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New Networks (new + network)
Selected AbstractsThe cost effectiveness of specialised facilities for service users with persistent challenging behavioursHEALTH & SOCIAL CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, Issue 6 2001Angela Hallam MSc Abstract Little systematic research relates specifically to the last people to leave a psychiatric hospital at the end of a closure programme. The long-running evaluation of the reprovision of services from Friern Hospital in North London allowed a special study to be made of such a group (67 people in all), whose range of problem behaviours made placement in community settings most difficult. The patients were relatively young, with a shorter length of stay than the remainder of the former long-stay hospital population. They were assessed three times: before leaving Friern, and one and 5 years after relocation. The social and clinical characteristics of each person were measured, and the full costs of their care calculated. The ,difficult-to-place' patients moved to four highly staffed rehabilitation facilities, where the total cost of their care was, on average, £1230 per week. There was no overall change in their psychiatric state over the 5 years after they left Friern Hospital although, in the longer-term, they gained skills in several areas of daily functioning. Most importantly, there was a fall of almost 50% in the number of challenging behaviours exhibited by the study group. At the five-year follow-up point, the cost of care had fallen, on average, by £170 per week, and 24 people had been able to move to more independent accommodation arrangements. Study participants had gained a new network of community service contacts, and used services provided by a greater variety of agencies. The indicators suggest that high expenditure on alternative care was justified retrospectively by overall long-term outcomes. An important policy lesson from the Friern Hospital reprovision study is that adequate funds should be reserved until the end of the closure programme to allow the investment of resources in provision for patients with the most severe problem behaviours. [source] Brassinosteroids as Metahormones: Evidence for their Specific Influence during the Critical Period in Sorghum DevelopmentPLANT BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2002G. N. Amzallag Abstract: In Sorghum bicolor, the effect of brassinosteroid (BR) treatments on blade elongation depends both on concentration and on the stage of development. A specific period of increase in sensitivity to BR is reported during early vegetative development. It coincides with emergence of a critical period during which the between-organs relationship is readjusted as a function of new developmental events or new environmental conditions. Accordingly, the influence of BR cannot be completely understood without separating its effects during stable phases (phenophases) and during critical periods. A high level of redundancy exists in networks of regulation, so that modifications due to BR treatments generally remain cryptic. Nevertheless, it is shown that BR affects the pattern of relationships between organs, confirming its involvement in emergence of a new network of regulation. It is suggested that, during critical periods, brassinosteroids act as "metahormones" integrating the new emerging regulation network by triggering changes in cellular sensitivity to PGRs. [source] Six major steps in animal evolution: are we derived sponge larvae?EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2008Claus Nielsen SUMMARY A review of the old and new literature on animal morphology/embryology and molecular studies has led me to the following scenario for the early evolution of the metazoans. The metazoan ancestor, "choanoblastaea," was a pelagic sphere consisting of choanocytes. The evolution of multicellularity enabled division of labor between cells, and an "advanced choanoblastaea" consisted of choanocytes and nonfeeding cells. Polarity became established, and an adult, sessile stage developed. Choanocytes of the upper side became arranged in a groove with the cilia pumping water along the groove. Cells overarched the groove so that a choanocyte chamber was formed, establishing the body plan of an adult sponge; the pelagic larval stage was retained but became lecithotrophic. The sponges radiated into monophyletic Silicea, Calcarea, and Homoscleromorpha. Homoscleromorph larvae show cell layers resembling true, sealed epithelia. A homoscleromorph-like larva developed an archenteron, and the sealed epithelium made extracellular digestion possible in this isolated space. This larva became sexually mature, and the adult sponge-stage was abandoned in an extreme progenesis. This eumetazoan ancestor, "gastraea," corresponds to Haeckel's gastraea. Trichoplax represents this stage, but with the blastopore spread out so that the endoderm has become the underside of the creeping animal. Another lineage developed a nervous system; this "neurogastraea" is the ancestor of the Neuralia. Cnidarians have retained this organization, whereas the Triploblastica (Ctenophora+Bilateria), have developed the mesoderm. The bilaterians developed bilaterality in a primitive form in the Acoelomorpha and in an advanced form with tubular gut and long Hox cluster in the Eubilateria (Protostomia+Deuterostomia). It is indicated that the major evolutionary steps are the result of suites of existing genes becoming co-opted into new networks that specify new structures. The evolution of the eumetazoan ancestor from a progenetic homoscleromorph larva implies that we, as well as all the other eumetazoans, are derived sponge larvae. [source] Analytical comparison of reversed nested Miller frequency compensation techniquesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CIRCUIT THEORY AND APPLICATIONS, Issue 7 2010Alfio Dario Grasso Abstract In this paper, novel and previously proposed reversed nested Miller compensation (RNMC) networks are analyzed and compared, and their design equations are also presented. Hence, this paper is the natural extension of a previous paper by the authors (Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36(1):53,80), where only the nested Miller compensation topologies were treated. In particular, a coherent and comprehensive analytical comparison of the RNMC topologies, including two new networks presented for the first time, is performed by means of the figure of merit that expresses a trade-off among gain-bandwidth product, load capacitance and total transconductance, for equal values of phase margin (Int. J. Circ. Theor. Appl. 2008; 36(1):53,80). The analysis shows that there is no unique optimal solution among the RNMC topologies, as this depends on the load condition as well as on the relative transconductance magnitude of each amplifier stage. From this point of view, the proposed comparison also outlines useful design guidelines for the optimization of large-signal and small-signal performance. Simulations confirming the effectiveness of the proposed design methodology and analytical comparison are also included. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Using virtual topologies to manage inter-domain QoS in next-generation networksINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2010Ricardo B. Freitas Recently, several computer fields have turned to virtualization as a way to simplify complex problems. In this context, the Virtual Topology Service (VTS) was created to manage the advertisement and acquisition of virtual topologies (abstractions of the network status of a domain) and their use in inter-domain resource reservation to provide end-to-end quality of service (QoS). As an effort to create new network architectures which could attend current requirements like mobility and context-aware applications and support autonomous, heterogeneous and mobile domains next-generation networks (NGNs) emerged, with Ambient Networks (AN) as one of its instances. With an ever increasing multitude of online applications, end-to-end QoS has become increasingly important, especially for media and real-time uses. In this context, in order to better manage inter-domain QoS in these new networks, better coping with mobile nodes and domains, this work presents a new design and implementation of the VTS, adapted to the AN environment. The new VTS stores resource reservation information to enable the reuse of these reservations when re-establishing QoS after a node/domain movement. This implementation was tested on a real NGN prototype and showed considerable time saving when compared to QoS re-establishment without reusing the reservations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Managing Change Across Boundaries: Boundary-Shaking Practices1BRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2005Julia Balogun To date, boundary spanning has primarily been conceived of as an activity relating an organization to its environment, including other organizations with which it cooperates and competes. In contrast, this study focuses on the boundary spanning practices of individuals acting as change agents to implement boundary- shaking change initiatives across intra -organizational boundaries. These boundary-shaking individuals all work for blue-chip organizations in sectors as diverse as pharmaceuticals, consultancy and automotive. The change initiatives are equally diverse, including post-merger integration, exploitation of across-business synergies and implementing more integrative structures. Through our examination of boundary-shakers we are able to extend what we know about internal change agency and change agent skills and practices. Our starting point is that organizations are comprised of networks of people with a degree of common interest. Our research shows our research subjects to be active movers and shakers in these networks, using their knowledge of the organizational political context and the motivations of others to create new networks (or new meanings within old networks), which then enables them to pursue their change objectives. [source] | ||||||||||