We study, formally and experimentally, the trade-off in temporal and spatial performance when managing contiguous pieces of memory using the explicit, dynamic memory management system Compact-fit (CF). The key property of CF is that temporal and spatial performance can be bounded, related, and predicted in constant time through the notion of partial and incremental compaction. Partial compactio...

Piecewise growth curvemodel (PGCM) is often usedwhen the underlying growth process is not linear and is hypothesized to consist of phasic developments connected by turning points (or knots or change points). When fitting a PGCM, the conventional practice is to specify turning points a priori. However, the true turning points are often unknown and misspecifications of turning points may occur. T...

Linear factor analysis (FA) is, possibly, the most widely used model in psychometric applications based on graded-response or more continuous items. However, in these applications consistency at the individual level (person fit) is virtually never assessed. The aim of the present study is to propose a simple and workable approach to routinely assess person fit in FA-based studies. To do so, we ...

One of the routes to construct validation of a test is predicting the test's factor structure based on the theory that guided its construction, followed by testing it. The method of choice for such testing is often confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In CFA, the predicted factor structure of a number of observed variables is translated into the complete covariance matrix over these variables. N...

OBJECTIVE Although metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a major health problem worldwide, there is no universal agreement on its definition. One of the major disagreements is dealing with the issue of obesity in this definition. This study was conducted to determine a preferably better index of obesity which can be interrelated with other components of MetS in a single factor model of MetS. DESIGN Ou...

The Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) is used as a measure of the subjective cognitive connection between individuals and nature. However, to date, it has not been analyzed at the item level to confirm its quality. In the present study, we conduct such an analysis based on Item Response Theory. We employed data from previous studies using the Spanish-language version of the CNS, analyzing a s...

Aim To determine construct validity and reliability indicators of the Cochrane risk of bias (RoB) tool in the context of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate a unidimensional model consisting of 9 RoB categorical indicators evaluated across 94 RCTs addressing interventions for ASD. Results Only five o...

An incremental learning algorithm for a special class of self-organising, dynamic networks is presented. Learning is effected by adapting both the function performed by the nodes and the overall network topology, so that the network grows (or shrinks) over time to fit the problem. Convergence is guaranteed on any arbitrary Boolean dataset and empirical generalisation results demonstrate promise.

We study path planning on grids with blocked and unblocked cells. Any-angle path-planning algorithms find short paths fast because they propagate information along grid edges without constraining the resulting paths to grid edges. Incremental pathplanning algorithms solve a series of similar pathplanning problems faster than repeated single-shot searches because they reuse information from the ...