Learning from diminutive ligand design

The Dutch diminutive

In this paper a new analysis is presented of the allomorphy of the Dutch diminutive suffix. There is one long allomorph (-etje) and four short allomorphs (-tje, -pje, -kje and -je). With respect to the choice between the long and short versions, this article compares two types of analyses, which appeal to the structural organisation of the stem (rather than to the segmental properties of the st...

A Diminutive New Tyrannosaur from the Top of the World

Tyrannosaurid theropods were dominant terrestrial predators in Asia and western North America during the last of the Cretaceous. The known diversity of the group has dramatically increased in recent years with new finds, but overall understanding of tyrannosaurid ecology and evolution is based almost entirely on fossils from latitudes at or below southern Canada and central Asia. Remains of a n...

Diminutive Subjects, Design Strategy, and Driving Sales: Preschoolers and the Nintendo DS

Working from blueprints: evolutionary learning for design

When confronted by a problem, human designers often work forward from similar previously solved problems to solve the current problem. Based on this principle, we propose a new learning system especially suited for design using case-based reasoning principles to augment genetic algorithm search. When confronted with a problem we seed a genetic algorithm's initial population with solutions to si...

Learning from Hardware: Design and Quality

It is no fun to be late, to have unhappy customers, and to be unable to predict when you will finish a job. By following sound engineering planning methods, software work can be more productive, more predictable, and more enjoyable for the engineers themselves. In this column, I continue this same discussion with a focus on how engineering quality practices and design principles could be adapte...