In this paper I outline and explore some problems in the way that the Nuffield Council of Bioethics' report Public Health: Ethical Issues (2007) presents its 'Intervention Ladder'. They see the metaphor of a ladder both as capturing key normative priorities and as making a real and important contribution to ethical policymaking in public health. In this paper I argue that the intervention ladde...

In this paper, an efficient algorithm for automatic outline capture of digital character images is presented. This method is well suited for non-Roman languages like Arabic, Urdu, Persian, etc. Contemporary word processing systems store shapes of the characters in terms of their outlines, and outlines are expressed as cubic Bezier curves. The process of capturing outlines includes steps detecti...

This paper presents a Web based system for capturing outlines of 2D shapes using Matlab Web Server. From a simple user interface in HTML, any Web user can upload his data and view the results. Cubi c Bezier curve design is used to capture the outlines. In that, outline is divided into curve segments at corner points and curve approximation of each segment is performed by estimation of Bezier co...

In this paper, we introduce a new, domain-independent organizational design representation able to model and predict the quantitative performance characteristics of agent organizations. This representation, capable of capturing a wide range of multi-agent behaviors, can support the selection of an appropriate design given a particular operational context. We demonstrate the capabilities and eff...

Human experience reflects the interplay ofmultiple forces operating on various time scales to promote constantly evolving patterns of thought, emotion, and action. The complexity and dynamism ofpersonal and social phenomena have long been recognized, but capturing thesefeatures ofpsychologicalprocess represents a serious challengefor traditional research methods. In this article, we introduce b...

Logic programs with ordered disjunction have shown to be a flexible specification language able to model common user preferences in a natural way. However, in some realistic scenarios the preferences should be linked to the evidence of the information when trying to reach a single preferred solution. In this paper, we extend the syntax and the semantics of logic programs with ordered disjunctio...

A lower bound on sample complexity through VC-dimension. Cover's coin problem. 10.2 A lower bound on the sample complexity through VC-dimension In previous lectures it has been shown that the VC-dimension of a concept class gives an upper bound on the number of samples needed to PAC-learn concepts from the class. In particular it has been shown that for VC-dimension d it is possible to PAC-lear...

Authentication is the process by which the identity of an entity is established. Authenticating entities present credentials, such as passwords or certificates, as evidence of their identity. The entity is deemed authentic where presented credentials are valid and sufficient. Note that authentication does not determine which entities should be given access, but only verifies that an entity is w...

In this paper, a new technique has been designed to capture the outline of 2D shapes using cubic B´ezier curves. The proposed technique avoids the traditional method of optimizing the global squared fitting error and emphasizes the local control of data points. A maximum error has been determined to preserve the absolute fitting error less than a criterion and it administers the process of curv...