British Columbia Institute of Technology

About: British Columbia Institute of Technology is a education organization based out in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Smart grid & Belief revision. The organization has 458 authors who have published 785 publications receiving 16140 citations.

The path of the smart grid

Abstract: Exciting yet challenging times lie ahead. The electrical power industry is undergoing rapid change. The rising cost of energy, the mass electrification of everyday life, and climate change are the major drivers that will determine the speed at which such transformations will occur. Regardless of how quickly various utilities embrace smart grid concepts, technologies, and systems, they all agree onthe inevitability of this massive transformation. It is a move that will not only affect their business processes but also their organization and technologies.

Participation and critical thinking in online university distance education

Abstract: This case study of a university-level course delivered by computer conferencing examined student participation and critical thinking. It was guided by two purposes: (a) to determine whether the students were actively participating, building on each other’s contributions, and thinking critically about the discussion topics; and (b) to determine what factors affected student participation and critical thinking. The results suggest that the emergence of a dynamic and interactive educational process that facilitates critical thinking is contingent on several factors: appropriate course design, instructor interventions, content, and students’ characteristics. The study concludes that computer conferencing should be given serious consideration by distance educators as a way of facilitating interaction and critical thinking in distance education and overcoming some of the limitations of correspondence-style distance education. Cette etude de cas, qui avait pour objet un cours universitaire diffuse par teleconference informatisee, s’est penchee sur la participation et l’esprit critique des etudiants. Son objectif etait double : (a) etablir si les etudiants participaient activement en mettant a profit les contributions de leurs co-apprenants et en montrant un esprit critique face aux sujets de discussion; et (b) identifier quels facteurs influaient sur la participation et l’esprit critique. Les resultats proposent que l’emergence d’un processus educatif dynamique et interactif propice a l’esprit critique depend de plusieurs facteurs : une conception de cours appropriee, les interventions du formateur, le contenu et les caracteristiques des etudiants. L’etude conclut que la teleconference informatisee merite que les formateurs a distance s’y interessent serieusement, car elle peut etre un moyen de promouvoir l’interaction et l’esprit critique, de meme qu’un moyen de vaincre certaines limites qu’impose le modele d’education a distance du type « cours par correspondance ».

Global Influenza Seasonality: Reconciling Patterns across Temperate and Tropical Regions

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Despite the significant disease burden of the influenza virus in humans, our understanding of the basis for its pronounced seasonality remains incomplete. Past observations that influenza epidemics occur in the winter across temperate climates, combined with insufficient knowledge about the epidemiology of influenza in the tropics, led to the perception that cool and dry conditions were a necessary, and possibly sufficient, driver of influenza epidemics. Recent reports of substantial levels of influenza virus activity and well-defined seasonality in tropical regions, where warm and humid conditions often persist year-round, have rendered previous hypotheses insufficient for explaining global patterns of influenza. OBJECTIVE: In this review, we examined the scientific evidence for the seasonal mechanisms that potentially explain the complex seasonal patterns of influenza disease activity observed globally. METHODS: In this review we assessed the strength of a range of hypotheses that attempt to explain observations of influenza seasonality across different latitudes and how they relate to each other. We reviewed studies describing population-scale observations, mathematical models, and ecological, laboratory, and clinical experiments pertaining to influenza seasonality. The literature review includes studies that directly mention the topic of influenza seasonality, as well as other topics we believed to be relevant. We also developed an analytical framework that highlights the complex interactions among environmental stimuli, mediating mechanisms, and the seasonal timing of influenza epidemics and identify critical areas for further research. CONCLUSIONS: The central questions in influenza seasonality remain unresolved. Future research is particularly needed in tropical localities, where our understanding of seasonality remains poor, and will require a combination of experimental and observational studies. Further understanding of the environmental factors that drive influenza circulation also may be useful to predict how dynamics will be affected at regional levels by global climate change.

Quantum computation in brain microtubules: decoherence and biological feasibility.

Abstract: The Penrose-Hameroff orchestrated objective reduction ~orch. OR! model assigns a cognitive role to quantum computations in microtubules within the neurons of the brain. Despite an apparently ‘‘warm, wet, and noisy’’ intracellular milieu, the proposal suggests that microtubules avoid environmental decoherence long enough to reach threshold for ‘‘self-collapse’’ ~objective reduction! by a quantum gravity mechanism put forth by Penrose. The model has been criticized as regards the issue of environmental decoherence, and a recent report by Tegmark finds that microtubules can maintain quantum coherence for only 10 213 s, far too short to be neurophysiologically relevant. Here, we critically examine the decoherence mechanisms likely to dominate in a biological setting and find that ~1! Tegmark’s commentary is not aimed at an existing model in the literature but rather at a hybrid that replaces the superposed protein conformations of the orch. OR theory with a soliton in superposition along the microtubule; ~2! recalculation after correcting for differences between the model on which Tegmark bases his calculations and the orch. OR model ~superposition separation, charge vs dipole, dielectric constant! lengthens the decoherence time to 10 25 ‐10 24 s; ~3! decoherence times on this order invalidate the assumptions of the derivation and determine the approximation regime considered by Tegmark to be inappropriate to the orch. OR superposition; ~4! Tegmark’s formulation yields decoherence times that increase with temperature contrary to well-established physical intuitions and the observed behavior of quantum coherent states; ~5! incoherent metabolic energy supplied to the collective dynamics ordering water in the vicinity of microtubules at a rate exceeding that of decoherence can counter decoherence effects ~in the same way that lasers avoid decoherence at room temperature!; ~6! microtubules are surrounded by a Debye layer of counterions, which can screen thermal fluctuations, and by an actin gel that might enhance the ordering of water in bundles of microtubules, further increasing the decoherence-free zone by an order of magnitude and, if the dependence on the distance between environmental ion and superposed state is accurately reflected in Tegmark’s calculation, extending decoherence times by three orders of magnitude; ~7! topological quantum computation in microtubules may be error correcting, resistant to decoherence; and ~8! the decohering effect of radiative scatterers on microtubule quantum states is negligible. These considerations bring microtubule decoherence into a regime in which quantum gravity could interact with neurophysiology.