Linguistics and Information Theory: Analytic advantages

The analytic advantages of central concepts from linguistics and information theory, and the analogies demonstrated between them, for understanding patterns of retrieval from full-text indexes to documents are developed. The interaction between the syntagm and the paradigm in computational operations on written language in indexing, searching, and retrieval is used to account for transformations of the signified or meaning between documents and their representation and between queries and documents retrieved. Characteristics of the message, and messages for selection for written language, are brought to explain the relative frequency of occurrence of words and multiple word sequences in documents. The examples given in the companion article are revisited and a fuller example introduced. The signified of the sequence stood for, the term classically used in the definitions of the sign, as something standing for something else, can itself change rapidly according to its syntagm. A greater than ordinary discourse understanding of patterns in retrieval is obtained.

Interactive management control via analytic hierarchy process (AHP). An empirical study in a public university hospital

Management control in public university hospitals is a challenging task because of continuous changes due to external pressures (e.g. economic pressures, stakeholder focuses and scientific progress) and internal complexities (top management turnover, shared leadership, technological evolution, and researcher oriented mission). Interactive budgeting contributed to improving vertical and horizontal communication between hospital and stakeholders and between different organizational levels. This paper describes an application of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to enhance interactive budgeting in one of the biggest public university hospital in Italy. AHP improved budget allocation facilitating elicitation and formalization of units' needs. Furthermore, AHP facilitated vertical communication among manager and stakeholders, as it allowed multilevel hierarchical representation of hospital needs, and horizontal communication among staff of the same hospital, as it allowed units' need prioritization and standardization, with a scientific multi-criteria approach, without using complex mathematics. Finally, AHP allowed traceability of a complex decision making processes (as budget allocation), this aspect being of paramount importance in public sectors, where managers are called to respond to many different stakeholders about their choices.

Parent education and home-based behaviour analytic intervention: an examination of parents' perceptions of outcome

There is convincing evidence that applied behaviour analysis (ABA) offers a highly effective form of intervention for children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). There is less evidence, however, about how parents perceive and evaluate ABA programmes. In this paper an examination of parents’ perceptions of outcome is reported. Twenty-two questionnaires were completed by two groups of parents. The first group had just completed an introductory course in ABA and were in the early stages of implementing ABA programmes with their children. The second group had been involved in ABA education for more than 2 years. Overall, both groups of parents reported a positive impact of ABA on the lives of their children, their family life, and themselves. The long- term group reported that they had achieved complex goals with their children, whilst the short-term group reported an immediate positive impact on child and family functioning and parental self-esteem. Conclusions are drawn in the context of evidence-based practice.

Computing Zeros of Analytic Functions in the Complex Plane without using Derivatives

A new approach to evaluating all multiple complex roots of analytical function f(z) confined to the specified rectangular domain of complex plane has been developed and implemented in Fortran code. Generally f (z), despite being holomorphic function, does not have a closed analytical form thereby inhibiting explicit evaluation of its derivatives. The latter constraint poses a major challenge to implementation of the robust numerical algorithm. This work is at the instrumental level and provides an enabling tool for solving a broad class of eigenvalue problems and polynomial approximations.

'A Job in Politics is not for Woman': Analysing Barriers to Women's Political Representation in CEE

This article discusses women’s political representation in Central and Eastern Europe in the fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the adoption of liberal democratic political systems in the region. It highlights the deepseated gender stereotypes that define women primarily as wives and mothers, with electoral politics seen as an appropriate activity for men, but less so for women. The article explores the ways in which conservative attitudes on gender roles hinders the supply of, and demand for, women in the politics of Central and Eastern Europe. It also discusses the manner in which the internalisation of traditional gender norms affects women’s parliamentary behaviour, as few champion women’s rights in the legislatures of the region. The article also finds that links between women MPs and women’s organisations are weak and fragmented, making coalition-building around agendas for women’s rights problematic.

An analytic geometry-variant approach to line ratio enhancement above the optically thin limit

We describe a simple theoretical model to investigate the anomalous effects of opacity on spectral line ratios, as previously studied in elements such as Fe XV and Fe XVII. The model developed is general: it is not specific to a particular atomic system, thus giving applicability to a number of coronal and chromospheric plasmas; furthermore, it may be applied to a variety of astrophysically relevant geometries. The analysis is underpinned by geometrical arguments, and we outline a technique for it to be used as a tool for the explicit diagnosis of plasma geometry in distant astrophysical objects.

Quantum teleportation via mixed two-mode squeezed states in the coherent-state representation

Quantum teleportation for continuous variables is generally described in phase space by using the Wigner functions. We study quantum teleportation via a mixed two-mode squeezed state in Hilbert-Schmidt space by using the coherent-state representation and operators. This shows directly how the teleported state is related to the original state.

The resonance spectrum of the cusp map in the space of analytic functions

We prove that the Frobenius-Perron operator $U$ of the cusp map $F:[-1,1]\to [-1,1]$, $F(x)=1-2 x^{1/2}$ (which is an approximation of the Poincare section of the Lorenz attractor) has no analytic eigenfunctions corresponding to eigenvalues different from 0 and 1. We also prove that for any $q\in (0,1)$ the spectrum of $U$ in the Hardy space in the disk $\{z\in C:|z-q|