Cognitive systems associated with the hippocampus of the human brain and their role in behaviour and neurodegenerative disease

Cognitive systems research involves the synthesis of ideas from natural and artificial systems in the analysis, understanding, and design of all intelligent systems. This chapter discusses the cognitive systems associated with the hippocampus (HC) of the human brain and their possible role in behaviour and neurodegenerative disease. The hippocampus (HC) is concerned with the analysis of highly abstract data derived from all sensory systems but its specific role remains controversial. Hence, there have been three major theories concerning its function, viz., the memory theory, the spatial theory, and the behavioral inhibition theory. The memory theory has its origin in the surgical destruction of the HC, which results in severe anterograde and partial retrograde amnesia. The spatial theory has its origin in the observation that neurons in the HC of animals show activity related to their location within the environment. By contrast, the behavioral inhibition theory suggests that the HC acts as a ‘comparator’, i.e., it compares current sensory events with expected or predicted events. If a set of expectations continues to be verified then no alteration of behavior occurs. If, however, a ‘mismatch’ is detected then the HC intervenes by initiating appropriate action by active inhibition of current motor programs and initiation of new data gathering. Understanding the cognitive systems of the hippocampus in humans may aid in the design of intelligent systems involved in spatial mapping, memory, and decision making. In addition, this information may lead to a greater understanding of the course of clinical dementia in the various neurodegenerative diseases in which there is significant damage to the HC.

Generating music with graphical models

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Evaluationg the economic impact of the "sounds like Birmingham" music festival

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Organisational behaviour:research and teaching

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Emergent behaviour in arrays of coupled nonlinear oscillators

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Effect of fluid contaminant on the behaviour of a hydrostatic thrust bearing

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Corrosion behaviour of zinc alloy coated steel fasteners in timber

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A study of the behaviour of the single phase induction type energy meter and the design of an instrumentation system for its calibration

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The relationship between mechanical properties, preffered orientation and press forming behaviour of copper and 70/30 brass

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Culture and behaviour in the English National Health Service:overview of lessons from a large multimethod study

Background - Problems of quality and safety persist in health systems worldwide. We conducted a large research programme to examine culture and behaviour in the English National Health Service (NHS). Methods - Mixed-methods study involving collection and triangulation of data from multiple sources, including interviews, surveys, ethnographic case studies, board minutes and publicly available datasets. We narratively synthesised data across the studies to produce a holistic picture and in this paper present a highlevel summary. Results - We found an almost universal desire to provide the best quality of care. We identified many 'bright spots' of excellent caring and practice and high-quality innovation across the NHS, but also considerable inconsistency. Consistent achievement of high-quality care was challenged by unclear goals, overlapping priorities that distracted attention, and compliance-oriented bureaucratised management. The institutional and regulatory environment was populated by multiple external bodies serving different but overlapping functions. Some organisations found it difficult to obtain valid insights into the quality of the care they provided. Poor organisational and information systems sometimes left staff struggling to deliver care effectively and disempowered them from initiating improvement. Good staff support and management were also highly variable, though they were fundamental to culture and were directly related to patient experience, safety and quality of care. Conclusions - Our results highlight the importance of clear, challenging goals for high-quality care. Organisations need to put the patient at the centre of all they do, get smart intelligence, focus on improving organisational systems, and nurture caring cultures by ensuring that staff feel valued, respected, engaged and supported.

What do people think about when they answer theory of planned behaviour questionnaires? A 'think aloud' study

Two studies aiming to identify the nature and extent of problems that people have when completing theory of planned behaviour (TPB) questionnaires, using a cognitive interviewing approach are reported. Both studies required participants to 'think aloud' as they completed TPB questionnaires about: (a) increasing physical activity (six general public participants); and (b) binge drinking (13 students). Most people had no identifiable problems with the majority of questions. However, there were problems common to both studies, relating to information retrieval and to participants answering different questions from those intended by researchers. Questions about normative influence were particularly problematic. The standard procedure for developing TPB questionnaires may systematically produce problematic questions. Suggestions are made for improving this procedure. Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications.

Limit Behaviour of Dynamic Rule-based Systems

The paper suggests a classification of dynamic rule-based systems. For each class of systems, limit behavior is studied. Systems with stabilizing limit states or stabilizing limit trajectories are identified, and such states and trajectories are found. The structure of the set of limit states and trajectories is investigated.

Traffic Offered Behaviour Regarding Target QOS Parameters in Network Dimensioning

We consider a model of overall telecommunication network with virtual circuits switching, in stationary state, with Poisson input flow, repeated calls, limited number of homogeneous terminals and 8 types of losses. One of the main problems of network dimensioning/redimensioning is estimation of traffic offered in network because it reflects on finding of necessary number of circuit switching lines on the basis of the consideration of detailed users manners and target Quality of Service (QoS). In this paper we investigate the behaviour of the traffic offered in a network regarding QoS variables: “probability of blocked switching” and “probability of finding B-terminals busy”. Numerical dependencies are shown graphically. A network dimensioning task (NDT) is formulated, solvability of the NDT and the necessary conditions for analytical solution are researched as well. International Journal "Information Technologies and Knowledge" Vol.2 / 2008 174 The received results make the network dimensioning/redimensioning, based on QoS requirements easily, due to clearer understanding of important variables behaviour. The described approach is applicable directly for every (virtual) circuit switching telecommunication system e.g. GSM, PSTN, ISDN and BISDN. For packet - switching networks, at various layers, proposed approach may be used as a comparison basis and when they work in circuit switching mode (e.g. VoIP).

Study of Queueing Behaviour in IP Buffers

It is unquestioned that the importance of IP network will further increase and that it will serve as a platform for more and more services, requiring different types and degrees of service quality. Modern architectures and protocols are being standardized, which aims at guaranteeing the quality of service delivered to users. In this paper, we investigate the queueing behaviour found in IP output buffers. This queueing increases because multiple streams of packets with different length are being multiplexed together. We develop balance equations for the state of the system, from which we derive packet loss and delay results. To analyze these types of behaviour, we study the discrete-time version of the “classical” queue model M/M/1/k called Geo/Gx/1/k, where Gx denotes a different packet length distribution defined on a range between a minimum and maximum value.