices are developed, and their usage is presented through a series of experimental studies.

Formal specification of non-functional properties of component-based software systems

Component-based software engineering (CBSE) is viewed as an opportunity to deal with the increasing complexity of modern-day software. Along with CBSE comes the notion of component markets, where more or less generic pieces of software are traded, to be combined into applications by third-party application developers. For such a component market to work successfully, all relevant properties of components must be precisely and formally described. This is especially true for non-functional properties, such as performance, memory foot print, or security. While the specification of functional properties is well understood, non-functional properties are only beginning to become a research focus. This paper discusses semantic concepts for the specification of non-functional properties, taking into account the specific needs of a component market. Based on these semantic concepts, we present a new specification language QML/CS that can be used to model non-functional product properties of components and component-based software systems.

Mapping successful language learning approaches in the adaptation of generic software

This paper investigates the use of a generic piece of software, the Copernic Summarizer (www.copernic.com) as a language learning tool and considers two discrete pedagogical approaches used as part of its integration within the context of teaching and learning a foreign language. Firstly, this paper will present a brief overview on the emerging field of automated summary writing and its importance and relevance for language learners today. A description of our empirical study is then presented which concentrates on the integration of this tool within a third level classroom environment. Basically, this particular classroom context involved the use of two separate control groups; each one was introduced to and employed the Copernic Summarizer (CS) at different stages during the CALL integration process. In order to examine the students' application of this tool to their L2 learning, we examine the data from both learner-produced summaries and written commentaries in order to assess whether or not this software has been successfully established as part of the students' long-term integration strategies. As such, we will provide examples of the L2 benefits experienced in the summary writing task in order to consider how learners mapped these particular issues onto their adaptation of the tool.

Consolidating and applying the SDL-pattern approach: a detailed case study

This paper is on design methodology for communication systems. The SDL-pattern approach proposed recently is consolidated and applied rigorously and in detail to the design of a typical communication system on two levels of abstraction. The design is decomposed into a number of steps, each of which is carried out systematically, building on well-proven, generic pieces of solutions that have proven useful in previous projects. These generic solutions—termed SDL patterns—support reuse-driven design of communication systems, raise the vocabulary of protocol engineer to a problem-oriented level, assist the discovery and exploitation of commonalities, and lead to well-justified designs. The selection and use of SDL patterns is supported by a fine-grained incremental design process, the pattern definition takes advantage of formal design languages, and a set of heuristics addresses the decomposition of communication requirements. All these elements are presented and applied in detail to the design of a simple, but functionally complete communication system.

Francis D. Moore, MD

Francis D. Moore, MD

Factorization of scattering matrices due to partitioning of potentials in one-dimensional Schrödinger-type equations

The one-dimensional Schrödinger equation and two of its generalizations are considered, as they arise in quantum mechanics, wave propagation in a nonhomogeneous medium, and wave propagation in a nonconservative medium where energy may be absorbed or generated. Generically, the zero-energy transmission coefficient vanishes when the potential is nontrivial, but in the exceptional case this coefficient is nonzero, resulting in tunneling through the potential. It is shown that any nontrivial exceptional potential can always be fragmented into two generic pieces. Furthermore, any nontrivial potential, generic or exceptional, can be fragmented into generic pieces in infinitely many ways. The results remain valid when Dirac delta functions are included in the potential and other coefficients are added to the Schrödinger equation. For such Schrödinger equations, factorization formulas are obtained that relate the scattering matrices of the fragments to the scattering matrix of the full problem.

Readers as Performers: The Literature Game

Readers as Performers:The Literature Game Gary M. Salvner (bio) In describing her transactional theory of literary works, Louise Rosenblatt observes, "There is no such thing as a generic reader or a generic literary work; there are only the potential millions of individual literary works. A novel or poem or play remains merely inkspots on paper until a reader transforms them into a set of meaningful symbols. The literary work exists in the live circuit set up between reader and text" (Literature 25). Of course, teachers of literature don't need Rosenblatt to remind them of the futility of trying to create classrooms full of "generic" readers. Daily in our teaching we are reminded that literature loved by some is hated by others, and those works which produce recognition and insight on some students' faces paint blank looks and frustration on others. In encountering the gamut of reactions to a book produced in a single class (or the always baffling change in reaction from one class to another), we are reminded that generic readings of a text are as impossible to find in education as generic children, generic teachers, and generic pieces of literature. Unfortunately, that knowledge doesn't by itself clarify the role of the teacher in the literature class. While it reminds us that a recitation of pre-formed questions begging pre-set answers (the generic literary discussion) is not the solution, it doesn't itself supply alternatives. Finding the means for positively influencing students' reading remains a substantial and sometimes puzzling responsibility for teachers. In investigating this responsibility, Rosenblatt uses a lovely metaphor to describe the teacher role in the literature class. "In the teaching of literature," she proposes, "we are basically helping our students learn to perform in response to a text....The reader performs the poem or novel, as the violinist performs the sonata. But the instrument on which the reader plays, and from which he evokes the work, is—himself" (Literature 279). It is tantalizing to conceive of our task as the evocation of performances, for the literature class as a place of performance suggests a much more active role for teachers than those roles associated the "generic" readings and responses. The central question of literature teaching, following Rosenblatt's metaphor, becomes, "How can we elicit performances from students which are authentic, energetic, and instructive?" In the remainder of this discussion I wish to describe and speculate about one method I have found to be particularly rich in possibilities: the literature game. The mediod is interesting because it seems both to energize reading and extend it, and it seems in its procedures and outcomes to make students into effective literary performers. The literature game is a role-playing activity in which a situation or problem (typically one unrelated to literature at all) is attached to literary works through a scenario students are given. In working through the activity, students are enticed into reacting to the game's problem, which they can do only by responding to the literature as well. These activities are rightfully called games because, even though they are neither as frivolous as hop-scotch nor as elaborate as chess, they contain many of the characteristics we recognize as inherent to the games we play. In his classic study of the play element in culture, Johan Huizinga identifies these characteristics. "A game," he says, is a voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that it is 'different' from 'ordinary' life. (28) Literature games, then, are activities in which students accept the constraints of an invented world and are freed to operate within those constraints (rather than the constraints of "ordinary" life) in accomplishing a task. Most performances, I would argue, including reading performances, are also game-like, occurring "within certain fixed limits of time and place" and being accompanied by "a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that the activity is different from 'ordinary' life." Could Rosenblatt have been suggesting that literary response should be an activity of play? Over the...