The layout of the network with its frequency and transmission power control shows how the time behaviour of power plants and consumers determines the frequency curve during sudden power disturbances. As for switching processes in the network for the turbine, network operation entails loads due to shock-like disturbance functions to which one should not normally respond by switching off. The interception controllers are therefore adjusted via a simulation model by which the vibrations of the turbine rotor can be modelled in real time under different network loads. (GL).
In response to European operating experience regarding Alloy 800 steam generator (SG) tube cracking, New Brunswick Power Nuclear (NBPN) recognized two important shortcomings in the industry SG technical support framework. First, information exchange networks between utilities with Alloy 800 SG tubing should be strengthened. Second and more importantly, there is a need for consistent industry guidance for Alloy 800 SG tubing degradation management, supported by clear technical bases. It is NBPN's perspective that this guidance can be improved immediately using the extensive amount of laboratory and field data that is available for Alloys 600, 690, and 800, and EPRI methodology developed to predict the performance of Alloy 690. NBPN has initiated the development of a performance-based inspection plan. This effort is based on demonstrated improvement factors for Alloy 800, defined by the EPRI approach, and described in this paper. This ...
In response to European operating experience regarding Alloy 800 steam generator (SG) tube cracking, New Brunswick Power Nuclear (NBPN) recognized two important shortcomings in the industry SG technical support framework. First, information exchange networks between utilities with Alloy 800 SG tubing should be strengthened. Second and more importantly, there is a need for consistent industry guidance for Alloy 800 SG tubing degradation management, supported by clear technical bases. It is NBPN's perspective that this guidance can be improved immediately using the extensive amount of laboratory and field data that is available for Alloys 600, 690, and 800, and EPRI methodology developed to predict the performance of Alloy 690. NBPN has initiated the development of a performance-based inspection plan. This effort is based on demonstrated improvement factors for Alloy 800, defined by the EPRI approach, and described in this paper. This approach is ...
Auditory neurons in the superior colliculus (SC) respond preferentially to sounds from restricted directions to form a map of auditory space. The development of this representation is shaped...Full Text Available
Whereas genetic factors are known to influence both susceptibility to carcinogens and the capacity to respond to specific antigenic stimuli, little is known regarding the influence of phenotype per...Full Text Available
The purpose of this research is to clarify how psychological factors' impact on public acceptance of nuclear energy varies with where they live and their degree of knowledge. For this purpose, we carried out questionnaire survey about nuclear energy at three urban areas and two nuclear power plant siting areas. After collecting data, we applied factor analysis to the data, and found four factors which construct cognitive structure of nuclear energy. Using multiple regression analysis, we evaluated the impact of the four factors on two issues: the decision for or against nuclear policy and the reaction to nuclear power plant siting, and compared changes of the impact by where respondents live and their degree of knowledge. Consequently, we found that the impact of all four factors on the two issues varies with where respondents live. We also ...
The stock market has been known to form homogeneous stock groups with a higher correlation among different stocks according to common economic factors that influence individual stocks. We investigate the role of common economic factors in the market in the formation of stock networks, using the arbitrage pricing model reflecting essential properties of common economic factors. We find that the degree of consistency between real and model stock networks increases as additional common economic factors are incorporated into our model. Furthermore, we find that individual stocks with a large number of links to other stocks in a network are more highly correlated with common economic factors than those with a small number of links. This suggests that common economic factors in the stock market can be ...
This paper experimentally evaluates the effects of applying autonomic management to the scheduling of maintenance operations in a deployed Chord network, for various membership churn and workload patterns. Two versions of an autonomic management policy were compared with a static configuration. The autonomic policies varied with respect to the aggressiveness with which they responded to peer access error rates and to wasted maintenance operations. In most experiments, significant improvements due to autonomic management were observed in the performance of routing operations and the quantity of data transmitted between network members. Of the autonomic policies, the more aggressive version gave slightly better results.
Looking at all the indeterminate factors as a whole and regarding activity durations as independent random variables, the traditional stochastic network planning models ignore the inevitable relationship and dependence among activity durations when more than one activity is possibly affected by the same indeterminate factors. On this basis of analysis of indeterminate effect factors of durations, the effect factors-based stochastic network planning (EFBSNP) model is proposed, which emphasizes on the effects of not only logistic and organizational relationships, but also the dependent relationships, due to indeterminate factors among activity durations on the project period. By virtue of indeterminate factor analysis the model extracts and describes the quantitatively indeterminate effect f...
Because every cell within the body has the same genetic information, a significant problem in biology is to understand how cells within a tissue express genes selectively. A sophisticated network of physical and biochemical signals converge in a highly orchestrated manner to bring about the exquisite regulation that governs gene expression in diverse tissues. Thus, the ultimate decision of a cell to proliferate, express tissue-specific genes, or apoptose must be a coordinated response to its adhesive, growth factor, and hormonal milieu. The unifying hypothesis examined in this overview is that the unit of function in higher organisms is neither the genome nor the cell alone but the complex, three-dimensional tissue. This is because there are bidirectional connections between the components of the cellular microenvironment (growth factors, hormones, and extracellular matrix) and the nucl2048 These connections are made via ...
Data were collected on 154 adoptive families with gay/lesbian and straight adoptive parents (154 parent respondents and 210 adolescent respondents). This study was principally interested in factors affecting adolescent attachment including parent sexual orientation, adolescent and parent life satisfaction, and parent level of relationship satisfaction with their adopted child as well as other key parent, child and adoption characteristics. The results suggest that higher level of adopted adolescent attachment to parents is not related to adoptive parent sexual orientation. Adolescent attachment to parents is related to adolescent life satisfaction; parent level of relationship satisfaction with their adopted child, number of placements prior to adoption, and adolescent's current age. Adole...
The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) must, among other things, be equipped to readily produce, file, store, access, retrieve, and transfer a wide variety of technical and institutional data and information. The data and information regularly produced by members of the OCRWM Program supports, and will continue to support, a wide range of program activities. Some of the more important of these information communication-related activities include: supporting the preparation, submittal, and review of a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to authorize the construction of a geologic repository; responding to requests for information from parties affected by and/or interested in the program; and providing evidence of compliance with all relevant Federal, State, local, and Indian Tribe regulations, statutes, and/or treaties. The OCRWM Telecommunications Network Plan (TNP) is intended to identify, as ...
Knowledge is a success factor for globally acting company networks as a. o. the aim-oriented knowledge transfer between partners is an essential condition for a successful cooperation. Several network specific problems impede however an efficient and effective knowledge management; e.g. the transfer of competition relevant data is a high sensitive theme. The authors describe how a relevant method can be selected, adapted and implemented to the application-specific boundary conditions. They integrate existing attempts processes and methods to establish an effective knowledge development and an efficient knowledge transfer in the network and take into account ''hard'' (IT-technical-oriented solution approaches) as also ''soft'' factors (e.g. cultural and personal aspects). So the authors present unified ...
The recent literature in the field of supply chain management emphasizes the role of inter-organizational networks and the integration of vertical reproduction networks (supply chains) in particular as a key factor for value creation. However, the literature includes little empirical evidence. This situation suggests the need to appraise investments in such networks or supply chains carefully. How can a decision maker reliably assess the effect of investing in inter-organizational network arrangements on firm value? This article takes up this issue and suggests a framework consisting of five components to help answer the question. The task of the framework is to support the structuring and revelation of the causal chain between investments in the network on the one hand and the effect of t...
The capacity of bones to adjust their mass and architecture to withstand the loads of everyday activity derives from the ability of their resident cells to respond appropriately to the strains engendered....Full Text Available
Wood usage for cooking and heating is still very relevant in most developing countries especially those of sub-Saharan Africa and many parts of Asia. Therefore, sustainable means of generating it for this and other purposes are necessary bearing in mind the influence of indigenous knowledge/users perspective on any production method regarding success and sustenance. In conformity with this view, questionnaires were administered on 240 respondents in 8 rural communities of Akinyele and Ido Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Oyo State, Nigeria, to elicit information on species that can be used as fuelwood, preferred by the respondents for incorporation into and/or retention in agroforestry plots, out of which 179 (i.e. 75% of the total number of questionnaires administered) were successfully r...
The aim of this study is to develop the methodology which enables to identify the mechanical properties of element such as stress intensity factor by using the AE parameters. Considering the multivariate and nonlinear properties of AE parameters such as ringdown count, rise time, energy, event duration and peak amplitude from fatigue cracks of machine element the principal component regression(PCR) and artificial neural network(ANN) models for the estimation of stress intensity factor were developed and validated. The AE parameters were found to be very significant to estimate the stress intensity factor. Since the statistical values including correlation coefficients, standard mr of calibration, standard error of prediction and bias were stable, the PCR and ANN models for stress intensity factor were very robust. The performance of ANN model for unknown data of stress intensity ...
Investigations into sexual differentiation and pheromone response in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe are complicated by the need to first starve the cells of nitrogen. Most mating-related experiments are therefore performed on non-dividing cells. Here we overcome this problem by using two mutants that bypass the nutritional requirements and respond to the M-factor mating pheromone in rich medium. The first mutant lacks the cyr1 gene which encodes adenylate cyclase and these cells contain no measurable amounts of cAMP. When M-factor is added to a growing h+ cyr1- strain it causes a transient G1 arrest of cell division, transcription of mat1-Pm, and elongation of the cells to form shmoos. The second mutant contains the temperature-sensitive pat1-114 allele. At 30 degrees C this mutant was previously shown not only to bypass the nutritional signal but also to stop growing in a state derepressed for ...
Purpose ? The Islamic social capital is characterised by a desire for moral values in production and networking which promotes opportunities for innovative interactions between sets of agents thus forwarding the Islamic ethics. The aim of this paper is to explore the factors that drive alliance formation between labour and capital in both financial and technological forms. Design/methodology/approach ? An in-depth study was made of developmental interventions within the Muslim community life of a village in the Birbhum district of West Bengal province in India. Findings ? Evidence shows that the strengthening of informal co-operative networks through the inputs of technology, financial, and human capital from across different sectors constitutes an essential element in forwarding sustainab...
Two-tier networks, comprising a conventional cellular network overlaid with shorter range hotspots (e.g. femtocells, distributed antennas, or wired relays), offer an economically viable way to improve cellular system capacity. The capacity-limiting factor in such networks is interference. The cross-tier interference between macrocells and femtocells can suffocate the capacity due to the near-far problem, so in practice hotspots should use a different frequency channel than the potentially nearby high-power macrocell users. Centralized or coordinated frequency planning, which is difficult and inefficient even in conventional cellular networks, is all but impossible in a two-tier network. This paper proposes and analyzes an optimum decentralized spectrum allocation policy for two-tier networks that employ frequency division multiple access ...
The purpose of this research is to clarify how psychological factor's impact on public acceptance of nuclear energy varies with people's degree of knowledge. For this purpose, we carried out questionnaire survey about nuclear energy at Suginami ward, Tokyo. After collecting data, we applied factor analysis to the data, and found 4 factors: Trust in the Authorities, Superiority of Nuclear Power Generation, Benefit for Nuclear Power Plants' Siting Areas, and Risk Perception about Nuclear Technology. In addition, using multiple regression analysis, we evaluated the impact of the 4 factors on 2 issues: the decision for or against nuclear policy and the reaction to nuclear power plant siting. Consequently, we found the change of impact of all 4 factors on the 2 issues. Especially, the impact of the 4 factors to the reaction to nuclear power ...
The purpose of this research is to clarify how psychological factor's impact on public acceptance of nuclear energy varies with people's degree of knowledge. For this purpose, we carried out questionnaire survey about nuclear energy at Suginami ward, Tokyo. After collecting data, we applied factor analysis to the data, and found 4 factors: Trust in the Authorities, Superiority of Nuclear Power Generation, Benefit for Nuclear Power Plants' Siting Areas, and Risk Perception about Nuclear Technology. In addition, using multiple regression analysis, we evaluated the impact of the 4 factors on 2 issues: the decision for or against nuclear policy and the reaction to nuclear power plant siting. Consequently, we found the change of impact of all 4 factors on the 2 issues. Especially, the impact of the 4 factors to the reaction to nuclear power plant siting was ...
Drawing upon the cultural risk perspective and writings on risk taking, this paper seeks to develop ideas relating to the effective use of school cyberspace. It is argued that some individuals respond to exaggerated, yet seductive, discourses of online risks by over-blocking, unreasonably restricting students' Internet activity. At the same time, there are sensible, even compelling, motivations for teachers as well as students to use the school Internet to engage in low-level risk taking, fostering excitement, identity construction and networked media literacy. Connecting these seductive pushes and pulls of risk it is ultimately maintained that the fostering of trust through open communication is key in overcoming over-blocking whilst allowing for greater educational gains, realised in part through certain types of low-level risk taking in school cyberspace.
Modern scientific computing involves organizing, moving, visualizing, and analyzing massive amounts of data from around the world, as well as employing large-scale computation. The distributed systems that solve large-scale problems will always involve aggregating and scheduling many resources. Data must be located and staged, cache and network capacity must be available at the same time as computing capacity, etc. Every aspect of such a system is dynamic: locating and scheduling resources, adapting running application systems to availability and congestion in the middleware and infrastructure, responding to human interaction, etc. The technologies, the middleware services, and the architectures that are used to build useful high-speed, wide area distributed systems, constitute the field of data intensive computing. This paper explores some of the history and future directions of that field.
The sirtuin Sirt6 is a NAD-dependent histone deacetylase that is implicated in gene regulation and lifespan control. Sirt6 can interact with the stress-responsive transcription factor NF-κB...Full Text Available
KLF1 regulates a diverse suite of genes to direct erythroid cell differentiation from bipotent progenitors. To determine the local cis-regulatory contexts and transcription factornetworks...Full Text Available
Not long ago primary census data became available to publicity. It opened qualitatively new perspectives not only for researchers in demography and sociology, but also for those people, who somehow face processes occurring in society. In this paper authors propose using Data Mining methods for searching hidden patterns in census data. A novel clustering-based technique is described as well. It allows determining factors which influence people behavior, in particular decision-making process (as an example, a decision whether to have a baby or not). Proposed technique is based on clustering a set of respondents, for whom a certain event have already happened (for instance, a baby was born), and discovering clusters' prototypes from a set of respondents, for whom this event hasn't occurred yet. By means of analyzing clusters' and their prototypes' characteristics it is possible to identify which factors ...
Distance protection, differential protection and directional comparison schemes are presently used for protecting transmission lines. Directional comparison relays are set to respond to faults in the protection zone without intentional time delay and are, therefore, used where high-speed fault clearing is needed. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can handle most situations which cannot be defined sufficiently for finding a deterministic solution. The design and testing of an ANN for directional comparison protection of transmission lines are presented in this paper. Training patterns were generated using voltage and current samples for faults at various locations along a transmission line. The faults were simulated using an electromagnetic transient program and a sample three-phase power system. The performance of the proposed discriminator was checked using data simulated for testing and the fault data recorded from 240 kV and 500 kV lines. ...
Nerve growth factor (NGF), a survival factor for neurons enforces pain by sensitizing nociceptors. Also in the pancreas, NGF was associated with pain and it can stimulate the proliferation of pancreatic cancer cells. Hepatic stellate cells (HSC) respond to NGF with apoptosis. Transforming growth factor (TGF)-b, one of the strongest pro-fibrogenic activators of pancreatic stellate cells (PSC) induced NGF and its two receptors in an immortalized human cell line (ihPSC) and primary rat PSC (prPSC) as determined by RT-PCR, western blot, and immunofluorescence. In contrast to HSC, PSC expressed both NGF receptors, although p75NTR expression was weak in prPSC. In contrast to ihPSC TGF-b activated both Smad signaling cascades in prPSC. NGF secretion was diminished by the activin-like kinase (ALK)...
We show that to explain the growth of the citation network by preferential attachment (PA), one has to accept that individual nodes exhibit heterogeneous fitness values that decay with time. While previous PA-based models assumed either heterogeneity or decay in isolation, we propose a simple analytically treatable model that combines these two factors. Depending on the input assumptions, the resulting degree distribution shows an exponential, log-normal or power-law decay, which makes the model an apt candidate for modeling a wide range of real systems.
We study uncertainties surrounding competition on business networks and board games. We investigate these uncertainties using concepts of fuzzy logic and game theory. We investigate how the payoff of the players is affected by a number of factors. These include the level of connectivity or number of links, the number of competitors, possible constraints on the networks and on the boards, as well as choice of strategy adopted by competitors. We introduce one fuzzy player in the game. This player uses fuzzy rules to make strategic decisions. We introduce learning to train and analyze how the fuzzy player adapts over time during the game.
A stable power system stabilizer (PSS) based on the inverse dynamics of the controlled system using an artificial neural network (ANN) is suggested to enhance the dynamic performances of a power system. First, an output feedback control law is driven with some conditions satisfied, which guarantees the internal stability and robustness against the asymptotically stable external disturbances. Then the control law is implemented using the inverse dynamics of the controlled plant. The inverse dynamics of the controlled plant is identified by an ANN, inverse dynamics neural network (IDNN), off-line. The pole-shifting technique and a scaling factor are introduced for the control system to meet the conditions for internal stability and robustness. The proposed controller is applied to a typical single-machine infinite-bus power system. Simulation results under various operation conditions are given which show that the proposed ...
In designing automatic water quality monitoring networks for a river basin, determination of measurement locations and items is critical to the effectiveness of the total system. In this paper we studied how to decide these two design factors when a monitoring network is designed for the purpose of water quality surveillance and emergency alarm. For measurement locations, candidate sites are chosen based on the intake amount for water supply and the point sources of contamination. Then, detailed locations are decided according to the contaminant flow distance. As for measurement items, characteristics and the accident history of water pollution in the basin must be taken into account. Considering economic aspects, we proposed a two-stage measurement plan: basic components for all locations and selective ones variable for different locations. Proposed methodology is demonstrated through a case study for Nak-dong River Basin. ...
This paper proposes a framework based completely on Java technology. The advantages brought about by the use of Java in network management answer some critical problems existing in current systems. With this work we address several factors concerning interoperability and security in heterogeneous network environments. Specifically, we present a manager application and a multithreaded agent engine that make use of a lightweight communication mechanism for message exchange. A MIB parser is introduced to accelerate handling of incoming management requests, and the RSA public-key cryptosystem is implemented to provide both encryption and authentication features. Results, measured in terms of response time, compare favourably with other published work and standard management frameworks.
Wood usage for cooking and heating is still very relevant in most developing countries especially those of sub-Saharan Africa and many parts of Asia. Therefore, sustainable means of generating it for this and other purposes are necessary bearing in mind the influence of indigenous knowledge/users' perspective on any production method regarding success and sustenance. In conformity with this view, questionnaires were administered on 240 respondents in 8 rural communities of Akinyele and Ido Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Oyo State, Nigeria, to elicit information on species that can be used as fuelwood, preferred by the respondents for incorporation into and/or retention in agroforestry plots, out of which 179 (i.e. 75% of the total number of questionnaires administered) were successfully retrieved for statistical analyses. Twelve woody species namely: Annona senegalensis, Anogeissus leiocarpus, Bridelia ferruginea, Daniellia oliveri, ...
Abstract 1,3 Propanediol (PDO), is now taking the transition from a traditional specialty chemical to a commodity chemical . The market for PDO is growing rapidly as the technology develops. With the advancing PDO production technology, polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT) as a new type of polyester has been applied in carpet and textile fibers, monofilaments, films, and nonwoven fabrics, and in the engineering thermoplastics area, because PTT has unique properties compared to other polymers such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polybutylene terephthalate (PBT). Responding to the environmental and sustainability factors, one or two step fermentation technology for PDO production has attracted people's attention. A novel flexible process for PDO production by using aerobic fermentati...
Prognosis of 95 consecutive patients with non-small cell lung cancer with brain metastases were evaluated. Three factors, therapy for brain metastases, general performance status (PS) and distant metastases to other organs had significant impact on survival. Among these 3 factors, PS was independent from the other 2 factors. Significant correlation was present, however, between therapy and other organ metastases, and few patients with brain and other distant metastases received aggressive treatment for brain metastases. Cranial irradiation had significant impact on survival even in those patients with brain and other distant metastases. Cranial irradiation also reduced death from brain metastases in responders. Our results indicate that there are several subgroups with different prognosis in patients with non-small cell lung cancer with brain metastases, therefore the most beneficial treatment modality ...
We examined fat phobia, defined as a pathological fear of fatness, by constructing the Fat Phobia Scale, determining its reliability and validity, examining correlates of fat phobia, and using a treatment approach designed to decrease fat phobia. Study 1 describes the development of the Fat Phobia Scale, a 50-item, modified 5-point semantic differential scale. Subjects (974 females and 117 males) completed the scale; factor analysis yielded six factors. Respondents who are average weight, female, younger, have more than a high school education, or are nonmedical professionals are more likely to have fat phobic attitudes. Study 2 examines fat phobic attitudes of women (N = 40) who had negative feelings about their bodies. Subjects completed the Fat Phobia Scale before and after a treatment approach designed to reduce their feelings of responsibility for fatness. Total scores on the Fat Phobia Scale and scores on all six ...
Artificial neural network analysis is found to be far superior to multiple regression when applied to the evaluation of trap quality in the Northern Kuqa Depression, a gas-rich depression of Tarim Basin in western China. This is because this technique can correlate the complex and non-linear relationship between trap quality and related geological factors, whereas multiple regression can only describe a linear relationship. However, multiple regression can work as an auxiliary tool, as it is suited to high-speed calculations and can indicate the degree of dependence between the trap quality and its related geological factors which artificial neural network analysis cannot. For illustration, we have investigated 30 traps in the Northern Kuqa Depression. For each of the traps, the values of 14 selected geological factors were all known. While geologists were also able to assign ...
With using artificial neural networks (ANNs), an analytical study related to the heated length effect on critical heat flux (CHF) has been carried out to make an improvement of the CHF prediction accuracy based on local condition correlations or table. It has been carried out to suggest a feasible criterion of the threshold length-to-diameter (L/D) value in which heated length could affect CHF. And within the criterion, a L/D correction factor has been developed through conventional regression. In order to validate the developed L/D correction factor, CHF experiments for various heated lengths have been carried out under low and intermediate pressure conditions. The developed threshold L/D correlation provides a new feasible criterion of L/D threshold value. The developed correction factor gives a reasonable accuracy for the original database, showing the error of -2.18% for average and 27.75% for RMS, ...
The topic of supervised learning within the conceptual framework of artificial neural network (ANN) models is addressed. An ANN is a parallel distributed processing system that consists of many computationally simple processing elements interconnected through uni-directional weighted connections. Such networks, which are roughly patterned after biological nervous systems, have been proposed for use in areas in which the traditional von Neumann computer architecture has been relatively unsuccessful. Learning in these networks is accomplished through the use of algorithms that adjust the values of the connection weights. The work presented here addresses the issue of improving the rate at which ANNs can learn to achieve the mapping of an input pattern to a desired output pattern. The most successful learning algorithms for accomplishing this task are based on gradient descent error minimization techniques. However, the large ...
Wireless sensor networks can revolutionize soil ecology by providing measurements at temporal and spatial granularities previously impossible. This paper presents a soil monitoring system we developed and deployed at an urban forest in Baltimore as a first step towards realizing this vision. Motes in this network measure and save soil moisture and temperature in situ every minute. Raw measurements are periodically retrieved by a sensor gateway and stored in a central database where calibrated versions are derived and stored. The measurement database is published through Web Services interfaces. In addition, analysis tools let scientists analyze current and historical data and help manage the sensor network. The article describes the system design, what we learned from the deployment, and initial results obtained from the sensors. The system measures soil factors with unprecedented temporal precision. ...
Design of energy efficient schemes for data gathering is an important concern for lifetime enhancement of wireless sensor networks. Variation in the distances of nodes from the Base Station and differences in inter-nodal distances are primary factors causing unequal energy dissipation among the nodes. Thus energy difference between the various nodes increases with time resulting in degraded network performance. The LEACH and PEGASIS schemes which provided elegant solutions to the problem suffer basic drawbacks due to randomization of cluster heads and greedy chain formation respectively. In this paper, we propose an Optimized Lifetime Enhancement (OLE) Scheme which shows enhanced performance over these schemes. OLE increases the network performance by ensuring a sub-optimal energy dissipation of the individual nodes despite their random deployment. It employs modern heuristics like particle swarm ...
The potential application of radioisotopes are not discussed in this review of trypanosome pathogenesis in cattle. Initially, structural changes in the lymphoid system are characterized by marked proliferation and germinal centre formation, whereas in long-standing infections the lymphoid organs become depleted. These changes appear associated with immunodepression. Anaemia dominates the clinical disease syndrome in bovine trypanosomiasis. It develops with the onset of parasitaemia and is largely haemolytic, resulting from increased red blood cell destruction by phagocytosis. Several factors may be involved in this process including haemolysins produced by the trypanosome, immunological mechanisms, fever, disseminated intravascular coagulation and an expanded and active mononuclear phagocytic system. During this phase of the disease, cattle respond well to chemotherapy. However, in later phases of the disease, when trypanosomes cannot be ...
We present faster approximation algorithms for generalized network flow problems. A generalized flow is one in which the flow out of an edge differs from the flow into the edge by a constant factor. We limit ourselves to the lossy case, when these factors are at most 1. Our algorithm uses a standard interior-point algorithm to solve a linear program formulation of the network flow problem. The system of linear equations that arises at each step of the interior-point algorithm takes the form of a symmetric M-matrix. We present an algorithm for solving such systems in nearly linear time. The algorithm relies on the Spielman-Teng nearly linear time algorithm for solving linear systems in diagonally-dominant matrices. For a graph with m edges, our algorithm obtains an additive epsilon approximation of the maximum generalized flow and minimum cost generalized flow in time tildeO(m^(3/2) * log(1/epsilon)). In ...
An intemted approach to building a networking infrastructure is an absolute necessiry for meeting the multidisciplinary science networking requirements of ...
As care shifts from institutional to home- and community-based settings, consumer health information technology (IT) must be designed to support patients' new health information management responsibilities. We developed and piloted a new methodology grounded in social network analysis and human factors engineering to explore two often overlooked aspects of this phenomenon: the task of health information communication with members of the social network and the context of culture. Such knowledge is necessary to inform the appropriate design of consumer health IT. We asked a culturally diverse sample of participants to describe what, to whom, why, and how they communicate health information and to provide direct feedback about the methodology. The methodology was acceptable to all participants and able to capture similarities and differences in their health information communication practices. Prior to the main study we will ...
We study the spike statistics of neurons in a network with dynamically balanced excitation and inhibition. Our model, intended to represent a generic cortical column, comprises randomly connected excitatory and inhibitory leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, driven by excitatory input from an external population. The high connectivity permits a mean field description in which synaptic currents can be treated as gaussian noise, the mean and autocorrelation function of which are calculated self-consistently from the firing statistics of single model neurons. Within this description, a wide range of Fano factors is possible. We find that the irregularity of spike trains is controlled mainly by the strength of the synapses relative to the difference between the firing threshold and the postfiring reset level of the membrane potential. For moderately strong synapses, we find spike statistics very similar to those observed in primary visual cortex.
We discuss some methods to quantitatively investigate the properties of correlation matrices. Correlation matrices play an important role in portfolio optimization and in several other quantitative descriptions of asset price dynamics in financial markets. Specifically, we discuss how to define and obtain hierarchical trees, correlation based trees and networks from a correlation matrix. The hierarchical clustering and other procedures performed on the correlation matrix to detect statistically reliable aspects of the correlation matrix are seen as filtering procedures of the correlation matrix. We also discuss a method to associate a hierarchically nested factor model to a hierarchical tree obtained from a correlation matrix. The information retained in filtering procedures and its stability with respect to statistical fluctuations is quantified by using the Kullback-Leibler distance.
The economics of medical computer networks are presented in context with the patient care and administrative goals of medical networks. Design alternatives and network topologies are discussed with...Full Text Available
This paper presents a Benders decomposition approach to determine the optimal day-ahead power scheduling in a pool-organized power system, taking into account dispatch, network and security constraints. The study model considers the daily market and the technical constraints resolution as two different and consecutive processes. The daily market is solved in a first stage subject to economical criteria exclusively and then, the constraints solution algorithm is applied to this initial dispatch through the redispatching method. The Benders partitioning algorithm is applied to this constraints solution process to obtain an optimal secure power scheduling. The constraints solution includes a full AC network and security model to incorporate voltages magnitudes as they are a critical factor in some real power systems. The algorithm determines the active power committed to each generator so as to minimize the energy redispatch ...
This study compares the spatial characteristics of industrial R&D networks to those of public research R&D networks (i.e. universities and research organisations). The objective is to measure the impact of geographical separation effects on the constitution of cross-region R&D collaborations for both types of collaboration. We use data on joint research projects funded by the 5th European Framework Programme (FP) to proxy cross-region collaborative activities. The study area is composed of 255 NUTS-2 regions that cover the EU-25 member states (excluding Malta and Cyprus) as well as Norway and Switzerland. We adopt spatial interaction models to analyse how the variation of cross-region industry and public research networks is affected by geography. The results of the spatial analysis provide evidence that geographical factors significantly affect patterns of industrial R&D collaboration, ...
The social work literature is replete with studies evaluating social workers' direct practice interventions, but strikingly few have assessed how well social workers are faring in the political arena. This study tests a major theoretical model, the civic voluntarism model, developed to explain why some citizens become involved in politics, whereas others do not. The study sample consisted of 396 randomly selected social workers licensed in 11 states, all of whom completed a 25-minute telephone survey. Social workers were surveyed to determine the role of the following variables in explaining social workers' political activity levels--resources needed to participate, psychological engagement, and attachment to recruitment networks. The results indicate that the civic voluntarism model was significant and accounted for 42 percent of the variance. The strongest predictors of social workers' political activity were NASW membership and political interest. This study ...
Effects of ethanol in vitro on membrane vesicles were evaluated by monitoring "3"6Cl"- influx. Different assay parameters were tested to determine increased or decreased action of ethanol on GABA-activated chloride channels. The ability of 30 mM ethanol to augment "3"6Cl"- flux was seen at 0 degree C, in the absence of GABA, and at 34 degree C in the presence of GABA, using two different assay procedures. Picrotoxin blocked the direct effects of ethanol suggesting GABA_a involvement. Endogenous GABA in the medium surrounding the microsacs was assayed at different temperatures both in the presence and absence of GABA and ethanol. The direct effect of ethanol did not appear to involve the action of endogenous GABA. In addition to temperature effects on the assay, time of membrane storage also influenced ethanol action. Microsacs stored on ice for 2 hours or more lost their ability to respond to ethanol but not to GABA, pentobarbital or flunitrazepam. When these drugs ...
In a previous survey we revealed uncertainty among responders about (a) whether or not to perform hemodialysis in patients with severely reduced renal function who had received contrast medium; and (b) when to perform hemodialysis in patients on regular treatment with hemodialysis or continuous ambulatory dialysis who received contrast medium. Therefore, the Contrast Media Safety Committee of The European Society of Urogenital Radiology decided to review the literature and to issue guidelines. The committee performed a Medline search. Based on this, a report and guidelines were prepared. The report was discussed at the Ninth European Symposium on Urogenital Radiology in Genoa, Italy. Hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis safely remove both iodinated and gadolinium-based contrast media. The effectiveness of hemodialysis depends on many factors including blood and dialysate flow rate, permeability of dialysis membrane, duration of hemodialysis and ...
The recently described retinoid X receptors (RXRs) respond to the novel retinoid 9-cis-retinoic acid and also serve as heterodimeric partners for the vitamin D, thyroid hormone, and retinoic acid receptors (VDR, TR, and RAR, respectively). In this work, the authors report high-resolution localization of the human RXR genes within cytogenetic bands and also within a standard reference map of cosmid DNA markers on human chromosomes. They have determined the location of the human RXR genes by pairwise hybridization of the RXR cosmids and reference markers, using fluorescence in situ hybridization. They localized (i) RXR[alpha] (RXRA) to chromosome 9 band q34.3; (ii) RXR[beta] (RXRB) to chromosome 6 band 21.3; and (iii) RXR[gamma] (RXRG) to chromosome 1 band q22-q23. Six retinoid-responsive transcription factors have been identified so far, including three retinoic acid receptors in addition to the three RXRs. Interestingly, each of these receptors ...
The BEATRIX-II irradiation experiment is an in-situ tritium release experiment being carried out in the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) reactor to evaluate the tritium release characteristics of fusion solid breeder materials. A sophisticated tritium gas handling system has been developed to continuously monitor the tritium recovery from the specimens and facilitate tritium removal from the experiment's sweep gas flow stream. The in-situ recovery experiment accommodates two different in-reactor specimen canisters with individual gas streams and temperature monitoring/control. Ionization chambers have been specifically designed to respond to the rapid changes in the tritium release rate at the anticipated tritium concentrations. Two ceramic electrolysis cells have proved effective in reducing the moisture in the gas streams to hydrogen/tritium. A tritium getter system, capable of reducing the tritium level by a factor greater than 4000, ...
This article is about the network security defence method and technique at IHEP. Including: the experience, research result and application in network outlet security, server security, local network security, network security monitoring and collecting evidence, anti-virus etc
This paper presents a supernetwork equilibrium model integrating supply chain networks with a transport network, namely, a supply chain-transport supernetwork equilibrium model. The model takes into account the behaviour of freight carriers and transport network users to endogenously determine the transport costs generated in the supply chain networks. The interaction between transport network and supply chain networks can also be examined. Results of the numerical tests reveal that the improvement of transport network could enhance the efficiency of supply chain networks. The paper makes contributions to modelling of supply chain networks as well as to that of transport networks.
Aim: This paper aims to describe self-rated health (SRH) status among older adults in a rural community of Vietnam, and examine individual and household-level factors associated with good health rating among the study populations. Methods: The study was carried out in the Bavi district, a rural community located 60 km west of Hanoi, the capital, within the Epidemiological Field Laboratory of Bavi (FilaBavi) in Vietnam in 2006. All people aged 50 years and over who lived within the district were surveyed. Face-to-face household interviews were conducted by trained surveyors using standard World Health Organization/INDEPTH network questionnaire-summary version. A logistic multilevel modeling approach was applied to analyze the association between SRH and both individual and household-level f...
IntroductionFocusing on people and organizations, this paper aims to contribute to offshore safety assessment by proposing a methodology to model causal relationships.MethodThe methodology is proposed in a general sense that it will be capable of accommodating modeling of multiple risk factors considered in offshore operations and will have the ability to deal with different types of data that may come from different resources. Reason's ?Swiss cheese?? model is used to form a generic offshore safety assessment framework, and Bayesian Network (BN) is tailored to fit into the framework to construct a causal relationship model. The proposed framework uses a five-level-structure model to address latent failures within the causal sequence of events. The five levels include Root causes level, Tr...
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for determining a bisection bandwidth for a multi-node data communications network that include: partitioning nodes in the network into a first sub-network and a second sub-network in dependence upon a topology of the network; sending, by each node in the first sub-network to a destination node in the second sub-network, a first message having a predetermined message size; receiving, by each node in the first sub-network from a source node in the second sub-network, a second message; measuring, by each node in the first sub-network, the elapsed communications time between the sending of the first message and the receiving of the second message; selecting the longest elapsed communications time; and calculating the bisection bandwidth ...
Objective: To investigate the relationship between endothelial vasoactive factors and development of systemic sclerosis (SSc). Methods: Blood circulating endothelial cell count (CEC, with density gradient precipitation method); plasma endothelin (ET), thromboxane B2 (TXB2 ), 6-keto-prostaglandin F1? concentrations (all above three with RIA); nitric oxide (NO) contents (with Griss method) and plasma intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), p-selectin (P-S) contents (with ELISA) were measured in 52 patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) both before and after treatment with prostaglandin E1 and 30 controls. Results: Plasma ET, TXB2, ICAM-1, P-S contents and CEC were significantly higher and plasma NO, 6-K-PGF1? contents were significantly lower in all the patients with SSc before treatment than those in the controls, After treatment, the patients with satisfactory responses (n=33) had the abnormal plasma values of these parameters greatly corrected (vs before ...
This article is a story of networking of palliative care at the corporate level. This gives an insight that if you have will and dedication then you can imagine and make it true that networking can...Full Text Available
This paper is a result of a research with the primary purpose of extending Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) modeling frameworks to include the effects of organizational factors as the deeper, more fundamental causes of accidents and incidents. There have been significant improvements in the sophistication of quantitative methods of safety and risk assessment, but the progress on techniques most suitable for organizational safety risk frameworks has been limited. The focus of this paper is on the choice of 'representational schemes' and 'techniques.' A methodology for selecting appropriate candidate techniques and their integration in the form of a 'hybrid' approach is proposed. Then an example is given through an integration of System Dynamics (SD), Bayesian Belief Network (BBN), Event Sequence Diagram (ESD), and Fault Tree (FT) in order to demonstrate the feasibility and value of hybrid ...
This report describes the fiscal 1998 result on development of genome informatics technology. As comparative analysis technique of genes, the combination of electrophoresis and PCR was used. For improvement of the throughput and reproducibility of the technique, module- shuffling primers were used, and the multi(96)-arrayed capillary fragment analyzer was devised. The system detecting SNPs rapidly was also developed successfully. As analysis technology of DNA sequence by use of triple- stranded DNA formation, study was made on construction of long cDNA libraries, selective subtraction of specific sequences from libraries, and the basic technology of homologous cloning. Study was also made on each reaction step of IGCR technique for fast analysis, and specifications of a fluorescence transfer monitor. As modeling technique of genetic sequence information, the simulation model was developed for gene expression regulatory networks during muscle differentiation, and ...
Containing an epidemic at its origin is the most desirable mitigation. Epidemics have often originated in rural areas, with rural communities among the first affected. Disease dynamics in rural regions have received limited attention, and results of general studies cannot be directly applied since population densities and human mobility factors are very different in rural regions from those in cities. We create a network model of a rural community in Kansas, USA, by collecting data on the contact patterns and computing rates of contact among a sampled population. We model the impact of different mitigation strategies detecting closely connected groups of people and frequently visited locations. Within those groups and locations, we compare the effectiveness of random and targeted vaccinations using a Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered compartmental model on the contact network. Our simulations show that the targeted ...
We study the statistical properties of a variety of diverse real-world networks. We present evidence of the occurrence of three classes of small-world networks: (a) scale-free networks,...Full Text Available
There is a rapidly growing need to evaluate sensor network functionality and performance in the context of the larger environment of infrastructure and applications in which the sensor network is organically embedded. This need, which is motivated by complex applications related to national security operations, leads to a paradigm fundamentally different from that of traditional data networks. In the sensor networks of interest to us, the network dynamics depend strongly on sensor activity, which in turn is triggered by events in the environment. Because the behavior of sensor networks is sensitive to these driving phenomena, the integrity of the sensed observations, measurements and resource usage by the network can widely vary. It is therefore imperative to accurately capture the environmental phenomena, and drive the simulation of the ...
Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) is a new treatment option for patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Response to RIT currently remains difficult to predict using conventional prognostic factors and could be refined using functional imaging. The goal of this work is to evaluate the value of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) in predicting response to Yttrium 90-labeled monoclonal antibodies for patients with NHL. Thirty-five patients with NHL who had undergone 18F-FDG PET prior to RIT with either 90Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan (group A; n=17) or 90Y-epratuzumab tetraxetan (group B; n=18) were included in this retrospective study. Four functional criteria were determined for each tumour lesion in a given patient: maximum and mean standard uptake values (SUVmax and SUVmean), functional lesion volume (LVol) and total lesion glycolysis (TLG, product of the volume and the SUVmean). For each patient, we determined highest SUVmax and SUVmean, cumulative ...
A questionnaire survey undertaken among 142 schoolteachers in North Staffordshire revealed most of the respondents did not feel confident when teaching children who had epilepsy and a minority considered...Full Text Available
A questionnaire on the development of specialist clinics was distributed to the members of the Association of British Neurologists and completed by 104 members (85 consultants). Half of the respondents...Full Text Available
Described as the body's largest organ, the skin is strategically located at the interface with the external environment where it has evolved to detect, integrate and respond to a diverse range...Full Text Available
Unlike in normal rabbits, pulmonary rapidly adapting receptors (RARs) in rabbits with chronic mitral regurgitation (MR) do not respond to small changes in extravascular...Full Text Available
Healthcare practitioners from around the world responded almost immediately in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. This article reports on the efforts of an orthopedic trauma team in Haiti...Full Text Available
Jul 15, 2004 ... Responding to the recommendations of the President's Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy, NASA is teaming ...
Competitiveness of the UK furniture manufacturing industry.2010 ...is clear from the study that the UK furniture manufacturing industry has responded to the challenge of ...Competitiveness of the UK furniture manufacturing industry.2010
Psychological distress and postamputation pain were investigated in a sample of 582 males with long-term limb amputations (mean time since amputation 639.3 months, standard deviation 166.1; range 240-784 months). Prevalence of significant depressive symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale [HADS]-D score?8) was 32.0%, and 34.0% of respondents met the screening criterion for clinical anxiety (HADS-A score?8). Nearly one quarter (24.6%) of respondents reported significant post-traumatic psychological stress symptoms (Impact of Event Scale scores?35). In total, 87.8% experienced either phantom or residual limb pain. Affective distress scores differed according to the respondents' type of pain experience. Respondents who experienced residual limb pain reported significantly hig...
Computer And Network Security: Information For Everyone: This presentation was originally prepared as the 14th talk in a series known as "The Programmer's ...
Summary We describe the initiation and establishment of The University of Zambia - University College London Medical School (UNZA-UCLMS) Research and Training Project, an entirely African scientist-led, south-north partnership. In its 16 year existence, the project, by successfully obtaining competitive grant funding, has transformed itself into one of Africa's most productive African-led R&D programmes with training and visible research outputs. The project serves as a role model and now networks R&D and training activities with six southern African (10 institutions) and six European countries. This project case study illustrates that deep commitment is essential for success and that the factors which facilitate success in R&D in Africa need to be evaluated. The long-term prospects for su...
A novel composite charged mosaic membrane (CCMM) was prepared via interfacial polymerization (IP) of polyamine [poly(epichlorohydrin amine)] and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) on the polyethersulfone (PES) support. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and water contact angle analysis were applied to characterize the resulted CCMM. The FT-IR spectrum indicates that TMC reacts sufficiently with polyamine. ESEM and AFM pictures show that the IP process produces a dense selective layer on the support membrane. The water contact angle of the CCMM is smaller than that of the substrate membrane because of the cross-linked hydrophilic polyamine network. Several factors affecting the IP reaction and the performan...
Mechanomyography (MMG) is the muscle surface oscillations that are generated by the dimensional change of the contracting muscle fibers. Because MMG reflects the number of recruited motor units and their firing rates, just as electromyography (EMG) is influenced by these two factors, it can be used to estimate the force exerted by skeletal muscles. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of MMG for estimating the elbow flexion force at the wrist under an isometric contraction by using an artificial neural network in comparison with EMG. We performed experiments with five subjects, and the force at the wrist and the MMG from the contributing muscles were recorded. It was found that MMG could be utilized to accurately estimate the isometric elbow flexion force based on the v...
We describe a fully automated bead puller system which uses stepping motors to position the bead, and an HP-8510 network analyzer to measure the resulting frequency shifts, both devices being under computer control. Longitudinal motion of the bead is used for measurement of cavity shunt impedance. In addition, azimuthal scans at fixed longitudinal position aid in determining the multipole character of higher-order modes. High sensitivity/accuracy is made possible by measuring phase shifts at the unperturbed resonant frequencies (rather than frequency shifts themselves), thereby permitting averaging factors of > 500 with only modest increases in data acquisition time. Sample measurements will be presented. A comprehensive analysis of the experimental results is presented in an accompanying paper.
We performed a randomized trial to compare IVF outcomes in 54 poor responder patients undergoing a microdose leuprolide acetate (LA) protocol or a GnRH antagonist protocol incorporating a luteal phase E2 patch and GnRH antagonist in the preceding menstrual cycle. Cancellation rates, number of oocytes retrieved, clinical pregnancy rates (PR), and ongoing PRs were similar between the two groups.
A typical incident response pits technicians against networks that aren't prepared forensically. [1, 2] If practitioners do consider collecting network forensic data, they face a choice between expending extraordinary effort (time and money) collecting forensically sound data, or simply restoring the network as quickly as possible. In this context, the concept of organizational network forensic readiness has emerged. This paper proposes a methodology for "operationalizing" organizational network forensic readiness. The methodology, and the theoretical analysis that led to its development, are offered as a conceptual framework for thinking about more efficient, proactive approaches to digital forensics on networks.
The use of electricity is indispensable to modern life. As Macao Special Administrative Region becomes a gaming and tourism center in Asia, modeling the consumption of electricity is critical to Macao's economic development. The purposes of this paper are to conduct an extensive literature review on modeling of electricity consumption, and to identify key climatic, demographic, economic and/or industrial factors that may affect the electricity consumption of a country/city. It was identified that the five factors, namely temperature, population, the number of tourists, hotel room occupancy and days per month, could be used to characterize Macao's monthly electricity consumption. Three selected approaches including multiple regression, artificial neural network (ANN) and wavelet ANN were used to derive mathematical models of the electricity consumption. The accuracy of these models was assessed by using the ...
Objective. So far, few data are available to characterize the flare history of patients with gout. The objective of this study was to describe the frequency and risk factors of gout flares with special consideration of the comorbidity. Methods. A cohort study was conducted in a UK general practice database (The Health Improvement Network) including all patients aged 20-89 years diagnosed with incident gout between the years 2000 and 2007. Results. In this study, 23 857 incident gout patients (mean age 61.9 years) were included, overall incidence rate was 2.68 (95% CI 2.65, 2.72) per 1000 person-years. The proportion of patients with at least one flare during the follow-up period (mean 3.8 years) was 36.9% (n = 8806). A history of ischaemic heart disease [hazard ratio (HR) 1.12 (95% CI 1.06...
Connectivity and capacity are two fundamental properties of wireless multi-hop networks. The scalability of these properties has been a primary concern for which asymptotic analysis is a useful tool. Three related but logically distinct network models are often considered in the asymptotic analysis, i.e. the dense network model, the extended network model and the infinite network model, which consider respectively a network deployed in a finite area with a sufficiently large node density, a network deployed in a sufficiently large area with a fixed node density, and a network deployed in $\\Re^{2}$ with a sufficiently large node density. The infinite network model originated from continuum percolation theory and asymptotic results obtained from the infinite network model have ...
Integrated femtocell/macrocell networks, comprising a conventional cellular network overlaid with femtocells, offer an economically appealing way to improve coverage, quality of service, and access network capacity. The key element to successful femtocells/macrocell integration lies in its self-organizing capability. Provisioning of quality of service is the main technical challenge of the femtocell/macrocell integrated networks, while the main administrative challenge is the choice of the proper evolutionary path from the existing macrocellular networks to the integrated network. In this article, we introduce three integrated network architectures which, while increasing the access capacity, they also reduce the deployment and operational costs. Then, we discuss a number of technical issues, which are key to making such integration a ...
Summary: Analysis of biological networks requires assessing the statistical significance of network-based predictions by using a realistic null model. However, the existing network null model, switch randomization, is unsuitable for metabolic networks, as it does not include physical constraints and generates unrealistic reactions. We present JMassBalance, a tool for mass-balanced randomization and analysis of metabolic networks. The tool allows efficient generation of large sets of randomized networks under the physical constraint of mass balance. In addition, various structural properties of the original and randomized networks can be calculated, facilitating the identification of the salient properties of metabolic networks with a biologically meaningful null model. Availability and Imp...
This manual is intended to provide a free resource on essential network security concepts for non-technical managers of small libraries. Managers of other small nonprofit or community organizations will also benefit from it. An introduction defines network security; outlines three goals of network security; discusses why a library should be concerned with network security; and describes limits of this work. The manual is divided into three main parts. Part One features the management issues related to network security: analyzing risk, developing a security plan and policy, the funding requirements libraries can expect in operating their networks, and implementing adequate security. Part Two describes the areas of computer networks that need to be secured, and provides a description of many of the security measures necessary for adequate ...
The goal of this paper is to explore how compliance with the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA), especially Title IV and emission trading under it, will affect the current relationship between state and federal regulation. It is difficult, with the limited experience we have had under Title IV, to be definitive about or to be a very strong advocate of too many policy positions. What may be most helpful at this point is to identify where the difficult issues in state/federal relations might arise; and then to explore ways in which tensions might be either avoided or resolved. One anticipated conclusion is that a traditional regulatory mindset could be very destructive if applied to this new area of oversight without due sensitivity to what Congress is trying to achieve in Title IV. That concern pervaded the early legislative debates; and it persists today. Title IV presents some unique challenges to state regulators and will require some creative solutions and fresh thinking if the ...
High energy physics facilities must monitor the radiation doses received by their personnel. This monitoring can only be effective if the radiation detection devices can be calibrated with a good degree of accuracy. Radiation fields are usually composed of several types of radiation, including gamma rays, beta radiation, neutrons, etc. The neutron detection instruments respond not only to the neutrons coming directly from the source but also those scattered from the floor, walls, and ceiling. The amount of neutron scattering varies from site to site depending on the construction materials and layout of the building. The purpose of this study was to determine the scattered neutron fraction in the central volume of the calibration mezzanine of the Radiation Physics Calibration Facility (RPCF) at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). At Fermilab, radiation workers dosimeters use CR39 for neutron detection, which are sent to an outside vendor for ...
High energy physics facilities must monitor the radiation doses received by their personnel. This monitoring can only be effective if the radiation detection devices can be calibrated with a good degree of accuracy. Radiation fields are usually composed of several types of radiation, including gamma rays, beta radiation, neutrons, etc. The neutron detection instruments respond not only to the neutrons coming directly from the source but also those scattered from the floor, walls, and ceiling. The amount of neutron scattering varies from site to site depending on the construction materials and layout of the building. The purpose of this study was to determine the scattered neutron fraction in the central volume of the calibration mezzanine of the Radiation Physics Calibration Facility (RPCF) at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). At Fermilab, radiation workers dosimeters use CR39 for neutron detection, which are sent to an outside vendor for ...
These are some interesting sites that will help you to understand networking and how it can benefit you. These sites contain sound so you may want to wear headphones if you are in a classroom. Learn how the internet began and the basics of the www. Learn why a network is useful. Jans network contains the important concepts of networking, Work through section 7 to learn about different types of connections, transmissions, media, and configurations. Then take the quiz at the end to see how ...
This paper describes how a computerized MIS is used to assist HMO management to conduct utilization and quality of care review activities in a prepaid medical care network. The HMO is a ‘network’...Full Text Available
Synthetic gene networks can be used to control gene expression and cellular phenotypes in a variety of applications. In many instances, however, such networks can behave unreliably due to gene expression...Full Text Available
Materials World Network: Cooperative Activity in Materials Research between US Investigators and ... Program Title: Materials World Network: Cooperative Activity in Materials Research between US ...
Materials World Network: Cooperative Activity in Materials Research between US Investigators and ... Program Title: Materials World Network: Cooperative Activity in Materials Research between US ...
Cyber attacks on a hospital's computer network is a new crime to be reckoned with. Should your hospital consider internet insurance? The author explains this new phenomenon and presents a risk assessment for determining network vulnerabilities. PMID:11951384
A high-speed fiber-based network for the transmission and display of digitized full-motion cardiac images has been developed. Based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), the network is scaleable, meaning...Full Text Available
Many mobile ad hoc network protocols use simple flooding, in order to adapt to changes in time varying network topology. Most of the times, a network-wide flood results in redundant packets and increases network congestion, probability of packet collision, low utilization of available bandwidth, and most important, higher power consumption. In this paper, we propose a new cross-layer broadcast scheme to minimize broadcast traffic in mobile ad hoc networks. Our scheme is based on use of received signal strength indicator, RSSI, value to reduce the number of broadcast packets. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is verified using simulations.
The role of computers has become increasingly important for oil and gas field research and operations support. Today, the computer network is an integral part of the increasingly complex computing environment that exists in many companies. Computer networks allow users to efficiently share information, software, and hardware to support critical global communication needs. Because users are able to share software and hardware, the use of computer networks can also result in significant cost savings. This paper describes typical network loading and demand levels for shared software applications on a computer network that has been used for several years.
The capability of nodes to broadcast their message to the entire wireless network when nodes employ cooperation is considered. We employ an asymptotic analysis using an extended random network setting and show that the broadcast performance strongly depends on the path loss exponent of the medium. In particular, as the size of the random network grows, the probability of broadcast in a one-dimensional network goes to zero for path loss exponents larger than one, and goes to a nonzero value for path loss exponents less than one. In two-dimensional networks, the same behavior is observed for path loss exponents above and below two, respectively.
'As part of the Computer Protection Plan, this Network Security Plan identifies the specific security measures used to protect Bechtel Hanford, Inc.'s (BHI's) enterprise network. The network consists of the communication infrastructure and information systems used by BHI to perform work related to the Environmental Restoration Contract (ERC) at the Hanford Site. It provides electronic communication between the ERC-leased facilities in Richland, Washington, and facilities located on the Hanford Site. Network gateways to other site and offsite networks provide electronic communication with the remainder of the Hanford community.'
5.2 Network Security. The features listed below can be used to help safeguard UNIX ...... The LaRCSCAN non-intrusive network security scanner package, ...
Understanding the dependence and interplay between architecture and function in biological networks has great relevance to disease progression, biological fabrication and biological systems in general. Recent research in complex systems and networks, presents methods to properly mine the architectural interdependence in networks. Guided by such work, we propose methods to associate organism characteristics with network topology by analyzing a large number of architectural patterns. We adopt an automated approach using 11 topological metrics from complex networks to characterize a collection of various kinds of biological networks. Principal component analysis and clustering allow us to extract the indispensable, independent and informative metrics. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we observe that organism characteristics associate with these metrics, ...
In this report, I surveyed the cognitive radio technique in wireless networks. Researched several kinds of cognitive techniques about their advantages and disadvantages.
... LIFO queue descipline outperforms FIFO in ... We consider here the stochastic network system ... All-terminal Undirected Rational Network Reliability ...
voluntarily provided by you. Network Traffic Logs In the course of ensuring network security and consistent service for all users, the University employs software programs to...
The tremendous growth of wireless technologies has introduced the potential of continuous service adaptation to the users' needs by giving them the ability to be able to select and access the proper network based on different criteria. Moreover, next generation wireless networks have been designed to provide support for multimedia services, with different traffic characteristics and different Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. However, the expansion of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks poses new research era in the decision of the access network selection. In this paper, the existing access network selection schemes are classified into three categories: the network-centric, the user-centric and the collaborative sche...
The Superconducting super Collider Laboratory is a complex of particle accelerators being built in Ellis County, Texas. It will have a dedicated global communications network that will deliver control messages and provide for general data acquisition. This network will connect thousands of computer nodes over a very large geographic area. In order to meet the demanding availability requirements being levied on the system, it will need comprehensive network management. A large number of the computer nodes are embedded systems that traditionally do not support network management services. This presents unique challenges to standard network management practices. The Simple Network Management Protocol, SNMP, is widely accepted by industry as a tool to manage network devices. In this paper the authors examine the performance characteristics and ...
...Air Quality Monitoring Networks Products and Equipment Find and compare a variety of air quality monitoring networks products and equipment on the world's largest environmental industry portal. ...
of a stochastic network can be a. PERT-type network. After the terminal countdown, ...... pictorial representation of a single channel queueing system ...
... California where he is currently working on an AS in. Data Communication & Network Management as well as Microsoft. MCSE and Cisco CCNA certifications.
Network tomography aims at inferring internal network characteristics based on measurements at the edge of the network. In loss tomography, in particular, the characteristic of interest is the loss rate of individual links. There is a significant body of work dedicated to this problem using multicast and/or unicast end-to-end probes. Independently, recent advances in network coding have shown that there are several advantages from allowing intermediate nodes to process and combine, in addition to just forward, packets. In this paper, we pose the problem of loss tomography in networks that have network coding capabilities. We design a framework for estimating link loss rates, which leverages network coding capabilities and we show that it improves several aspects of tomography, including the identifiability of links, the tradeoff between ...
A Composite Architecture for Network Security at JPL. Robert B. Mead, Tom G. Dearmond, and Joseph S. Sherif. JPL, California Institute of Technology ...
We advance a tentative composite model for computer security at JPL, together with inter and intra networking with other NASA centers and overseas clients.
The soil fungus Trichoderma atroviride, a mycoparasite, responds to a number of external stimuli. In the presence of a fungal host, T. atroviride produces...Full Text Available
Background: Patients with a typical depression are more likely to respond to monoamine oxidase inhibitors than to tricyclic antidepressants. They are frequently offered psychotherapy...Full Text Available
A ten week old girl who had previously undergone a palliative procedure for the hypoplastic left heart syndrome had unrelieved aortic coarctation that did not respond to standard balloon dilatation....Full Text Available
Temperature sensing is crucial for homeotherms, including human beings, to maintain a stable body core temperature and respond to the ambient environment. A group of exquisitely temperature-sensitive...Full Text Available
The ability to respond to stress is at the core of an organism's survival. The hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine play a central role in stress responses in mammals, which require the synchronized...Full Text Available
Skeletal muscle uses calcium as a second messenger to respond and adapt to environmental stimuli. Elevations in intracellular calcium levels activate calcineurin, a serine/threonine phosphatase, resulting...Full Text Available
There is a pressing need for medical graduates to be fully prepared to take on the responsibilities of prescribing and to be able to respond to continual inevitable rapid changes in therapeutics. The...Full Text Available
BackgroundVisual neurons respond essentially to luminance variations occurring within their receptive fields. In primary visual cortex, each neuron is a filter for stimulus features...Full Text Available
In the process of forming a new medical malpractice reinsurance company, the authors analyzed thousands of medical malpractice cases, settlements, and verdicts. The evidence of those analyses indicated...Full Text Available
To determine who resists sexual assault and what happens, data were examined from a probability sample of 3,132 adult community residents of Los Angeles, California. Seventy-five per cent of the respondents...Full Text Available
Deforestation is rapidly transforming primary forests across the tropics into human-dominated landscapes. Consequently, conservationists need to understand how different taxa respond and adapt to these...Full Text Available
Borrelia burgdorferi produces potent cell-activating molecules capable of stimulating polyclonal proliferation and immunoglobulin production by murine B lymphocytes and cytokine production by a variety...Full Text Available
Phase 2 of the four phase NASA/DoD Aerospace Knowledge Diffusion Research Project was undertaken to study the transfer of scientific and technical information (STI) from government to the aerospace industry and the role of librarians and technical informa...
Vulnerability to abused drugs is influenced by multiple genes unique to each drug as well as to risk genes for polydrug abuse. If several inbred mouse strains respond to different drugs similarly,...Full Text Available
Human skin is a local source of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and expresses CRH and CRH receptors (CRH-R) at mRNA and protein levels. Epidermal melanocytes respond to CRH by induction...Full Text Available
A number of studies have examined the functional roles of individual muscles during normal walking, but few studies have examined which are the primary muscles that respond to changes in external...Full Text Available
Using the photopigment melanopsin, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) respond directly to light to drive circadian clock resetting and pupillary constriction. We now...Full Text Available
Evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated by both the ways in which species respond to ecological conditions at the edges of their geographic ranges and the way that species' body sizes evolve...Full Text Available
The somatic sensory system responds to stimuli of distinct modalities, including touch, pain, itch, and temperature sensitivity. In the past century, great progress has been made in understanding the...Full Text Available
Metastatic testicular germ cell tumours are cured in approximately 85% of patients using cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy. Patients who fail to respond have a poor prognosis, and there is a...Full Text Available
BACKGROUND: : Skills related to cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and automated external defibrillator (AED) use by lay responders decay rapidly after training, and efforts are required to maintain competence among trainees. We examined whether repeated viewing of a reminder video on a mobile phone would be an effective means of maintaining CPR and AED skills in lay responders. METHODS: : In a single-blind case-control study, 75 male students received training in CPR and AED use. They were allocated either to the control or to the video-reminded group, who received a memory card containing a video clip about CPR and AED use for their mobile phone, which they were repeatedly encouraged to watch by SMS text message. CPR and AED skills were assessed in scenario format by examiners immediately and 3 months after initial training. RESULTS: : Three months after initial training, the video-reminded group showed more accurate airway opening (PCPR ...
Potato tuber mitochondria oxidizing malate respond to NAD+ addition with increased oxidation rates, whereas mung bean hypocotyl mitochondria do not. This is traced to a low endogenous content...Full Text Available
Data from 8,032 Manitoba respondents to the 1996/97 Canadian National Population Health Survey were linked to the 1996 census to study whether measures of morbidity, both self-reported and objectively...Full Text Available
AbstractDendrites of cerebellar Purkinje cells (PCs) respond to brief excitations from parallel fibers with lasting plateau depolarizations. It is unknown whether these plateaus are local...Full Text Available
Food-deprived pigeons were presented with a row of four response keys situated above a grain hopper aperture. At the start of a trial, three of four keys were randomly selected and illuminated white...Full Text Available
Plants respond to a large variety of environmental signals, including changes in the gravity vector (gravistimulation). In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) seedlings, gravistimulation...Full Text Available
The ability to adapt and respond to nutrients is an ancient cellular function, conserved from unicellular to the most complex multicellular organisms, including mammals. Mammals adapt to changes...Full Text Available
The flux ratio (influx/efflux) of K+ across the plasmalemma of beet cells at an external potassium concentration of 0.6 mm does not respond to changes of membrane potential in the...Full Text Available
Expedition 22 Commander Jeff Williams, aboard the International Space Station 220 miles above Earth, responds to questions posted on YouTube concerning the station's orientation, life in space and the recent butterfly experiment.
A brief letter attempts to justify the assumption in an earlier paper of an isotropic distribution of environmental gamma rays incident on humans. A second letter from the original authors responds to this in yet more detail. (UK).
As part of studies into the siting of a deep repository for nuclear waste, Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) has commissioned the Alternative Models Project (AMP). The AMP is a comparison of three alternative modeling approaches for geosphere performance assessment for a single hypothetical site. The hypothetical site, arbitrarily named Aberg is based on parameters from the Aespoe Hard Rock Laboratory in southern Sweden. The Aberg model domain, boundary conditions and canister locations are defined as a common reference case to facilitate comparisons between approaches. This report presents the results of a discrete fracture pathways analysis of the Aberg site, within the context of the SR 97 performance assessment exercise. The Aberg discrete fracture network (DFN) site model is based on consensus Aberg parameters related to the Aespoe HRL site. Discrete fracture pathways are identified from canister locations in a prototype repository design ...
The proactive protection measures and the traditional passive security protection tools are complementarities each other. It also can supply the conventional network security protection system and enhance its capability of the security protection. Based upon sorts of existing network security technologies, this article analyses and summarizes the technologies, functions and the development directions of some key proactive network security protection tools. (authors)
"Network Physics, the only provider of physics-based network management products, today announced an additional venture round of $6 million in funding, as well as the addition of David Jones as president and CEO and Tom Dunn as vice president of sales and business development" (1 page).
Implementing a successful local area network for a publications work-group isn't as simple as the scarcity of information on the subject would suggest. Making a network work for your requires careful planning, developing and acquiring network expertise, transforming your group's patterns of working together, and carefully managing the human and technological resources.
Implementing a successful local area network for a publications work-group isn`t as simple as the scarcity of information on the subject would suggest. Making a network work for your requires careful planning, developing and acquiring network expertise, transforming your group`s patterns of working together, and carefully managing the human and technological resources.
This thesis investigates the application of artificial neural networks for the compression of image data. An algorithm is developed using the competitive learning paradigm which takes advantage of the parallel processing and classification capability of neural networks to produce an efficient implementation of vector quantization. Multi-Stage, tree searched, and classification vector quantization codebook design are adapted to the neural network design to reduce the computational cost and hardware requirements. The results show that the new algorithm provides a substantial reduction in computational costs and an improvement in performance.
The existence, in real-time, of transmission constraints, demand forecasting errors, generator failures, and other factors impose additional costs through the need to run more expensive generation. These costs can appear as a significant component of the wholesale price to demand served by electricity markets operated over transmission networks. In the England & Wales Pool these costs are passed through directly to supply companies. The Transmission System Operator ({open_quotes}TSO{close_quotes}) can exert significant influence on these costs through improved availability of transmission circuits and through appropriate investment, but has no incentive to do so. Since the inception of the Pool, these costs have increased in level and volatility, and have proved difficult to hedge. In response, St Clements Services were instrumental in assisting Pool members to develop an {open_quotes}Uplift Incentive Management Scheme{close_quotes} which ...
The masses of the proton-rich nuclides {sup 85,86,87}Mo and {sup 87}Tc have been measured with the Penning trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP at GSI. The measured mass excesses of these nuclei deviate from the values of the Atomic Mass Evaluation 2003 by up to 1.6 MeV, indicating a systematic shift of the mass surface in this region compared to previous measurements. A local mass extrapolation based on the new results has been made for the mass range A=80-95. Measured and extrapolated mass values and the derived separation energies have been compared to theoretical mass models. Taking into account the new mass excess values, rp-process network calculations have been performed. Preliminary results show changes in the final abundances for A=86-92 by up to a factor of 30. Results of measurements and calculations are presented, and the issue of a potential Zr-Nb cycle is addressed.
The masses of the proton-rich nuclides "8"5","8"6","8"7Mo and "8"7Tc have been measured with the Penning trap mass spectrometer SHIPTRAP at GSI. The measured mass excesses of these nuclei deviate from the values of the Atomic Mass Evaluation 2003 by up to 1.6 MeV, indicating a systematic shift of the mass surface in this region compared to previous measurements. A local mass extrapolation based on the new results has been made for the mass range A=80-95. Measured and extrapolated mass values and the derived separation energies have been compared to theoretical mass models. Taking into account the new mass excess values, rp-process network calculations have been performed. Preliminary results show changes in the final abundances for A=86-92 by up to a factor of 30. Results of measurements and calculations are presented, and the issue of a potential Zr-Nb cycle is addressed.
High-voltage transmission lines can be just as safe as the electrical wiring in the homes--or just as dangerous. The crucial factor is ourselves: they must learn to behave safely around them. This booklet is a basic safety guide for those who live and work around power lines. It deals primarily with nuisance shocks due to induced voltages, and with potential electric shock hazards from contact with high-voltage lines. References on possible long-term biological effects of transmission lines are shown. In preparing this booklet, the Bonneville Power Administration has drawn on more than 50 years of experience with high-voltage transmission. BPA operates one of the world`s largest networks of long-distance, high-voltage lines. This system has more than 400 substations and about 15,000 miles of transmission lines, almost 4,400 miles of which are operated at 500,000 volts.
There has been a rapid increase in the number of technology certificate programs offered around the world in the last decade. While designing, developing, and implementing these programs little or no consideration is given to geographical, cultural and developmental differences between different regions of the world. This study investigates the students' success in the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) program--a unique model combining technology-supported learning with local instruction world-wide. The purpose of this study is to investigate how demographic, ability, and motivational factors impact student success in different regions of the world when the curriculum and teaching materials are the same for all students and teachers. 368,159 students who completed the technology course from August 2004 to December 2005 in 5,948 academies in 135 countries were examined. Based on ANOVA and regression, results show that prior achievement, ...
Power plant components exposed to environments such as water and soil are susceptible to severe corrosion. Many times the effect of corrosion in power plant components can be catastrophic. The problem is aggravated for underground pipelines due to additional factors such as large network of pipelines, proximity to earth mat, high voltage transmission lines, corrosive chemicals, inadequate approach etc. Other components such as condenser water boxes, internals of pipelines, clarifier bridge structures, cooling water inlet gates and pipes etc. which are in continuous contact with water, are subjected to severe corrosion. The nature and locations of all such components are at places which are not accessible for routine maintenance and hence they require long term reliable protection against corrosion. Experience has shown that anti-corrosive coatings are inadequate in preventing corrosion and due to their location regular maintenance coatings are ...
The interaction of the globular protein lysozyme with silica nanoparticles of diameter 20 nm was studied in a pH range between the isoelectric points (IEPs) of silica and the protein (pH 3-11). The adsorption affinity and capacity of lysozyme on the silica particles is increasing progressively with pH, and the adsorbed protein induces bridging aggregation of the silica particles. Structural properties of the aggregates were studied as a function of pH at a fixed protein-to-silica concentration ratio which corresponds to a surface concentration of protein well below a complete monolayer in the complete-binding regime at pH > 6. Sedimentation studies indicate the presence of compact aggregates at pH 4-6 and a loose flocculated network at pH 7-9, followed by a sharp decrease of aggregate size near the IEP of lysozyme. The structure of the bridged silica aggregates was studied by cryo-transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) and small-angle X-ray scattering. The ...
We report a user study of over four months on the non-voice usage of mobile phones by teens from an underserved urban community in the USA where a community-wide, open-access Wi-Fi network exists. We instrumented the phones to record quantitative information regarding their usage and location in a privacy-respecting manner. We conducted focus group meetings and interviewed participants regularly for qualitative data. We present our findings on what applications our participants used and how their usage changed over time. The findings highlight the challenges to evaluating the usability of mobile systems and the value of long-term methodologies. Based on our findings, we analyze the unique values of mobile phones, as a platform technology. Our study shows that the usage is highly mobile, location-dependent, and serves multiple social purposes for the participants. Furthermore, we present concrete findings on how to perform and analyze similar user studies on mobile ...
Two classes of convergent algorithms for learning continuous functions (and also regression functions) that are represented by feedforward networks, are discussed. The first class of algorithms, applicable to networks with unknown weights located only in the output layer, is obtained by utilizing the potential function methods of Aizerman et al. The second class, applicable to general feedforward networks, is obtained by utilizing the classical Robbins-Monro style stochastic approximation methods. Conditions relating the sample sizes to the error bounds are derived for both classes of algorithms using martingale-type inequalities. For concreteness, the discussion is presented in terms of neural networks, but the results are applicable to general feedforward networks, in particular to wavelet networks. The algorithms can be directly adapted to concept learning ...
Recent supply chain reengineering efforts have focused on integrating firms? production, inventory and replenishment activities with the help of communication networks. While communication networks and supply chain integration facilitate optimization of traditional supply chain functions, they also exacerbate the information security risk: communication networks propagate security breaches from one firm to another, and supply chain integration causes breach on one firm to affect other firms in the supply chain. We study the impact of network security vulnerability and supply chain integration on firms? incentives to invest in information security. We find that even though an increase in either the degree of network vulnerability or the degree of supply chain integration increases the secur...
In both office and home environments, Ethernet represents the dominant networking technology in use. Ethernet is low cost and the networks are fairly understood by users. The author began by explaining the physical and data link layers of Ethernet, then touched on fibre-optic cables. The industrial protocols were discussed, followed by Ethernet network topology. The environmental robustness of Ethernet networks was reviewed, with a word of caution from the author, advising to properly evaluate whether Ethernet represents a mission-critical component of the substation, as substation control houses are not environmentally controlled spaces, often minimally heated and no cooling. Engineering access to station Integrated Electric Drives (IEDs). By properly connecting Ethernet networks, it is possible to access relays in the substations from desktop engineering workstations in the ...
Mobile entities with wireless links are able to form a mobile ad-hoc network. Such an infrastructureless network does not have to be administrated. However, self-organizing principles have to be applied to deal with upcoming problems, e.g. information dissemination. These kinds of problems are not easy to tackle, requiring complex algorithms. Moreover, the usefulness of pure ad-hoc networks is arguably limited. Hence, enthusiasm for mobile ad-hoc networks, which could eliminate the need for any fixed infrastructure, has been damped. The goal is to overcome the limitations of pure ad-hoc networks by augmenting them with instant Internet access, e.g. via integration of UMTS respectively GSM links. However, this raises multiple questions at the technical as well as the organizational level. Motivated by characteristics of small-world networks that describe an ...
Information security involves many branches of effort, including information assurance, host level security, physical security, and network security. Computer network security methods and implementations are given a top-down description to permit a medically focused audience to anchor this information to their daily practice. The depth of detail of network functionality and security measures, like that of the study of human anatomy, can be highly involved. Presented at the level of major gross anatomical systems, this paper will focus on network backbone implementation and perimeter defenses, then diagnostic tools, and finally the user practices (the human element). Physical security measures, though significant, have been defined as beyond the scope of this presentation.
In this paper an attempt is made to forecast load using fuzzy neural network (FNN) for an integrated power system. Here, the proposed system uses a two stage FNN for a short term peak and average load forecasting (STPALF). The first stage FNN deals with the load forecasting and the second stage algorithm can be worked independently for network security. This technique is used to forecast load accurately on week days as well as holidays, weekends and some special occasions considering historical data of load and weather information and also take necessary control action for network security.
A complex network approach on a rough fracture is developed. In this manner, some hidden metric spaces (similarity measurements) between apertures profiles are set up and a general evolutionary network in two directions (in parallel and perpendicular to the shear direction) is constructed. Also, an algorithm (COmplex Networks on Apertures: CONA) is proposed in which evolving of a network is accomplished using preferential detachments and attachments of edges (based on a competition and game manner) while the number of nodes is fixed. Also, evolving of clustering coefficients and number of edges display similar patterns as well as are appeared in shear stress, hydraulic conductivity and dilation changes, which can be engaged to estimate shear strength distribution of asperities.
Use of a broadband Local Area Network (LAN) for transmission of classified and secure unclassified information requires monitoring capabilities which are sensitive to discrete segments of the network frequency spectrum. A viable monitoring system must be capable of detecting possible intrusion attempts or network malfunctions and alerting operating and security personnel. This report documents the results of an evaluation of the Magnavox CATV Systems Inc. Digital System Sentry software for network monitoring. Recommendations are made on its possible future role in broadband LAN security monitoring throughout the Nuclear Weapons Complex.
A probabilistic method for assessing the profitability of reactive power compensation devices such as capacitors, static VAR compensators and generators, which improve network security, was described. Since network development is limited by environmental constraints, power networks are operated close to their limits. Because of this fact transmission network planning increasingly relies on techno-economic models to improve network security and profitability. The proposed method consists of analyzing large numbers of constrained power system states, extracted from power system simulation exercises. The paper describes details of the method and provides an example of a numerical application on a part of the French power transmission system. 10 refs., 8 figs.
As network bandwidth continues to grow and longer paths are used to exchange large scientific data between storage systems and GRID computation, it has become increasingly obvious that there is a need to deploy a packet drop avoidance mechanism into network transmission protocols. Current end-to-end congestion avoidance mechanisms used in Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) have worked well on low bandwidth delay product networks, but with newer high-bandwidth delay networks they have shown to be inefficient and prone to unstable. This is largely due to increased network bandwidth coupled with changes in internet traffic patterns. These changes come from a variety of new network applications that are being developed to take advantage of the increased network bandwidth. This paper will examine the end-to-end congestion avoidance mechanism and ...
Target recognition requires the ability to distinguish targets from non-targets, a capability called one-class generalization. Many neural network pattern classifiers fail as one-class classifiers because they use open decision boundaries. To function as one-class classifier, a neural network must have three types of generalization: within-class, between-class, and out-of-class. We discuss these three types of generalization and identify neural network architectures that meet these requirements. We have applied our one-class classifier ideas to the problem of automatic target recognition in synthetic aperture radar. We have compared three neural network algorithms: Carpenter and Grossberg`s algorithmic version of the Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART-2A), Kohonen`s Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ), and Reilly and Cooper`s Restricted Coulomb Energy network (RCE). The ART 2-A neural ...
The CPCU steam distribution network is supplemented by a return network for the condensation water. The data system installed in 1988 provides, for the real time, management of the function of the two networks and a reduction in production costs. For the steam, data required in the network, the boiler houses and from external sources are processed by local network of five microprocessors and permit: - with time delay: technical and economic production optimizing calculations, or forecasts, for the following day, of the total required output and the procedure necessary for supplying this at the lowest cost; - in real time: on the basis of the forecasts for the previous day, creating the production instructions for the boiler houses and the instructions for the network remote control elements; - in case of an unexpected occurrence: immediate creation of new ...
A system and method for generating global asynchronous signals in a computing structure. Particularly, a global interrupt and barrier network is implemented that implements logic for generating global interrupt and barrier signals for controlling global asynchronous operations performed by processing elements at selected processing nodes of a computing structure in accordance with a processing algorithm; and includes the physical interconnecting of the processing nodes for communicating the global interrupt and barrier signals to the elements via low-latency paths. The global asynchronous signals respectively initiate interrupt and barrier operations at the processing nodes at times selected for optimizing performance of the processing algorithms. In one embodiment, the global interrupt and barrier network is implemented in a scalable, massively parallel supercomputing device structure comprising a plurality of processing nodes interconnected ...
The field of digital libraries (DLs) coalesced in 1994: the first digital library conferences were held that year, awareness of the World Wide Web was accelerating, and the National Science Foundation awarded $24 Million (U.S.) for the Digital Library Initiative (DLI). In this paper we examine the state of the DL domain after a decade of activity by applying social network analysis to the co-authorship network of the past ACM, IEEE, and joint ACM/IEEE digital library conferences. We base our analysis on a common binary undirectional network model to represent the co-authorship network, and from it we extract several established network measures. We also introduce a weighted directional network model to represent the co-authorship network, for which we define $AuthorRank$ as an indicator of the impact of an individual author in the ...
We consider network coding for networks experiencing worst-case bit-flip errors, and argue that this is a reasonable model for highly dynamic wireless network transmissions. We demonstrate that in this setup prior network error-correcting schemes can be arbitrarily far from achieving the optimal network throughput. We propose a new metric for errors under this model. Using this metric, we prove a new Hamming-type upper bound on the network capacity. We also show a commensurate lower bound based on GV-type codes that can be used for error-correction. The codes used to attain the lower bound are non-coherent (do not require prior knowledge of network topology). The end-to-end nature of our design enables our codes to be overlaid on classical distributed random linear network codes. Further, we free internal nodes from ...
Many real-world networks are so large that we must simplify their structure before we can extract useful information about the systems they represent. As the tools for doing these simplifications proliferate within the network literature, researchers would benefit from some guidelines about which of the so-called community detection algorithms are most appropriate for the structures they are studying and the questions they are asking. Here we show that different methods highlight different aspects of a network's structure and that the the sort of information that we seek to extract about the system must guide us in our decision. For example, many community detection algorithms, including the popular modularity maximization approach, infer module assignments from an underlying model of the network formation process. However, we are not always as interested in how a system's network ...
Tensor network states are used to approximate ground states of local Hamiltonians on a lattice in D spatial dimensions. Different types of tensor network states can be seen to generate different geometries. Matrix product states (MPS) in D=1 dimensions, as well as projected entangled pair states (PEPS) in D>1 dimensions, reproduce the D-dimensional physical geometry of the lattice model; in contrast, the multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) generates a (D+1)-dimensional holographic geometry. Here we focus on homogeneous tensor networks, where all the tensors in the network are copies of the same tensor, and argue that certain structural properties of the resulting many-body states are preconditioned by the geometry of the tensor network and are therefore largely independent of the choice of variational parameters. Indeed, the asymptotic decay of correlations in ...
Purpose - The service-dominant (S-D) logic views supply chains as value co-creation networks. These networks promote knowledge growth amongst network members via resource deployment and coordination. The exchange of knowledge and utilization of operant resources among the network members leads to co-created service offerings and value proposals for the end-users, with the ultimate goal of transforming end-user experiences to perceptions of superior value-in-use. The purpose of this paper is to develop an illustration of the value co-creation concept and use this illustration as guide to examine the research gaps that are yet to be tapped in the area where supply chain networks and S-D logic intersects. Design/methodology/approach - The literature on S-D logic is reviewed and research gaps ...
In this article, the ability of artificial neural networks in prediction of separation in steady two dimensional boundary layer flows is studied. Data for network training is extracted from numerical solution of an ODE obtained from Von Karman integral equation with approximate one parameter Pohlhousen velocity profile. As an appropriate neural network, a two layer radial basis generalized regression artificial neural network is used. The results shows good agreements between the overall behavior of the flow fields predicted by the artificial neural network and the actual flow fields for some cases. The method easily can be extended to unsteady separation and turbulent as well as compressible boundary layer flows. (author)
In this article, the ability of artificial neural networks in prediction of separation in steady two dimensional boundary layer flows is studied. Data for network training is extracted from numerical solution of an ODE obtained from Von Karman integral equation with approximate one parameter Pohlhousen velocity profile. As an appropriate neural network, a two layer radial basis generalized regression artificial neural network is used. The results shows good agreements between the overall behavior of the flow fields predicted by the artificial neural network and the actual flow fields for some cases. The method easily can be extended to unsteady separation and turbulent as well as compressible boundary layer flows. (author)
The Advanced Networking Integration Department at Sandia National Laboratories has used the annual Supercomputing conference sponsored by the IEEE and ACM for the past three years as a forum to demonstrate and focus communication and networking developments. For Supercomputing `95, Sandia elected: to demonstrate the functionality and capability of an AT&T Globeview 20Gbps Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switch, which represents the core of Sandia`s corporate network, to build and utilize a three node 622 megabit per second Paragon network, and to extend the DOD`s ACTS ATM Internet from Sandia, New Mexico to the conference`s show floor in San Diego, California, for video demonstrations. This paper documents those accomplishments, discusses the details of their implementation, and describes how these demonstrations supports Sandia`s overall strategies in ATM networking.
We describe a large class of chemical reaction networks, those endowed with a subtle structural property called concordance. We show that the class of concordant networks coincides precisely with the class of networks which, when taken with any weakly monotonic kinetics, invariably give rise to kinetic systems that are injective --- a quality that, among other things, precludes the possibility of switch-like transitions between distinct positive steady states. We also provide persistence characteristics of concordant networks, instability implications of discordance, and consequences of stronger variants of concordance. Some of our results are in the spirit of recent ones by Banaji and Craciun, but here we do not require that every species suffer a degradation reaction. This is especially important in studying biochemical networks, for which it is rare to have all species degrade.
This paper presents the application of artificial neural networks to adiabatic flame temperature prediction of hydrocarbon fuels. The investigation was conducted over a wide range of operating conditions in terms of fuel composition, pressure and temperature of reactants, fuel-air equivalence ratio and fuel vapour fraction. Several neural network models for predicting the flame temperature for different applicable fuel ranges were built and examined. The proper preparation of network training data and the appropriate choice of network parameters for achieving better prediction accuracy are discussed. The neural network prediction results were compared with those calculated by a thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium-based computer code - the NASA program CET89. It was shown that trained neural network models can provide the adiabatic flame temperature prediction ...
BackgroundInferring regulatory interactions between genes from transcriptomics time-resolved data, yielding reverse engineered gene regulatory networks, is of paramount importance...Full Text Available
"Force20 networks, the pioneer in building and securing reliable networks, today announced that the University of Tennessee physics department has deployed the C300 resilient switch to analyze data form CERN's Large Hadron Collider." (1/2 page)
In the late 1980's, the traditional threat of anonymous break-ins to networked computers was joined by viruses and worms, multiplicative surrogates that carry out the bidding of their authors. Technologies for authentication and secrecy, supplemented by good management practices, are the principal countermeasures. Four articles on these subjects are presented.
Many healthcare organizations utilize network "firewalls" to protect their networks from being accessed by unauthorized external entities. These same firewalls are also often configured to deny access...Full Text Available
...of stations and a number of components, and meta information on air quality monitoring networks and stations. Access the database Producer Europe Environment Agency Content ...of stations and a number of components, and meta information on air quality monitoring networks and stations. Coverage National (Europe) Number of records...
Reverse engineering of gene regulatory networks has been an intensively studied topic in bioinformatics since it constitutes an intermediate step from explorative to causative gene expression...Full Text Available
ful application of the network technique, GERT, to the analysis of a terminal ... GERT Networks, Mr. David Gallagher-The Use of GERT in Studying Queueing Problems, ... Smith, R. L., "Stochastic Analysis of Personnel Movement in Formal ...
The majority of diseases in the retina are caused by genetic mutations affecting the development and function of photoreceptor cells. The transcriptional networks directing these processes are regulated...Full Text Available
An optical flow gradient algorithm was applied to spontaneously forming networks of neurons and glia in culture imaged by fluorescence optical microscopy in order to map functional calcium signaling...Full Text Available
BackgroundA wide range of techniques is now available for analyzing regulatory networks. Nonetheless, most of these techniques fail to interpret large-scale transcriptional data...Full Text Available
This is a description of the preliminary local design specifications of the Central Computing Network Security Controller. The external interface to the Central Computing Network is not described, but the functions and services to be provided are included as justification for the local design.
BackgroundGene expression profiling and the analysis of protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks may support the identification of disease bio-markers and potential drug targets....Full Text Available
PurposeTo study informal skill transfer via staff networks as a complement to formal training among afterschool childcare providers implementing a health promotion...Full Text Available
BackgroundModern approaches to treating genetic disorders, cancers and even epidemics rely on a detailed understanding of the underlying gene signaling network. Previous work has...Full Text Available
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a continuous membrane system comprising the nuclear envelope, ribosome-studded peripheral sheets and an interconnected network of smooth tubules extending throughout...Full Text Available
PURPOSE We wanted to assess computer capabilities in a primary care practice-based research network and to understand how receptive the practices were to new ideas for automation of practice...Full Text Available
Bistability plays a central role in the gene regulatory networks (GRNs) controlling many essential biological functions, including cellular differentiation and cell cycle control. However, establishing...Full Text Available
Communication problems have been implicated in many safety and quality issues, but tools to examine communication networks and their impact on patient outcomes are only beginning to become available....Full Text Available
BackgroundNetwork visualization would serve as a useful first step for analysis. However, current graph layout algorithms for biological pathways are insensitive to biologically...Full Text Available
On the problem of alarm when parts are falling in nuclear power plant, the artificial neural network (ANN) alarm method based on the signal time-frequency characteristics was developed. The method was realized by the improved BP algorithm, and demonstrated with the data from simulation experiments
BackgroundThe default mode network (DMN) is a set of brain regions that exhibit synchronized low frequency oscillations at resting-state, and is believed to be relevant to attention...Full Text Available
To test the hypothesis that leaf level photosynthetic related traits might confer late successionals a competitive advantage over early successionals in low light growth conditions, steady photosynthetic assimilation and dynamic photosynthetic induction related traits were examined in low light grown seedlings with contrasting successional status. Compared with the early successionals, late successionals as a group significantly exhibited lower leaf gas exchange rates. While late successionals required a longer time to respond to simulated sunflecks, they had lower rates of induction losses after sunflecks. Such photosynthetic induction traits allowed late successionals to more effectively utilize subsequent sunflecks. It was observed that plants with lower gas exchange rates responded mor...
How do police respond to and manage complaints of stalking? To answer this question, we conducted a 3-phase study. First, we reviewed the literature to identify risk management tactics used to combat stalking. Second, we asked a group of police officers to review those tactics for completeness and group them into categories reflecting more general risk management strategies. The result was 22 categories of strategies. Finally, we used qualitative methods to evaluate the files of 32 cases referred to the specialized anti-stalking unit of a metropolitan police department. We coded specific risk management tactics and strategies used by police. Results indicated that a median number of 19 specific tactics from 7 general strategies were used to manage risk. Also, the implementation of strategi...
Abstract Ovipositing females of the black swallowtail butterfly, Papilio polyxenes Fabricius (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae: Papilioninae), have an innate response to contact chemical cues, but it was not known how naive females would respond to volatile host plant chemicals. Naive and experienced females were tested in a free-flight experiment using model plants and volatile extracts from two hosts, carrot [Daucus carota L. (Apiaceae)] and poison hemlock [Conium maculatum L. (Apiaceae)], and one non-host, fava bean [Vicia faba L. (Fabaceae)]. Naive females responded to both host plant extracts with more approaches and landings than to non-host extracts, with poison hemlock receiving more responses than carrot. Females experienced with one of the two host plants also approached and landed freq...
The purpose of computer program NetMoment (Appendix I) is to utilize fundamental knowledge of earthquake sources, propagation attenuation, and site response in a simultaneous inversion of network data to determine the moment and source corner frequency of earthquakes, and site specific t*. The source parameters are especially difficult to determine for small earthquakes. A fundamental problem in determining the source corner frequencies of small earthquakes is that site response can result in spectral corner frequencies in the range that may be expected from the earthquakes themselves. Several authors have identified this as fmax (Hanks, 1982), a constant corner frequency for small events so that below threshold moment (about 1.0 x 10{sup 21} dyne-cm) the corner frequency remains constant the size of events diminishes. Hutchings and Wu (1990) found that for the southern California region, events with moment less than about 1.5 x 10{sup 21} dyne-cm (about magnitude ...
The objective of this project is to increase oil recovery from fractured reservoirs through improved fundamental understanding of the process of spontaneous imbibition by which oil is displaced from the rock matrix into the fractures. Spontaneous imbibition is fundamentally dependent on the reservoir surface free energy but this has never been investigated for rocks. In this project, the surface free energy of rocks will be determined by using liquids that can be solidified within the rock pore space at selected saturations. Thin sections of the rock then provide a two-dimensional view of the rock minerals and the occupant phases. Saturations and oil/rock, water/rock, and oil/water surface areas will be determined by advanced petrographic analysis and the surface free energy which drives spontaneous imbibition will be determined as a function of increase in wetting phase saturation. The inherent loss in surface free energy resulting from capillary instabilities at the microscopic (pore ...
Abstract Reticulate pattern is one of the most important dermatological signs of a pathological process involving the superficial vascular networks. Vascular malformations, such as cutis marmorata congenita telangiectasia and benign forms of livedo reticularis, and sinister conditions, such as meningococcal meningitis or Sneddon's syndrome, can all present with a reticulate pattern. The clinical presentation and morphology is determined by the nature and extent of the underlying pathology and the involvement of a particular vascular network. This review has been divided into four instalments. In the present paper, we discuss the anatomy and physiology of the complex network of vascular structures that support the function of the skin and subcutis.
Prepared and presented by Professor Raj Jain at Washington University in St. Louis, this series of presentations is designed to introduce computer science students to the fundamentals of network security. Visitors have the option of choosing to download or view the presentations with audio, as individual slides only, or as a single PDF document. Topics here include: security requirements, public key encryption, digital signatures, and confidentiality. This is an excellent site for educators to use in the classroom or as a supplementary resource to introduce students to computer network security. Students may also wish to view or download the presentations to learn the basic concepts of network security.
This article introduces the story of Yusuf al-Marzuk (1895-1957), a Kuwaiti merchant who created a thriving network in the Arabian/Persian Gulf and India. This network was part of the vast, undocumented activities of Kuwaiti merchants. They were uncovered by rare British reports. Yusuf's economic power enabled him to participate in the struggle of Kuwaiti elites to achieve political power vis-a-vis the Kuwaiti rulers, the Sabah family. This article demonstrates the importance of the trading networks with respect to the economic and political developments that shaped the region before the relatively well researched oil period.
... from theory to practice will be significantly reduced while intrinsically revolutionizing the approach to engineering network security architectures. ...
Capacity is defined as the power resulting from the specific position of a company in a network organization. This article extends the theory of network organizations to examine Mazda?s Yokokai Keiretsu, and proposes a new approach to calculating a firm?s capacity in a network. Capacity is divided into two categories, take-in capacity and take-out capacity, and the gap between them is called the capacity difference. We analyze the impact of capacity difference as a determinant of corporate performance in network organizations, thus providing a new perspective for successful corporate management.
Supplementing the collection of artificial neural network methodologies devised for monitoring energy producing installations, a general regression artificial neural network is proposed for the identification of the two-phase flow that occurs in the coolant channels of boiling water reactors. The utilization of a limited number of image features derived from radiography images affords the proposed approach with efficiency and non-invasiveness. Additionally, the application of counter-clustering to the input patterns prior to training accomplishes an 80% reduction in network size as well as in training and test time. Cross-validation tests confirm accurate on-line flow regime identification.
Supplementing the collection of artificial neural network methodologies devised for monitoring energy producing installations, a general regression artificial neural network is proposed for the identification of the two-phase flow that occurs in the coolant channels of boiling water reactors. The utilization of a limited number of image features derived from radiography images affords the proposed approach with efficiency and non-invasiveness. Additionally, the application of counter-clustering to the input patterns prior to training accomplishes an 80% reduction in network size as well as in training and test time. Cross-validation tests confirm accurate on-line flow regime identification.
The Plant Life Assessment Network (PLAN) is a Brite Euram Type II Thematic Network, initiated by the European Commission to facilitate structured co-operation between all cost shared action projects already funded by the Commission which fall under this common technical theme. The projects involved address a multiplicity of problems associated with plant life assessment and are drawn from Brite-Euram, Standards, Measurement and Testing, Nuclear Fission Safety and Esprit EC programmes. The main aim of the Network is to initiate, maintain and monitor a fruitful co-operation process between completed, ongoing and future EC R and D projects, thereby promoting improved cross fertilization and enhanced industrial exploitation of R and D results. As the project is in its infancy, this presentation covers the background to the initiative in some detail. In particular two key aspects are highlighted, namely, the requirement of the ...
A new study identifies and ranks the 10 security gaps responsible for most outsider attacks on college computer networks. The list is intended to help campus system administrators establish priorities as they work to increase security. One network security expert urges that institutions utilize multiple security layers. (DB)
... Social Capital Social capital describes circumstances in which individuals and organisations can use membership in groups and networks to secure benefits. Connections within and between networks reinforce the belief that these social networks have a value and can be used as a platform for further social progress. In this light, natural capital and social capital are closely related, and policies that build or destroy one often build ...
Within this paper the potentialities of using networked embedded systems will be discussed. New embedded hardware with network connectivity allows remote administration and software updates of solar thermal system controllers via internet. System self analysis helps to minimize breakdown times by sending email and SMS to request maintenance staff. (orig.)
Computing Networks (CNs) are defined. These are used to generalize neural and swarm architectures, namely artificial neural networks, ant colony optimization, and particle swarm optimization. The description of these architectures as CNs allows their comparison, distinguishing which properties enable them to perform complex computations and exhibit complex cognitive abilities. In this context, the most relevant characteristics of CNs are the existence multiple dynamical and functional scales.
The catalytic liquefaction of a Chinese bituminous coal was simulated by artificial neural network. Three liquefaction variables, catalyst loading, reaction temperature and reaction time were used as inputs and tetrohydrofuran (THF) conversion and toluene (T) conversion were used as outputs. The artificial neural network, trained by the experimental data, could represent the liquefaction process, with a mean squared deviation of less than 0.025. 7 refs.,1 fig., 3 tabs.
In 1998, EU legislation initiated a liberalisation process among European energy markets. The process of market opening has significantly changed the functioning of the markets and the competition conditions of the energy sector. At the same time, the industry witnessed a surge of mergers and far-reaching changes in the structure of German electricity and natural gas markets occurred. Against this background, the doctoral thesis at hand surveys the merger activities in the energy sector as well as the merger control policy of the German Federal Cartel Office during the first years of liberalisation. The study starts with a portrayal of the institutional framework of the German merger control regime and a survey of the relevant economic literature on horizontal and vertical mergers. Subsequent to the legal and theoretical considerations, the merger activities and the merger control policy of the German Federal Cartel Office are investigated empirically. The data set is based on ...
This paper describes a study of a security method of protecting inside network computers against outside miscreants and unwelcome visitors and a control method when these computers are connected with the Internet. In the present Internet, a method to encipher all data cannot be used, so that it is necessary to utilize PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) capable of the encipherment and conversion of secret information. For preventing miscreant access by eavesdropping password, one-time password is effective. The most cost-effective method is a firewall system. This system lies between the outside and inside network. By limiting computers that directly communicate with the Internet, control is centralized and inside network Security is protected. If the security of firewall systems is strictly controlled under correct setting, security within the network can be secured even in open networks ...
Although state estimation is a mature technique which is widely available in the EMS industry, experience with practical implementation and use of state estimation and network security analysis functions at electric power utilities over the last two decades indicates recurring difficulties and problems attributable to inadequate external network modeling detail and data. This paper addresses the development of a set of guidelines for external network modeling and data exchange, based on the results of a recent project sponsored by EPRI. A general methodology is developed based on the results of a survey of a representative set of utilities and EMS suppliers, supplemented by subsequent analysis and simulation studies. Distinction is made between guidelines pertaining to external network topology, analog measurements, data exchange, and implementation procedures. A philosophy and approach for constructing ...
A Health Care Establishment (HCE) is an establishment where medical services are rendered. The above services are provided by the health care personnel. The infrastructure of a HCE may include Information Technology (IT) equipment that stores and processes HC information. Previously, IT equipment consisted solely of stand-alone systems, whereas in recent years, the trend has been towards computer networks and distributed systems in HCEs. The spread of distributed information technology in HCEs have necessitated the implementation of Security in HCISs, to assure confidentiality, integrity and availability of HCE information. This paper discusses the issues of Security and Network Security in Health Care Information Systems (HCISs). It also suggests a method in establishing Network Security Guidelines and describes Principles for the provision of Network Security in HCEs. PMID:10163736
A Health Care Establishment (HCE) is an establishment where medical services are rendered. These services are provided by the health care personnel. The infrastructure of a HCE may include Information Technology (IT) equipment that stores and processes HC information. The spread of distributed information technology in HCEs have necessitated the implementation of Network Security in Health Care Information System (HCISs), to assure confidentiality, integrity and availability of HC information being transmitted across HC networks. This paper presents a road map in implementing Network Security guidelines for the provision of Network Security in HCEs, work carried out within the Secure Environment for Information Systems in Medicine (SEISMED) project under the Advanced Informatics in Medicine (AIM) programme. PMID:8591295
Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications is a new and rapidly developing technology for large-scale networking of devices without dependence on human interaction. Energy efficiency is one of the important design objectives for machine-to-machine network architectures that often contain multi-hop wireless subnetworks. Constructing energy-efficient routes for sending data through such networks is important not only for the longevity of the nodes which typically depend on battery energy, but also for achieving an environmentally friendly system design overall, which will be imperative as M2M networks scale in number of nodes as projected. The objective of this survey is to provide a comprehensive look into shortest-path based energy-efficient routing alternatives to provide a reference for sys...
The Elman artificial neural network (ANN) (feedback connection) was used for seismic data filtering. The recurrent connection that characterizes this network offers the advantage of storing values from the previous time step to be used in the current time step. The proposed structure has the advantage of training simplicity by a back-propagation algorithm (steepest descent). Several trials were addressed on synthetic (with 10% and 50% of random and Gaussian noise) and real seismic data using respectively 10 to 30 neurons and a minimum of 60 neurons in the hidden layer. Both an iteration number up to 4000 and arrest criteria were used to obtain satisfactory performances. Application of such networks on real data shows that the filtered seismic section was efficient. Adequate cross-validation test is done to ensure the performance of network on new data sets.
An anthropologist shares with the ?SNA and data mining community? his own anthropological perspective framed during more than five decades of network thinking about a broad range of anthropological problems. For 50?years he has viewed all people, things, and ideas in dynamic relationships. That perspective is a network perspective and at the same time anthropological, combining ethnographic, historical, holistic, and comparative views. It is valuable and beneficial to the community of scholars who use network analysis to try to understand what is going on, what went on before, and what the future prospects are. As an anthropologist, his interest is more in the wholes generated by network linkages?systems of households, bands, lineages, communities, corporations, governments?than in the ind...
Purpose - This paper seeks to provide a social network-based model for improving knowledge management in multi-level supply chains formed by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach - This approach uses social network analysis techniques to propose and represent a knowledge network for supply chains. Empirical experience from an exploratory case study in the construction sector is also presented. Findings - This proposal improves the establishment of inter-organizational relationships into networks to exchange knowledge among the companies along the supply chain and to create specific knowledge by promoting confidence and motivation. Originality/value - This proposed model is useful for academics and practitioners in supply chain management to gain a better un...
This paper reports on a study to validate the Graphical Network Representation (GRPHREP) model which is being conducted on the Los Alamos National Laboratory Integrated Computer Network (ICN). The GRPHREP model is a software system application based on graph theory and object-oriented programming methodologies. It codified the Department of Energy (DOE) Order 5637.1, which is concerned with classified computer secret policy, restrictions, and requirements. The Los Alamos ICN is required to control access to and support large-scale scientific and administrative computing. Thus, large-scale scientific and administrative computing. Thus we felt that this large, complex, and dynamic network would provide a good test for the graphical and functional capabilities of the model. Furthermore, the ICN is composed of multiple partitions that reflect the sensitivity and classification of the computation (data) and designate the ...
Recently, the forecasting technologies for network traffic have played a significant role in network management, congestion control and network security. Forecasting algorithms have also been investigated for decades along with the development of Time Series Analysis (TSA). Chaotic Time Series Analysis (CTSA) may be used to model and forecast the time series by Chaos Theory. As one of the prevailing intelligent forecasting algorithms, it is worthwhile to integrate CTSA and Support Vector Machine (SVM). In this paper, after the vulnerabilities of Local Support Vector Machine (LSVM) in forecasting modeling are analyzed, the Dynamic Time Wrapping (DTW) and the ?Dynamic K? strategy are introduced, as well as a short-term network traffic forecasting algorithm LSVM-DTW-K based on Chaos Theory an...
Nuclear knowledge is the basis for almost all nuclear activities, and education and training are the most fundamental means to transfer knowledge from one generation to the next. Understanding means and trends in knowledge transfer through education and training thus deserves a closer examination. In the past years, a number of trends and questions in nuclear knowledge, education and training have emerged. With declining student enrolment numbers and a general stagnation of the use of nuclear power in some of the IAEA's Member States, the issue of a slow erosion of the knowledge base and the possibility of loosing knowledge has become increasingly important, in particular if seen against the background of a possible renaissance of nuclear power in the future. In other Member States, an expansion of nuclear power is expected, with a corresponding need for human resources. As a result, in many Member States education and training of the next generation and succession planning have become ...
Recently the ISO standards organization has requested the PV community to establish AMO calibration methodologies for space solar cells. The PV community responded by organizing a series of workshops to review and recommend AMO calibration techniques. One of the activities of the workshop is to review the various calibration methodologies and conduct a comprehensive uncertainty analysis of each method. This paper outlines NASA`s methodology of AMO calibration using the high altitude aircraft method.
Metabotropic glutamate receptor 2/3 (mGluR2/3) agonists were shown previously to nonselectively decrease both cocaine- and food-maintained responding in rats. mGluR2 positive allosteric modulators (PAMs)...Full Text Available
Objective: To ascertain people's views regarding disclosure of cancer diagnosis and whether they would like to share this information with their family. The study also looked at whether if their parents were diagnosed to be suffering from cancer, would they like this information to be communicated to them. Results: The total number of persons surveyed were 520. Fifteen persons refused to participate in the survey, hence they were excluded and 505 respondents 299 male and 206 female were analyzed. Ages of the respondents were between 18 to 80 years. The study population belonged to different socio-economic groups in the society. Three hundred ninety-one (77.4%) responded positively that they would like to know if they ever suffer from cancer, while 112 (22.1%) said No and 2 (0.39%) said it doesn't matter. Three hundred seventeen (62.7%) wanted their family to be informed while 187 (37.%) said No and the attitude of 1 (0.19%) ...
A 56-year-old man admitted to our hospital for cardiac tamponade due to dilated cardiomyopathy did not respond to treatment by usual medical means or surgery. Pericardio-peritoneal drainage was conducted using a subcostal approach. Seven months later, the patient remains well and free of signs of pericardial tamponade. This method has proved to be safe and effective in patients with persistent massive pericardial effusion. PMID:10496067
The uncertainties of growth in Croatian future energy, particularly electricity demand, together with growing environmental considerations and protection constraints, are such that Croatia needs to have flexibility to respond by having the option of expanding the nuclear sector. The paper deals with nuclear energy as an option for croatian sustainable economic development. The conclusion is that there is a necessity for extended use of nuclear energy in Croatia because most certainly nuclear energy can provide energy necessary to sustain progress. (author).
Using a set of six baboons (Papio cynocephalus), the authors conducted a series of seven experiments designed to evaluate the potentially aversive character of a 60 Hz electric field (EF). Initially, the subjects were trained, using food rewards as the reinforcer, to respond only when a cue light was illuminated. Next, an EF was presented along with the cue light; responses produced delivery of a food pellet and turned off both the cue light and the EF. Then, stimulus and reward conditions were varied. The authors determined that (1) presence of a strong EF does not affect operant responding for food rewards, (2) subjects will not respond at normal rates when the only reinforcer is termination of a strong EF, (3) presence of a strong EF can serve as a discriminative stimulus, (4) presence of a strong EF does not affect extinction of an appetite-motivated task, and (5) presentation of an EF can become a secondary reinforcer. ...
... All rickettsial diseases respond to treatment with antibiotics such as doxycycline and tetracycline As of 10 May, the Government of South Africa has reported 186 confirmed cases of RVF in humans, including 18 deaths, in Free State Province, Eastern Cape Province, Northern Cape Province, Western Cape, and North West Province. RVF is a viral disease that primarily affects animals (such as cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats and camels). The disease can also affect humans. The main mode of transmission of RVF ...
... The final strand is to invest in new infrastructure, supporting the growth of small and medium-sized businesses and developing new productive industries like pharmaceuticals, locomotive engineering and plastics. Having acted as an adviser to the government, I can see several reasons why the EU should welcome and support this model of economic development. The most important is that Kazakhstan's diversification and its determination to move production up the ...
The chain of eddy current probes and a film cassette probe, which responds to radiation from a radio-active source in one of the heat exchanger pipes is examined. The probes are moved by nylon pipes on both ends of the chain through the pipe to be examined. The nylon pipes are bent off load. In this way the probes on the chain will adjust near to the plane of bending of the pipes to be tested.
We have used the unique spatial sensitivity of polarized neutron and soft x-ray beams in reflection geometry to measure the depth dependence of magnetization across the interface between a ferromagnet and antiferromagnet. The new uncompensated magnetization near the interface responds to applied field, while the uncompensated spins in the antiferromagnetic bulk are pinned, thus providing a means to establish exchange bias.
Electron beam therapy applied to a lymph node metastasis from a squamous cell carcinoma was followed by the development of histologically and immunologically typical bullous pemphigoid, the lesions being initially strictly confined to the irradiation area. This observation suggests that the bullous pemphigoid antigen may be altered or unmasked by electron beam radiotherapy, leading subsequently to the production of autoantibodies. The disease in this case effectively responded to the administration of tetracycline and niacinamide, a therapeutic regimen described recently.
A survey to assess mentoring experiences and attitudes towards work of Pennsylvania academic librarians was conducted in September 2006 with questions concerning mentoring experiences, work experiences, and attitudes towards work. Results of the survey are analyzed for differences among those librarians responding, especially generational differences, and implications for professional associations when developing mentoring programs are discussed.
Target recognition requires the ability to distinguish targets from non-targets, a capability called one-class generalization. To function as a one-class classifier, a neural network must have three types of generalization: within-class, between-class, and out-of-class. We discuss these three types of generalization and identify neural network architectures that meet these requirements. We have applied our one-class classifier ideas to the problem of automatic target recognition in synthetic aperture radar. We have compared three neural network algorithms: Carpenter and Grossberg`s algorithmic version of the Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART-2A), Kohonen`s Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ), and Reilly and Cooper`s Restricted Columb Energy network (RCE). The ART 2-A neural network has given the best results, with 100% within-class, and out-of-class generalization. Experiments show that ...
The Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Distance Computing (DisCom) Wide Area Network (WAN) is a high performance, long distance network environment that is based on the ubiquitous TCP/IP protocol set. However, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the algorithms that govern its operation were defined almost two decades ago for a network environment vastly different from the DisCom WAN. In this paper we explore and evaluate possible modifications to TCP that purport to improve TCP performance in environments like the DisCom WAN. We also examine a much newer protocol, SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol) that claims to provide reliable network transport while also implementing multi-streaming, multi-homing capabilities that are appealing in the DisCom high performance network environment. We provide performance comparisons and recommendations for continued ...
In Internet Routing, the static shortest path (SP) problem has been addressed using well known intelligent optimization techniques like artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms (GAs) and particle swarm optimization. Advancement in wireless communication lead more and more mobile wireless networks, such as mobile networks [mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs)] and wireless sensor networks. Dynamic nature of the network is the main characteristic of MANET. Therefore, the SP routing problem in MANET turns into dynamic optimization problem (DOP). Here the nodes ae made aware of the environmental condition, thereby making it intelligent, which goes as the input for GA. The implementation then uses GAs with immigrants and memory schemes to solve the dynamic SP routing problem (DSPRP) in MANETS. In our paper, once the network topology changes, the ...
This paper provides a snapshot of the computer network security industry and addresses specific issues related to network security in public education. The following topics are covered: (1) security policy, including reasons for establishing a policy, risk assessment, areas to consider, audit tools; (2) workstations, including physical security, protecting workstation components, and computer viruses; (3) the local network, including the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) reference model, protocols, network segmentation, network management, network sniffing, and data encryption; (4) servers, including UNIX and other server operating systems; (5) remote access, including technologies, remote access servers, protocols, and authentication/authorization; (6) crackers and hackers, including threats and hacking tools/techniques; (7) Internet firewalls, including ...
For InAs-GaAs based quantum dot lasers emitting at 1300 nm, digital modulation showing an open eye pattern up to 12 Gb s{sup -1} at room temperature is demonstrated, at 10 Gb s{sup -1} the bit error rate is below 10{sup -12} at -2 dB m receiver power. Cut-off frequencies up to 20 GHz are realised for lasers emitting at 1.1 {mu}m. Passively mode-locked QD lasers generate optical pulses with repetition frequencies between 5 and 50 GHz, with a minimum Fourier limited pulse length of 3 ps. The uncorrelated jitter is below 1 ps. We use here deeply etched narrow ridge waveguide structures which show excellent performance similar to shallow mesa structures, but a circular far field at a ridge width of 1 {mu}m, improving coupling efficiency into fibres. No beam filamentation of the fundamental mode, low a-factors and strongly reduced sensitivity to optical feedback are observed. QD lasers are thus superior to QW lasers for any system or network. ...
Sweden is facing a re-structured electricity market beginning January 1, 1996, implying full competition in the purchasing and selling of electricity. The transmission and distribution of electricity will remain as a franchised monopoly and this business has to be strictly separated from the electricity trading. In the monopolistic environment, pricing of electricity has been based on more or less relevant costs and a resonable rate of return. The energy charges have reflected the system short range marginal costs while the demand and fixed charges have been adapted to give a total cost level corresponding to the system average cost. Tariffs of this type, known as time-of-use tariffs, have stimulated peak shaving during peak load (high cost hours) and valley filling during low load (low cost hours), increasing the load factor. Restructuring will influence the pricing in several ways. Pricing of transmission and distribution services will be based on costs and will ...
The purpose of this study was to evaluate time management and workflow for multidetector-row helical CT (MDCT). Time for patient and data handling of at total of 580 patients were evaluated at two different time periods (December 1999, August 2000), each for the following baseline measurements: (a) change of clothes/instruction; (b) patient placement on the CT table/i.v. catheter; (c) CT planning and programming; (d) CT data acquisition; (e) CT data reconstruction; (f) CT data storage/printing. All imaging was performed on a Somatom Volume Zoom (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). Time measurements summarized for different CT protocols revealed the following: (a) 5:01 min (#+-#2.06 min); (b) 4:36 min (#+-#2.43 min); (c) 4:11 min (#+-#2.55 min); (d) 0:43 min (#+-#0.15 min); (e) 6:59 min (#+-#2.39 min); (f) 09:51 min (#+-#3.51 min). Planning and programming was most time-consuming for CT angiography, whereas chest and abdominal CT needed only 3:26 and 3:30 min, respectively. Reconstruction time ...
The US Department of Energy (DOE) is now evaluating its facility requirements in support of its cleanup mission at Hanford. One of the early findings is that the 200-Area steam plants, constructed in 1943, will not meet future space heating and process needs. Because the 200 Area will serve as the primary area for waste treatment and long-term storage, a reliable steam supply is a critical element of Hanford operations. This Analysis and Decision Document (ADD) is a preliminary review of the steam supply options available to the DOE. The ADD contains a comprehensive evaluation of the two major acquisition options: line-term versus privatization. It addresses the life-cycle costs associated with each alternative, as well as factors such as contracting requirements and the impact of market, safety, security, and regulatory issues. Specifically, this ADD documents current and future steam requirements for the 200 Area, describes alternatives available to DOE for ...
Research highlights: #-># The building occupancy affecting the cooling load prediction is studied. #-># PENN model is adopted in this study for predicting the building cooling load. #-># Statistical approach is adopted to result a less prejudice prediction performance. #-># Results show that occupancy data can significantly improve the prediction. -- Abstract: Building cooling load prediction is one of the key factors in the success of energy-saving measures. Many computational models available in the industry today have been developed from either forward or inverse modeling approaches. However, most of these models require extensive computer resources and involve lengthy computation. This paper discusses the use of data-driven intelligent approaches, a probabilistic entropy-based neural (PENN) model to predict the cooling load of a building. Although it is common knowledge that the presence and activity of building occupants have a significant impact ...
Recently the troubles related to the network security have often occurred at KEK. According to their security policy, the authors have started the strategy against the daily attacks. It consists of two fundamental things; the monitoring and the access control. To monitor the network, the authors have installed the intrusion detection system and have managed it since 1998. For the second thing, the authors arranged three categories to classify all hosts (about 5000 hosts) at KEK according to their security level. To realize these three categories, the authors filter the incoming packet from outside KEK whether it has a SYN flag or not. The network monitoring and the access control produced good effects in keeping the security level high. Since 2000 the authors have started the transition of LAN from shared-media network to switched network. Now almost part of LAN was re-configured ...
As a social media, online social networks play a vital role in the social information diffusion. However, due to its unique complexity, the mechanism of the diffusion can be different from the ones in other types of networks and remains unclear to us. Meanwhile, few works have been done to reveal the coupled dynamics of both the structure and the diffusion of online social networks. To this end, in this paper, we propose a model to investigate how the structure is coupled with the diffusion in online social networks from the view of weak ties. Through numerical experiments on large-scale online social networks, we find that in contrast to some previous research results, selecting weak ties preferentially to republish cannot make the information diffuse quickly, while random selection can achieve this goal. However, when we remove the weak ties gradually, the coverage of the ...
This paper presents an uplink capacity analysis and interference avoidance technique for a femtocell based two-tier DS-CDMA network using shared spectrum. Assuming randomly distributed macrocell users and femtocell base stations (BS), we evaluate a network-wide area spectral efficiency metric called the operating contour (OC) defined as the feasible combinations of the average macrocell users and femtocell BS per cell-site that meet a target outage constraint $\\epsilon$. A contribution of this work is an accurate characterization of the uplink outage probability taking cross-tier power control, path-loss and shadowing effects into account. We show that a time-hopped CDMA physical layer coupled with sectorized receive antennas shows dramatic performance improvements in both light and heavily loaded two-tier networks, relative to a split spectrum two-tier network with omnidirectional femtocell antennas. ...
A voice-tracking algorithm was developed and tested for the purposes of electronically separating the voice signals of simultaneous talkers. Many individuals suffer from hearing disorders that often inhibit their ability to focus on a single speaker in a multiple speaker environment (the cocktail party effect). Digital hearing aid technology makes it possible to implement complex algorithms for speech processing in both the time and frequency domains. In this work, an average magnitude difference function (AMDF) was performed on mixed voice signals in order to determine the fundamental frequencies present in the signals. A time prediction neural network was trained to recognize normal human voice inflection patterns, including rising, falling, rising-falling, and falling-rising patterns. The neural network was designed to track the fundamental frequency of a single talker based on the training procedure. The output of the neural ...
Security is an essential element of information technology (IT) infrastructure and applications. Concerns about security of networks and information systems have been growing along with the rapid increase in the number of network users and the value of their transactions. The hasty security threats have driven the development of security products known as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) to detect and protect the network, server and desktop infrastructure ahead of the threat. Authentication and signing techniques are used to prevent integrity threats. Users, devices, and applications should always be authenticated and authorized before they are allowed to access networking resources. Though a lot of information is available on the internet about IDS and IPS but it all is spread on so many sites and one has to spend a considerable part of his precious time to ...
Security is an essential element of information technology (IT) infrastructure and applications. Concerns about security of networks and information systems have been growing along with the rapid increase in the number of network users and the value of their transactions. The hasty security threats have driven the development of security products known as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) to detect and protect the network, server and desktop infrastructure ahead of the threat. Authentication and signing techniques are used to prevent integrity threats. Users, devices, and applications should always be authenticated and authorized before they are allowed to access networking resources. Though a lot of information is available on the internet about IDS and IPS but it all is spread on so many sites and one has to spend a considerable part of his precious time to ...
This paper focuses on practical and cost-effective NetWare-specific approaches to information systems and computer security. A series of real world experiences is presented that illustrate fundamental information systems and security concepts. A NetWare network is a client-server network which uses a file server to share files while client workstations access the file server via some network typology (usually ethernet or token ring). Passwords are used to authenticate users; thus, password protection is a cornerstone of network security. Passwords can be encrypted, but this feature can be disabled. The bindery, which stores information about users, groups, and printers, is critical to the network and must be backed up. Trade secrets can be hidden from users by restructuring menus. Login scripts should be protected and not used for security purposes. Guest account access should be ...
We propose behavior-oriented services as a new paradigm of communication in mobile human networks. Our study is motivated by the tight user-network coupling in future mobile societies. In such a paradigm, messages are sent to inferred behavioral profiles, instead of explicit IDs. Our paper provides a systematic framework in providing such services. First, user behavioral profiles are constructed based on traces collected from two large wireless networks, and their spatio-temporal stability is analyzed. The implicit relationship discovered between mobile users could be utilized to provide a service for message delivery and discovery in various network environments. As an example application, we provide a detailed design of such a service in challenged opportunistic network architecture, named CSI. We provide a fully distributed solution using behavioral profile space gradients and ...
Introducing intelligence by means of cognition for managing, protecting, processing, and delivering of information in mobile communication systems is the way towards ubiquitous, converged and secure communications. In this context, this paper introduces the concept of quality of information (QoI). QoI means QoS while all the requirements for dependability, security, privacy and trust are satisfied at the highest possible level. This work proposes and describes an approach to network monitoring in a heterogeneous communication environment based on use of cognitive techniques and learning predictive algorithms (e.g., fuzzy logic). These methodologies are used to create an autonomy in the decision making process that is based on the calculation of key performance indicators (KPIs), which in their turn would trigger the needed radio resource management algorithms. The expected output is an improved network performance in terms of maximized ...
A summary of the effects presented here is given in the table. The designation "factor present" implies that there is knowledge (from human or animal studies, or both) of a specific factor(s) present...Full Text Available
Globalization and technological innovation are creating dynamic networks or chains of interconnected players, often known as value delivery networks or supply chains, in which a firm, whether manufacturing or service, holds the key to creating and delivering value in the form of offerings to the customers. This idea of value creation and exchange is the foundation stone of relationship marketing and it is considered successful when closeness is said to have been established in the relationship which subsequently leads toward the achievement of objectives. In order to study and understand the creation of value through relationship closeness in a value delivery network particularly at the backward end, a literature review is conducted. A framework is further developed with the help of Interp...
Superheater corrosion causes vast annual losses to the power companies. If the corrosion could be reliably predicted, new power plants could be designed accordingly, and knowledge of fuel selection and determination of process conditions could be utilized to minimize superheater corrosion. If relations between inputs and the output are poorly known, conventional models depending on corrosion theories will fail. A prediction model based on a neural network is capable of learning from errors and improving its performance as the amount of data increases. The neural network developed during this study predicts superheater corrosion with 80 % accuracy at early stage of the project. (orig.) 10 refs.
By the methods of small-angle X-ray scattering and translucent electron microscopy the existence of inhomogeneity of electron density in hydrogenated films of amorphous silicon is confirmed. The decreased density regions are extended and form a branched network of channels oriented mostly by the normal direction to the films surface. The typical size of the decreased density regions network constitutes 10 nm in the 100-800 nm films thickness range. The increase of hydrogen total partial pressure in gas mixture in case of films growth results at first in the decrease of extension of these regions and than to micropores generation in the network nodal points of the decreased electron density regions.
... (restricted)] 255-269 Inefficiency of Logit-Based Stochastic User Equilibrium in a Traffic Network Under ATIS by Hai-Jun Huang & Tian-Liang Liu & Xiaolei ...Hub-catchment Areas, Existing Hubs, and Simulation: A Case Study of Serbian Intermodal Terminals by Milorad Vidovic & Slobodan Zecevic & Milorad Kilibarda ... (restricted)] 389-410 Stochastic Location-assignment on an Interval with Sequential Arrivals by Kannan Viswanath & James Ward [Downloadable! (restricted)] ... (restricted)] 193-208 Solving Stochastic Transportation Network Protection Problems Using the Progressive Hedging-based Method by Yueyue Fan & Changzheng Liu [Downloadable! (...
Italian district small and medium enterprises (SMEs) developed aggressive strategies to extend their sales networks and supply chains abroad. Literature on districts offered alternative explanations about the impacts of internationalization on local manufacturing systems. The authors consider the evolution of Italian districts in the framework of global value chain approach, focusing on the role of leading firms. Based on a survey of 650 Italian SMEs and financial indicators, the paper describes the rise of a new district firm model, the open network, which becomes a key node of global value chains. The paper also analyses the relationships among internationalization, innovation strategies and performance of SMEs.
Fractal dimensional analysis was employed to obtain a quantitative measure of the morphology of polymer networks formed by UV irradiation induced polymerization of photo-reactive mesogenic monomers dissolved in a liquid crystal host medium. The fractal dimensions obtained, may be interpreted by polymer network growth following a percolation-like model for monomer concentrations well below the solubility limit. On passing the solubility limit, the polymerization process changes from a (radical chain) solution polymerization to a dispersion polymerization, with fractal dimensions decreasing and suggesting a cluster-cluster aggregation process for monomer concentrations above the solubility limit, similar to the aggregation of colloidal particles.
The global neutronic activity fields of a nuclear core can be reconstructed using data assimilation. Indeed, data assimilation allows to combine both measurements from instruments and information from a model, to evaluate the best possible neutronic activity within the core. We present and apply a specific procedure which evaluates the influence of measures by adding or removing instruments in a given measurement network (possibly empty). The study of various network configurations for the instruments in the nuclear core establishes that the influence of the instruments depends both on the independent instrumentation location and on the chosen network.
As an application of ART2 neural networks, computer aided monitoring of pump efficiency is successfully examined for an industrial waste-liquid treatment process with measured data of valve openness and liquid flow rates. By running the neural networks in parallel, we confirm that accuracy to detect system changes is good, and the adjustment of classifier parameters is relatively easy. Investigating the resulting classes carefully, frequency of each class is correlated with pump efficiency. The relative amount of variables are also related to the classes. (author)
Construction of high voltage transmission lines in a difficult hilly terrain within the limited time frame calls for the adoption of modern management tools for controlling the progress. The activity on node network system for such works, in which parallel and overlapping activities are involved is highly useful and is being used in Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board. This network system has helped the Board to provide an effective and efficient mode of progress reporting at all levels of functioning. A remarkable example is the control of construction of 190 km - 200 kV dc transmission line within four years and six months.
Abstracts are presented of 63 papers on the following topics: large-scale optimization, interior-point methods, algorithms for optimization, problems in control, network optimization methods, and parallel algorithms for optimization problems.
The detectors used in the TS93 balloon flight produced a large volume of information for each cosmic ray trigger. Some of the data was visual in nature, other portions contained energy deposition and timing information. The data sets are amenable to conventional analysis techniques but there is no assurance that conventional techniques make full use of subtle correlations and relations amongst the detector responses. With the advent of neural network technologies, particularly adept at classification of complex phenomena, it would seem appropriate to explore the utility of neural network techniques to classify particles observed with the instruments. In this paper neural network based methodology for signal/background discrimination in a cosmic ray space experiment is discussed. Results are presented for electron and positron classification in the TS93 flight data set and will be compared to conventional analyses.
Due to deregulation, the electrical power industry is undergoing deep changes, moving towards an open market. Two kinds of parties are active in the new environment: the economical agents (producers, consumers, brokers) and the power system operator, the former interested in power exchanges and their economic value, the latter in bus injections and their threat to the security of the transmission network. The variables used to model the transmission network operation have to be meaningful to the power system operator as well as to the economical parties; the action rules followed by the power system operator to enforce network security have to be carefully designed to be equitable and non-discriminatory. In this paper, a modeling of the power exchanges is proposed in the form of multilateral trades, and some rules for the action of the power system operator are proposed and discussed. The results obtained on a simple study ...
... second way in which social science dif- fers from the ... it would have been better to leave it intact ... to deploy, returning with worn vessels and sick crews ...
The Johns Hopkins Hospital has initiated an ambitious program to apply modern technologies to the development of a new, comprehensive clinical information system. One component of this system is a...Full Text Available
... f(i, k, α) if node k is the terminal node for ... under which the mean service rate at queue (i, k ... occur frequently in studies of stability in stochastic networks ...
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In mobile ad hoc networks (MANET), nodes usually belong to different authorities and pursue different goals. In order to maximize their own performance, nodes in such networks tend to be selfish and are not willing to forward packets for benefit of others. Meanwhile, some nodes may behave maliciously and try to disrupt the network through wasting other nodes resources in a very large scale. In this article, we present a reputation-based attack resistant cooperation stimulation (RACS) system which ensures that damage caused by malicious nodes can be bounded and cooperation among the selfish nodes can be enforced. Mathematical analyses of the system as well as the simulation results have confirmed effectiveness of our proposed system. RACS is completely self-organizing and distributed. It does not require any tamper-proof hardware or central management policy.
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A back-propagation neural network technique is used at JET to extract plasma parameters like ion temperature, rotation velocities or spectral line intensities from charge exchange (CX) spectra. It is shown that in the case of the C VI CX spectra, neural networks can give a good estimation (better than +-20% accuracy) for the main plasma parameters (Ti, V{sub rot}). Since the neural network approach involves no iterations or initial guesses the speed with which a spectrum is processed is so high (0.2 ms/spectrum) that real time analysis will be achieved in the near future. 4 refs., 8 figs.
... one for each node, and an i/o queue to manage ... ecuted as if it came from a terminal attached to a ... In its default mode PC-NETSIM is stochastic, that is ...
This paper presents a set of heuristics useful for optimal design of heat-exchange networks and integrated heat and power systems. These heuristics consolidate other approaches reported in the literature in a formalism useful for design purposes.
... system size exhibit a stochastic decomposition property ... to manage congestion in the primary queue. ... video at individual computer network terminals. ...
We investigate opportunistic cooperation between unlicensed secondary users and legacy primary users in a cognitive radio network. Specifically, we consider a model of a cognitive network where a secondary user can cooperatively transmit with the primary user in order to improve the latter's effective transmission rate. In return, the secondary user gets more opportunities for transmitting its own data when the primary user is idle. This kind of interaction between the primary and secondary users is different from the traditional dynamic spectrum access model in which the secondary users try to avoid interfering with the primary users while seeking transmission opportunities on vacant primary channels. In our model, the secondary users need to balance the desire to cooperate more (to create more transmission opportunities) with the need for maintaining sufficient energy levels for their own transmissions. Such a model is applicable in the ...
Diverse cell polarity networks require positive feedback for locally amplifying distributions of signalling molecules at the plasma membrane1. Additional...Full Text Available
A new protocol technology is just starting to emerge from the laboratory environment. Its stated purpose is to provide an additional means in which networks, and the services that reside on them, can be protected from adversarial compromise. This report has a two-fold objective. First is to provide the reader with an overview of this emerging Dynamic Defenses technology using Dynamic Network Address Translation (Dynat). This ''structure overview'' is concentrated in the body of the report, and describes the important attributes of the technology. The second objective is to provide a framework that can be used to help in the classification and assessment of the different types of dynamic defense technologies along with some related capabilities and limitations. This information is primarily contained in the appendices.
... These tankers will be converted to a dual-fuel engine to enable them to run efficiently on the biomethane. The other half will be conditioned and injected into National Gridrsquo;s gas distribution network. This will provide enough renewable energy for all the heating and ...
Network generators that capture the Internet's large-scale topology are crucial for the development of efficient routing protocols and modeling Internet traffic. Our ability to design realistic generators...Full Text Available
While many attacks are distributed across botnets, investigators and network operators have recently targeted malicious networks through high profile autonomous system (AS) de-peerings and network shut-downs. In this paper, we explore whether some ASes indeed are safe havens for malicious activity. We look for ISPs and ASes that exhibit disproportionately high malicious behavior using 12 popular blacklists. We find that some ASes have over 80% of their routable IP address space blacklisted and others account for large fractions of blacklisted IPs. Overall, we conclude that examining malicious activity at the AS granularity can unearth networks with lax security or those that harbor cybercrime.
Global supply chain practices and their effects have received considerable attention over the last two decades. In the recent past, the need for integration across supply chains has been identified as a key for effective and efficient operations of supply chains. This is observed with the increasing trend of collaborative partnerships among supply chain partners. This paper presents an integrated approach for manufacturing and distribution networks within the supply chain system of a global car company. The paper shows that the integration of manufacturing and distribution networks creates the environment for effective planning of many components and execution/follow-up of those plans. These components include materials, resources, operations/activities, suppliers and customers. The main f...
MD, Chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Trinitas Regional Medical Center, Elizabeth, NJ. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed...
The National Information Infrastructure (NII) or "information superhighway" is a high-priority federal initiative to combine communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer electronics to...Full Text Available
A sustained increase in pulsatile release of gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH) from the hypothalamus is an essential, final event that defines the initiation of mammalian puberty. This...Full Text Available
Space Network Ku-band service. ... Completed GLAST mission schedule and budget assessment .... Utilize Ku band SN link (TDRSS) for science data return ...
BackgroundSeveral fractal and non-fractal parameters have been considered for the quantitative assessment of the vascular architecture, using a variety of test specimens and of computational...Full Text Available
In cluster-based routing protocol (CBRP), two-level hierarchical structure is successfully used to reduce over-flooding in wireless Ad Hoc networks. As it is vulnerable to a single point of failure, we propose a new adaptive distributed threshold scheme to replace the cluster head by a group of cluster heads within each cluster, called COUNCIL, and distribute the service of single cluster head to multiple cluster heads using (k,n) threshold secret sharing scheme. An Ad Hoc network formed by COUNCIL based clusters can work correctly when the number of compromised cluster heads is smaller than k. To implement this adaptive threshold scheme in wireless Ad Hoc Networks, membership of the clusters should be defined in an adaptive way. In this paper, we mainly discuss our algorithm for forming COUNCIL based clusters using the concept of dominating set from graph theory.
The Network for a Healthy California (Network) employs a Geographic Information System (GIS) to identify the target audience and plan program activities because GIS is a powerful tool for assisting in data integration and planning. This paper describes common uses of GIS by Network contractors as well as demonstrating the possibilities of GIS as a useful tool for public health programs and audience targeting in general. Narrative examples supported with graphics describe how 1) Network contractors use the GIS to identify eligible census tracts to carry out their work, 2) the GIS can map neighborhood assets in eligible census tracts throughout California, 3) the GIS can map health behavior data to the county level throughout California, and 4) the GIS can map selected indicators of healthy ...
The IEA has identified energy efficiency as essential to achieving a sustainable energy future. In order to improve energy efficiency in industry one of the priority areas for further action is the promotion of more and higher quality energy management (EM) activity. However, there are significant gaps in the current implementation of EM. One method of bridging these gaps would be the creation of an EM Action NetworK (EMAK) to bring practical support to energy managers, connect energy managers to energy policy makers, and interconnect these networks globally. The paper describes possible aims, activities, scope, structure, timelines and approaches related to EMAK and looks at specific tasks that would be important in the set-up and implementation.
closure of the BISON network, GOLF and VIRGO will remain the only instruments ...... Faraday Cup solar wind instrument as described in Ipavich et al (1998). ...
In light of the global focus on greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption of communication networks has become an important research area. Networks are major energy consumers and are generally dimensioned for peak loads. For extended periods, resources consume power, but are lightly or unused. This research investigates the concept of dynamic topologies, i.e. networks that adapt their topology according to traffic volume. The key aim of this study is to investigate power reductions that can be achieved by dynamic topologies. It proposes a network transformation and introduces mathematical programming models that results in energy optimal topologies for given traffic loads. This paper focuses on the optimisation problems and investigates gains in static environments. Numerical results ar...
In natural ecosystems, hundreds of species typically share the same environment and are connected by a dense network of interactions such as predation or competition for resources. Much is known about...Full Text Available
A new recurrent neural network power system stabilizer (RNNPSS) based on genetic algorithm (GA) was presented. It shows faster convergence than the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) stabilizer in a multi-machine power system, because the proposed GA based neural network was first trained off-line to determine the optimal values of the learning rates. Otherwise, the RNNPSS consists of just two layers. As such, the time consumption of the damping oscillations is lower than with conventional methods. In addition, the operating range of the RNNPSS is greater than that of the LQR and conventional three layer neural networks, since the RNNPSS can greatly reduce system complexity and effectively damp system oscillations. 9 refs., 7 figs.
tions, final noise-power spectral density measurements were made. These measurements of the noise-power spectral density were not the desired phase- noise ...
... is a standard in the utility industry which is used to study switching transients on power distribution networks and high-voltage transmission lines. ...
Recently, applying the novel data mining techniques for evaluating enterprise financial distress has received much research alternation. Support Vector Machine (SVM) and back propagation neural (BPN) network has been applied successfully in many areas with excellent generalization results, such as rule extraction, classification and evaluation. In this paper, a model based on SVM with Gaussian RBF kernel is proposed here for enterprise financial distress evaluation. BPN network is considered one of the simplest and are most general methods used for supervised training of multilayered neural network. The comparative results show that through the difference between the performance measures is marginal; SVM gives higher precision and lower error rates.
... a Networked Embedded Sensing Toolkit (MSR Sense ... edging due to mis-registration than the ... Langrebe, Signal theory in multisensor remote sensing ...
pumped storage plants; but these must be built as well since there is no correspondence with the pump and turbine operating times governed by normal network ...
respectively. This is a NASA and GSFC requirement to help ensure our computer and network security on center. In the near future, ftp access, with the exception of anonymous ftp of...
In order to investigate the behaviour of the turbine control system during strong pendulum motions, an analysis is carried out using a digital computer program by which the reactor, the turbine, the generator and, in a simplified way, the network can be simulated to the necessary degree. Plotter pictures can show the main physical quantities. In all cases, the turbine control system should be able to distinguish between strong pendulum amplitude with acceleration of the rotational angles and sudden release criteria. This demand can be satisfied by a simple adjustment in the Kraftwerk Union turbine control system. Only a few seconds after shut-off of a severe network failure, the turbines are back to their rated power, thus contributing to reliability of supply in this critical network situation. (orig.).
Chemoreceptors are crucial components in the bacterial sensory systems that mediate chemotaxis. Chemotactic responses exhibit exquisite sensitivity, extensive dynamic range and precise adaptation....Full Text Available
... adaptive method called Shortest Queue plus Bias ... routing problem under stochastic traffic demands have ... of permits allocated to a node or terminal ...
... 3 Illustration of the hidden terminal problem in ... satellite downlink subject to stochastic power demands ... be immediately served, queueing effects are ...
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Wireless mesh networks can provide low-cost solutions for extending the reach of wireless access points by using multi-hop routing over a set of stationary wireless routers. The routing protocol for these networks may need to address quality considerations to meet the requirements of the user. In this paper, we present a quality based routing protocol for wireless mesh networks that tries to maximize the probability of successful transmissions while minimizing the end-to-end delay. The proposed routing protocol uses reactive route discoveries to collect key parameters from candidate routes to estimate the probability of success and delay of data packets transmitted over them. To achieve accurate route quality assessments, a new route quality metric is proposed that uses performance models ...
This work addresses the problem of estimating the direction-of-arrival (DOA) of two sources using an array of sensors. This problem is mostly useful in radar applications, where we have few targets at each range bin. Super-resolution algorithms, such as maximum likelihood (ML) estimation and multiple signal classification (MUSIC), have been applied to this problem, but the former involves high computation efforts, while the later has poor estimation performance for coherent sources. In this work, we propose a DOA estimation network, named RBF-AML, which combines the approximated ML (AML) estimator and a radial basis function (RBF) neural network (NN). In the proposed RBF-AML network, the entire two dimensional DOA space is divided into multiple sectors covered by RBF experts. The AML funct...
Dysregulation of the alternative pathway of complement activation, caused by mutations or polymorphisms in the genes encoding factor H, membrane co-factor protein, factor I or factor B, is associated...Full Text Available
In the CNS, there are widespread and diverse interactions between growth factors and estrogen. Here we examine the interactions of estrogen and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), two...Full Text Available
Human Factor VIII/von Willebrand factor, purified by calcium citrate-cellulose chromatography and 4% agarose gel filtration was subjected to sodium dodecyl sulfate gel electrophoresis on gels containing...Full Text Available
This study uses a multi-part, split-sample contingent valuation method (CVM) and fair share (FS) survey to better understand the public's valuation of mitigating global climate change through its willingness to pay for biomass or 'cellulosic' ethanol. In addition to a basic CVM question, a related scenario was developed that asked half of the survey respondents to state their fair share cost to lessen a potential food shortage in the next decade, also through the expanded use of cellulosic ethanol. Three alternative biomass feedstocks were assessed: farming residues, forestry residues and paper mill wastes, and municipal solid wastes. Overall a slightly larger proportion of respondents were WTP extra for cellulosic ethanol in the basic CVM scenario than in the FS scenario, though no significant differences were found in the WTP for the different feedstocks. Bid curve lognormal regression results for the two models ...
Pain is necessary for survival but chronic pain is disabling and causes significant health and economic problems. This study provides an understanding of the future for spinal cord stimulation. Stimulation by means of chronically implanted electrodes, was carried out in 200 patients with pain of varied benign organic etiology. In 177 of them, pain was confined to the failed back syndrome. Most patients were referred by a Pain Management Service. 226 epidural implants were used: 80 unipolar, 59 Resume, 12 bipolar, and 75 quadripolar. Patients were followed for periods of 6 months to 12 years, with a mean follow-up of 44 months. 84 patients (42%) were able to control their pain by stimulation alone, 22 patients (11%) needed occasional analgesic supplements along with their stimulation program. Pain secondary to failed back syndrome, multiple sclerosis, peripheral vascular disease, sympathetic dystrophy and diabetic neuropathy responded favorably. Pain due to cauda ...
Six species having characteristics of plants with the C(4) dicarboxylic photosynthetic pathway, Echinochloa utilis L. Ohwi et Yabuno (Japanese millet), Cynodon dactylon L. (Bermuda grass), Kyllinga brevifolia Rottb., Amaranthus tricolor L. cv. Early splendour, Kochia childsii Hort., and Portulaca grandiflora Hook (rose moss), responded decisively to 0.1 milliequivalent per liter NaCl supplied to their culture solutions initially containing less than 0.08 microequivalent per liter Na. Chlorosis and necrosis occurred in leaves of plants not receiving sodium. Portulaca failed to set flower in the sodium-deficient cultures. Under similar conditions Poa pratensis L. (Kentucky blue grass) having characteristics of the C(3) photosynthetic pathway made normal growth and did not respond to the addition of sodium. It is concluded from these results and previously reported work that sodium is generally essential for species having the C(4) pathway but not ...
Six species having characteristics of plants with the C4 dicarboxylic photosynthetic pathway, Echinochloa utilis L. Ohwi et Yabuno (Japanese millet), Cynodon dactylon L. (Bermuda grass), Kyllinga brevifolia Rottb., Amaranthus tricolor L. cv. Early splendour, Kochia childsii Hort., and Portulaca grandiflora Hook (rose moss), responded decisively to 0.1 milliequivalent per liter NaCl supplied to their culture solutions initially containing less than 0.08 microequivalent per liter Na. Chlorosis and necrosis occurred in leaves of plants not receiving sodium. Portulaca failed to set flower in the sodium-deficient cultures. Under similar conditions Poa pratensis L. (Kentucky blue grass) having characteristics of the C3 photosynthetic pathway made normal growth and did not respond to the addition of sodium. It is concluded from these results and previously reported work that sodium is generally essential for species having the C4 pathway but not for ...
This book constitutes a portion of the primary documentation for the 1992 Pacific Northwest Residential Energy Survey, Phase I. The complete 33-volume set of primary documentation provides information needed by energy analysts and interpreters with respect to planning, execution, data collection, and data management of the PNWRES92-I process. Thirty of these volumes are devoted to different ``views`` of the data themselves, with each view having a special purpose or interest as its focus. Analyses and interpretations of these data will be the subjects of forthcoming publications. Conducted during the late summer and fall months of 1992, PNWRES92-I had the over-arching goal of satisfying basic requirements for a variety of information about the stock of residential units in Bonneville`s service region. Surveys with a similar goal were conducted in 1979 and 1983. This volume contains a follow-up study of non-respondents to the original survey. The information is ...
Separate effects of ammonium (NH{sub 4} {sup +}) and nitrate (NO{sub 3} {sup -}) on boreal forest understorey vegetation were investigated in an experiment where 12.5 and 50.0 kg nitrogen (N) ha{sup -1} year{sup -1} was added to 2 m{sup 2} sized plots during 4 years. The dwarf-shrubs dominating the plant community, Vaccinium myrtillus and V. vitis-idaea, took up little of the added N independent of the chemical form, and their growth did not respond to the N treatments. The grass Deschampsia flexuosa increased from the N additions and most so in response to NO{sub 3} {sup -}. Bryophytes took up predominately NH{sub 4} {sup +} and there was a negative correlation between moss N concentration and abundance. Plant pathogenic fungi increased from the N additions, but showed no differences in response to the two N forms. Because the relative contribution of NH{sub 4} {sup +} and NO{sub 3} {sup -} to the total N deposition on a regional scale can vary substantially, the ...
As its indigenous gas supplies decline, the UK will need to import more gas. In November 2006, the Department of Trade and Industry issued a consultation on revising the consent regime for offshore gas storage and offshore liquefied natural gas unloading. A total of 27 responses had been received by the closing date of 16 February 2007 from a variety of interest parties including developers and their representative organisations, consultants, environmental organisations, maritime organisations, heritage organisations and other public bodies. This report presents the Government's response to the views expressed by these respondents. The majority of respondents supported the Government's proposals to put in place new legislation to permit offshore gas storage activities. Many believed new legislation was necessary to provide the legal certainty necessary ro encourage offshore development and investment in such developments. ...
Abstract in english A long-standing debate in the literature is whether attention can form two or more independent spatial foci in addition to the well-known unique spatial focus. There is evidence that voluntary visual attention divides in space. The possibility that this also occurs for automatic visual attention was investigated here. Thirty-six female volunteers were tested. In each trial, a prime stimulus was presented in the left or right visual hemifield. This stimulus was characteriz (more) ed by the blinking of a superior, middle or inferior ring, the blinking of all these rings, or the blinking of the superior and inferior rings. A target stimulus to which the volunteer should respond with the same side hand or a target stimulus to which she should not respond was presented 100 ms later in a primed location, a location between two primed locations or a location in the contralateral hemifield. Reaction time to the positive target ...
The purpose of this study was to determine if a cannabinoid CB1 receptor antagonist would selectively decrease consumption of highly palatable food in non-human primates. The CB1 receptor antagonist SR141716 (rimonabant; 0.12?1.0?mg/kg, i.m.) and the stimulant anorectic drug d-amphetamine (0.12?1.0?mg/kg, i.m.) were administered to non-food deprived baboons for the purpose of measuring the effect of each drug on consumption of the normal diet, and a large single meal of a high-carbohydrate candy. Four male and four female baboons had access to food 24?h each day, but they had to complete a two phase operant procedure in order to eat. Responding on one lever during a 30-min appetitive phase was required before animals could start a consumption phase, where responding on another lever led to...
We explore a possibility that the daily sea-level pressure (SLP) over South Korea responds to the high-speed solar wind event. This is of interest in two aspects: First, if there is a statistical association this can be another piece of evidence showing that various meteorological observables indeed respond to variations in the interplanetary environment. Second, this can be a very crucial observational constraint since most models proposed so far are expected to preferentially work in higher latitude regions than the low latitude region studied here. We have examined daily solar wind speed ${\\rm V}$, daily SLP difference ${\\rm \\Delta SLP}$, and daily ${\\rm \\log(BV^{2})}$ using the superposed epoch analysis in which the key date is set such that the daily solar wind speed exceeds 800 ${\\rm kms^{-1}}$. We find that the daily ${\\rm \\Delta SLP}$ averaged out of 12 events reaches its peak at day +1 and gradually decreases back to its normal ...
The purpose of this study was to develop a foraging model that engenders large meals. Eight free-feeding baboons were first given periodic access to a chocolate sugar-coated candy (M & Ms?) and then a jelly sugar-coated candy (Skittles?). Baboons had access to food 24?h each day, but they had to complete a two-phase operant procedure in order to eat. Responding on one lever during a 30-min appetitive phase was required before animals could start a consumption phase, where responding on another lever led to food delivery, i.e., a meal. 3?days a week for 8 or 9?weeks baboons received candy during the first meal and then food pellets were available: a 2?month interval when only pellets were available separated periods of candy access. All baboons ate as much candy in the single candy meal as ...
The Dynamic Analog Scale (DAS) is introduced as a technique for generating single-item measures of personality traits. The DAS is comprised of extensive trait definitions and an analog scale on which respondents simultaneously rate themselves and others. In two studies the Big Five personality traits were assessed with the DAS and compared to a multiple-item questionnaire that measured the same traits. Statistical analysis supported the validity of the DAS for predicting self-reported behavioral acts, drinking behaviors, affect, and religiosity in ways similar to the multiple-item questionnaire. Consistent with previous research, both studies supported the viability of measuring personality traits with single items.
A solar energy receiver is described including a separable endless wall formed of a ceramic material having defined therein a cavity of a substantially cylindrical configuration for entrapping solar flux, and an acceptance aperture adapted to admit to the cavity a concentrated beam of solar energy, said wall being characterized by at least a pair of contiguously related segments separated by lines of cleavage intercepting said aperture, at least one of the segments being supported for pivotal displacement, and a thermal responsive actuator adapted to respond to excessive temperatures within the cavity for initiating pivotal displacement of said one segment, whereby thermal flux is permitted to escape from the cavity.
A line-to-plate reactor was set-up in the experimental study on the application of nanosecond pulsed corona discharge plasma technology in environmental pollution control. Investigation on the attenuation and distortion of the amplitude of the pulse wave front and the discharge image as well as the waveform along the corona wire was conducted. The results show that the wave front decreases sharply during the corona discharge along the corona wire. The higher the amplitude of the applied pulse is, the more the amplitude of the wave front decreased. The wave attenuation responds in a lower corona discharge inversely. To get a higher efficiency of the line-to-plate reactor a sharp attenuation of the corona has to be considered in practical design.
This study reconceptualizes the native/nonnative dichotomy and provides a powerful lens to examine linguistic identities. In a study of 25 linguistically diverse teacher candidates in Canada, the respondents' native and nonnative self-ascription and self-assessed level of proficiency was juxtaposed with the judgment of their instructors. This process revealed that the native/nonnative dichotomy falls short in capturing the multifaceted nature of individuals' diverse linguistic identities and tends to misrepresent them. Within the specific social context under investigation, 6 linguistic categories that better represented the true linguistic identity of participants were identified. This inquiry reconceptualizes the controversial native/nonnative dichotomy by suggesting that linguistic iden...
This report is the second in a series of annual reports responding to congressional inquiries as to the utilization of nuclear regulatory research. NUREG-1175, ''NRC Safety Research in Support of Regulation,'' published in May 1986, reported major research accomplishments between about FY 1980 and FY 1985. This report narrates the accomplishments of FY 1986 and does not restate earlier accomplishments. Earlier research results are mentioned in the context of current results in the interest of continuity. Both the direct contributions to scientific and technical knowledge and their regulatory applications, when there has been a definite regulatory outcome during FY 1986, have been described.
A modified variable structure interacting multiple model (M-VSIMM) estimator for complex hybrid maneuver target tracking is presented. The M-VSIMM could potentially be applied to fire control systems (FCS) used on warships. Target model groups were designed using 3D dimensional dynamic target models. Optimal model group selection logic was proposed, contrary to the activation and termination logic in the original VSIMM. The system will respond faster with optimal model group selection logic. After performing simulations, the tracking performances of the Kalman, ?-?(-?), VDIE, IMM and M-VSIMM filters were compared under various maneuvering conditions.
In October 1992, the US Department of Energy, Richland Field Office (RL) requested that Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) respond to a letter from EM-331 asking for completion of a survey of items in storage but not categorized as waste (Roberts 1992). The letter contained an attachment with instructions on how to fill out the attached form and what to exclude from the survey (Appendix A). This report is a summary of the information from the response issued to RL. This report primarily is for use in estimating future waste volumes that may have been overlooked because of the nature of their classification as material not categorized as waste (MNCAW) (i.e., not yet declared Waste).
The abuse of volatile solvents may be due to their ability to produce an intoxication similar to that produced by classical central nervous system depressants such as the barbiturates and ethanol. To evaluate this hypothesis, mice were trained to discriminate pentobarbital from saline injections in a two-lever operant task. Stimulus generalization was examined following 20-min inhalation exposures to toluene (300-5400 ppm). In 8 of 10 subjects, pentobarbital-lever responding occurred following toluene exposure indicating an overlap in the discriminative stimulus properties of toluene and pentobarbital.
Brief comments are given on the evolution of the institutional nature of ENEL (Italian Electricity Board) as it relates to the framework of legislation for the nationalization of the utility in December, 1962. Special attention is given to the development of legislative criteria to allow the creation of a rate structure, in the case of autoproduction by industry, that would stimulate national economic growth. A discussion is also made of the changing role of ENEL as it responds to the planning objectives cited in the Italian National Energy Plan which calls for a more integrated effort by the regional governments and the Electricity Board in the management of natural resources.
Control of pressure transients in a hydraulic system may be important and necessary to avoid failures and to improve the efficiency of operation. Flow restricting devices can result in a decrease in the peak pressure, but may change the response time. The response time has an important effect on both operator and operator perceived smoothness. The response time should correspond to how fast a system responds to a given disturbance at the system boundary. Occasionally the appropriate response time is not easily determined. This study is on the response time characteristics in the hydraulic system studied for the control of response time.
In this work, the right management procedure for hydraulic power oil will be discussed and suggested. A thermal power plant turbine should respond to the change of load status. However, to satisfy the frequency of alternating current, the revolution per minute should be kept constant. Therefore, by controlling the flow rate of the steam to the turbine, the governor satisfies the load variation without alternating the revolution per minutes of the turbine. To protect the governor, the hydraulic power unit should be managed carefully by controlling the quality and the flow rate of the oil.
Most antibodies to factor VIII have recently been shown to react with discrete regions of the factor VIII light chain (within the C2 domain) and/or the factor VIII heavy chain (within the amino-terminal...Full Text Available
Evidence from twin, adoption, and family studies suggests that there is strong aggregation of suicidal behaviors in some families. By comparison, the role of social modeling through peers has yet to be convincingly established. This paper uses data from four large studies (the WHO/EURO Multicentre Study on Suicidal Behaviour, the WHO/SUPRE-MISS, the CASE study, and the Queensland Suicide Register) to compare the effects of exposure to fatal and nonfatal suicidal behavior in family members and nonfamilial associates on the subsequent suicidal behavior of male and female respondents of different ages. Across all studies, we found that prior suicidal behaviors among respondents' social groups were more important predictors of suicidal behavior in the respondents themselves than previous research had indicated. Community-based suicide attempters in the WHO SUPRE-MISS had higher rates of exposure to prior suicide in nonfamilial ...
This study was intended to help explain individual differences in susceptibility to irritant effects of ozone (O3), by determining whether prior ambient O3 exposures and/or recent acute respiratory illness modified response to laboratory O3 exposures. Response was measured in terms of lung function changes and irritant symptoms. Initially, 59 adult volunteer Los Angeles area residents underwent screening exposures in spring, before the season of frequent high ambient O3 levels. Unusually responsive and nonresponsive individuals (N = 12 and 13 respectively) underwent followup exposures in autumn (late in the high-O3 season) and in winter (low-O3 season). All exposures were to 0.18 ppm O3 for 2 hr with intermittent heavy exercise at 31 degrees C and 35% relative humidity. Nonresponders tended to remain nonresponsive throughout. In fall, responders had lost much of their reactivity, as if they had adapted to summer ambient O3 exposures. They did not regain reactivity ...
An increased compendium of drugs useful in ocular motor system dysfunction has expanded our capacity to treat selected ocular motility disorders. Adjunctive therapeutic modes (e.g., Fresnel prisms and orthoptic exercises) can also be beneficial. PAN and see-saw nystagmus can be treated with baclofen. Downbeat nystagmus may respond to clonazepam therapy, and prisms may help if the nystagmus can be modified with convergence. Congenital nystagmus may respond minimally to drugs (e.g., baclofen), but prisms or surgical procedures, or both, are still the primary treatment modalities. Innovar may be helpful in patients with severe, incapacitating vestibular disorders, and scopolamine alone or in combination with promethazine may be beneficial in patients with milder ambulatory acute peripheral vestibular disorders. Benign positional vertigo is best treated initially with positional exercises before drug therapy is instituted. Opsoclonus and ocular ...
Because of heightened media coverage, a 24-hour news cycle and the potential miscommunication of health messages across all levels of government during the onset of the H1N1 influenza outbreak in spring 2009, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) decided to evaluate its H1N1 influenza A communications system. IDPH wanted to confirm its disease information and instructions were helping stakeholders prepare for and respond to a novel influenza outbreak. In addition, the time commitment involved in preparing, issuing, monitoring, updating, and responding to H1N1 federal guidelines/updates and media stories became a heavy burden for IDPH staff. The process and results of the H1N1 messaging survey represent a best practice that other health departments and emergency management agencies can replicate to improve coordination efforts with stakeholder groups during both emergency preparedness and response phases. Importantly, the H1N1 survey ...
This paper deals with the control of an electromechanical valves engine. The control uses neural networks in order to build a non-linear model of engine filing which depends on the driven inlets. The aim is to build this real-time model and to integrate this model to a control system which performs an iterative inversion. (J.S.)
The new collaborative exploitation of the JET Facilities requires suitable technical tools and infrastructure measures to enable the Remote Participation of scientists from all European Fusion labs. Such measures are being gradually introduced. They comprise of a toolkit for Remote Data Access, Remote Computer Access and for teleconferencing, and of infrastructure measures that address network connectivity, network security, shared documentation and technical support.
A tiered communications architecture for managing network traffic in a distributed system. Communication between client or control computers and a plurality of hardware devices is administered by agent and monitor devices whose activities are coordinated to reduce the number of open channels or sockets. The communications architecture also improves the transparency and scalability of the distributed system by reducing network mapping dependence. The architecture is desirably implemented in a proton beam therapy system to provide flexible security policies which improve patent safety and facilitate system maintenance and development.
Epidemics are frequently simulated on redundantly wired contact networks, which have many more links between sites than are minimally required to connect all. Consequently, the modelled pathogen can...Full Text Available
Abstract A diacrylate polysulfone oligomer is synthesized and used as the acrylic oligomer for the in situ synthesis of noble metal/PSU nanocomposites through UV-induced simultaneous radical polymerization of acrylic functionalities and NP formation by reduction of their precursors. Thus, silver or gold NPs are formed in situ during polymer network formation. FESEM analysis of the morphology of the cured systems demonstrates that the nanoparticles of the noble metals are homogeneously distributed in the network without macroscopic agglomeration.
The classical stochastic approximation methods are shown to yield algorithms to solve several formulations of the PAC learning problem defined on the domain [o,1]{sup d}. Under some assumptions on different ability of the probability measure functions, simple algorithms to solve some PAC learning problems are proposed based on networks of non-polynomial units (e.g. artificial neural networks). Conditions on the sizes of these samples required to ensure the error bounds are derived using martingale inequalities.
Overloaded transmission lines are only part of the problem. The ability of the network to carry power is also limited by the supply of reactive power and by frequency stability. Reactive power problems must be corrected in minutes, frequency stability problems in seconds. There is no way that market forces can handle these problems. Reactive power must be supplied to all long transmission and distribution lines to compensate for the loss of reactive volt-amperes - and resulting voltage drop - in the reactance along the line`s length. 7 figs.
The WIT telemanagement system simply, reliably and efficient by makes available to us in real time processed, ordered and managed data. Such information has been used to optimise the performance of the drinking water distribution networks on a number of housing estates. This has led to major saving in consumption and on equipment maintenance, thereby improving customer service and obtaining a more rational use of piped water. (Author)
The proliferation of 'botnets,' phishing schemes, denial-of-service attacks, root kits, and other cyber attack schemes designed to capture a system or network creates a climate of concern for system administrators, especially for those managing accelerator and large experimental-physics facilities, as they are very public targets. This paper will describe the steps being taken at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) to protect the infrastructure of the overall network with emphasis on security for the APS control system.
The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and correlates of disclosure to network members of being hepatitis C virus (HCV)- or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected among injecting dyads of infected injection drug users (IDUs) in Budapest, Hungary and Vilnius, Lithuania,. Multivariate generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to assess associations. Very strong infection disclosure norms exist in Hungary, and HCV disclosure was associated with using drugs and having sex within the dyad. Non-ethnic Russian IDUs in Lithuania were more likely to disclose HCV infection to non-Roma, emotionally close and HCV-infected network members, and to those with whom they shared cookers, filters, drug solutions or rinse water or got used syringes from, and if they had fewer non-IDU or IDU network members. Ethnic Russian Lithuanian IDUs were more likely to disclose HCV if they had higher disclosure attitude and ...
This paper presents general considerations concerning the application of artificial neural networks algorithms, more specifically the back-propagation learning algorithm and feed-forward multi-layer networks, to several problems in power system. The main application in power systems is the load forecasting, and two solution methods are used to solve it. (author). 45 figs., 32 tabs., 144 refs.
Analyzing the risk of a safeguards system, in particular the security of a computer network based on the notion of fuzzy sets and linguistic variables, addresses concerns such as complexity and inherent imprecision in estimating the possibility of loss or compromise. Automated risk analysis allows the risk to be determined for an entire system based on estimates for lowest level components and the component weight. In addition, for each component (asset) we select the most effective combination of protection mechanisms against a given set of threats.
We report the first experimental generation and characterization of a six-photon Dicke state and demonstrate its remarkable versatility by projecting out four- and five-photon Dicke states, in addition to four-photon GHZ- and W-states. These multipartite states are studied by developing experimentally favorable characterization tools. Furthermore, we show that Dicke states have interesting applications in multiparty quantum networking protocols such as open-destination teleportation, telecloning and quantum secret sharing.
... Bob, who also teaches the Computer Networks and Security course in the Department, has some concerns when it comes to these large monolithic social-networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace . He would prefer to see people using a more distributed (or federated) approach to avoid single sites being able to gather lots of personal information, including relationships between people . However, most ...
This paper illustrates how the techniques developed by the authors for capital cost targeting of mass exchange networks can be applied to determination of capital investment targets for reduction in effluent for existing systems involving mass exchange. The results is an impact diagram which shows the relationship between effluent reduction and capital investment, indicating a region of limiting return on investment as well as the maximum possible reduction in effluent. (au)
Femtocell is emerging as a key technology to secure the coverage and capacity in indoor environments. However the deployment of a new femtocell layer may originate undesired interference to the whole system. This paper investigates spectrum resource coordination and interference management for the femtocell networks. A resource coordination scheme based on broadcasting resource coordination request messages by the femto mobile is proposed to reduce the system interference.
Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) remains an enigmatic medical condition. Creation of the (NIH) Chronic Prostatitis Collaborative Research Network (CPCRN) funded by...Full Text Available
The mechanisms underlying life machinery are still not completely understood. Something is known, something is ?probably? known, other things are still unknown. Scientists all over the world are working very hard to clarify the processes regulating the cell life cycle and bioinformaticians try to support them by developing specialized automated tools. Within the plethora of applications devoted to the study of life mechanisms, tools for the analysis and comparison of biological networks are catching the attention of many researchers. It is interesting to investigate why.
A novel approach is presented to extract relevant parameters associated with the energy loss of ejectiles from nuclear reactions obtained by digitizing the signals of a Bragg curve spectrometer. New and more powerful computational paradigms allow a more thorough pulse-shape analysis. This is fulfilled using a back-propagation artificial neural network as a pattern identifier. The known problem of over-training is discussed.
An approach to solving the problem of managerial control quality improvement corporate information-calculating networks (CICN) is proposed. The approach is based on the concept of a flexible toolkit. A macro-model, system-science and system-engineering models of an intelligent managerial control system (IMCS) for CICN development are considered as well as its dynamics. The practical opportunity of IMCS implementation is assessed. (5 refs).
The study of providing security in computer networks is a rapidly growing area of interest because the network is the medium over which most attacks or intrusions on computer systems are launched. One approach to solving this problem is the intrusion-detection concept, whose basic premise is that not only abandoning the existing and huge infrastructure of possibly-insecure computer and network systems is impossible, but also replacing them by totally-secure systems may not be feasible or cost effective. Previous work on intrusion-detection systems were performed on stand-alone hosts and on a broadcast local area network (LAN) environment. The focus of our present research is to extend our network intrusion-detection concept from the LAN environment to arbitarily wider areas with the network topology being arbitrary as well. The generalized distributed ...
Finland has some 10 million hectares of peatland, accounting for almost a third of its total area. Macroclimatic conditions have varied in the course of the Holocene growth and development of this peatland, and with them the habitats of the peat-forming plants. Temperatures and moisture conditions have played a significant role in determining the dominant species of mire plants growing there at any particular time, the resulting mire types and the accumulation and deposition of plant remains to form the peat. While in a natural state the mires of Finland have functioned as carbon dioxide sinks throughout the post-glacial period, but the ditching of peatland for forestry and agriculture, amounting to some 5,7 million hectares in Finland, has affected their water balance, especially over the last hundred years, and has thereby altered the quantity and species composition of the mire vegetation. The invasion of trees and woody plants to replace the typical mire plants following ditching ...
The organization of the Biofuels Excellence Network, inside PROMINP - the Program of Mobilization of the National Industry of Oil and Natural Gas, has the objective of improving the actions of technical innovation and management in the chain of Oil, Gas Natural and Biofuels, through the optimized use of physical, financial, technological resources, of information and staff, with maximum qualification in areas of the human knowledge, whose purpose is to make decisions on specific problems of improvement of processes and/or products, besides promoting actions for the development and reinforcement of the markets of ethanol and biodiesel. The organization of the Biofuels Excellence Network became necessary, in order to enable Brazil to reach vanguard standards in biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) in a sustainable, competitive and environmentally responsible way. Among the main reasons for the creation of the Biofuels Excellence ...
We describe a clustering method for labeled link network (semantic graph) that can be used to group important nodes (highly connected nodes) with their relevant link's labels by using PARAFAC tensor decomposition. In this kind of network, the adjacency matrix can not be used to fully describe all information about the network structure. We have to expand the matrix into 3-way adjacency tensor, so that not only the information about to which nodes a node connects to but by which link's labels is also included. And by applying PARAFAC decomposition on this tensor, we get two lists, nodes and link's labels with scores attached to each node and labels, for each decomposition group. So clustering process to get the important nodes along with their relevant labels can be done simply by sorting the lists in decreasing order. To test the method, we construct labeled link network by using blog's dataset, where ...
Production in economy is a set of firms' activities as suppliers and customers; a firm buys goods from other firms, puts added-values and sells products to others in a giant network of production. Empirical study has been lacking despite of the fact that the structure of production network is important to understand and make models for many aspects of dynamics in economy. We study a nation-wide production network comprising a million of firms and millions of supplier-customer links by using recent statistical methods developed in physics. We show in the empirical analysis scale-free degree distribution, disassortativity, correlation of degree to firm-size, and community structure having sectoral and regional modules. Since suppliers usually provide credit to their customers, who supply to theirs in turn, each link is actually a creditor-debtor relation. We also study chains of failures or bankruptcies that take place along ...
Heterogeneous base stations (e.g. picocells, microcells, femtocells and distributed antennas) will become increasingly essential for cellular network capacity and coverage. Up until now, little basic research has been done on the fundamentals of managing so much infrastructure -- much of it unplanned -- together with the carefully planned macro-cellular network. Inter-cell coordination is in principle an effective way of ensuring different infrastructure components behave in a way that increases, rather than decreases, the key quality of service (QoS) metrics. The success of such coordination depends heavily on how the overhead is shared, and the rate and delay of the overhead sharing. We develop a novel framework to quantify overhead signaling for inter-cell coordination, which is usually ignored in traditional 1-tier networks, and assumes even more importance in multi-tier heterogeneous cellular ...
Gas Distribution Companies have long paid great attention to improving the quality of gas supply service to the consumer. This has involved them in an on-going attempt to successfully define and establish a clear computer assisted replacement programme which, when drawn up on a reliability basis, may also prove cost effective. The reasons which drive any gas line replacement programme are mainly related to the necessity: to improve the gas network asset so as to face a striking expected growth in gas demand; to refurbish old distribution systems with the purpose not only to increase the reliability and continuity of gas supply but also to reduce the rate of maintenance costs due to frequent repair works; to prevent the possibility of massive replacement works for a progressing ageing of the network. This paper will present the computer assisted procedure being implemented by Italgas. It ranks well defined network areas ...
Physical-layer network coding (PNC) is a promising approach for wireless networks. It allows nodes to transmit simultaneously. Due to the difficulties of scheduling simultaneous transmissions, existing works on PNC are based on simplified medium access control (MAC) protocols, which are not applicable to general multi-hop wireless networks, to the best of our knowledge. In this paper, we propose a distributed MAC protocol that supports PNC in multi-hop wireless networks. The proposed MAC protocol is based on the carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) strategy and can be regarded as an extension to the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. In the proposed protocol, each node collects information on the queue status of its neighboring nodes. When a node finds that there is an opportunity for some of its neighbors to perform PNC, it notifies its corresponding neighboring nodes and initiates the process of packet ...
Studies on the large scale peer-to-peer (P2P) network like Gnutella have shown the presence of large number of free riders. Moreover, the open and decentralized nature of P2P network is exploited by malicious users who distribute unauthentic or harmful contents. Despite the existence of a number of trust management schemes in the literature for combating against free riding and distribution of malicious files, these mechanisms are not scalable due to their high computational, communication and storage overhead. These schemes also do not consider effect of trust management on quality-of-service (QoS) of the search. This paper presents a trust management scheme for P2P networks that minimizes distribution of spurious files by a novel technique called topology adaptation. It also reduces search time since most of the queries are resolved within the community of trustworthy peers. Simulation results indicate that the trust ...
Due to current social and economical framework, in last years many nuclear power plant owners started a program for the Long Term Operation (LTO)/PLIM (Plant Life Management) of their older nuclear facilities. PLIM/PLEX has already been implemented in many countries (USA, Russia, etc.). This process has many nuclear safety implications, other than strategic and political ones. The need for tailoring the available safety assessment tools to such applications has become urgent in recent years and triggered many research actions. In particular, a PLIM framework requires both a detailed review of the features of the main safety programs (Maintenance, ISI, Surveillance) and a complete integration of these programs into the general management system of the plant. New external factors, such as: large use of subcontractors, need for efficient management of spare parts, request for heavy plant refurbishment programs demand for updated techniques in the overall management of ...
This document contains 142 papers on PT3 (Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology) from the SITE (Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education) 2002 conference. Topics covered include: a technology in urban education summit; student professional development; meeting NCATE (National Council of Teachers of English) standards; faculty use of WebCT; preparing teachers for the digital age; technology in K-8 multicultural classrooms; using immersive 360 degree images; consortium building; student evaluation; technology fellows; incentives that facilitate institutional change; impact of a temporary grant; a consortium for outstanding achievement in teaching with technology; changes implemented after technology professional development sessions; Web-based modules for teaching mathematics to minority students; student teaching technology sites; preservice teachers design technology-enhanced learning experiences; planning, implementing, evaluating, and reflecting on ...
Data communication in a computer network environment is facing serious security threats from numerous sources such as viruses, worms, Zombies etc. These threats can be broadly characterized as internal or external security threats. Internal threats are mainly attributed to sneaker-nets, utility modems and unauthorized users, which can be minimized by skillful network administration, password management and optimum usage policy definition. The external threats need more serious attention as these attacks are mostly coming from public networks such as Internet. Frequency and complexity of such attacks is much higher as compared to internal attacks. This paper presents a host based network layer screening of external and internal IP packets for logging, analyzing and real-time detection of possible IP spoofing and Denial of Service attacks. This work can also be used in tuning security rules definition for ...
We discuss the consequence of local duality for elastic scattering, and derive a model-independent equation between structure functions at x ? 1 and elastic electromagnetic form factors. Then the electromagnetic form factors of proton are discussed using the quark-hadron duality theory. We also debate the form factor of proton in a bound state. It may be an effective approach to study the form factor of proton in media.
This thesis - Resource Management in Broadband Communication Networks - deals with different ways of optimizing the available resources of data- or telecommunication networks. Especially topics like optimal routing, load balancing and fast recovery of routes in case of link failures are covered. The first part gives a brief description of some of the existing protocols for routing and controlling resources, such as RSVP, OSPF, BGP, PNNI, etc. The remaining part concerns the following two fundamentally different approaches to resource management etc.: - Software agents - Simulated ants In the beginning of the part concerning software agents a description of what exactly constitutes software agents, according to the scientists and according to the organization, FIPA is given. After this, the main results from the IMPACT project are presented. The IMPACT project is an EU-project that aimed at developing a demonstration platform, where software ...
The performance requirements of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) challenge the control system in a number of areas. This paper will review a few applications of advanced technology in the control and monitoring of the APS. The application of digital signal processors (DSPs) and techniques will be discussed, both from the perspective of a large distributed multiprocessor system and from that of embedded systems. In particular, two embedded applications will be highlighted, a beam position monitor processor and a DSP-based power supply controller. Fast data distribution is often a requirement. The application of a high-speed network based on reflective memory will also be discussed in the context of the APS global orbit feedback system. Timing systems provide opportunities to apply technologies such as high-speed logic and fiber optics. Examples of the use of these technologies will also be included. Finally, every modern accelerator control system of any size ...
This article argues that anti-corruption agencies at the local-level have been successful in a way that can be evaluated and emulated. A related contention is that corruption control is most effective when the central public integrity agency is part of both a local anticorruption network and a local public management network. Quite reasonably, the international anti-corruption project has focused most time and energy on advocating and assessing efforts made to ensure public integrity at the national level. Baseline studies by scholars and supra-national integrity nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) identify the form of corruption control (if any) adopted by the central government. Key considerations in assessing the status of national anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) are the ones mentioned...
Researchers have identified as effective and worthy of broader dissemination a variety of intervention strategies to promote physical activity among older adults. This paper reports results of a community-organizing approach to disseminating evidence-based interventions in a sustainable way: The Southeast Seattle Senior Physical Activity Network (SESPAN). SESPAN was implemented in Southeast Seattle, a group of multicultural neighborhoods extending 8?miles southeast of downtown Seattle, with a population of 56,469 in 2000, with 12% (7,041) aged 65 and older. The SESPAN organizing strategy involved networking to: (1) make connections between two or more community organizations to create new senior physical activity programs; and (2) build coalitions of community groups and organizations to a...
Multi-fiber WDM networks are becoming the major telecommunication platforms for transmitting exponentially increasing data traffic. While today's networks are mainly providing circuit-switched connections, optical packet-switching technologies have been investigated for years, aiming at achieving more efficient utilizations of network resources. In this paper, we have evaluated, for the first time, the packet-loss performance of multi-fiber optical packet switches (MOPS). Our main contributions are threefold. Firstly, we have proposed simple and accurate analytical models for analyzing packet-loss performance of (i) the most fundamental MOPS configuration, (ii) MOPS equipped with fiber delay lines (FDLs) and (iii) shared wavelength converters (SWCs). Secondly, we have shown that the MOPS n...
Significant research has been carried out in the recent years for generating systems exhibiting intelligence for realizing optimized routing in networks. In this paper, a grade based twolevel based node selection method along with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique is proposed. It assumes that the nodes are intelligent and there exist a knowledge base about the environment in their local memory. There are two levels for approaching the effective route selection process through grading. At the first level, grade based selection is applied and at the second level, the optimum path is explored using PSO. The simulation has been carried out on different topological structures and it is observed that a graded network produces a significant reduction in number of iteration to arrive at the optimal path selection.
A recurrent idea in the study of complex systems is that optimal information processing is to be found near bifurcation points or phase transitions. However, this heuristic hypothesis has few (if any) concrete realizations where a standard and biologically relevant quantity is optimized at criticality. Here we give a clear example of such a phenomenon: a network of excitable elements has its sensitivity and dynamic range maximized at the critical point of a non-equilibrium phase transition. Our results are compatible with the essential role of gap junctions in olfactory glomeruli and retinal ganglionar cell output. Synchronization and global oscillations also appear in the network dynamics. We propose that the main functional role of electrical coupling is to provide an enhancement of dynamic range, therefore allowing the coding of information spanning several orders of magnitude. The mechanism could provide a microscopic neural basis for ...
We study a stochastic gossip model of continuous opinion dynamics in a society consisting of two types of agents: regular agents, who update their beliefs according to information that they receive from their social neighbors; and stubborn agents, who never update their opinions and might represent leaders, political parties or media sources attempting to influence the beliefs in the rest of the society. When the society contains stubborn agents with different opinions, opinion dynamics never lead to a consensus (among the regular agents). Instead, beliefs in the society almost surely fail to converge, and the belief of each regular agent converges in law to a non-degenerate random variable. The model thus generates long-run disagreement and continuous opinion fluctuations. The structure of the social network and the location of stubborn agents within it shape opinion dynamics. When the society is ``highly fluid'', meaning that the mixing time of the random walk on ...
Because the state of a free-floating space robot model is uncertain and sudden changes in the model parameters might undermine the stability of the system, this paper proposes a control strategy based on a variable structure neural integrated controller. This scheme does not need a precise space robot model, making use of the radial basis function neural network ability approach to learn about an uncertain model. The network weights are adjusted online in real-time. During the early period of the control phase and parameter changes, the variable structure controller compensates for the uncertain model which the neural network could not learn well. It also creates global asymptotic stability for the whole closed-loop system. Simulation results show that the controller can handle bad changea...
Currently many service providers offer their services on a private and proprietary hard- and software infrastructure. These infrastructures often share many similarities. Hence we believe a generic service management architecture, that allows service providers to offer a large array of different services on a single infrastructure or multiple providers to offer their services cooperatively, would provide many advantages over current silo-based approaches. Additionally, by allowing the distributed service management components to cooperate in a peer-to-peer overlay network, scalability and resilience of the system could be greatly improved. In this paper we propose an optimal algorithm, based on an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation, and several heuristics to support such a generi...
Community ecologists are principally occupied with the proposition that natural assemblages of species exhibit orderliness and with identifying its causes. Plant-pollinator networks exhibit a variety of orderly properties, one of which is 'nestedness'. Nestedness has been attributed to various causes, but we propose a further influence arising from the phylogenetic structure of the biochemical constraints on the pollen diets of bees. We use an artificial assemblage as an opportunity to isolate the action of this mechanism. The properties of the network that we studied are consistent with the proposition that nestedness is caused by the phylogeny of diet range in bees, but the claim is preliminary and we propose that valuable progress in understanding plant-pollinator systems may be made through applying the techniques of chemical ecology at the community scale.
Internet is providing essential communication between an infinite number of people and is being increasingly used as a tool for commerce. At the same time, security is becoming a tremendously important issue to deal with. Different network security solutions exist and contribute to enhanced security. From these solutions, Intrusion detection systems (IDS) have become one of the most common countermeasures for monitoring safety in computer systems and networks. The purpose of IDSs is distinguishing between intruders and normal users. However, IDSs report a massive number of isolated alerts. These isolated alerts represent low-level security-related events. Many of these isolated alerts are logically involved in a single multi-stage intrusion incident and a security officer often wants to an...
Numerical simulations are used to test the kinetic theory constitutive relations of inertial granular shear flow. These predictions are shown to be accurate in the dilute regime, where only binary collisions are relevant, but underestimate the measured value in the dense regime, where force networks of size $\\xi$ are present. The discrepancy in the dense regime is due to non-collisional forces that we measure directly in our simulations and arise from elastic deformations of the force networks. We model the non-collisional stress by summing over all paths that elastic waves travel through force networks. This results in an analytical theory that successfully predicts the stress tensor over the entire inertial regime without any adjustable parameters.
The radiation induced reactions in LDPE in the presence of phenolic type antioxidants have been studied. It was shown that various antioxidants can influence the polyethylene network formation and the radical yield in different ways. The dependence of network structure on absorbed doses was determined by gel analysis, hot-set test and extraction of antioxidants for samples irradiated with accelerated electrons. It was found that the antioxidants eluted from polyethylene in higher percentage influence polymer crosslinking to a smaller degree. The ESR studies of #gamma#-irradiated blends of polyethylene with antioxidant indicate the presence of alkyl and phenoxyl radicals. The role of antioxidant molecules on radiation induced reactions in polyethylene-antioxidant systems is considered. The correlation between the network structure and the type of additive in polyethylene is also discussed. (author).
The diversity of ectoparasites in Southeast Asia and flea-host associations remain largely understudied. We explore specialization and interaction patterns of fleas infesting non-volant small mammals in Bornean rainforests, using material from a field survey carried out in two montane localities in northwestern Borneo (Sabah, Malaysia) and from a literature database of all available interactions in both lowland and montane forests. A total of 234 flea individuals collected during our field survey resulted in an interaction network of eight flea species on seven live-captured small mammal species. The interaction network from all compiled studies currently includes 15 flea species and 16 small mammal species. Host specificity and niche partitioning of fleas infesting diurnal treeshrews and ...
The author explains current developments in high voltage cable technology and subsequently describes problems inherent in its application, from the users viewpoint, in municipal electricity supply. The planning of a high voltage cable network and the selection of a specific type of cable are not only dependent on the typical properties of various cables but to a major degree also on the feasible laying technique, the power transmitted, the costs, the stellation treatment of the high voltage network, the acceptance requirement, the inductive influence from telecommunication cable, thermal influences from the environment, eventual safeguards from mechanical and chemical damage to the network, frequency of failure and surveillance and breakdown location. In conclusion, the author portrays potential developments in the fields of high and maximum voltage cable from the perspectives of today.
Timely detection of the pneumatic system problems is important in industry. Many techniques have been employed to solve this problem. In this paper, Genetic Algorithm (GA) based optimal configuration of neural networks is proposed for fault diagnostic of bottle filling systems. Back-propagation is used for neural networks algorithm. The back-propagation algorithm had six inputs and one output. A fitness function was designed to the minimize execution time of ANN model by keeping the number of hidden layer(s) and nodes as low as possible while the mean square error of estimated output error is minimized. The designed GA-ANN combination and the graphical user interface (GUI) eliminate the trial and error process for selection of the fastest and most accurate configuration. The performance of...
During the last years, large-scale simulations of realistic physical environments which support the interaction of multiple participants over the Internet have become increasingly available and economically significant, most notably in the computer gaming industry. Such systems, commonly called networked virtual environments (NVEs), are usually based on a client-server architecture where for performance reasons and bandwidth restrictions, the simulation is partially deferred to the clients. This inevitable architectural choice renders the simulation vulnerable to attacks against the semantic integrity of the simulation: malicious clients may attempt to compromise the physical and logical laws governing the simulation, or to alter the causality of events a posteriori. In this paper, we initiate the systematic study of semantic integrity in NVEs from a security point of view. We argue that naive policies to enforce semantic integrity involve intolerable ...
Biotin is an essential water-soluble vitamin crucial for maintaining normal body functions. The importance of biotin for human health has been under-appreciated but there is plenty of opportunity for future research with great importance for human health. Currently, carrying out predictions of biotin metabolism involves tedious manual manipulations. In this paper, we report the development of BiotinNet, an internet based program that uses Bayesian networks to integrate published data on various aspects of biotin metabolism. Users can provide a combination of values on the levels of biotin related metabolites to obtain the predictions on other metabolites that are not specified. As an inherent feature of Bayesian networks, the uncertainty of the prediction is also quantified and reported to...
Energy consumption is a perennial issue in the design of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) which typically rely on portable sources like batteries for power. Recent advances in ambient energy harvesting technology have made it a potential and promising alternative source of energy for powering WSNs. By using energy harvesters with supercapacitors, WSNs are able to operate perpetually until hardware failure and in places where batteries are hard or impossible to replace. In this paper, we study the performance of different medium access control (MAC) schemes based on CSMA and polling techniques for WSNs which are solely powered by ambient energy harvesting using energy harvesters. We base the study on (i) network throughput (S), which is the rate of sensor data received by the sink, (ii) fair...
We investigate optimal resource allocation for delay-limited cooperative communication in time varying wireless networks. Motivated by real-time applications that have stringent delay constraints, we develop a dynamic cooperation strategy that makes optimal use of network resources to achieve a target outage probability (reliability) for each user subject to average power constraints. Using the technique of Lyapunov optimization, we first present a general framework to solve this problem and then derive quasi-closed form solutions for several cooperative protocols proposed in the literature. Unlike earlier works, our scheme does not require prior knowledge of the statistical description of the packet arrival, channel state and node mobility processes and can be implemented in an online fashion.
A data analysis based on an artificial neural network classifier is proposed to identify cosmic ray antiprotons detected with the CAPRICE silicon-tungsten imaging calorimeter against electron background in the energy range 1.2-4.0 GeV. A set of new physical variables, describing the events inside the calorimeter on the base of their different patterns, are introduced in order to discriminate between hadronic and electromagnetic showers. The ability of the artificial neural network classifier to perform a careful multidimensional analysis gives the possibility to identify antiprotons with an electron rejection 408{+-}85 (stat) at 95.0{+-}0.2 (stat)% of signal detection efficiency. The high accuracy achieved by this method improves substantially the efficiency in the evaluation of the cosmic ray antiproton spectrum. (orig.).
The development and installation, by Hydro-Quebec, of a computerized pressure monitoring and control system on its fluid-filled high voltage underground cable network in Montreal, was described. The average age of these underground fluid-filled cables is more than 30 years and the cost to replace the circuits is estimated to be 230 million dollars. It is, therefore, crucial to maintain at all times and under all operating conditions a positive oil pressure in order to maintain the dielectric strength of paper insulation, and to prevent air and moisture from entering the cables and accessories. The monitoring and control system is reliable, flexible, user friendly and easy to upgrade. It reduces intervention time on the cables and ensures the protection of the cable network by remotely operating valves to connect oil reserve banks and by providing efficient maintenance management tools. 1 ref., 1 tab., 4 figs.
The aim of the study was to assess the usefulness of artificial neural networks (ANN) application in evaluation of scintimammography in the context of clinical data in the diagnosis of breast cancer. The results produced by ANN were compared with the diagnosis of two independent observers, nuclear medicine specialists. Material and methods: The clinical data and the numerical values derived from scintimammograms of 103 patients were the material for the study. The reference method was the result of histopathology study (core biopsy and /or FNB). Results: The overall sensitivity of physician diagnosis was 78% with specificity of 72%. The ANN produced 71% sensitivity and specificity of 73%. The physicians and ANN results were not significantly different (p=0.4619). Conclusions: Artificial neutral networks are useful tool in clinical diagnosis of breast cancer. (authors)
We have conducted an agent-based simulation of chain bankruptcy. The propagation of credit risk on a network, i.e., chain bankruptcy, is the key to nderstanding largesized bankruptcies. In our model, decrease of revenue by the loss of accounts payable is modeled by an interaction term, and bankruptcy is defined as a capital deficit. Model parameters were estimated using financial data for 1,077 listed Japanese firms. Simulations of chain bankruptcy on the real transaction network consisting of those 1,077 firms were made with the estimated model parameters. Given an initial bankrupt firm, a list of chain bankrupt firms was obtained. This model can be used to detect high-risk links in a transaction network, for the management of chain bankruptcy.
Fusion device produces high-level neutrons and #gamma#-rays, which would hazard the safety of the public and workers if the doses would be higher than the regulatory limits because of leakage from the bio-shielding and skyshine. It is essential to monitor the radiation doses in the workshop and the enumerative around fusion devices. A radiation monitoring system (RMS) for full (near and far) areas around a nuclear fusion device has been designed and developed, which can achieve the monitoring and controlling of radiation doses in the workshop area by using the Controller Area Network (CAN), in the institution area by using the Bluetooth Ad hoc network based on a new tree topology formation and routing protocol and in a long range environment by using the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network. (authors)
In this paper, a neural networks (NN) based adaptive sliding mode controller (SMC) is introduced. The selection of SMC feedback gains is normally based on one operating point and thus the performance of the controller away from the design operating point is, of necessity, a compromise. The adaptive SMC is proposed to overcome the limitations imposed on the effectiveness of the SMC under different operating conditions. Neural networks are used for online prediction of the optimal SMC gains when the operating point changes. The proposed method has been applied to a power system stabilizer (PSS) of a single machine power system. Simulation results are included to demonstrate the performance of the proposed control scheme.
In this paper, a neural networks (NN) based adaptive sliding mode controller (SMC) is introduced. The selection of SMC feedback gains is normally based on one operating point and thus the performance of the controller away from the design operating point is, of necessity, a compromise. The adaptive SMC is proposed to overcome the limitations imposed on the effectiveness of the SMC under different operating conditions. Neural networks are used for online prediction of the optimal SMC gains when the operating point changes. The proposed method has been applied to a power system stabilizer (PSS) of a single machine power system. Simulation results are included to demonstrate the performance of the proposed control scheme.
This paper presents results from a research case study that examined the distribution of travel time of origin-destination (OD) pairs on a transportation network under incident conditions. Using a transportation simulation dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) model, incident on a transportation network is executed under normal conditions, incident conditions without traveler information availability, and incident conditions assuming that users had perfect knowledge of the incident conditions and could select paths to avoid the incident location. The results suggest that incidents have a different impact on different OD pairs. The results confirm that an effective traveler information system has the potential to ease the impacts of incident conditions network wide. Yet it is also important to n...
Free Topology Network technology provides cost reduction benefits as well as flexibility in safeguards applications. Power line communications technologies have proven viability for transmission and reception of safeguards data, including surveillance photographs, the source of the largest data files. In the future, enhancements will be made to the technology that should boost both performance and flexibility. Work is already underway to achieve higher data rates over power line communications eventually, it should be possible to reach data rates of one million bits per second or higher. Also, the use of technologies such as Novell Embedded Systems Technology (NEST) and Echelon LON technology will allow a greater number of safeguards technologies to become resident on the Free Topology Safeguards Network.
Free Topology Network technology provides cost reduction benefits as well as flexibility in safeguards applications. Power line communications technologies have proven viability for transmission and reception of safeguards data, including surveillance photographs, the source of the largest data files. In the future, enhancements will be made to the technology that should boost both performance and flexibility. Work is already underway to achieve higher data rates over power line communications eventually, it should be possible to reach data rates of one million bits per second or higher. Also, the use of technologies such as Novell Embedded Systems Technology (NEST) and Echelon LON technology will allow a greater number of safeguards technologies to become resident on the Free Topology Safeguards Network.