Incremental Process Research Articles

Ergodicity of the KPZ Fixed Point

The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) fixed point is a Markov process, recently introduced by Matetski, Quastel, Remenik (arXiv:1701.00018), that describes the limit fluctuations of the height function associated to the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP), and it is conjectured to be at the centre of the KPZ universality class. Our main result is that the KPZ incremental process converges weakly to its invariant measure, given by a two-sided Brownian motion with zero drift and diffusion coefficient 2. The heart of the proof is the coupling method that allows us to compare the TASEP height function with its invariant process, which under the KPZ scaling turns into uniform estimates for the KPZ fixed point.

Experimental Study Regarding PA and PE Sheets on Single Point Incremental Forming Process

The present paper aims to present an experimental study on the behaviour of PA and PE sheets during the single point incremental forming. Due to the fact that the purpose of this research is to study the behaviour of PA and PE sheets during the single point incremental process both in terms of process forces and in terms of major and minor strain and thickness reduction, a Kuka Kr210 robot was chosen as an alternative to using a universal milling machine. The specimens were made of 3 mm PA and PE sheets. The size of the sheets was 250 mm x 250 mm. The forces measured on the three directions of the coordinate axes were compared. To measure the major strain, minor strain and thickness reduction, the digital image correlation method was applied.

Plasticity of sentence processing networks: evidence from a patient with agrammatic variant of primary progressive aphasia (PPA)

ABSTRACT This study reports the results of a longitudinal study examining the effects of treatment for sentence processing deficits for a 70-year-old gentleman (DK) with the agrammatic variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). On entry into the study, he presented with a 2-year history of impaired verb and sentence processing and concomitant neural atrophy in primarily subcortical regions. Spanning an 18-month period, treatment focused on improving comprehension and production of syntactically complex, passive and object cleft, structures, consecutively. Results, derived from extensive behavioral and neurocognitive testing, showed not only improved ability to comprehend and produce both trained and untrained, less complex, linguistically related structures in offline tasks, but also improved online sentence processing strategies as revealed by partially normalized eye movements in online comprehension (i.e., emergence of thematic prediction and thematic integration) and production (i.e., use of incremental processing) tasks. Changes in neural activation from pre- to post-treatment of both structures also were found, with upregulation of tissue in both the left and right hemispheres, overlapping with regions recruited by neurotypical adults performing the same task. These findings indicate that Treatment of Underlying Forms (TUF) is effective for treatment of patients with the agrammatic variant of PPA (as it is for those with stroke-induced agrammatism), and show that unaffected neural tissue in patients with PPA is malleable and may be recruited to support language, providing evidence of experience-based plasticity in neurodegenerative disease.

Continuous Trajectory Similarity Search for Online Outlier Detection

In this paper, we study a new variant of trajectory similarity search from the context of continuous query processing. Given a moving object from <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$s$</tex-math></inline-formula> to <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$d$</tex-math></inline-formula> , following a reference route <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_r$</tex-math></inline-formula> , we monitor the trajectory similarity between the reference route and the current partial route at each timestamp for online detour detection. Since existing trajectory distance measures fail to adequately capture the deviation between a partial route and a complete route, we propose a partial trajectory similarity measure to bridge the gap. In particular, we enumerate all the possible routes extended from the partial route to reach the destination <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$d$</tex-math></inline-formula> and calculate their minimum distance to <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$T_r$</tex-math></inline-formula> . We consider deviation calculation in both euclidean space and road networks. In euclidean space, we can directly infer the optimal future path with the minimum trajectory distance. In road networks, we propose an efficient expansion algorithm with a suite of pruning rules. Furthermore, we propose efficient incremental processing strategies to facilitate continuous query processing for moving objects. Our experiments are conducted on multiple real datasets and the experimental results verify the efficiency of our query processing algorithms.

A Comparison between Agile and Traditional Software Development Methodologies

Agile and Traditional software development methodologies, both are being used in different projects of software development industry. Agile software development technology is an incremental software development process. On the other hand, Traditional software development methodologies or plan-driven software can be explained as a more formal approach to software development. These methodologies come with a fully completed set of systems requirements followed by an architectural and high level design development and inspiration. This research focuses on the software development life cycle, role and responsibilities of agile and traditional software development methodologies and their technical practices. It performs a comparison between both the software development methodologies. Here a questionnaire is used to collect data from the various experts of different IT related organizations of Bangladesh. In the questionnaire, there are three sections to bring out the individual knowledge from different organization, methodology knowledge of the respondents and software development experience of the respondents. The respondents are mainly software engineer, system analyst, software developer etc. A comparison is also performed between this survey result and a survey done by Ambler.

Transformaciones sociodemográficas y diferenciación social del espacio residencial en el área metropolitana de Valparaíso, Chile (1992-2017)

Durante los últimos treinta años, las áreas metropolitanas de Chile en general, y de Valparaíso, en particular, han experimentado significativas transformaciones en su morfología y en su población. En este artículo se busca describir, analizar y comprender la huella latente de estas transformaciones en la diferenciación del espacio residencial del “Gran Valparaíso”. La fuente de datos utilizada corresponde a los Censos de Población y de Vivienda de los años 1992, 2002 y 2017. La unidad de análisis espacial es la zona censal y el protocolo metodológico implementado involucra la aplicación combinada de técnicas de estadística descriptiva y análisis multivariado. Los resultados obtenidos acreditan un proceso incremental de fragmentación socioeconómica y demográfica del espacio residencial del Gran Valparaíso, evidenciado tanto en el número y como en el contenido de los componentes que emergen del análisis factorial, como en las zonas residenciales que se conforman.

An oviraptorid preserved atop an embryo-bearing egg clutch sheds light on the reproductive biology of non-avialan theropod dinosaurs

Recent studies demonstrate that many avialan features evolved incrementally prior to the origin of the group, but the presence of some of these features, such as bird-like brooding behaviours, remains contentious in non-avialan dinosaurs. Here we report the first non-avialan dinosaur fossil known to preserve an adult skeleton atop an egg clutch that contains embryonic remains. The preserved positional relationship of the adult to the clutch, coupled with the advanced growth stages of the embryos and their high estimated incubation temperatures, provides strong support for the brooding hypothesis. Furthermore, embryos in the clutch are at different developmental stages, suggesting the presence of asynchronous hatching—a derived feature even among crown-group birds—in non-avialan theropods. These findings demonstrate that the evolution of reproductive biology along bird-line archosaurs was a complex rather than a linear and incremental process, and suggest that some aspects of non-avialan theropod reproduction were unique to these dinosaurs.

Exploration of Appropriate Tool Material and Lubricant for Elevated Temperature Incremental Forming of Aluminium Alloy

In metal forming processes, the material of forming tools and lubricants play a very important role. It not only influences the forming process but also affects the surface finish of the produced product. Moreover, the product cost is directly associated with the cost of tools and lubricants. The present research explores appropriate tool materials and suitable lubricants to be used in Elevated Temperature Incremental Forming (ET-IF) of Aluminium alloy for efficient results. For the purpose, tool materials and lubricants used in Incremental Forming processes at higher temperatures were identified from the literature. The physical and chemical properties of the reported tool materials and lubricants, along with the established applications, were studied. Besides, the availability and cost of the lubricants, as well as machinability of the tool materials, were also considered to identify a set of feasible tool materials and lubricants for possible ET-IF applications. Subsequently, experiments were carried out with the identified set of tool materials and lubricants. Based on the observations made and the experimental results, different tool materials and lubricants were evaluated. The work recommends Tool steel (EN-31) and Molybdenum disulfide mixture as the most appropriate tool material and lubricant, respectively.

Labour in a Single Shot: The Deskilling and Mechanisation of Labour in Harun Farocki

Abstract From the late 1960s until his death in 2014, the filmmaker and artist Harun Farocki repeatedly returned in his work to the subject of labour. This article examines a selection of Farocki’s films and video installations, delineating his recurrent chronicling of the historical trajectory of the labour process and technological development under capitalist industrialisation. In particular, it focuses on Farocki’s sustained investigation into capitalism’s drive to systematically displace forms of skilled craft from the production process by subordinating both manual and intellectual labour to an incremental process of deskilling and mechanisation, as well as his interrogation of the implication of various instrumental and automated visual technologies in such processes. In doing so, I underline the continuing significance of Marxist theory for analysing Farocki’s critical portrayal of capitalist modernity as dominated by an abstract and alienated historical dynamic toward the increasing rationalisation and control of production and social life.

Lipid Transfer-Dependent Endosome Maturation Mediated by Protrudin and PDZD8 in Neurons.

Endosome maturation refers to the conversion of early endosomes (EEs) to late endosomes (LEs) for subsequent fusion with lysosomes. It is an incremental process that involves a combination of endosome fusion and fission and which occurs at contact sites between endosomes and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), with knowledge of the underlying mechanisms having increased greatly in recent years. Protrudin is an ER-resident protein that was originally shown to regulate neurite formation by promoting endosome trafficking, whereas PDZD8 is a mammalian paralog of a subunit of the yeast ERMES (ER-mitochondrial encounter structure) complex that possesses lipid transfer activity. A complex of protrudin and PDZD8 was recently found to promote endosome maturation by mediating lipid transfer at ER-endosome membrane contact sites. This review focuses on the roles of the protrudin-PDZD8 complex in tethering of endosomes to the ER, in mediating lipid transfer at such contact sites, and in regulating endosome dynamics, especially in neuronal cells. It also addresses the physiological contribution of endosome maturation mediated by this complex to neuronal polarity and integrity.

Empirical anomaly measure for finite-variance processes

Anomalous diffusion phenomena are observed in many areas of interest. They manifest themselves in deviations from the laws of Brownian motion (BM), e.g. in the non-linear growth (mostly power-law) in time of the ensemble average mean squared displacement (MSD). When we analyze the real-life data in the context of anomalous diffusion, the primary problem is the proper identification of the type of the anomaly. In this paper, we introduce a new statistic, called empirical anomaly measure (EAM), that can be useful for this purpose. This statistic is the sum of the off-diagonal elements of the sample autocovariance matrix for the increments process. On the other hand, it can be represented as the convolution of the empirical autocovariance function with time lags. The idea of the EAM is intuitive. It measures dependence between the ensemble-averaged MSD of a given process from the ensemble-averaged MSD of the classical BM. Thus, it can be used to measure the distance between the anomalous diffusion process and normal diffusion. In this article, we prove the main probabilistic characteristics of the EAM statistic and construct the formal test for the recognition of the anomaly type. The advantage of the EAM is the fact that it can be applied to any data trajectories without the model specification. The only assumption is the stationarity of the increments process. The complementary summary of the paper constitutes of Monte Carlo simulations illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed test and properties of EAM for selected processes.

Reshaping health care governance using pilot projects as public policy implementation instruments

Pilot projects are often used to test innovations; however, pilot projects, viewed as tools, are rarely addressed as an object for research. This paper, in which pilot projects are viewed as public policy instruments producing specific effects, addresses the research question: how does the use of multidisciplinary pilot projects as experimentation and implementation instruments reshape modes of public governance in the Belgian health sector in a context of transition and ongoing devolution? An ethnographic study was conducted, focusing on the specific case of the Belgian joint plan, “Integrated Care for Better Health”, which targets chronic patients and was intended to initiate a major transition from a fragmented to an integrated care system for chronic patients. The analysis concerns the specific implementation modalities designed by the authorities, which consisted of the launch of pilot projects involving professionals in the field coming from different sectors in an iterative and incremental co-creation process. This choice caused new vertical interdependences to emerge between the levels of the health care system, transforming the roles of both the authorities and hands-on professionals involved; it also denoted a transition towards a more negotiated governance, in the course of which several types of knowledge and evidence have been mobilised.

Landschappelijke authenticiteit

Landschappelijke authenticiteit heeft te maken met ruimtelijke kwaliteit en identiteit. Hierbij spelen oriëntatie in tijd en ruimte een rol, maar ook schoonheid, (multi)functionaliteit, ecologische variatie en samenhang. De verscheidenheid aan verbanden en interactie tussen deze aspecten maakt landschappelijke authenticiteit een complexe zaak. In deze bijdrage wordt betoogd dat wij landschappelijke authenticiteit kunnen begrijpen door het landschap in samenhang te bekijken: als levend systeem, geschiedenis en ruimtelijke beleving. Het landschap verandert altijd, zelfs zonder menselijke tussenkomst.&#x0D; Leesbaarheid van het landschap is een belangrijke factor voor de waarneming en waardering ervan. De rol van tijd is evident en wordt gekenmerkt door een selectief en incrementeel proces waarbij sommige structuren blijven en worden aangepast en andere plaatsmaken voor nieuwe. Landschappelijke authenticiteit heeft niets te maken met het fixeren van het landschap zoals het is; een landschap kan niet onveranderd behouden blijven, daar het zelf het resultaat is van continue transformatie. Het begrijpen van de ontwikkeling van het landschap is dus evenzo belangrijk als het zichtbare resultaat.

Content and morphology of lead remediated by activated carbon and biochar: A spectral induced polarization study

Soil and groundwater contamination with lead (Pb) poses serious challenges for the environment. Activated carbon (AC) and biochar have huge potential application in the in-situ remediation processes through permeable reactive barriers (PRB). Spectral induced polarization (SIP) technique recently showed promises in nondestructively monitoring the spatio-temporal characteristics of physical, chemical and biological processes in porous media. In this study SIP technique was used for monitoring Pb remediation by AC and biochar in column scale. The calculated characteristic grain/pore size evolutions from SIP signals on AC, agreed well with the size of precipitates measured by SEM and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) methods. The content increment process of the retained Pb on AC was also recorded via the magnitude increment of the imaginary conductivity. The mechanisms of Pb–AC and Pb-biochar interactions were investigated using SEM-EDS, TEM, FTIR, XRD, and XPS measurements. It showed that AC immobilizes through physical adsorption and precipitation, whereas complexation with functional groups is the remediation mechanism for biochar. Furthermore, the observed SIP responses of both AC and biochar are two orders of magnitude higher than those of typical natural soils or silica materials. This distinct difference is an additional advantage for the field application of SIP technique in PRB scenarios.

Learning framework for the development of key skills in the hospitality industry

The hospitality sector is one of the most competitive industries and it is one of the leading engines of the world economy. The current crisis in the sector due to the COVID-19 makes organizations to consider more than ever the unique and the alignment of their services for becoming different from their competitors. In this sense, the hospitality skills have been identified as one of the crucial elements in the strategy by the companies because of the wide and diverse offer of tourism services and, at the same time, the new customer expectations which are pushing the organizations to create customized, unique and memorable experiences. Thus, this change of paradigm leads to a constant reflection on the quality that services should offer in line with customer expectations. The aim of this research is twofold. On the one hand, the article identifies service orientation, empathy and teamwork as key competences in the development of the hospitality skills. On the other hand, the paper presents a learning framework of those skills within the University studies. This framework proposes an incremental learning process organized in three phases -Discover, Reflection and Experience- through the period of the academic program. First, the identification of their hospitality profile based on the three skills is done through a discovered process. Next, students reflect about the contents and best practices related to strategical and operational aspects linked to the sector. Finally, students experience all the previous concepts through an internship. One of the main benefits of this learning framework is that allows academic supervisors to define goals and monitoring the achievement of these competences of the students along the different academic years.

An Incremental Learning Framework for Human-Like Redundancy Optimization of Anthropomorphic Manipulators

Recently, the human-like behavior on the anthropomorphic robot manipulator is increasingly accomplished by the kinematic model establishing the relationship of an anthropomorphic manipulator and human arm motions. Notably, the growth and broad availability of advanced data science techniques facilitate the imitation learning process in anthropomorphic robotics. However, the enormous dataset causes the labeling and prediction burden. In this article, the swivel motion reconstruction approach was applied to imitate human-like behavior using the kinematic mapping in robot redundancy. For the sake of efficient computing, a novel incremental learning framework that combines an incremental learning approach with a deep convolutional neural network is proposed for fast and efficient learning. The algorithm exploits a novel approach to detect changes from human motion data streaming and then evolve its hierarchical representation of features. The incremental learning process can fine-tune the deep network only when model drifts detection mechanisms are triggered. Finally, we experimentally demonstrated this neural network's learning procedure and translated the trained human-like model to manage the redundancy optimization control of an anthropomorphic robot manipulator (LWR4+, KUKA, Germany). This approach can hold the anthropomorphic kinematic structure-based redundant robots. The experimental results showed that our architecture could not only enhance the regression accuracy but also significantly reduce the processing time of learning human motion data.

Dynamic Fusion Algorithm of Building Surface Data in Heterogeneous Environment

The existing building surface data fusion algorithms do not extract the segmented data features, resulting in inaccurate fusion results. In heterogeneous environment, a Clustering Fusion Algorithm Based on mutual information and fractal dimension is proposed. The regression coefficient is used to express the sequence, and the data feature representation and data dimension reduction are realized. The dynamic data series are processed by similarity measure function method. For the long dynamic data series, the piecewise aggregation approximation method is used to segment the data and then extract the features. Through the incremental clustering processing data based on fractal dimension clustering algorithm, the research of data fusion algorithm is realized. The experimental results show that the accuracy of building surface data fusion is greatly improved by using the dynamic data fusion algorithm, the highest is 0.98, the sum of square error is reduced, and the lowest is only 90.44.

The Nordic Council of Ministers: Aspirations for More Political Relevance

Due to changing circumstances and new challenges, the Nordic Council of Ministers underwent an incremental process of change and some modest transformation since the 1990s. However, there has never been a major overhaul of structures and contents owing to considerable inertia. The most recent modernisation process, aiming at more political relevance and flexibility, has been ambitious but whether it has been a success remains unclear thus far. Weaknesses and limits in cooperation in the Nordic Council of Ministers are obvious, i.e., no majority voting or ‘opting-out’ system, a lack in supra-national structures and policies and no common immigration, foreign, security and EU policies. Nonetheless, the organisation has at least some relevance and meaning for the Nordic countries and the potential to promote and facilitate cooperation in policy areas in which common interests exist, such as environment, climate, research and social affairs. Therefore, rather than constituting a common political order of its own, Nordic cooperation, as it is conducted within the Nordic Council of Ministers, is best characterized by differentiated integration, promoting full integration only to a limited extent but respecting integration to different extents and speeds by fostering cooperation and coordination of certain policies where possible and desired.

On Performance Evaluation of Security Monitoring in Multitenant Cloud Applications

In this paper we present a modeling approach suitable for practical evaluation of the delays that may affect security monitoring systems in (multitenant) cloud based architecture, and in general to support professionals in planning and evaluating relevant parameters in dealing with new designs or migration projects. The approach is based on modularity and multiformalism techniques to manage complexity and guide designers in an incremental process, to help transferring technical knowledge into modeling practice and to help easing the use of simulation. We present a case study based on a real experience, triggered by a new legal requirement that Italian Public Administration should comply about their datacenters.

Integrating elements of data science into high-school teaching

Probability theory and mathematical statistics are traditionally one of the most difficult chapters of mathematics to teach. One of the authors, Péter Princz has experience in teaching various topics via computer programming of the problem at hand as a class activity. The proposed method is to involve programming as a didactic tool in hard-to-teach topics. The intended goal in this case is to implement a naïve Bayes-classifier algorithm in Python and demonstrate the machine-learning capabilities of it by applying it to a real-world dataset of edible or poisonous mushrooms. The students would implement the algorithm in a playful and interactive way. The proposed incremental development process aligns well with the spirit of Tamás Varga who considered computers as modern tools of experimental problem solving as early as in the 1960s.&#x0D; Subject Classification: 97D40, 97D50, 97K50, 97K99, 97M60, 97P40, 97P50, 97U50