Connect the Dots

This chapter presents a case study of the Connect the Dots Project, which encompasses a coordinated and connected set of actions aimed at sustainable territorial development, under the prism of the knowledge economy. The project, held in São Paulo City, Brazil, was awarded with the first place at the contest Mayors Challenge 2016, organized by the North American institution Bloomberg Philanthropies. Connect the Dots is a project aimed at strengthening producers and support their transition to an agroecological production system, as a way of protecting the rural landscape, conceived within the scope of the 2014 São Paulo Strategic Master Plan. The name of the project, an allusion to a puzzle game, has its inspiration in the fundamental connections between public and private actors. Its foundation is in the development of technological innovations, education collective actions, and decisions based on data and evidence typical of the knowledge economy.

A Dynamic Network of Proteins Facilitate Cell Envelope Biogenesis in Gram-Negative Bacteria

Bacteria must maintain the ability to modify and repair the peptidoglycan layer without jeopardising its essential functions in cell shape, cellular integrity and intermolecular interactions. A range of new experimental techniques is bringing an advanced understanding of how bacteria regulate and achieve peptidoglycan synthesis, particularly in respect of the central role played by complexes of Sporulation, Elongation or Division (SEDs) and class B penicillin-binding proteins required for cell division, growth and shape. In this review we highlight relationships implicated by a bioinformatic approach between the outer membrane, cytoskeletal components, periplasmic control proteins, and cell elongation/division proteins to provide further perspective on the interactions of these cell division, growth and shape complexes. We detail the network of protein interactions that assist in the formation of peptidoglycan and highlight the increasingly dynamic and connected set of protein machinery and macrostructures that assist in creating the cell envelope layers in Gram-negative bacteria.

Bifurcation structure of coexistence states for a prey–predator model with large population flux by attractive transition

This paper is concerned with a prey–predator model with population flux by attractive transition. Our previous paper (Oeda and Kuto, 2018, Nonlinear Anal. RWA, 44, 589–615) obtained a bifurcation branch (connected set) of coexistence steady states which connects two semitrivial solutions. In Oeda and Kuto (2018, Nonlinear Anal. RWA, 44, 589–615), we also showed that any positive steady-state approaches a positive solution of either of two limiting systems, and moreover, one of the limiting systems is an equal diffusive competition model. This paper obtains the bifurcation structure of positive solutions to the other limiting system. Moreover, this paper implies that the global bifurcation branch of coexistence states consists of two parts, one of which is a simple curve running in a tubular domain near the set of positive solutions to the equal diffusive competition model, the other of which is a connected set characterized by positive solutions to the other limiting system.

Assessing the Removal of Regional Health Authorities in Ontario

A little more than a decade ago, a series of regional bodies were introduced throughout Ontario to help resolve difficulties with the province’s health care system. The Local Health Integration Networks, the name given to the new health entities, sought to create a connected set of health services and to achieve more effective control and distribution of health care finances. A third intent was to engage the community when setting priorities for health care. Recently, the new government of Ontario replaced the LHINs with a single health authority. It asserted that the single authority was better equipped to handle the many problems that still prevailed. An assessment of this decision offers some grounds for disbanding the LHINs. However, the findings offer stronger support for the alternative of keeping the regional authorities and providing them with greater autonomy.

A Geometric Integration Approach to Nonsmooth, Nonconvex Optimisation

The optimisation of nonsmooth, nonconvex functions without access to gradients is a particularly challenging problem that is frequently encountered, for example in model parameter optimisation problems. Bilevel optimisation of parameters is a standard setting in areas such as variational regularisation problems and supervised machine learning. We present efficient and robust derivative-free methods called randomised Itoh–Abe methods. These are generalisations of the Itoh–Abe discrete gradient method, a well-known scheme from geometric integration, which has previously only been considered in the smooth setting. We demonstrate that the method and its favourable energy dissipation properties are well defined in the nonsmooth setting. Furthermore, we prove that whenever the objective function is locally Lipschitz continuous, the iterates almost surely converge to a connected set of Clarke stationary points. We present an implementation of the methods, and apply it to various test problems. The numerical results indicate that the randomised Itoh–Abe methods can be superior to state-of-the-art derivative-free optimisation methods in solving nonsmooth problems while still remaining competitive in terms of efficiency.

DEVELOPMENT OF INNOVATIVE ACTIVITY OF SMALL ENTERPRISES BASED ON TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

The economic development of any country is closely linked with the development of small business. Entrepreneurship is especially important for countries whose economies are in the process of structural change. The essence of small business development reflects the constant search for new opportunities, independence in making innovative decisions, perseverance and determination in their promotion in foreign and domestic markets. Given the scale of activities and narrow specialization, technology transfer is the basis of innovative activities of small businesses and a means of their sustainable development, a guarantee of profit and social impact. The purpose of the article is to identify information and communication tools for technology transfer for the development of innovative activities of small businesses. Accelerating the development of information and communication technologies, their penetration into all spheres of society, has made significant changes in the conditions of origin and implementation of entrepreneurial activity. There are new forms of relations between producers and consumers, managers and staff, between business partners. Information and communication technologies means a systemically connected set of methods and means of intellectual work associated with the search, accumulation, processing and protection of information, as well as its exchange between participants in joint activities. Practice shows that small enterprises carry out ICT transfer and use them in their activities (commercialize), receive additional opportunities. To achieve optimal results, technology transfer, like any other business activity, requires attention, flexible approaches and integration into the overall strategy of innovative development. The direction of further research is an empirical study of the results of technology transfer by local enterprises.

Reconstructing Human-Centered Interaction Networks of the Swifterbant Culture in the Dutch Wetlands: An Example from the ArchaeoEcology Project

In archaeology, palaeo-ecological studies are frequently used to support archaeological investigations, but linking and synthesizing datasets and concepts from ecology, ethnography, earth sciences, and archaeology has historically been rare. While advances in computational approaches and standards of data collection have enabled more collaborative approaches to understanding the past, these endeavors are only now beginning to pick up pace. Here, we propose a method to collect data of these assorted types, synthesize ecological and archaeological understanding, and move beyond subsistence-focused studies to those that incorporate multifaceted economies. We advocate for the use of ‘human-centered interaction networks’ as a tool to synthesize and better understand the role of culture, ecology, and environment in the long-term evolution of socio-ecological systems. We advance the study of human-centered interaction networks by presenting an archaeoecological (archaeological-ecological) perspective on the Neolithic transition of the Swifterbant culture in the northwestern Netherlands (approximately 4700–4000 BCE). We employed network science to better understand the relationships of animal and plant species to the uses that people made of them. The analysis of the Swifterbant system reveals a highly connected set of interactions among people, plants, and animals, as could be expected on the basis of the hypothesis of an ‘extended broad-spectrum economy’. Importantly, this broad spectrum extends beyond the subsistence sphere.

Do Autism Spectrum and Autoimmune Disorders Share Predisposition Gene Signature Due to mTOR Signaling Pathway Controlling Expression?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by uncommon genetic heterogeneity and a high heritability concurrently. Most autoimmune disorders (AID), similarly to ASD, are characterized by impressive genetic heterogeneity and heritability. We conducted gene-set analyses and revealed that 584 out of 992 genes (59%) included in a new release of the SFARI Gene database and 439 out of 871 AID-associated genes (50%) could be attributed to one of four groups: 1. FMRP (fragile X mental retardation protein) target genes, 2. mTOR signaling network genes, 3. mTOR-modulated genes, and 4. vitamin D3-sensitive genes. With the exception of FMRP targets, which are obviously associated with the direct involvement of local translation disturbance in the pathological mechanisms of ASD, the remaining categories are represented among AID genes in a very similar percentage as among ASD predisposition genes. Thus, mTOR signaling pathway genes make up 4% of ASD and 3% of AID genes, mTOR-modulated genes—31% of both ASD and AID genes, and vitamin D-sensitive genes—20% of ASD and 23% of AID genes. The network analysis revealed 3124 interactions between 528 out of 729 AID genes for the 0.7 cutoff, so the great majority (up to 67%) of AID genes are related to the mTOR signaling pathway directly or indirectly. Our present research and available published data allow us to hypothesize that both a certain part of ASD and AID comprise a connected set of disorders sharing a common aberrant pathway (mTOR signaling) rather than a vast set of different disorders. Furthermore, an immune subtype of the autism spectrum might be a specific type of autoimmune disorder with an early manifestation of a unique set of predominantly behavioral symptoms.

A Monoparametric Family of Piecewise Linear Systems to Generate Scroll Attractors via Path-Connected Set of Polynomials

In this work, we present a monoparametric family of piecewise linear systems to generate multiscroll attractors through a polynomial family defined by path curves that connect to the roots. The idea is to define path curves where the roots of a polynomial can take values by determining an initial and a final polynomial. As a consequence, structural stability and bifurcation of the system can be obtained. Structural stability is obtained by preserving the same stability of the initial and final polynomials. However, the system bifurcates by changing the stability of the final polynomial with respect to the initial polynomial. The aim is achieved by the design of a piecewise linear controller that is applied to affine linear systems. Our results are mathematically proved and numerical examples are also provided to illustrate the approach.

Modeling and Prediction of Rigid Body Motion with Planar Non-Convex Contact

We present a principled method for motion prediction via dynamic simulation for rigid bodies in intermittent contact with each other where the contact region is a planar non-convex contact patch. Such methods are useful in planning and control for robotic manipulation. The planar non-convex contact patch can either be a topologically connected set or disconnected set. Most work in rigid body dynamic simulation assume that the contact between objects is a point contact, which may not be valid in many applications. In this paper, by using the convex hull of the contact patch, we build on our recent work on simulating rigid bodies with convex contact patches for simulating motion of objects with planar non-convex contact patches. We formulate a discrete-time mixed complementarity problem where we solve the contact detection and integration of the equations of motion simultaneously. We solve for the equivalent contact point (ECP) and contact impulse of each contact patch simultaneously along with the state, i.e., configuration and velocity of the objects. We prove that although we are representing a patch contact by an equivalent point, our model for enforcing non-penetration constraints ensure that there is no artificial penetration between the contacting rigid bodies. We provide empirical evidence to show that our method can seamlessly capture transition among different contact modes like patch contact, multiple or single point contact.