Unidirectional Flow Of Information Research Articles

Integrative data processing for cyber-physical off-site and on-site construction promoting co-design

The term co-design describes a collaborative design process, usually across the boundaries of individual areas. A major aspect, and often an obstacle in the implementation of the co-design approach, is the establishment of a centralized data management system. In the past, the data management concept has been approached from different perspectives. Current approaches usually are oriented along the process chain and thus reflect a unidirectional flow of information. Neither the information feedback nor the reaction to adjustments in upstream model steps is supported, which makes continuous collaboration more difficult and at best reduces the co-design approach for continuous data usage. This paper addresses these weaknesses while outlining an integrative data processing concept enabling co-design between the domains of construction and industrial prefabrication.Geometrical information generated during architectural design and construction planning is reused for the production of components, manufacturing-related design adjustments are transferred back into the domain of construction. Changes throughout the entire process are centrally recorded. To ensure independence from the software tools used and to consider their great diversity, data exchange is largely based on standards, namely industry foundation classes and the standard for the exchange of product model data. In order to counteract the sequential processing according to a waterfall model and to support the co-design approach, the industrial prefabrication toolchain, consisting of computer-aided manufacturing software and downstream postprocessors, is largely automated, so that reprocessing of a workpiece for minor geometric adjustments no longer requires any interaction of the production planner.

INFORMATION FLOW BETWEEN THE US DOLLAR-RUPIAH EXCHANGE RATES

This study investigates the information flow between non-deliverable forward (NDF), spot, and forward US dollar–rupiah exchange rates during the post-Quantitative Easing (QE) period. Our results show a unidirectional information flow from NDF to the spot and forward rates in the post-QE period. We also find that the Indonesian government securities (IGS) played a vital role during the QE period, while international reserves preceded the US dollar–rupiah spot, forward, and NDF exchange rates post-QE. Hence, international reserves became an important policy variable in managing the currency value. Our finding redefines the role of IGS as a policy tool. As a policy suggestion, the Bank Indonesia should maintain a sufficient amount of foreign reserves to mitigate foreign exchange risks of the rupiah.

Feedback on Teaching: Non-standard Minute Paper Methods

The importance of feedback in the learning and teaching context is widely recognised. In recent years, its primary focus has been on the provision of feedback to students, a unidirectional flow of information from educators to students on their formative and summative assignments. Feedback on teaching makes learning visible; however, this visibility depends on the teacher awareness of their impact on students. The uptake of end of class student feedback is relatively small in large classes. This paper reports on three lecturers’ account in collecting and responding to regular feedback on teaching in the School of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow. The lecturers’ accounts of their experience may be used as a starting point for educators willing to implement regular routine feedback on their teaching. Based on our experience, we propose guidelines emphasising structure and regularity in the collection of feedback on teaching.

Quantifying the Information Flow between Ghana Stock Market Index and Its Constituents Using Transfer Entropy

We quantify the strength and the directionality of information transfer between the Ghana stock market index and its component stocks as well as observe the same among the individual stocks on the market using transfer entropy. The information flow between the market index and its components and among individual stocks is measured by the effective transfer entropy of the daily logarithm returns generated from the daily market index and stock prices of 32 stocks ranging from 2nd January 2009 to 16th February 2018. We find a bidirectional and unidirectional flow of information between the GSE index and its component stocks, and the stocks dominate the information exchange. Among the individual stocks, SCB is the most active stock in the information exchange as it is the stock that receives the highest amount of information, but the most informative source is EGL (an insurance company) that has the highest net information outflow while the most information sink is PBC that has the highest net information inflow. We further categorize the stocks into 9 stock market sectors and find the insurance sector to be the largest source of information which confirms our earlier findings. Surprisingly, the oil and gas sector is the information sink. Our results confirm the fact that other sectors including oil and gas mitigate their risk exposures through insurance companies and are always expectant of information originating from the insurance sector in relation to regulatory compliance issues. It is our firm conviction that this study would allow stakeholders of the market to make informed buy, sell, or hold decisions.

What's all the fuss about? The inheritance of acquired traits is compatible with the Central Dogma.

The Central Dogma of molecular biology, which holds that DNA makes protein and not the other way around, is as influential as it is controversial. Some believe the Dogma has outlived its usefulness, either because it fails to fully capture the ins-and-outs of protein synthesis (Griffiths and Stotz in Genetics and philosophy Cambridge introductions to philosophy and biology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013; Stotz in Hist Philos Life Sci 28(4):533-548, 2006), because it turns on a confused notion of information (Sarkar in Molecular models of life, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2004), or because it problematically assumes the unidirectional flow of information from DNA to protein (Gottlieb, in: Oyama, Griffiths, Gray (eds), Cycles of contingency: developmental systems and evolution, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001). This paper evaluates an underexplored defense of the Dogma, which relies on the assumption that the Dogma and the Inheritance of Acquired Traits, a principle which dates as far back as Jean Baptiste-Lamarck, are incompatible principles (Smith in The theory of evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993; Judson in The eighth day of creation, Jonathan Cape, London, 1979; Dawkins in The extended phenotype, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1970; Cobb in PLoS Biol 15(9):e2003243, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003243 ; Wilkins in BioEssays 24(10):960-973, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.10167 ; Graur The fallacious commingling of two unrelated hypotheses: 'the central dogma' and 'dna makes rna makes protein'. Judge Starling., 2018. http://judgestarling.tumblr.com/post/177554581856/the-fallacious-commingling-of-two-unrelated ). By appealing to empirical evidence in molecular science, I argue that this apparent incompatibility is indeed merely apparent. I conclude by briefly demonstrating how these considerations bear on the topic of conceptual pluralism in the philosophy of science (Stencel and Proszewska in Found Sci 23(4):603-620, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-017-9543-x ; Lu and Bourrat in Br J Philos Sci 69(3):775-800, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axx019 ).

GOVERNO ELETRÔNICO E O USO DE REDES SOCIAIS NA COMUNICAÇÃO COM OS USUÁRIOS DO SISTEMA ÚNICO DE SAÚDE (SUS)

A pesquisa analisou como ocorre o uso do Facebook como plataforma de comunicação e relacionamento com o cidadão usuário do Sistema Único de Saúde de Minas Gerais. A metodologia de pesquisa compreendeu análise documental, de conteúdo da Fan Page, bem como questionários respondidos por gestores públicos e internautas identificados como influentes por meio de indicadores gerados pela ferramenta Fanpagekarma. A pesquisa concluiu que há subutilização dos aspectos colaborativos da mídia social em relação às possibilidades de estímulo à participação do cidadão, prevalecendo um fluxo unidirecional de informação do Governo para o Cidadão, que é característico do estágio inicial de Governo Eletrônico. No caso apresentado, há a concepção de transposição do caráter informativo do portal institucional para a mídia social. A contribuição teórica da pesquisa reside em uma proposta de classificação de níveis de Governo Eletrônico que pode ser aplicada para avaliação das abordagens de comunicação com o cidadão.

Digital health information seeking in an omni-channel environment: A shared decision-making and service-dominant logic perspective

The health service ecosystem traditionally has focused on unidirectional information flow from the health provider to consumer. However, this model fails to adequately engage consumers in their health decision-making to improve consumers' wellness. Consumers' health information seeking in today's omni-channel information environment is a critical value co-creation activity that increases consumers' engagement. Yet little is known about how consumers' health information seeking is evolving the information flow pattern and resulting consequences on consumers' health self-awareness. Our study closes this gap by empirically exploring the effects of consumers' health information seeking in an omni-channel environment and its influences on consumers' health self-awareness. We used structural equation modeling to analyze survey results from 310 health consumers collected as part of a healthcare organization's annual door-to-door wellness study. The results demonstrate the importance of helping consumers integrate informational inputs outside the service encounter to increase consumers' engagement and conscious reflection on their well-being.

Internet of Things-Aided Smart Grid: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, Prototypes, and Future Research Directions

Traditional power grids are being transformed into smart grids (SGs) to address the issues in the existing power system due to uni-directional information flow, energy wastage, growing energy demand, reliability, and security. SGs offer bi-directional energy flow between service providers and consumers, involving power generation, transmission, distribution, and utilization systems. SGs employ various devices for the monitoring, analysis, and control of the grid, deployed at power plants, distribution centers, and in consumers’ premises in a very large number. Hence, an SG requires connectivity, automation, and the tracking of such devices. This is achieved with the help of the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT helps SG systems to support various network functions throughout the generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption of energy by incorporating the IoT devices (such as sensors, actuators, and smart meters), as well as by providing the connectivity, automation, and tracking for such devices. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on the IoT-aided SG systems, which includes the existing architectures, applications, and prototypes of the IoT-aided SG systems. This survey also highlights the open issues, challenges, and future research directions for the IoT-aided SG systems.

Coordinated trajectory tracking of multiple vertical take-off and landing UAVs

This paper investigates the coordinated trajectory tracking problem of multiple vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The case of unidirectional information flow is considered and the objective is to drive all the follower VTOL UAVs to accurately track a desired trajectory associated with a leader. Firstly, a novel distributed estimator is developed for each VTOL UAV to obtain the leader’s desired information asymptotically. With the outputs of the estimators, the solution to the coordinated trajectory tracking problem of multiple VTOL UAVs is transformed to individually solving the tracking problem of each VTOL UAV. Due to the under-actuated nature of the VTOL UAV, a hierarchical framework is introduced for each VTOL UAV such that a command force and an applied torque are exploited in sequence, then the position tracking to the estimated desired position and the attitude tracking to the command attitude are achieved. Moreover, an auxiliary system with proper parameters is implemented to guarantee the singularity-free command attitude extraction and to obviate the use of the unavailable desired information. The stability analysis and simulations effectively validate the achievement of the coordinated trajectory tracking of multiple VTOL UAVs with the proposed control approach.

Review of ICT Implementations for Facilitating Information Flow between Virtual Models and Construction Project Sites

Abstract Information and communications technology (ICT) has had major effects on the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) research fields in recent decades, but a comprehensive and in-depth review of how ICT has been used to enable different modes of information flow on project sites is missing from the current literature. To fill this gap, this paper defines a systematic approach for classifying information flow modes and uses this method to determine trends in information communication modes reported in recent publications. These trends were determined through the identification and analysis of 119 journal articles published between 2005 and 2015 in order to determine the mode of information flow reported. The results show that the majority of papers (70.6%) report a unidirectional flow of information, while a much smaller portion report one of two bidirectional information flow modes (26.9% non-automated, and 2.5% automated). The contribution of this work is in systematically defining current trends in ICT publications related to information flow and also in the identification of the typical technologies used to enable these communication modes.

Oral health for healthy longevity in an ageing society: maintaining momentum and moving forward

The ageing of populations worldwide is rapidly accelerating. However, the global burden of oral disease remains a critical and often underestimated problem. As ageing progresses globally, oral health maintenance becomes a matter not only of public health, but also of human rights. Therefore, in low- and middle-income countries, policymakers are seeking to realize universal health coverage even as they struggle with severe resource limitations. To achieve and maintain global oral health, we propose an ongoing global monitoring cycle consisting of the following four steps: needs assessment, implementation of appropriate health care systems and provisions, reducing the global burden of oral disease, and working to achieve a healthy ageing society. Rather than a unidirectional information flow from high income to low- and middle-income countries, the proposed system would establish a multidirectional information-sharing cycle that would benefit all countries. To make this possible, however, we must develop a standardized set of core oral health indicators that all countries use, as well as a global repository for gathering, compiling, and sharing the data. This system would allow each country to move forward at its own pace and in locally-appropriate ways, making it more effective and efficient in the long run than the current pattern of setting unrealistic goals that all countries are expected to achieve by a certain point in time.

Cornu Ammonis Regions-Antecedents of Cortical Layers?

Studying neocortex and hippocampus in parallel, we are struck by the similarities. All three to four layered allocortices and the six layered mammalian neocortex arise in the pallium. All receive and integrate multiple cortical and subcortical inputs, provide multiple outputs and include an array of neuronal classes. During development, each cell positions itself to sample appropriate local and distant inputs and to innervate appropriate targets. Simpler cortices had already solved the need to transform multiple coincident inputs into serviceable outputs before neocortex appeared in mammals. Why then do phylogenetically more recent cortices need multiple pyramidal cell layers? A simple answer is that more neurones can compute more complex functions. The dentate gyrus and hippocampal CA regions—which might be seen as hippocampal antecedents of neocortical layers—lie side by side, albeit around a tight bend. Were the millions of cells of rat neocortex arranged in like fashion, the surface area of the CA pyramidal cell layers would be some 40 times larger. Even if evolution had managed to fold this immense sheet into the space available, the distances between neurones that needed to be synaptically connected would be huge and to maintain the speed of information transfer, massive, myelinated fiber tracts would be needed. How much more practical to stack the “cells that fire and wire together” into narrow columns, while retaining the mechanisms underlying the extraordinary precision with which circuits form. This demonstrably efficient arrangement presents us with challenges, however, not the least being to categorize the baffling array of neuronal subtypes in each of five “pyramidal layers.” If we imagine the puzzle posed by this bewildering jumble of apical dendrites, basal dendrites and axons, from many different pyramidal and interneuronal classes, that is encountered by a late-arriving interneurone insinuating itself into a functional circuit, we can perhaps begin to understand why definitive classification, covering every aspect of each neurone's structure and function, is such a challenge. Here, we summarize and compare the development of these two cortices, the properties of their neurones, the circuits they form and the ordered, unidirectional flow of information from one hippocampal region, or one neocortical layer, to another.

IT Infrastructure of an Oncological Trial Where Xenografts Inform Individual Second Line Treatment Decision.

Translational clinical research is often characterized by a unidirectional information flow from clinical to molecular data by using phenotypes to elucidate molecular disease processes. Here we present the RESIST study which uses xenograft information for individual treatment decisions after resistance to a specific anticancer treatment establishing a bidirectional information flow between patient and molecular biology. The paper discusses the specific challenges related to the IT infrastructure for such bidirectional translational projects and proposes solutions. A specific focus is the safeguarding genomic privacy.

Music in America’s Cold War Diplomacy by Danielle Fosler-Lussier

Reviewed by: Music in America’s Cold War Diplomacy by Danielle Fosler-Lussier Lisa Cooper Vest Music in America’s Cold War Diplomacy. By Danielle Fosler-Lussier. (California Studies in 20th-Century Music, no. 18.) Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015. [xiii, 329 p. ISBN 9780520284135 (hard-cover), $65; ISBN 9780520959781 (e-book), $65.] Illustrations, bibliography, index, supplementary electronic database and appendices. Danielle Fosler-Lussier’s most recent book examines the Cold War-era efforts of the U.S. State Department to deploy music in its cultural diplomatic missions throughout the world. This summary might suggest that the intentions and goals of State institutions would constitute the foundational trajectory of the book’s argument. It is, however, one of Fosler-Lussier’s major achievements here that these institutions do not occupy center stage as monumental entities in their own right. Drawing on an impressive array of archival materials and personal interviews, she constantly shifts focus to the many individuals (politicians, diplomats, impresarios, performers, audience members, etc.) who were involved in planning, executing, and consuming American cultural diplomacy. In this narrative, the personal is political and vice versa. While the State Department had its own ideological and political goals [End Page 258] for sending musicians out as ambassadors of American culture, it was difficult to predict how those musicians and organizers would execute or interpret those goals. And it was even more difficult, perhaps, to anticipate the responses of audiences in host nations. Fosler-Lussier argues convincingly that the study of such contingencies reveals a great deal about the ever-shifting power dynamics between nations, and between states and their own citizens, during the Cold War. Further, in her close readings of personal testimony, official documentation, and media accounts, Fosler-Lussier demonstrates that the unplanned personal encounters, unexpected organizational hiccups, and messy negotiations that characterized these cultural diplomatic missions actively shaped geopolitics and international relationships. When she includes the memories of a young Oberlin student who exchanged copies of her Sing Out! Magazine for a collection of Russian and Romanian folk music (p. 197), or of folksinger Bill Crofut’s unexpected performance at a Communist school in Burma (p. 158), these are not merely anecdotes, but evidence of meaningful exchanges that affected individuals and nations alike. Questions of power are central to this book’s narrative, and this power flows in many different directions. In the introduction, Fosler-Lussier includes a diagram from a 1953 State Department publication (p. 5). The diagram, drawn to resemble a canal, imagines a strictly unidirectional flow of information and influence from the United States into other nations. Throughout the rest of the book, though, Fosler-Lussier dismantles this strictly top-down image of power transference, whether between the United States and its citizens (as performers, facilitators, organizers) or the United States and its host nations. Regarding the first of these two relationships, the book presents nuanced accounts of American citizens who had widely divergent reasons for participating in the Cultural Presentations program, and who often were able to generate agency for themselves through the encounter. Challenging the notion that these Americans were participating unwittingly in acts of State propaganda, Fosler-Lussier defines cultural diplomacy as “an emergent practice that joined citizens’ values closely with the state’s power in a mutually reinforcing way” (p. 216). In this way, she also challenges reductive “bottom-up” narratives of power, which hold that participants in cultural diplomacy were often working actively to subvert State expectations and propaganda. Neither the top-down nor bottom-up models are sufficient; in their stead, Fosler-Lussier traces the intricate networks across which power was diffused in these cultural diplomatic missions. On both the domestic and foreign sides of the encounter, there were many points of contact and many different opportunities for cultural and political actors to advocate for their own interests. One of the strengths of this book, which will recommend it to students and scholars beyond the subfield of Cold War studies in music, is the way that it captures the intensely dialogic nature of these cultural diplomatic exchanges. Fosler-Lussier makes a very strong argument that all of these different kinds of encounters—between superpowers, between superpowers and their...

Basis of Mutual Domain Inhibition in a Bacterial Response Regulator

Information transmission in biological signaling networks is commonly considered to be a unidirectional flow of information between protein partners. According to this view, many bacterial response regulator proteins utilize input receiver (REC) domains to "switch" functional outputs, using REC phosphorylation to shift pre-existing equilibria between inactive and active conformations. However, recent data indicate that output domains themselves also shift such equilibria, implying a "mutual inhibition" model. Here we use solution nuclear magnetic resonance to provide a mechanistic basis for such control in a PhyR-type response regulator. Our structure ofthe isolated, non-phosphorylated REC domain surprisingly reveals a fully active conformation, letting us identify structural and dynamic changes imparted by the output domain to inactivate the full-length protein. Additional data reveal transient structural changes within the full-length protein, facilitating activation. Our data provide a basis for understanding the changes that REC and output domains undergo to set a default "inactive" state.

Validity of Time Reversal for Testing Granger Causality

Inferring causal interactions from observed data is a challenging problem, especially in the presence of measurement noise. To alleviate the problem of spurious causality, Haufe et al. (2013) proposed to contrast measures of information flow obtained on the original data against the same measures obtained on time-reversed data. They show that this procedure, time-reversed Granger causality (TRGC), robustly rejects causal interpretations on mixtures of independent signals. While promising results have been achieved in simulations, it was so far unknown whether time reversal leads to valid measures of information flow in the presence of true interaction. Here we prove that, for linear finite-order autoregressive processes with unidirectional information flow, the application of time reversal for testing Granger causality indeed leads to correct estimates of information flow and its directionality. Using simulations, we further show that TRGC is able to infer correct directionality with similar statistical power as the net Granger causality between two variables, while being much more robust to the presence of measurement noise.

The Smart Transformer: Impact on the Electric Grid and Technology Challenges

The increasing proliferation of renewable energy resources and new sizeable loads like electric vehicle (EV) charging stations has posed many technical and operational challenges to distribution grids [1]. Encouraged by attractive tax incentives and promotion policies, local grid end consumers are becoming not only consumers of electricity but, in many cases, also producers. The actual electric distribution system limits the use of renewable energy resources, offers poor EV infrastructure, and is based on a unidirectional information flow from sources to control centers.

System Interface Engineering

AbstractThe definition of the systems engineering value stream is based on modelling the information flow. Information flow models are beneficial for performing systems engineering management efficiently. The benefits of unidirectional information flow models may give the impression that systems engineering as its best is a deductive process with the stakeholder requirements leading to unique and unambiguous solutions. However, human communication and natural laws feature mutual dependencies that become evident in systems engineering especially when system interfaces and process interfaces are considered. This paper amends two previous papers on the systems engineering value stream by system interface engineering considerations. Starting with clarifying the scope of system interface engineering, the paper proposes a precise terminology and defines the additional system interface engineering activities integrated into the systems engineering value stream.

#mentalhealthmatters

Health promotional campaigns for many years have been using tools such as leaflets, billboards, TV and radio advertisements, which biggest drawbacks till today are high costs and uni-directional flow of information from the organization to the audience. Only recently a shift to the social networking sites could have been observed as they offer large coverage, low costs and multi-directional, interactive communication with the participants. Starting from the small, community-based non-governmental events, today Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pineterest form the basis of many huge, international campaigns. This study assess reach and impact of the campaign #MentalHealthMatters designed to celebrate this year's UN International Youth Day (12 August 2014).

Research on inverse evaluation mechanism in toolpath generation based on global interpolation simulation

Free form surfaces are primarily designed and manufactured by CAD/CAM/CNC system. In traditional way, toolpath generation approaches always consider machining precision and efficiency by constraining scallop height and toolpath lengths. However, toolpath lengths do not exactly reflect the actual machining time because the feedrate usually fluctuates along different toolpath during CNC interpolating period, which indicates that the total machining efficiency is coupled with both toolpath generation and interpolation. Therefore, the toolpath generation and interpolation systems should not be independent, and the conventional unidirectional information flow from CAM to CNC should be replaced by a new mechanism with information exchange and mutual optimization. This paper proposes an inverse evaluation mechanism with feedback information from CNC to CAM system. The feedback information is obtained by off-line interpolation simulation for each toolpath and evaluation of the total machining time for the entire surface. With the feedback information, CAM is able to optimize the toolpath or choose the best one among candidate solutions. As the evaluation mechanism should be under the same interpolation algorithm, an interpolation algorithm with axis kinematic/dynamic constraints is also introduced. The simulation results with different free form surfaces show that the proposed mechanism can economically improve the machining efficiency without increasing system cost.