'Artificial Immune Systems: A new Decision Making Paradigm for Operational Research'

Over the last few years, more and more heuristic decision making techniques have been inspired by nature, e.g. evolutionary algorithms, ant colony optimisation and simulated annealing. More recently, a novel computational intelligence technique inspired by immunology has emerged, called Artificial Immune Systems (AIS). This immune system inspired technique has already been useful in solving some computational problems. In this keynote, we will very briefly describe the immune system metaphors that are relevant to AIS. We will then give some illustrative real-world problems suitable for AIS use and show a step-by-step algorithm walkthrough. A comparison of AIS to other well-known algorithms and areas for future work will round this keynote off. It should be noted that as AIS is still a young and evolving field, there is not yet a fixed algorithm template and hence actual implementations might differ somewhat from the examples given here

VirRAD: A New Paradigm for Technology Enhanced Learning

In most e-learning scenarios, communication and on-line collaboration is seen as an add-on feature to resource based learning. This paper will endeavour to present a pedagogical framework for inverting this view and putting communities of practice as the basic paradigm for e-learning. It will present an approach currently being used in the development of a virtual Radiopharmacy community, called VirRAD, and will discuss how theory can lead to an instructional design approach to support technologically enhanced learning.(DIPF/Orig.)

A New Paradigm for Heuristic Decision Making, Invited Keynote Talk

Over the last few years, more and more heuristic decision making techniques have been inspired by nature, e.g. evolutionary algorithms, ant colony optimisation and simulated annealing. More recently, a novel computational intelligence technique inspired by immunology has emerged, called Artificial Immune Systems (AIS). This immune system inspired technique has already been useful in solving some computational problems. In this keynote, we will very briefly describe the immune system metaphors that are relevant to AIS. We will then give some illustrative real-world problems suitable for AIS use and show a step-by-step algorithm walkthrough. A comparison of AIS to other well-known algorithms and areas for future work will round this keynote off. It should be noted that as AIS is still a young and evolving field, there is not yet a fixed algorithm template and hence actual implementations might differ somewhat from the examples given here.

Nurse Rostering with Genetic Algorithms

In recent years genetic algorithms have emerged as a useful tool for the heuristic solution of complex discrete optimisation problems. In particular there has been considerable interest in their use in tackling problems arising in the areas of scheduling and timetabling. However, the classical genetic algorithm paradigm is not well equipped to handle constraints and successful implementations usually require some sort of modification to enable the search to exploit problem specific knowledge in order to overcome this shortcoming. This paper is concerned with the development of a family of genetic algorithms for the solution of a nurse rostering problem at a major UK hospital. The hospital is made up of wards of up to 30 nurses. Each ward has its own group of nurses whose shifts have to be scheduled on a weekly basis. In addition to fulfilling the minimum demand for staff over three daily shifts, nurses’ wishes and qualifications have to be taken into account. The schedules must also be seen to be fair, in that unpopular shifts have to be spread evenly amongst all nurses, and other restrictions, such as team nursing and special conditions for senior staff, have to be satisfied. The basis of the family of genetic algorithms is a classical genetic algorithm consisting of n-point crossover, single-bit mutation and a rank-based selection. The solution space consists of all schedules in which each nurse works the required number of shifts, but the remaining constraints, both hard and soft, are relaxed and penalised in the fitness function. The talk will start with a detailed description of the problem and the initial implementation and will go on to highlight the shortcomings of such an approach, in terms of the key element of balancing feasibility, i.e. covering the demand and work regulations, and quality, as measured by the nurses’ preferences. A series of experiments involving parameter adaptation, niching, intelligent weights, delta coding, local hill climbing, migration and special selection rules will then be outlined and it will be shown how a series of these enhancements were able to eradicate these difficulties. Results based on several months’ real data will be used to measure the impact of each modification, and to show that the final algorithm is able to compete with a tabu search approach currently employed at the hospital. The talk will conclude with some observations as to the overall quality of this approach to this and similar problems.

Abrupt shifts in the Gironde fish community: an indicator of ecological changes in an estuarine ecosystem

For decades, global climate change has directly and indirectly affected the structure and function of ecosystems. Abrupt changes in biodiversity have been observed in response to linear or sudden modifications to the environment. These abrupt shifts can cause long-term reorganizations within ecosystems, with communities exhibiting new functional responses to environmental factors. Over the last 3 decades, the Gironde estuary in southwest France has experienced 2 abrupt shifts in both the physical and chemical environments and the pelagic community. Rather than describing these shifts and their origins, we focused on the 3 inter-shift periods, describing the structure of the fish community and its relationship with the environment during these periods. We described fish biodiversity using a limited set of descriptors, taking into account both species composition and relative species abundances. Inter-shift ecosystem states were defined based on the relationship between this description and the hydro-physico-chemical variables and climatic indices defining the main features of the environment. This relationship was described using generalized linear mixed models on the entire time series and for each inter-shift period. Our results indicate that (1) the fish community structure has been significantly modified, (2) environmental drivers influencing fish diversity have changed during these 3 periods, and (3) the fish-environment relationships have been modified over time. From this, we conclude a regime shift has occurred in the Gironde estuary. We also highlight that anthropogenic influences have increased, which re-emphasizes the importance of local management in maintaining fish diversity and associated goods and services within the context of climate change.

A critical appraisal of the social entrepreneurship paradigm in an international setting : a proposed conceptual framework

The twentieth century jazz piano trio: the rise of an iconic jazz paradigm

Considerando a gravação de 1947 The Bud Powell Trio como a gravação referência de trio de piano de jazz moderno, esta tese centra-se no surgimento e evolução do trio de jazz moderno cujo líder é pianista. Começando por apresentar, uma resenha dos estilos e técnicas para piano de da época pre-Powell, esta tese investiga a génese dos trios de piano jazz e examina três dos mais influeciais pianostas de jazz e lideres dos mais legendários trios de piano jazz modernos: Bud Powell, Bill Evans e Keith Jarrett. Esta tese também abordará o paradoxo inerente a um sistema democrático - a expressão própria do individuo, em justaposição com a responsabilidade para com o todo – e a sua inequivoca analogia com o gestalt do trio de piano de jazz moderno. Desde a primeira gravação de um trio de jazz com pianista como líder em 1935, o trio de jazz moderno, evoluiu tornando-se um exemplo de democracia – um contexto de igualdade em que as funções rítmicas, harmónicas, e melódicas estão igualmente distribuídas entre os três instrumentistas, que são ao mesmo tempo solistas e acompanhadores. Esta tese sublinha a eficácia do trio de jazz moderno – o seu início, e porque subsiste – baseado na sua força e beleza estética; ABSTRACT: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY JAZZ PIANO TRIO – The Rise of an Iconic Jazz Paradigm by Susan Muscarella Designating Bud Powell’s 1947 recording, The Bud Powell Trio, as the modern jazz piano trio benchmark, here, this thesis traces the emergence and evolution of the pianistled, piano-bass-drums-comprised modern jazz piano trio. Beginning with a general overview of pre-Powell jazz piano styles and techniques, this thesis investigates the earliest, most salient pre-Powell jazz piano trios, and examines three seminal modern jazz pianists and leaders of legendary modern jazz piano trios, Bud Powell, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. This thesis also brings to the fore the paradox inherent in a democratic system – individual self-expression juxtaposed with responsibility to the whole – and its unequivocal analogy to the modern jazz piano trio gestalt. From the earliest recording of a primarily piano-dominated piano-bass-drums-comprised jazz piano trio in 1935, the modern jazz piano trio has evolved to become a paragon of democracy – an egalitarian playing field in which rhythmic, harmonic and melodic roles are evenly distributed among all three instrumentalists who have come to serve as both soloists and accompanists.

“Varopoulos paradigm”: Mackey property versus metrizability in topological groups.

The class of all locally quasi-convex (lqc) abelian groups contains all locally convex vector spaces (lcs) considered as topological groups. Therefore it is natural to extend classical properties of locally convex spaces to this larger class of abelian topological groups. In the present paper we consider the following well known property of lcs: “A metrizable locally convex space carries its Mackey topology ”. This claim cannot be extended to lqc-groups in the natural way, as we have recently proved with other coauthors (Außenhofer and de la Barrera Mayoral in J Pure Appl Algebra 216(6):1340–1347, 2012; Díaz Nieto and Martín Peinador in Descriptive Topology and Functional Analysis, Springer Proceedings in Mathematics and Statistics, Vol 80 doi:10.1007/978-3-319-05224-3_7, 2014; Dikranjan et al. in Forum Math 26:723–757, 2014). We say that an abelian group G satisfies the Varopoulos paradigm (VP) if any metrizable locally quasi-convex topology on G is the Mackey topology. In the present paper we prove that in any unbounded group there exists a lqc metrizable topology that is not Mackey. This statement (Theorem C) allows us to show that the class of groups satisfying VP coincides with the class of finite exponent groups. Thus, a property of topological nature characterizes an algebraic feature of abelian groups.

Elastic Computing - a novel paradigm for distributed systems

This talk, which is based on our newest findings and experiences from research and industrial projects, addresses one of the most relevant challenges for a decade to come: How to integrate the Internet of Things with software, people, and processes, considering modern Cloud Computing and Elasticity principles. Elasticity is seen as one of the main characteristics of Cloud Computing today. Is elasticity simply scalability on steroids? This talk addresses the main principles of elasticity, presents a fresh look at this problem, and examines how to integrate people, software services, and things into one composite system, which can be modeled, programmed, and deployed on a large scale in an elastic way. This novel paradigm has major consequences on how we view, build, design, and deploy ultra-large scale distributed systems.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis for the prevention of HIV infection: a new prevention paradigm?

Pre-exposure prophylaxis" (PrEP) has been recently developed as a prevention strategy which involves the administration of drugs to non-infected individuals who present high exposure or susceptibility to HIV. Although this use is not approved in our country, several guidelines recommend PrEP as a prevention option in adult MSM, heterosexual men and women, and users of parenteral drugs at risk of acquiring the infection. This article presents the characteristics that an ideal agent to be used as PrEP should meet, recent efficacy published data and barriers for the implementation of this new strategy. On the other hand, the role of hospital pharmacists will be discussed.