[Book review] Complex Cases: Perspectives on the Netherlands Criminal Justice System

Review of: Complex Cases: Perspectives on the Netherlands Criminal Justice System. (Eds.) M. Malsch & J.F. Nijboer. Thela Thesis Publishers (2000)

From ALIBI to COLUMBUS. The long march to self-aware, reflective computational models of humor

One thing is (a) to develop a system that handles some task to one's satisfaction, and also has a universally recognized myrthful side to its output. Another thing is (b) to provide an analysis of why you are getting such a byproduct. Yet another thing is (c) to develop a model that incorporates reflection about some phenomenon in humor for its own sake. This paper selects for discussion especially Alibi, going on to describe the preliminaries of Columbus. The former, which fits in (a), is a planner with an explanatory capability. It invents pretexts. It's no legal defense, but it is relevant to evidential thinking in AI & Law. Some of the output pretext are myrthful. Not in the sense they are silly: they are not. A key factor seems to be the very alacrity at explaining out detail after detail of globally damning evidence. I attempt a reanalysis of Alibi in respect of (b). As to Columbus, it fits instead in (c). We introduce here the basics of this (unimplemented) model, developed to account for a sample text in parody.

Virtual manufacturing and design in the real world - implementation and scalability on HPPC systems

Virtual manufacturing and design assessment increasingly involve the simulation of interacting phenomena, sic. multi-physics, an activity which is very computationally intensive. This chapter describes an attempt to address the parallel issues associated with a multi-physics simulation approach based upon a range of compatible procedures operating on one mesh using a single database - the distinct physics solvers can operate separately or coupled on sub-domains of the whole geometric space. Moreover, the finite volume unstructured mesh solvers use different discretization schemes (and, particularly, different ‘nodal’ locations and control volumes). A two-level approach to the parallelization of this simulation software is described: the code is restructured into parallel form on the basis of the mesh partitioning alone, that is, without regard to the physics. However, at run time, the mesh is partitioned to achieve a load balance, by considering the load per node/element across the whole domain. The latter of course is determined by the problem specific physics at a particular location.

Utilising computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for the modelling of granular material in large-scale engineering processes

In this paper, the framework is described for the modelling of granular material by employing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This is achieved through the use and implementation in the continuum theory of constitutive relations, which are derived in a granular dynamics framework and parametrise particle interactions that occur at the micro-scale level. The simulation of a process often met in bulk solids handling industrial plants involving granular matter, (i.e. filling of a flat-bottomed bin with a binary material mixture through pneumatic conveying-emptying of the bin in core flow mode-pneumatic conveying of the material coming out of a the bin) is presented. The results of the presented simulation demonstrate the capability of the numerical model to represent successfully key granular processes (i.e. segregation/degradation), the prediction of which is of great importance in the process engineering industry.

The Shared Memory Parallelisation of an Ocean Modelling Code using an Interactive Parallelisation Toolkit

This paper briefly describes an interactive parallelisation toolkit that can be used to generate parallel code suitable for either a distributed memory system (using message passing) or a shared memory system (using OpenMP). This study focuses on how the toolkit is used to parallelise a complex heterogeneous ocean modelling code within a few hours for use on a shared memory parallel system. The generated parallel code is essentially the serial code with OpenMP directives added to express the parallelism. The results show that substantial gains in performance can be achieved over the single thread version with very little effort.

On the continuum modelling of segregation of granular mixtures during hopper emptying in core flow mode

In this paper, the application of a continuum model is presented, which deals with the discharge of multi-component granular mixtures in core flow mode. The full model description is given (including the constitutive models for the segregation mechanism) and the interactions between particles at the microscopic level are parametrised in order to predict the development of stagnant zone boundaries during core flow discharges. Finally, the model is applied to a real industrial problem and predictions are made for the segregation patterns developed during mixture discharge in core flow mode.

The reporting behaviours of student nurses who have experienced verbal abuse

Background: There is evidence that student nurses are vulnerable to experiencing verbal abuse from a variety of sources and under-reporting of verbal abuse is prevalent throughout the nursing profession. The objective of the study is to explore the reporting behaviours of student nurses who have experienced verbal abuse. Method: For this study a definition of verbal abuse was adopted from current Department of Health (England) guidelines. Questionnaires were distributed in 2005 to a convenience sample of 156 third year nursing students from one pre-registration nursing programme in England. A total of 114 questionnaires were returned, giving an overall response rate of 73.0%. Results: Fifty one students (44.7% of responses) reported verbal abuse; all of these completed the section exploring reporting behaviours. The incidents involved patients in thirty three cases (64.7%); eight cases (15.7%) involved visitors or relatives and ten cases (19.6%) involved other healthcare workers. Thirty two students (62.7%) stated that they did report the incident of verbal abuse they experienced and nineteen (37.3%) of respondents reported that they did not. Only four incidents developed from an oral report to being formally documented. There was a statistically significant association (P = 0.003) between the focus of verbal abuse (patient/visitor or colleague) and the respondents reporting practices with respondents experiencing verbal abuse from colleagues less likely to report incidents. Most frequent feelings following experiences of verbal abuse from colleagues were feelings of embarrassment and hurt/shock. Most frequent consequences of experiencing verbal abuse from patients or relatives were feeling embarrassed and feeling sorry for the abuser. When comparing non reporters with reporters, the most frequent feelings of non reporters were embarrassment and hurt and reporters, embarrassment and feeling sorry for the abuser. When considering levels of support after the incident the mean rating score of respondents who reported the incident was 5.40 (standard deviation 2.89) and of those that did not, 4.36 (standard deviation 2.87) which was not statistically significant (p = 0.220). Conclusions: 1. Not documenting experiences of verbal abuse formally in writing is a prevalent phenomenon within the sample studied and reporting practices are inconsistent. 2. Both Higher Education Institutions and health care providers should consider emphasising formal reporting and documenting of incidents of verbal abuse during student nurse training and access to formal supportive services should be promoted. 3. Effective incident reporting processes and analysis of these reports can lead to an increased awareness of how to avoid negative interactions in the workplace and how to deal with incidents effectively.

Evaluation of the JOSTLE mesh partitioning code for practical multiphysics applications

The use of unstructured mesh codes on parallel machines is one of the most effective ways to solve large computational mechanics problems. Completely general geometries and complex behaviour can be modelled and, in principle, the inherent sparsity of many such problems can be exploited to obtain excellent parallel efficiencies. However, unlike their structured counterparts, the problem of distributing the mesh across the memory of the machine, whilst minimising the amount of interprocessor communication, must be carefully addressed. This process is an overhead that is not incurred by a serial code, but is shown to rapidly computable at turn time and tailored for the machine being used.