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Increasing Diversity (increasing + diversity)
Selected AbstractsAPEX-Map: a parameterized scalable memory access probe for high-performance computing systems,CONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 17 2007Erich Strohmaier Abstract The memory wall between the peak performance of microprocessors and their memory performance has become the prominent performance bottleneck for many scientific application codes. New benchmarks measuring data access speeds locally and globally in a variety of different ways are needed to explore the ever increasing diversity of architectures for high-performance computing. In this paper, we introduce a novel benchmark, APEX-Map, which focuses on global data movement and measures how fast global data can be fed into computational units. APEX-Map is a parameterized, synthetic performance probe and integrates concepts for temporal and spatial locality into its design. Our first parallel implementation in MPI and various results obtained with it are discussed in detail. By measuring the APEX-Map performance with parameter sweeps for a whole range of temporal and spatial localities performance surfaces can be generated. These surfaces are ideally suited to study the characteristics of the computational platforms and are useful for performance comparison. Results on a global-memory vector platform and distributed-memory superscalar platforms clearly reflect the design differences between these different architectures. Published in 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Shrinking baseline: the growth in juvenile fisheries, with the Hong Kong grouper fishery as a case studyFISH AND FISHERIES, Issue 4 2009Allen W L To Abstract Historic and current information on the grouper fishery from Hong Kong and adjacent waters reveals significant changes in species composition and fish sizes over the past 50 years in this important Asian centre for seafood consumption. Once dominant, large groupers are now rare and small species and sizes prevail in the present-day fishery. Juveniles comprise over 80% of marketed fish by number among the most commonly retailed groupers, and reproductive-sized fish are absent among larger species. Current fishery practices and the lack of management in Hong Kong and adjacent waters pose a significant threat to large species with limited geographic distribution such as Epinephelus akaara and Epinephelus bruneus, both now listed as threatened by the IUCN. The heavy reliance on juveniles, not only for groupers, but for an increasing diversity of desired fishes within Asia, potentially reduces stock spawning potential. The ,shrinking baseline' in terms of a progressive reduction in fish sizes being marketed in the region can seriously undermine fishery sustainability and recoverability of depleted fish stocks. Fishing pressure on groupers and other valuable food fishes within the Asia-Pacific is intensifying, the declining long-term trend of grouper landings in Hong Kong and the increasing focus on juveniles for immediate sale or for mariculture ,grow-out' signal a worrying direction for regional fisheries. Moreover, the common appearance of small groupers for sale will influence public perception regarding what are ,normal-sized' fish. Management attention is needed if these fisheries are to remain viable. [source] Diversity,stability relationships in multitrophic systems: an empirical explorationJOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2003Priyanga Amarasekare Summary 1The relationship between diversity and stability is crucial in understanding the dynamics of multitrophic interactions. There are two basic hypotheses about the causal link between diversity and stability. The first is that fluctuations in resource abundance allow consumer coexistence, thus increasing diversity at the consumer trophic level (resource variability hypothesis). The second is that interactions between coexisting consumer species reduce consumer efficiency and dampen population fluctuations, thus increasing consumer,resource stability (consumer efficiency hypothesis). 2The two hypotheses lead to three comparative predictions: (i) fluctuations should be greater (resource variability) or smaller (consumer efficiency) in resource populations with coexisting consumer species, compared to those invaded only by the consumer species superior at resource exploitation; (ii) average resource abundance should be greater (resource variability) or smaller (consumer efficiency) in resource populations with greater fluctuations; and (iii) removal of the consumer species inferior at resource exploitation should increase or not affect resource population fluctuations (resource variability), or always increase them (consumer efficiency). 3I tested these predictions with data from a host,multiparasitoid community: the harlequin bug (Murgantia histrionica) and two specialist parasitoids (Trissolcus murgantiae and Ooencyrtus johnsonii) that attack the bug's eggs. 4Local host populations with coexisting parasitoids exhibited smaller fluctuations and greater average abundance compared to those with just Trissolcus, the species superior at host exploitation. Local populations that lost Ooencyrtus, the species inferior at host exploitation, exhibited an increase in host population fluctuations compared to those that did not. 5The results contradict the expectations of the resource variability hypothesis, suggesting that host population fluctuations are unlikely to be driving parasitoid coexistence. They are consistent with the consumer efficiency hypothesis, that interactions between coexisting parasitoid species dampens host population fluctuations. I discuss the implications of these results as well as possible caveats. [source] Cultural relevance as program-to-community alignment,JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2009Jayanthi Mistry Calls for cultural sensitivity in the design and implementation of human services programs have become a standard response to the increasing diversity among the families and communities being served. In this article, we take a critical look at the construct, using data from a multi-year evaluation of a statewide family support program. We examine how selected, locally implemented programs operationalize the state program's cultural sensitivity standard, using both etic and emic approaches; that is, we apply extant cultural competence definitions to assess program cultural sensitivity and document how the program staff articulated their approach to the cultural sensitivity. Findings suggest that programs focus more directly on the immediate cultural relevance of their services, rather than on developing more generalized competencies among their staff. Further, findings indicate that program-to-community alignment may well be a more useful representation of how programs address cultural issues. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Active patient involvement in the education of health professionalsMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 1 2010Angela Towle Context, Patients as educators (teaching intimate physical examination) first appeared in the 1960s. Since then, rationales for the active involvement of patients as educators have been well articulated. There is great potential to promote the learning of patient-centred practice, interprofessional collaboration, community involvement, shared decision making and how to support self-care. Methods, We reviewed and summarised the literature on active patient involvement in health professional education. Results, A synthesis of the literature reveals increasing diversity in the ways in which patients are involved in education, but also the movement's weaknesses. Most initiatives are ,one-off' events and are reported as basic descriptions. There is little rigorous research or theory of practice or investigation of behavioural outcomes. The literature is scattered and uses terms (such as ,patient'!) that are contentious and confusing. Conclusions, We propose future directions for research and development, including a taxonomy to facilitate dialogue, an outline of a research strategy and reference to a comprehensive bibliography covering all health and human services. Medical Education 2010: 44: 64,74 [source] Refugees and medical student training: results of a programme in primary careMEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 7 2006Kim Griswold Context, Medical schools have responded to the increasing diversity of the population of the USA by incorporating cultural competency training into their curricula. This paper presents results from pre- and post-programme surveys of medical students who participated in a training programme that included evening clinical sessions for refugee patients and related educational workshops. Methods, A self-assessment survey was administered at the beginning and end of the academic year to measure the cultural awareness of participating medical students. Results, Over the 3 years of the programme, over 133 students participated and 95 (73%) completed pre- and post-programme surveys. Participants rated themselves significantly higher in all 3 domains of the cultural awareness survey after completion of the programme. Conclusions, The opportunity for medical students to work with refugees in the provision of health care presents many opportunities for students, including lessons in communication, and scope to learn about other cultures and practise basic health care skills. An important issue to consider is the power differential between those working in medicine and patients who are refugees. To avoid reinforcing stereotypes, medical programmes and medical school curricula can incorporate efforts to promote reflection on provider attitudes, beliefs and biases. [source] Pluralism, Public Choice, and the State in the Emerging Paradigm in Health SystemsTHE MILBANK QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2002Dov Chernichovsky The conceptualization of medicine as a unique field of endeavor is swiftly changing, and the change involves complex social and technological factors. The concept of "medicine" is dynamic: the range of ailments dealt with by medical care changes, as does the range of therapeutic options. In addition, with the growth in income and education, consumers,especially those in the middle- and upper-income brackets who are self-reliant and stress individualism,expect an increasing diversity of medical care and ins-titutions to supply it (Antonovsky 1987; Schneider, Dennerlein, Kose, et al. 1992; Williams and Calnan 1996). Hence, the character of the product or service offered and demanded is becoming more difficult to determine, especially in socioeconomically advanced communities. In developed nations, the absence of a correlation between a country's expenditures on medical care and the population's health as measured by morbidity and mortality complicates the issue further, since the association between health and the level of investment in medical care is not always as might be expected (OECD 1990). [source] Race and Ethnicity in Access to and Outcomes of Liver Transplantation: A Critical Literature ReviewAMERICAN JOURNAL OF TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 12 2009A. K. Mathur Racial/ethnic disparities in access to and outcomes of liver transplantation are an important topic given the increasing diversity in the United States. Most reports on this topic predate the advent of allocation based on the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD). For many patients with a variety of lethal conditions, liver transplantation is the only effective therapy, signifying the importance of equitable access to care. Racial/ethnic disparities have been described at various steps of the liver transplant process, including liver disease prevalence and treatment, access to a transplant center and its waitlist, receipt of a liver transplant and posttransplant outcomes. The purpose of this minireview is to critically evaluate the published literature on racial/ethnicity-based disparities in liver disease prevalence and treatment, transplant center referral, transplant rates and posttransplant outcomes. We identify the shortcomings of previous reports and detail the barriers to completing properly constructed analyses, particularly emphasizing deficits in requisite data and the need for improved study design. Understanding the nature of race/ethnicity-based disparities in liver transplantation is necessary to improve research initiatives, policy design and serves the broader responsibility of providing the highest quality care to all patients with liver disease. [source] Trophic-dynamic considerations in relating species diversity to ecosystem resilienceBIOLOGICAL REVIEWS, Issue 3 2000KRIS H. JOHNSON ABSTRACT Complexity in the networks of interactions among and between the living and abiotic components forming ecosystems confounds the ability of ecologists to predict the economic consequences of perturbations such as species deletions in nature. Such uncertainty hampers prudent decision making about where and when to invest most intensively in species conservation programmes. Demystifying ecosystem responses to biodiversity alterations may be best achieved through the study of the interactions allowing biotic communities to compensate internally for population changes in terms of contributing to ecosystem function, or their intrinsic functional redundancy. Because individual organisms are the biologically discrete working components of ecosystems and because environmental changes are perceived at the scale of the individual, a mechanistic understanding of functional redundancy will hinge upon understanding how individuals' behaviours influence population dynamics in the complex community setting. Here, I use analytical and graphical modelling to construct a conceptual framework for predicting the conditions under which varying degrees of interspecific functional redundancy can be found in dynamic ecosystems. The framework is founded on principles related to food web successional theory, which provides some evolutionary insights for mechanistically linking functional roles of discrete, interacting organisms with the dynamics of ecosystems because energy is the currency both for ecological fitness and for food web commerce. Net productivity is considered the most contextually relevant ecosystem process variable because of its socioeconomic significance and because it ultimately subsumes all biological processes and interactions. Redundancy relative to productivity is suggested to manifest most directly as compensatory niche shifts among adaptive foragers in exploitation ecosystems, facilitating coexistence and enhancing ecosystem recovery after disturbances which alter species' relative abundances, such as extinctions. The framework further explicates how resource scarcity and environmental stochasticity may constitute ,ecosystem legacies' influencing the emergence of redundancy by shaping the background conditions for foraging behaviour evolution and, consequently, the prevalence of compensatory interactions. Because it generates experimentally testable predictions for a priori hypothesis testing about when and where varying degrees of functional redundancy are likely to be found in food webs, the framework may be useful for advancing toward the reliable knowledge of biodiversity and ecosystem function relations necessary for prudent prioritization of conservation programmes. The theory presented here introduces explanation of how increasing diversity can have a negative influence on ecosystem sustainability by altering the environment for biotic interactions - and there by changing functional compensability among biota - under particular conditions. [source] FEMININITY AND ITS UNCONSCIOUS ,SHADOWS': GENDER AND GENERATIVE IDENTITY IN THE AGE OF BIOTECHNOLOGYBRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY, Issue 4 2007Joan Raphael-Leff abstract This paper locates contemporary conceptualizations of ,femininity' in the context of current sociocultural changes. It is argued that today's biotechnological opportunities have immense significance for both psychic interiority and the lived experience of gender, in that they invalidate ,eternal' limitations of sex, procreation and embodiment. An explanatory concept, generative identity, is postulated, to account psychologically for the increasing diversity of reproductive patterns. This concept is proposed as a fourth constituent of gender, alongside the reformulated constituents of embodiment, representation and desire. Derived from this is a further concept of generative agency, the expression of the psychic construction of the self as potential pro-creator, shaped in childhood by the negotiation of reproductive restrictions of sex, generation, genesis and generativity, and the ,genitive' issues of arbitrariness, finitude and irreversibility of time. Disturbances in generative identity manifest as unconscious ,shadows' expressed as inhibitions to creative agency, compulsively driven preoccupations with the lived sexed body, and/or concrete enactments which may utilize biotechnological innovations to actualize unconscious fantasies in reality. [source] Biotic patterns in LIGO recordings point to the creativity of gravitational interactionsCOMPLEXITY, Issue 5 2010Hector Sabelli Abstract The waves recorded by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) presumably represent gravitational waves. Time series analyses revealed chaotic characteristics (nonperiodic oscillations, causal generation) and features of creativity that characterize Bios: increasing diversity (as contrasted to convergence to an attractor); novelty (lesser recurrence than randomized copies); and temporal complexity (a succession of different time-limited patterns). Bios is also observed in quantum, cosmological, biological, and economic processes. Bios can be generated mathematically by bipolar feedback. Finding features of creativity in gravitational waves indicates that gravitational interactions causally generate complex patterns. As the gravitational wave background dates from the trillionth-of-a-second after the Big Bang, these results indicate that causal and creative processes were important in the early universe, in contrast to the presumed predominance of random oscillations. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity, 2010 [source] | ||||||||||||||||