Efficacy of family mediation and the role of family violence: Study protocol

Background Family law reforms in Australia require separated parents in dispute to attempt mandatory family dispute resolution (FDR) in community-based family services before court attendance. However, there are concerns about such services when clients present with a history of high conflict and family violence. This study protocol describes a longitudinal study of couples presenting for family mediation services. The study aims to describe the profile of family mediation clients, including type of family violence, and determine the impact of violence profiles on FDR processes and outcomes, such as the type and durability of shared parenting arrangements and clients’ satisfaction with mediated agreements. Methods A mixed method, naturalistic longitudinal design is used. The sampling frame is clients presenting at nine family mediation centres across metropolitan, outer suburban, and regional/rural sites in Victoria, Australia. Data are collected at pre-test, completion of mediation, and six months later. Self-administered surveys are administered at the three time points, and a telephone interview at the final post-test. The key study variable is family violence. Key outcome measures are changes in the type and level of acrimony and violent behaviours, the relationship between violence and mediated agreements, the durability of agreements over six months, and client satisfaction with mediation. Discussion Family violence is a major risk to the physical and mental health of women and children. This study will inform debates about the role of family violence and how to manage it in the family mediation context. It will also inform decision-making about mediation practices by better understanding how mediation impacts on parenting agreements, and the implications for children, especially in the context of family violence.

A non-orthogonal distributed space-time coded protocol - Part 1:Signal model and design criteria

In this two-part series of papers, a generalized non-orthogonal amplify and forward (GNAF) protocol which generalizes several known cooperative diversity protocols is proposed. Transmission in the GNAF protocol comprises of two phases - the broadcast phase and the cooperation phase. In the broadcast phase, the source broadcasts its information to the relays as well as the destination. In the cooperation phase, the source and the relays together transmit a space-time code in a distributed fashion. The GNAF protocol relaxes the constraints imposed by the protocol of Jing and Hassibi on the code structure. In Part-I of this paper, a code design criteria is obtained and it is shown that the GNAF protocol is delay efficient and coding gain efficient as well. Moreover GNAF protocol enables the use of sphere decoders at the destination with a non-exponential Maximum likelihood (ML) decoding complexity. In Part-II, several low decoding complexity code constructions are studied and a lower bound on the Diversity-Multiplexing Gain tradeoff of the GNAF protocol is obtained.

An efficient pricing based protocol for broadcasting in wireless ad hoc networks

In many applications of wireless ad hoc networks, wireless nodes are owned by rational and intelligent users. In this paper, we call nodes selfish if they are owned by independent users and their only objective is to maximize their individual goals. In such situations, it may not be possible to use the existing protocols for wireless ad hoc networks as these protocols assume that nodes follow the prescribed protocol without deviation. Stimulating cooperation among these nodes is an interesting and challenging problem. Providing incentives and pricing the transactions are well known approaches to stimulate cooperation. In this paper, we present a game theoretic framework for truthful broadcast protocol and strategy proof pricing mechanism called Immediate Predecessor Node Pricing Mechanism (IPNPM). The phrase strategy proof here means that truth revelation of cost is a weakly dominant-strategy (in game theoretic terms) for each node. In order to steer our mechanism-design approach towards practical implementation, we compute the payments to nodes using a distributed algorithm. We also propose a new protocol for broadcast in wireless ad hoc network with selfish nodes based on IPNPM. The features of the proposed broadcast protocol are reliability and a significantly reduced number of packet forwards compared to the number of network nodes, which in turn leads to less system-wide power consumption to broadcast a single packet. Our simulation results show the efficacy of the proposed broadcast protocol.

An extended verifiable secret redistribution protocol for archival systems

Existing protocols for archival systems make use of verifiability of shares in conjunction with a proactive secret sharing scheme to achieve high availability and long term confidentiality, besides data integrity. In this paper, we extend an existing protocol (Wong et al. [9]) to take care of more realistic situations. For example, it is assumed in the protocol of Wong et al. that the recipients of the secret shares are all trustworthy; we relax this by requiring that only a majority is trustworthy.

Performance analysis of a slotted-ALOHA protocol on a capture channel with fading

We consider the slotted ALOHA protocol on a channel with a capture effect. There are M protocols as special cases. We obtain sufficient rate conditions, which are close to necessary for stability of the system, when the arrival streams are stationary ergodic. Under the same rate conditions, for general regenerative arrival streams, we obtain the rates of convergence to stationarity, finiteness of stationary moments and various functional limit theorems. Our arrival streams contain all the traffic models suggested in the recent literature, including the ones which display long range dependence. We also obtain bounds on the stationary moments of waiting times which can be tight under realistic conditions. Finally, we obtain several results on the transient performance of the system, e.g., first time to overflow and the limits of the overflow process. We also extend the above results to the case of a capture channel exhibiting Markov modulated fading. Most of our results and proofs will be shown to hold also for the slotted ALOHA protocol without capture.

Systems Analysis of Tank Irrigation: II. Delayed Start and Water Deficit

Tank irrigation systems in the semiarid regions of India are discussed in this paper. To optimize the grain yield of rice, it is essential to start the agricultural operations in the second week of July so that favorable climatic conditions will prevail during flowering and yield formation stages. Because of low inflow during the initial few weeks of the crop season, often farmers are forced to delay planting until sufficient sowing rain and inflow have occurred or to adopt deficit irrigation during this period. The delayed start affects the grain yield, but will lead to an improved irrigation efficiency. A delayed start of agricultural operations with increased irrigation efficiency leads to the energy resources becoming critical during the peak requirement week, particularly those of female labor and animal power. This necessitates augmenting these resources during weeks of their peak use, either by reorganizing the traditional methods of cultivation or by importing from outside the system.

Specification-driven approach for protocol design of distributed computing systems

An important issue in the design of a distributed computing system (DCS) is the development of a suitable protocol. This paper presents an effort to systematize the protocol design procedure for a DCS. Protocol design and development can be divided into six phases: specification of the DCS, specification of protocol requirements, protocol design, specification and validation of the designed protocol, performance evaluation, and hardware/software implementation. This paper describes techniques for the second and third phases, while the first phase has been considered by the authors in their earlier work. Matrix and set theoretic based approaches are used for specification of a DCS and for specification of the protocol requirements. These two formal specification techniques form the basis of the development of a simple and straightforward procedure for the design of the protocol. The applicability of the above design procedure has been illustrated by considering an example of a computing system encountered on board a spacecraft. A Petri-net based approach has been adopted to model the protocol. The methodology developed in this paper can be used in other DCS applications.

Optimal reservoir operation for irrigation of multiple crops using genetic algorithms

This paper presents a genetic algorithm (GA) model for obtaining an optimal operating policy and optimal crop water allocations from an irrigation reservoir. The objective is to maximize the sum of the relative yields from all crops in the irrigated area. The model takes into account reservoir inflow, rainfall on the irrigated area, intraseasonal competition for water among multiple crops, the soil moisture dynamics in each cropped area, the heterogeneous nature of soils. and crop response to the level of irrigation applied. The model is applied to the Malaprabha single-purpose irrigation reservoir in Karnataka State, India. The optimal operating policy obtained using the GA is similar to that obtained by linear programming. This model can be used for optimal utilization of the available water resources of any reservoir system to obtain maximum benefits.

Artificial neural networks and multicriterion analysis for sustainable irrigation planning

The objective of the present paper is to select the best compromise irrigation planning strategy for the case study of Jayakwadi irrigation project, Maharashtra, India. Four-phase methodology is employed. In phase 1, separate linear programming (LP) models are formulated for the three objectives, namely. net economic benefits, agricultural production and labour employment. In phase 2, nondominated (compromise) irrigation planning strategies are generated using the constraint method of multiobjective optimisation. In phase 3, Kohonen neural networks (KNN) based classification algorithm is employed to sort nondominated irrigation planning strategies into smaller groups. In phase 4, multicriterion analysis (MCA) technique, namely, Compromise Programming is applied to rank strategies obtained from phase 3. It is concluded that the above integrated methodology is effective for modeling multiobjective irrigation planning problems and the present approach can be extended to situations where number of irrigation planning strategies are even large in number. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Phytophthora in Finnish nurseries

Human-mediated movement of plants and plant products is now generally accepted to be the primary mode of introduction of plant pathogens. Species of the genus Phytophthora are commonly spread in this way and have caused severe epidemics in silviculture, horticulture as well as natural systems all over the world. The aims of the study were to gather information on the occurrence of Phytophthora spp. in Finnish nurseries, to produce information for risk assessments for these Phytophthora spp. by determining their host ranges and tolerance of cold temperatures, and to establish molecular means for their detection. Phytophthora cactorum was found to persist in natural waterbodies and results suggest that irrigation water might be a source of inoculum in nurseries. In addition to P. cactorum, isolates from ornamental nursery Rhododendron yielded three species new to Finland: P. ramorum, P. plurivora and P. pini. The only species with quarantine status, P. ramorum, was most adapted to growth in cold temperatures and able to persist in the nursery in spite of an annual sanitation protocol. Phytophthora plurivora and the closely related P. pini had more hosts among Nordic tree and plant species than P. ramorum and P. cactorum, and also had higher infectivity rates. All four species survived two weeks in -5 °C , and thus soil survival of these Phytophthoras in Finland is likely under current climatic conditions. The most common tree species in Finnish nurseries, Picea abies, was highly susceptible to P. plurivora and P. pini in pathogenicity trials. In a histological examination of P. plurivora in P. abies shoot tissues, fast necrotrophic growth was observed in nearly all tissues. The production of propagules in P. abies shoot tissue was only weakly indicated. In this study, a PCR DGGE technique was developed for simultaneous detection and identification of Phytophthora spp. It reliably detected Phytophthora in plant tissues and could discriminate most test species as well as indicate instances of multiple-species infections. It proved to be a useful detection and identification tool either applied alone or in concert with traditional isolation culture techniques. All of the introduced species of Phytophthora had properties that promote a high risk of establishment and spread in Finland. It is probable that more pathogens of this genus will be introduced and become established in Finland and other Nordic countries unless efficient phytosanitary control becomes standard practice in the international plant trade.

A thermodynamic protocol for explaining subcriticality and other subtle features in self-deflagrating solids

A novel universal approach to understand the self-deflagration in solids has been attempted by using basic thermodynamic equation of partial differentiation, where burning mte depends on the initial temperature and pressure of the system. Self-deflagrating solids are rare and are reported only in few compounds like ammonium perchlorate (AP), polystyrene peroxide and tetrazole. This approach has led us to understand the unique characteristics of AP, viz. the existence of low pressure deflagration limit (LPL 20 atm), hitherto not understood sufficiently. This analysis infers that the overall surface activation energy comprises of two components governed by the condensed phase and gas phase processes. The most attractive feature of the model is the identification of a new subcritical regime I' below LPL where AP does not burn. The model is aptly supported by the thermochemical computations and temperature-profile analyses of the combustion train. The thermodynamic model is further corroborated from the kinetic analysis of the high pressure (1-30 atm) DTA thermograms which affords distinct empirical decomposition rate laws in regimes I' and 1 (20-60 atm). Using Fourier-Kirchoff one dimensional heat transfer differential equation, the phase transition thickness and the melt-layer thickness have been computed which conform to the experimental data.

Optimal scheduling of a processor executing a communication protocol stack

We consider the problem of optimally scheduling a processor executing a multilayer protocol in an intelligent Network Interface Controller (NIC). In particular, we assume a typical LAN environment with class 4 transport service, a connectionless network service, and a class 1 link level protocol. We develop a queuing model for the problem. In the most general case this becomes a cyclic queuing network in which some queues have dedicated servers, and the others have a common schedulable server. We use sample path arguments and Markov decision theory to determine optimal service schedules. The optimal throughputs are compared with those obtained with simple policies. The optimal policy yields upto 25% improvement in some cases. In some other cases, the optimal policy does only slightly better than much simpler policies.

A Cache coherence protocol for MIN-based multiprocessors

In this paper we present a cache coherence protocol for multistage interconnection network (MIN)-based multiprocessors with two distinct private caches: private-blocks caches (PCache) containing blocks private to a process and shared-blocks caches (SCache) containing data accessible by all processes. The architecture is extended by a coherence control bus connecting all shared-block cache controllers. Timing problems due to variable transit delays through the MIN are dealt with by introducing Transient states in the proposed cache coherence protocol. The impact of the coherence protocol on system performance is evaluated through a performance study of three phases. Assuming homogeneity of all nodes, a single-node queuing model (phase 3) is developed to analyze system performance. This model is solved for processor and coherence bus utilizations using the mean value analysis (MVA) technique with shared-blocks steady state probabilities (phase 1) and communication delays (phase 2) as input parameters. The performance of our system is compared to that of a system with an equivalent-sized unified cache and with a multiprocessor implementing a directory-based coherence protocol. System performance measures are verified through simulation.

An integrated model for optimal reservoir operation for irrigation of multiple crops

An integrated model is developed, based on seasonal inputs of reservoir inflow and rainfall in the irrigated area, to determine the optimal reservoir release policies and irrigation allocations to multiple crops. The model is conceptually made up of two modules, Module 1 is an intraseasonal allocation model to maximize the sum of relative yields of all crops, for a given state of the system, using linear programming (LP). The module takes into account reservoir storage continuity, soil moisture balance, and crop root growth with time. Module 2 is a seasonal allocation model to derive the steady state reservoir operating policy using stochastic dynamic programming (SDP). Reservoir storage, seasonal inflow, and seasonal rainfall are the state variables in the SDP. The objective in SDP is to maximize the expected sum of relative yields of all crops in a year. The results of module 1 and the transition probabilities of seasonal inflow and rainfall form the input for module 2. The use of seasonal inputs coupled with the LP-SDP solution strategy in the present formulation facilitates in relaxing the limitations of an earlier study, while affecting additional improvements. The model is applied to an existing reservoir in Karnataka State, India.