This paper presents a structured power and energy-flow-based qualitative modelling approach that is applicable to a variety of system types including electrical and fluid flow. The modelling is split into two parts. Power flow is a global phenomenon and is therefore naturally represented and analysed by a network comprised of the relevant structural elements from the components of a system. The...

Background Although there is a general agreement on the benefits of evidence informed health policy development given resource constraints especially in Low-Income Countries (LICs), the definition of what evidence is, and what evidence is suitable to guide decision-making is still unclear. Our study is contributing to filling this knowledge gap. We aimed to explore health policy actors’ views r...

This article discusses the implementation of the Family Health Program in the municipalities of Camaragibe, Aracaju, São Gonçalo, and the Federal District of Brazil, aiming to identify possible interfaces between the program's shaping and different incentives structures, the local health system's case-resolving capacity, experiences with social participation, and accountability mechanisms. The ...

Nuclear magnetic resonance is used to characterize local atomic motions in the glassy and supercooled liquid states of the bulk metallic glass system Pd43Ni10Cu27P20. The temperature dependence of the Knight shift reveals that certain local atomic motion decreases rapidly below a crossover temperature T(c) down to the glass transition temperature T(g). Above T(c) as well as below T(g) the mean-...

In this paper we study the rational balance between local and global policies in web based distributed systems. We use a logical framework for multiagent systems to model obligations and permissions composing policies. In particular, a qualitative decision theory allows agents to trade off the decision of respecting a norm against the consequences of not respecting it: the possibility that they...

In this work, we have a proposed an automatic method to brain tumor segmentation using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) histogram. In our proposed method input is taken from abnormal slice of the MRI volume. Based on image histogram of the abnormal slice, our algorithm automatically detected the local minima and maxima using histogram smoothing techniques. Threshold value obtained from local mi...

The stabilizing effects of interhabitat migration and local population extinction are established by an analysis of the variable Pi, where P, refers to the proportion of habitats occupied by species i. This is followed by an analysis of the qualitative nature of changes in regional and local factors and their influence on establishing stable or unstable conditions. It is seen that the appropria...