For a practical computer implementation of part embedding in shapes that is also true to their continuous character and the shape grammar formalism, shapes and their boundaries are handled together in composite shape and label algebras. Temporary representations of shapes, termed `overcomplete graphs', comprise boundary elements of shapes and how they are assembled, and are utilized in a two-ph...

Nature of the Industry The motor vehicle is an intricate series of systems, subsystems, and components assembled into a final product. Each manufactured part or component is integrated into the vehicle; none is developed to exist separately. Vehicles are constantly changing as new technology or reengineered components are incorporated, and as new and updated models are designed in response to c...

Miracle mice When, in 1994, Dr Ellen Heber-Katz of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia was monitoring marked mice in a group that she used as experimental animals in connection with her research on multiple sclerosis, she received a surprise. The marked mice could not be found! They had punch holes in the ears for identification, and at first it seemed as though a mistake had been made, for no...

As supply chains for high technology products increase in complexity, and as the performance expected of those supply chains also increases, forecasts of parts demand have become indispensable to effective operations management in these markets. Unfortunately, rapid technological change and an abundance of product configurations mean that demand for parts in high-tech is frequently volatile and...

The research described in this thesis has focused on the composition of novel 3D shapes (e.g., depth maps and triangulated meshes) by reusing parts of existing shapes. Specifically, two methods were designed [28, 27]. The first is a novel tool for easy composition of existing 3D models (i.e., triangulated meshes) into novel models [28]. This tool was designed with the intention of providing a m...

Partitions without sequences of consecutive integers as parts have been studied recently by many authors, including Andrews, Holroyd, Liggett, and Romik, among others. Their results include a description of combinatorial properties, hypergeometric representations for the generating functions, and asymptotic formulas for the enumeration functions. We complete a similar investigation of partition...

Nature of the Industry The motor vehicle is an intricate series of systems, subsystems, and components assembled into a final product. Each manufactured part or component is integrated into the vehicle—none is developed to exist separately. Vehicles are constantly changing as new technology or reengineered components are incorporated, and as new and updated models are designed in response to ch...

We propose a schema that characterizes how parts constitute wholes at diverse levels of organization, ranging from the atomic to the biological to the social. This schema of tags, organizers, attachers, and communicators provides a unified understanding of the structure, function, and dynamics of organization in physics, biology, and the cognitive and social sciences. We use this schema to iden...