Search for Therapeutics against COVID-19: A Recent Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Ashok Chakraborty ◽  
Jayant Tatake ◽  
Vijetha Chiniga ◽  
Rajesh Pandey ◽  
Preetam Holkar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Recent Approach

Information is Relational, Affordances Are Not

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew D Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Perception And Action ◽  
Task Environment ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Dispositional Properties

Ever since Gibson proposed the concept of ‘affordances’ in 1979, we have been arguing about the best way to formalize the idea in a way that can allow us to successfully explain behavior. The first approach was to consider them as dispositional properties of task environment which can support skillful perception and action. A more recent approach considers them more broadly as relations between properties of organisms and their environments. This expands the spatial and temporal scope of affordances; we stand in many kinds of relations to our physical but also social and cultural environments. Relational affordances are therefore offered as an ecological way to explain behaviors in these domains. However, these relational affordances do not, as a rule, interact with perceptual media and therefore do not create perceptual information about themselves. This means they cannot be perceived, which in turn means they cannot play any role in an ecological explanation of a behavior. This paper briefly reviews the dispositional vs relational accounts of affordances, explains the problem, and proposes an information-based alternative (building on Golonka, 2015). Affordances are not relational, but fortunately information is, and this is where we should focus our attention.

Hesitant Embrace: China’s Recent Approach to International Investment Rule-Making

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 843-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Berger
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
International Investment ◽  
Investment Policy ◽  
Recent Period ◽  
Investment Treaty ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Investment Treaties ◽  
Rule Making

China is becoming one of the key stakeholders in the international investment regime. It is, however, still unclear what role China can play in the ongoing reform of the international investment regime. Starting from this overall focus, this article analyses the most recent period of China’s international investment policy-making. Mapping the contents of investment treaties signed since 2008 it argues that China undertook a partial ‘NAFTA-ization’. Whilst China has adopted a number of clauses invented by the NAFTA countries, it introduced these clauses in an incoherent fashion. Looking at the drivers of this peculiar policy, this article argues that China’s investment treaty-making practice is largely inspired by its partner countries. As a result of this particular negotiation policy, Beijing’s approach to international investment rule-making is inconsistent. This belies the argument that China can make a significant contribution to reforming the international investment regime.

scholarly journals Quasi-stability and continuity of attractors for nonlinear system of wave equations

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-45
Author(s):  
M. M. Freitas ◽  
M. J. Dos Santos ◽  
A. J. A. Ramos ◽  
M. S. Vinhote ◽  
M. L. Santos
Keyword(s):  
Wave Equations ◽  
Coupled System ◽  
Global Attractors ◽  
Time Behavior ◽  
Exponential Attractors ◽  
Small Perturbations ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Nonlinear Coupled System ◽  
Long Time ◽  
External Forces

Abstract In this paper, we study the long-time behavior of a nonlinear coupled system of wave equations with damping terms and subjected to small perturbations of autonomous external forces. Using the recent approach by Chueshov and Lasiecka in [21], we prove that this dynamical system is quasi-stable by establishing a quasistability estimate, as consequence, the existence of global and exponential attractors is proved. Finally, we investigate the upper and lower semicontinuity of global attractors under autonomous perturbations.

scholarly journals CAT-CAD: A Computer-Aided Diagnosis Tool for Cataplexy

Computers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Ilaria Bartolini ◽  
Andrea Di Luzio
Keyword(s):  
Muscle Tone ◽  
Disease Symptoms ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Recording Analysis ◽  
Facial Behavior ◽  
The One ◽  
Aided Diagnosis ◽  
Real Patients

Narcolepsy with cataplexy is a severe lifelong disorder characterized, among others, by sudden loss of bilateral face muscle tone triggered by emotions (cataplexy). A recent approach for the diagnosis of the disease is based on a completely manual analysis of video recordings of patients undergoing emotional stimulation made on-site by medical specialists, looking for specific facial behavior motor phenomena. We present here the CAT-CAD tool for automatic detection of cataplexy symptoms, with the double aim of (1) supporting neurologists in the diagnosis/monitoring of the disease and (2) facilitating the experience of patients, allowing them to conduct video recordings at home. CAT-CAD includes a front-end medical interface (for the playback/inspection of patient recordings and the retrieval of videos relevant to the one currently played) and a back-end AI-based video analyzer (able to automatically detect the presence of disease symptoms in the patient recording). Analysis of patients’ videos for discovering disease symptoms is based on the detection of facial landmarks, and an alternative implementation of the video analyzer, exploiting deep-learning techniques, is introduced. Performance of both approaches is experimentally evaluated using a benchmark of real patients’ recordings, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed solutions.

Viscoelastic Models for Ligaments and Tendons

1994 ◽  
Vol 47 (6S) ◽  
pp. S282-S286 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. L.-Y. Woo ◽  
G. A. Johnson ◽  
R. E. Levine ◽  
K. R. Rajagopal
Keyword(s):  
Constitutive Modeling ◽  
Finite Strain ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Viscoelastic Behavior ◽  
Microstructural Change ◽  
Viscoelastic Models ◽  
Dependent Behavior ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Single Integral ◽  
Strain Model

Ligaments and tendons serve a variety of important functions in the human body. Many experimental studies have focused on understanding their mechanical behavior, mathematical modeling has also contributed important information. This paper presents a brief review of viscoelastic models that have been proposed to describe the nonlinear and time-dependent behavior of ligaments and tendons. Specific attention is devoted to quasi-linear viscoelasticity (QLV) and to our most recent approach, the single integral finite strain model (SIFS) which incorporates constitutive modeling of microstructural change. An example is given in which the SIFS model is used to describe the viscoelastic behavior of a human patellar tendon.

RADIATING COLLAPSE WITH VANISHING WEYL STRESSES

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (03n04) ◽  
pp. 667-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. D. MAHARAJ ◽  
M. GOVENDER
Keyword(s):  
Irreversible Thermodynamics ◽  
Temperature Profiles ◽  
Junction Conditions ◽  
Einstein Field Equations ◽  
Field Equations ◽  
Extended Irreversible Thermodynamics ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Dust Solution ◽  
Limiting Case

In a recent approach in modeling a radiating relativistic star undergoing gravitational collapse the role of the Weyl stresses was emphasized. It is possible to generate a model which is physically reasonable by approximately solving the junction conditions at the boundary of the star. In this paper we demonstrate that it is possible to solve the Einstein field equations and the junction conditions exactly. This exact solution contains the Friedmann dust solution as a limiting case. We briefly consider the radiative transfer within the framework of extended irreversible thermodynamics and show that relaxational effects significantly alter the temperature profiles.

Symbols and material signs in the debate on human origins

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonis Iliopoulos ◽  
Lambros Malafouris
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Human Origins ◽  
Linguistic Terms ◽  
Engagement Theory ◽  
Selective Pressures ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
Ontogenetic Process ◽  
Peircean Semiotics

This chapter delves into the issues of symbolization and material signification as they have been conceived in the literature on human origins, focusing on three interrelated questions found at the crux of the debate on behavioral and cognitive “modernity:” firstly, how did material objects signify in prehistoric times? Secondly, how were material signs created at that point in time? And thirdly, how did material signs and human minds evolve and change over time? These questions about the nature, emergence, and evolution of material signification have been addressed in very different ways by two broad schools of thought. The symbolocentric paradigm, which for long was the favored approach, treats material signs in linguistic terms, attributes their creation to predefined mental templates harbored by symbolically and linguistically capable brains, and sees their evolution as an adaptive response to selective pressures. Contrastingly, a more recent approach defines material signs primarily based on their material qualities and relations, ascribes their creation to the anchoring of cognitive projections onto these physical manifestations, and approaches their evolution as an ontogenetic process driven by the prolonged engagement between humans and things. Opting for the latter way of thinking, this chapter evaluates the theoretical assumptions of the traditional approach, and sketches the materially sensitive dictates of Peircean semiotics and the Material Engagement Theory. As we suggest, the emphasis of these chronologically distant, but philosophically proximate frameworks on the ontological primacy of process and situated engagement, allows them to shed new light on the origins of mind and material semiosis.

scholarly journals Multiscale modelling and homogenisation of fibre-reinforced hydrogels for tissue engineering

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. CHEN ◽  
L. S. KIMPTON ◽  
J. P. WHITELEY ◽  
M. CASTILHO ◽  
J. MALDA ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tissue Engineering ◽  
Applied Load ◽  
The Body ◽  
Unconfined Compression ◽  
Linear Elastic ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Poroelastic Material ◽  
3D Printed ◽  
Construct Dimensions

Tissue engineering aims to grow artificial tissues in vitro to replace those in the body that have been damaged through age, trauma or disease. A recent approach to engineer artificial cartilage involves seeding cells within a scaffold consisting of an interconnected 3D-printed lattice of polymer fibres combined with a cast or printed hydrogel, and subjecting the construct (cell-seeded scaffold) to an applied load in a bioreactor. A key question is to understand how the applied load is distributed throughout the construct. To address this, we employ homogenisation theory to derive equations governing the effective macroscale material properties of a periodic, elastic–poroelastic composite. We treat the fibres as a linear elastic material and the hydrogel as a poroelastic material, and exploit the disparate length scales (small inter-fibre spacing compared with construct dimensions) to derive macroscale equations governing the response of the composite to an applied load. This homogenised description reflects the orthotropic nature of the composite. To validate the model, solutions from finite element simulations of the macroscale, homogenised equations are compared to experimental data describing the unconfined compression of the fibre-reinforced hydrogels. The model is used to derive the bulk mechanical properties of a cylindrical construct of the composite material for a range of fibre spacings and to determine the local mechanical environment experienced by cells embedded within the construct.

From single-species advice to mixed-species management: taking the next step

2004 ◽  
Vol 61 (8) ◽  
pp. 1398-1409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Vinther ◽  
Stuart A. Reeves ◽  
Kenneth R. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Fishery Management ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Mixed Species ◽  
The North ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Management Advice ◽  
Management Priorities

Abstract Fishery management advice has traditionally been given on a stock-by-stock basis. Recent problems in implementing this advice, particularly for the demersal fisheries of the North Sea, have highlighted the limitations of the approach. In the long term, it would be desirable to give advice that accounts for mixed-fishery effects, but in the short term there is a need for approaches to resolve the conflicting management advice for different species within the same fishery, and to generate catch or effort advice that accounts for the mixed-species nature of the fishery. This paper documents a recent approach used to address these problems. The approach takes the single-species advice for each species in the fishery as a starting point, then attempts to resolve it into consistent catch or effort advice using fleet-disaggregated catch forecasts in combination with explicitly stated management priorities for each stock. Results are presented for the groundfish fisheries of the North Sea, and these show that the development of such approaches will also require development of the ways in which catch data are collected and compiled.

scholarly journals POLYMER GEOMETRY AT PLANCK SCALE AND QUANTUM EINSTEIN EQUATIONS

1996 ◽  
Vol 05 (06) ◽  
pp. 629-648 ◽  
Author(s):  
ABHAY ASHTEKAR
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Gravity ◽  
Planck Scale ◽  
Coarse Graining ◽  
Space Structure ◽  
Einstein Equations ◽  
Hamiltonian Constraint ◽  
Recent Approach ◽  
Canonical Approach ◽  
Background Fields ◽  
Discrete Spectra

Over the last two years, the canonical approach to quantum gravity based on connections and triads has been put on a firm mathematical footing through the development and application of a new functional calculus on the space of gauge equivalent connections. This calculus does not use any background fields (such as a metric) and thus well-suited to a fully non-perturbative treatment of quantum gravity. Using this framework, quantum geometry is examined. Fundamental excitations turn out to be one-dimensional, rather like polymers. Geometrical observables such as areas of surfaces and volumes of regions are purely discrete spectra. Continuum picture arises only upon coarse graining of suitable semi-classical states. Next, regulated quantum diffeomorphism constraints can be imposed in an anomaly-free fashion and the space of solutions can be given a natural Hilbert space structure. Progress has also been made on the quantum Hamiltonian constraint in a number of directions. In particular, there is a recent approach based on a generalized .Wick transformation which maps solutions to the Euclidean quantum constraints to those of the Lorentzian theory. These developments are summarized. Emphasis is on conveying the underlying ideas and overall pictures rather than technical details.

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